Forums | MacLife

ShnickyShnack wrote:

It's about women's rights, and the issue of who should be the one deciding what should happen to their bodies.

The trick is differentiating between her body, and the body of the person that she had some part in choosing to create. If it weren't for that little issue, we wouldn't be having this debate.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

I mean you quoted the risk and emotional consequences of abortion -- how about the risk and emotional consequences of carrying a fetus to term then (presumably) giving it up for adoption?

How about the choice to conceive in the first place? And, I don't think that the responsibility should land squarely on the female. The Mr. has to live up to his responsibility too (and, easy access to abortion means that the Mr. oftentimes thinks that he has no responsibility... or can coerce the Mrs. to head off to the clinic). But, this, again, is a matter of education and attitude shifts. If anything, this is where legislation needs teeth.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Like I said I don't like abortion. I was especially horrified by my encounters with it in China (I did some work with the health care system). You want to throw a word like "holocaust" around, there are places that perform thousands of abortions each day. That was the closes I came to crossing the aisle. Yet in the end I still couldn't allow myself to think I know better than each and every single one of those women.

Well, I didn't throw the "h" word around. But, your assessment of China is correct - on more levels than simply abortion.

bedstuy wrote:

I can agree with that and you should have left it there to begin with.  I'd also add poverty to the mix.

So much agreement here! Obama loves us all.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Personally I've never felt that the abortion issue was actually about saving lives. It's about women's rights, and the issue of who should be the one deciding what should happen to their bodies.

That perspective makes it easier to demonize the pro-life movement as wanting to subjugate women.
However, that perspective is wrong. It is about saving lives. At least for the vast majority of us in the pro-life movement.

For the record - I'm not opposed to it being legal for absolute medical necessity (life of the mother in danger).
I think I already said that in this thread, just wanted to make sure.

Last edited by resedit (2009-05-19 12:41 am)

bedstuy wrote:

resedit wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Personally I've never felt that the abortion issue was actually about saving lives. It's about women's rights, and the issue of who should be the one deciding what should happen to their bodies.

That perspective makes it easier to demonize the pro-life movement as wanting to subjugate women.
However, that perspective is wrong. It is about saving lives. At least for the vast majority of us in the pro-life movement.

For the record - I'm not opposed to it being legal for absolute medical necessity (life of the mother in danger).
I think I already said that in this thread, just wanted to make sure.

Women would still abort babies if abortion was illegal.  You'd just have more dead women from coat hangers, that's all.  Abortion rates in Latin America are some of the highest in the world though it has near universal illegality.  5,000 women die each year from complications of do-it-yourself procedures.

Making it illegal only ADDS to the death toll.  It saves no lives.

Well put.

resedit wrote:

bedstuy wrote:

Women would still abort babies if abortion was illegal.

Yes, some would.

You'd just have more dead women from coat hangers, that's all.

There might be, but that's not all.
Various pro life groups have sent young pregnant women and couples into places like Planned Parenthood and recorded the family planning specialist really trying to persuade them into having an abortion even when they say they aren't really comfortable with option.

You'd also probably see an increase in condom usage, and thus a decrease in STD transmission, if abortion was not a legal option.

In a fantasyland, maybe.

In real life, I'm afraid not.

resedit wrote:

btw, how many of you who want to use the argument "They'll do it anyway, so let's keep it legal" are willing to use that same logic on concealed firearms?

Somehow, I suspect most of you reject that line of logic when it orgasms to firearms.

Aha, a patented resedit analogy. Right on time.

Nice spelling of that third-to-last word, by the way. Classy.

Last edited by ShnickyShnack (2009-05-19 1:36 am)

user wrote:

Happiness is a warm gun, baby.

Bang, bang, shoot shoot.

When I hold you... speaking of,

Somehow, I suspect most of you reject that line of logic when it orgasms to firearms.

On the contrary, I'll gladly embrace it, especially if it applies to multiple gungasms.

::looks for machinegun or light autocannon::

Sturner, you done with that 20mm Oerlikon yet?

Ooh... baby.

resedit wrote:

For the record - I'm not opposed to it being legal for absolute medical necessity (life of the mother in danger).
I think I already said that in this thread, just wanted to make sure.

So you are pro-abortion, after all, my friend with no moral absolutes.

user wrote:

I've said before that I would would certainly feel that the anti-choice folks were more honest about the subject if they were only also greatly sponsoring efforts to fund orphanages and improving foster care. The fact that they tend to only bang a one-note drum about forbidding the personal option to women causes me to see it as a simple placing of a boot on the neck of a long-oppressed group - poor women.

robco wrote:

The problem with "pro-life" is that for many it's really only "pro-fetus". Once it ceases to be a fetus and is born, then it's another mouth to feed. Life begins at conception, but any consideration for the well-being of that life ends at birth. I will give the Catholic church some props for being a bit more consistent and also supporting universal healthcare, reducing poverty and opposing the death penalty.

Well yeah. The Catholic church also stubbornly refuses to alter its stance on contraception. The HV is not really based on any scripture (big surprise) but is almost a Roe v. Wade sort of interpretive decision and it mostly cites natural law. Using that argument, if we through technology circumvent the natural means of controlling our population growth, one could argue that we have an obligation to use the same technology to voluntarily curb our population growth to a level that can be sustained on our planet - and a number of offspring that parents can adequately provide for financially. But that's a whole other argument and many Western Catholics tend to ignore that tidbit (indeed one told me rather plainly - "if the church wants me to have more kids, they can pay for them").

In any case, the fundies fail to grasp this point. They throw in with the party that wanted to cut health insurance to children rather than expand it. Who want to see profits from health care rather than a system that serves those who need it. If these children truly are precious in the eyes of g-d, then they deserve adequate shelter, food and a good education. But I don't see the fundies addressing those issues.

I think abortion is disgusting. But right now I don't see a better alternative. I also don't think that simply making the procedure illegal is the correct path - it would be about as successful as the War on Drugs. If we want to reduce the number of abortions, then perhaps we need to address the reasons and concerns that would push someone toward that option. Making sure everyone has basic needs met is a start...

Last edited by robco (2009-05-19 10:00 am)

user wrote:

Personally, I think, "bit", was the operative modifier in that faint praise.

So what's your problem and why is the praise faint? I hear on these boards all the time about how the groups who oppose abortion don't support health care or aid to the poor or oppose the death penalty and war. The Catholic church does.

resedit wrote:

user wrote:

I've said before that I would would certainly feel that the anti-choice folks were more honest about the subject if they were only also greatly sponsoring efforts to fund orphanages and improving foster care.

They are.
At least many are.

And many more are robbing Peter to pay Paul. The net sum is  the money those who sponsor those projects provide doesn't end up providing for what it was given for. Orphanages and foster care end up seeing no improvements.

ScifiterX wrote:

resedit wrote:

user wrote:

I've said before that I would would certainly feel that the anti-choice folks were more honest about the subject if they were only also greatly sponsoring efforts to fund orphanages and improving foster care.

They are.
At least many are.

And many more are robbing Peter to pay Paul. The net sum is  the money those who sponsor those projects provide doesn't end up providing for what it was given for. Orphanages and foster care end up seeing no improvements.

How do you come to that conclusion?

My church runs a program that provides child care for single and low income mothers, diapers for single and low income mothers, job training for single and low income mothers, job interviews for single and low income mothers, helps them get their section 8 housing, etc.

This isn't a state run charity that then "gets less money" because churches are donating, and it isn't a state run organization in danger of being closed down because the state is now broke.

Many foster homes exist because people who are pro life see a need for them.
Many adoptive homes exist because people who are pro life see a need for them.

And that line Obama gave about trying to reduce abortion by making adoption more readily available - that was a line of bull smurf. Many adoptive parents, parents who want a child, have to wait years to adopt. The family that adopted my sisters baby had to wait years before a prospective mother chose them.

Most kids in foster care are not adopted because the parental rights have not been terminated, and are not terminated because their screwed up parents deserve a right to try and straighten their lives out before the court takes their rights away.

Tallgeese wrote:

Then there's Kos's straight-up smear job. Since Palin supports the group, they MUST be a fundamentalist conspiracy because Palin would never be in a non-fundamentalist conspiracy group.

Are their positions revealed in greater detail elsewhere?  Because that page is really is lacking any detail whatsoever. 

I do think that claiming a desire to reduce abortions while wholly ignoring contraception is pretty dumb, myself.

Last edited by bratboy (2009-05-19 11:43 am)