<p>Faraway - that’s not fair. A person is entitled to have an opinion without going on a crusade. If absolute devotion to consistency with our opinions was required none of us would ever pass the test.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone in my volunteer experiences with Planned Parenthood and local community groups who support the pro-choice viewpoint who is actually PRO-abortion. I certainly am not. I’ve never had an abortion and probably would never have made that decision at any point in my life. However, I do support a woman’s right to make that choice for herself. Do I wish that women were never in the position to feel that abortion was their best option? Of course. I also wish that all babies were born into loving families who could provide them with a healthy and happy life. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that either of those things will ever be a reality.</p>
<p>The fundamental differences in interpretation as to what constitutes life, or viable life, will always enter into opinions on this issue. The fact that abortion will not just disappear even if it were to be made illegal is also a concern of mine. Providing women with the availability of safe abortions performed by physicians is better, in my opinion, than to revert to the dangers of old. I know that the argument that too many women use abortion as a method of birth control is always trotted out but, in my experience, that is a very small percentage of women who have abortions. The issue of abortions performed after 22 weeks is another frequent flashpoint, and I agree that there really should be no logical reason, other than a medical one, for this to occur. However, the vast majority, over 90% of abortions are performed in the first trimester. </p>
<p>I wish I knew the connection between the causal factors in the number of abortions performed. I wish that women were more diligent about educating themselves about birth control and using it every single time. I wish that all parents were realistic and responsible enough to talk to their teens about this issue. I wish I didn’t have to wish all these things! However, I also wish that the zealots in the pro-life movement didn’t feel the need to murder doctors who are performing legal abortions, and I wish that the children of a colleague of my sister did not have to witness their father being shot by one of those zealots several years ago.</p>
<p>I aplologize. I should not personalize. I overreact to being preached at. Last time I checked, God hadn’t carved the answers to abortion into a tablet and handed it to the right wing. Heck, the Catholic church thought abortion to the age of “quickening”–a few months-old fetus–was just fine till a few centuries ago. So Catholics have been abortionists for most of their existence! Shame! And what about birth control? Some forms of birth control are abortion in that they keep a fertilized egg from implanting.</p>
<p>You can say that you believe a blob of cells is a baby. You can vote that way. But please don’t act like you are morally superior to those of us who make their own hard decisions along this line.</p>
<p>
And gross IMs and, say, a blue Gap dress. </p>
<p>On a serious note, IMs are protected under the First Amendment. There is that constitutional protection that doesn’t apply to physical acts.</p>
<p>
FarawayPlaces - if that is your only philosophical opposition to the life movement, fine. I also find it entirely amusing that you assume that I’m adamantly pro-life, simply because I see the logic (and the morality) in the position. I need not sacrifice myself to a sadist to oppose torture; I need not personally give a shopping spree to anyone who so desires so that I may oppose stealing and robbery; likewise, I need not adopt, while a student (ha!), abused kids simply because I personally oppose the largest supporters of abortion - i.e. men between the ages of 18 and 35, who recognize (rightly) that abortion is a great way for them to screw without consequences. I would not have an abortion; I do not allow myself to be put in the position of having an unwanted pregnancy and have received a lot of pain for that position over my dating years.</p>
<p>Abortionists face the threat of violence as they go to work every day. Do you so support a woman’s right to an abortion that you would don the bulletproof vest of the abortionist and do that work? </p>
<p>If you advocate for smaller class sizes, are you obligated to become a teacher to deal with the shortage? </p>
<p>As SJMom said, personal attack unwarranted. The only hypocrisy would be to have an abortion myself but oppose it for others. </p>
<p>Opie - so it’s all about free choice? If a fetus, at 20 weeks, can feel pain and survive outside the womb, it is a woman’s free choice to have it killed without anaesthesia? Would you protect my free choice to rob your house? Vandalize your car? After all, you’re all about choice, and robbing your house would help me live my life the way I want, and you wouldn’t want to infringe that choice. </p>
<p>I make choices about what to eat for dinner. I make choices about when to get up in the morning, what conditioner to use, who to associate with… but I would never consider not killing someone as a choice, equally as valid as murder, much in the same way that I don’t consider rape to be a valid exercise of a man’s choice of when and with whom to have sex.</p>
<p>Ultimately, it is ridiculous to not acknowledge that abortion is morally repungant. Whether you consider this to be akin to other morally questionable things that should remain legal as a practical matter is another issue (ex. drugs). But pretending that it’s a choice issue and, more importantly, pretending that it does not have severe psychological consequences for women is appalling. 93% of women regret their abortions; I imagine that the other 7% are the small minority of women who were raped, have health issues, or are in abusive relationships. Women have abortions - often coerced or encouraged by their boyfriends, who think that a baby cramps the playboy routine - and are almost universally left with regret and depression. They cannot kid themselves that it’s a “medical procedure” on a “bunch of cells;” they feel that they murdered their babies. </p>
<p>The pro-choice side continually ignores this, while groups like Feminists for Life provide post-abortion counseling. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen that the pro-choice group is not interested in what is best for women. We are moral creatures. Most women, on their deepest level, acknowledge that abortion is wrong. Some see it as a necessary evil; I think that it creates its own problem: the availability of abortion has caused a rapid rise in its use. Feminists for Life is correct - women do deserve better than abortion.</p>
<p>“I will vote for candidates who agree with that point of view and continue to support programs that help women in need – that’s all I can do”</p>
<p>And will continue to cancel your vote out. Nice touch adding the support programs for women in need. Really villifies the other side, since they obviously don’t support programs that help women. :)</p>
<p>AlwaysaMom - excellent post. </p>
<p>The argument about “abortion as birth control,” IMO, is a victim of its hyperbole and accuracy. 40% of American women will have abortions in their lifetime. Many of them will abort more than one baby. 1.5 million women per year have abortions; roughly 1/3 of pregnancies end in abortion. The US has the highest rate of unplanned pregnancies of any industrialized nation (I think it’s unplanned pregnancies - maybe teenage pregnancies; they are often synonymous).</p>
<p>The numbers are so staggering that, on an objective level, it can accurately be said that abortion is birth control. The hyperbole is that few women intend to use it that way, at least consciously. (I have, though, had men say to me that I should have sex because, “If you get pregnant you can have an abortion.”) It’s the second line of birth control, which is a sad comment about our society.</p>
<p>Opie - SJMom is posting very thoughtful posts. Please, for her and for the readers of this thread, return the favour. You are trying to set up a situation in which a pro-lifer cannot win. If she did not vote for candidates and support women in need, she would be a hypocrite; as she does, she’s “villify[ing] the other side.” No, babe, it just doesn’t work that way. SJMom is entitled to be pro-life and to, for that end, support candidates who help women in need. I fail to see the basis of your criticism.</p>
<p>What I’ve never understood is why each side isn’t trying to out-do the other by providing more resources to women experiencing unplanned pregnancy or strengthening adoption laws or providing a host of options for women with an unplanned pregnancy. SJMom isn’t opposing that.</p>
<p>Interestingly, research by the Center for Reason shows that more Christians than non-Christians have abortions, and more Catholics than Protestants do!</p>
<p>And Catholics’ change to anti-abortion was more about politics than morality: </p>
<p>Quote:<br>
""The tolerant approach to abortion which had prevailed in the Roman Catholic Church for centuries ended at the end of the nineteenth century.7 In 1869, Pope Pius IX officially eliminated the Catholic distinction between an animated and a nonanimated fetus and required excommunication for abortions at any stage of pregnancy.</p>
<p>This change has been seen by some as a means of countering the rising birth control movement, especially in France,8 with its declining Catholic population. In Italy, during the years 1848 to 1870, the papal states shrank from almost one-third of the country to what is now Vatican City. It has been argued that the Pope’s restriction on abortion was motivated by a need to strengthen the Church’s spiritual control over its followers in the face of this declining political power.8""</p>
<p>“Opie - so it’s all about free choice”</p>
<p>Man you have alot of issues. How did your dating choices get into this last post? Alot of anger. anger towards men.</p>
<p>I would venture to guess 100% of women regret having to have an abortion, for whatever reason they needed to. But I support the existence of a safe place for those women to make their choice. </p>
<p>I wonder, do you consider your regular menstration cycle as killing a life? If I buy into what your saying is letting half a life die, just as bad? Because I draw my line somewhere and you draw yours somewhere else I’m wrong and you’re right? </p>
<p>So If I declared God gave us the egg and seamen to create life, are you committing murder by not creating life? Since millions of sperm and eggs perish daily, have we all sinned? </p>
<p>Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is good, when a sperm is wasted, God get’s quite irate. as the song goes…</p>
<p>The fact is, that if Roe v Wade were ever revoked, the women who would suffer would be poor women, who wouldn’t have access to abortions in other states or other countries. Many of these women would then revert to back alley or clothes hanger efforts to abort unwanted babies.</p>
<p>It’s a painful reality, but that’s the reality nonetheless. I agree with Alwaysamom 100%. Abortions won’t cease, even if they become illegal. I am for safe and legal abortions,not PRO-abortion (in fact, I had a practicum in an abortion clinic, and I lasted under two weeks, yet I am still pro-choice…). And a friend of mine’s sister nearly died in at the hands of a pre-legal abortion. This is no black and white issue. There are real women here, whose lives also have value.</p>
<p>“On a serious note, IMs are protected under the First Amendment”</p>
<p>Umm, not exactly. Lots and lots of people have been arrested for IMs they sent to minors. Whether Foley committed a crime or not is hard to say at this point. He knew exactly what he was doing to kids and was in a position to put any loopholes he wanted into the legislation. Certainly, we believed that the legislation his caucus passed was going to protect minors from Internet predation. I guess it remains to be seen whether we were tricked.</p>
<p>"SJMom is entitled to be pro-life and to, for that end, support candidates who help women in need. "</p>
<p>Simply because you imply my vote doesn’t support women in need because we vote differently on that issue. Sorry, your attempt at the higher ground has been rejected. My vote also supports women, and puppies.</p>
<p>Ariesathena, your figures skew significantly higher than the centers for disease control study’s figures:
The CDC study: <a href=“http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5309a1.htm[/url]”>http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5309a1.htm</a> reports that as of 2001 1.6% of American women of chilbearing age per year had an abortion, and the rate of abortions was about one in five pregnancies, not one in three. Where do your numbers come from?</p>
<p>"I"f she did not vote for candidates and support women in need, she would be a hypocrite; as she does, she’s “villify[ing] the other side.”</p>
<p>Sorry, I don’t agree with your assesment of who’s supporting women here. It’s not an all or nothing based on this issue. Trying to create some moral absolute high ground doesn’t wash.</p>
<p>The CDC figures are based on voluntary state reporting, correct? Planned Parenthood has a broader base and reports higher numbers:
<a href=“http://www.guttmacher.org/media/presskits/2005/06/28/abortionoverview.html[/url]”>http://www.guttmacher.org/media/presskits/2005/06/28/abortionoverview.html</a></p>
<p>Opie, I’m sorry that you see those statements as a personal attack and feel the need to get defensive. No moral high ground. No one stated that YOU don’t support candidates who help women in need. Honey, the only place that has ever been said is in your head, and I wish you would stop attacking other people for your (beyond wacky) interpretation of their words.</p>
<p>I do not see why two individuals who think different things cannot both occupy the moral high ground - i.e. to act with dignity and respect at all times. That is your interpretation, not my words, not SJMom’s words. Stop with the attacks - you’re only making yourself look ridiculous.</p>
<p>'No moral high ground." </p>
<p>Good, then it’s clear: the anti-choice people are stating that their view is their opnion, that they’re not stating a RIGHT or WRONG, that they don’t mean to force their views on everyone else. Abortion is not a sin. Good. We’re all friends again.</p>
<p>Huh? Um, again, with the wacky intepretations from the pro-baby killers.</p>
<p>I’ve never killed a baby.</p>
<p>Aries, the term “baby killers” is a conversation stopper, certainly an attack on those of us trying to have a reasoned discussion.</p>
<p>Allmusic, I’ll have a reasoned discussion when there are reasonable people with whom to discuss.</p>
<p>We all know that that term needed to come out. Don’t like it? Don’t call me sanctimonious and anti-choice. There is a point that I do need to play defense… and the best defense is a good offense. Don’t like the offense? Then don’t twist my words to score cheap points.</p>
<p>It is SHOCKING to me that you people don’t understand that there is a moral issue with saying that “choice” extends to allowing someone to put a fork into the skull of a child and suction its brains out. The mechanics of abortion are disguisting. Justifying it and saying that it’s nothing more than choice - and pretending that there are no moral issues - is sick. </p>
<p>I understand both sides; I happen to disagree with one of them. That does not mean that I occupy a “moral high ground;” the lack of an exclusive “moral high ground” does not mean that my beliefs do not have a moral basis. If the responses to thoughtful posts are of the order of calling my a hypocrite, sanctimonious, saying that I’m on a moral high horse, I’m “anti-choice” (no, just anti infanticide), or saying that my beliefs lack a moral basis… well, don’t be surprised when my sole concession to the degredation of this “discussion” is calling y’all pro-baby killing. No one has given me (save for AlwaysaMom) reason not to do so.</p>