Abortion

[Ed]

I'm not disagreeing that there is an organized effort to limit access to contraception. I'm asking you to support your assertion that most pro-lifers support that effort.

Practicing Catholics and Orthodox Jews that observe religious teaching would oppose both. In practice, who knows?

 

[Magyar]

Okay. I'll spend my rant here.


But let's play with this stupidity a little more.

.

OK, I'll play! I venture to guess that there are AT LEAST 3 times as many women who believe that Sharia laws are a good idea as there are pro-life women. So Luke when ARE we going to pass laws to require all women to walk around in burkas in the US because brainwashed ignorants believe it's a good idea?

 

[Luke T.]

Chafe all you want. Most of the people who oppose abortion also oppose birth control and sex education. What else do you need to know?

Please provide evidence that MOST of the people who oppose abortion also oppose birth control and sex education.

Also, do you think pro-life women want to force women into slavery, or could it be, for them, it is about saving human beings from being killed? Is that concept within your capacity of understanding?

 

[Mark]

I'm not disagreeing that there is an organized effort to limit access to contraception. I'm asking you to support your assertion that most pro-lifers support that effort.

Asked and answered. I have not conducted a study...but with the major Christian sects opposed to both it is an educated guess. Certainly groups like Operations Rescue and their ilk have come out against both. Some of them even oppose a vaccine for cervical cancer...fearing it will increase promiscuity. It is---at the very least---a huge percentage.

A new vaccine that protects against cervical cancer has set up a clash between health advocates who want to use the shots aggressively to prevent thousands of malignancies and social conservatives who say immunizing teenagers could encourage sexual activity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/30/AR2005103000747.html

So, again, you and Luke can chafe all you want. Controlling women is a large motivation for MANY of these people.

 

[alock]

The problem with the pro-life message that rarely even gets talked about is that if you treat a fetus with full human rights, you have to treat it with full human rights.

Yes, that sentance doesn't make much sense, but read it again. It implies that all miscarriages MUST be treated exactly the same as an infant death. I have a friend who didn't know whe was pregnant (she was ill which made the pill less effective). She went out one night and got very drunk and the next day had a miscarriage.

Should she be charged with the fetus's death? Maybe even a murder charge? Should she have to go through the stress of a police investigation?

 

[Mark]

Please provide evidence that MOST of the people who oppose abortion also oppose birth control and sex education.

Also, do you think pro-life women want to force women into slavery?

Please justify your "chafing" given that some of these people even oppose a cervical cancer vaccine.

 

[Luke T.]

Please justify your "chafing" given that some of these people even oppose a cervical cancer vaccine.

Please provide evidence that MOST of the people who oppose abortion also oppose birth control and sex education.

 

[Mark]

Please provide evidence that MOST of the people who oppose abortion also oppose birth control and sex education.

See my posts above.

You didn't answer my question.

 

[toddjh]

Asked and answered. I have not conducted a study...but with the major Christian sects opposed to both it is an educated guess.

Heh...obviously you don't know many Catholics if you think that most of them really do follow the party line about birth control. At best, they grudgingly pay lip service to Rome's official position, while secretly (or overtly) wishing it were different. And I doubt very much that many of them want to make it unavailable to others.

What other "major Christian sects" oppose contraception? I think we can agree that the number of Orthodox Jews in the U.S. is small enough to be disregarded.

 

[JamesDillon]

Why is it that the people who appear to share my pro-choice policy preferences are the less reasonable ones in both threads of this debate?

Asked and answered. I have not conducted a study...but with the major Christian sects opposed to both it is an educated guess.

Asked and answered, indeed-- you have no basis for your assertion that most pro-life advocates oppose sex education. Got it. (I might add that, whatever the "sects" say, I know plenty of practicing Catholics and Protestants who support abortion rights and sex education, so I don't think you can legitimately use the doctrine of the churches as a proxy for individual opinion here).

Certainly groups like Operations Rescue and their ilk have come out against both. Some of them even oppose a vaccine for cervical cancer...fearing it will increase promiscuity.

Does the membership of Operation Rescue comprise 50.1% of the American population? If not, the fact that some people hold this views proves nothing about whether most people do.

It is---at the very least---a huge percentage.

"Huge" is a relative, squishy term. The question was whether you can defend your assertion that "most", i.e., a majority, of pro-life advocates also oppose sex education.

So, again, you and Luke can chafe all you want. Controlling women is a large motivation for MANY of these people.

1. So we're down from "most" to "many" now?
2. Does "controlling women" in all instances equate to "slavery"? I would submit that only absolute control, stripping women of all personal autonomy, could be justifiably compared to slavery.

 

[Luke T.]

See my posts above.

You didn't answer my question.

Nowhere to any of your posts support that "MOST of the people who oppose abortion also oppose birth control and sex education."

No Conflict Between Abstinence, Birth Control

Debates over sex education in schools often pit abstinence instruction against providing students information on birth control methods. But the public sees no conflict in pursuing both of these approaches: 78% favor allowing public schools to provide students with birth control information; nearly as many (76%) believe schools should teach teenagers to abstain from sex until marriage.

Solid majorities in every major religious group say schools should be allowed to provide students with information on birth control methods. But a sizable minority of white evangelical Protestants (30%) are opposed.

Link

 

[Luke T.]

OK, I'll play! I venture to guess that there are AT LEAST 3 times as many women who believe that Sharia laws are a good idea as there are pro-life women. So Luke when ARE we going to pass laws to require all women to walk around in burkas in the US because brainwashed ignorants believe it's a good idea?

Please back up your "guess" before asking me to fulfill your demented fantasy.

 

[Manny]

My view on abortion in one concise paragraph:

When does a human become a human? What separates us from an embryo or a fetus? It's not when a sperm cell fertilizes an egg. It's not when you can see recognizable body parts in a sonogram. It's the ability to think. During those first two trimesters the brain is barely developed, certainly not enough to allow thinking as we think of it. Therefore I have no problem with abortion in the first two trimesters. In the case of risk to the woman's health I am in favor of allowing abortions in the third trimester. Why? The woman was here first...she's got dibs on living.

This is a thoughtful, mature position on the issue. My evidence for that is that it pretty closely mirrors my own.

That said, "barely developed" is an overstatement. It's true that at 16 weeks the brain is significantly less developed than it is at, say, 38 weeks. However, it is in a sufficient state of development that at least sometimes normal further brain development can continue outside the womb. As something to think about, meet a cute pair of 17-week-premature babies. Just something to think about -- it's entirely possible that in some senses brain viability actually precedes body viability. As medical breakthroughs continue to occur, there may arise perfectly legitimate challenges to the "second trimester" as a cutoff and that the "right" cutoff will be seen to occur sometime earlier.

 

[Luke T.]

Asked and answered. I have not conducted a study...but with the major Christian sects opposed to both it is an educated guess.

An ignorant guess based on your biases. You have got to be kidding. And from this completely erroneous guess, you extrapolated that pro-lifers want to enslave women.

Keep digging.

It is---at the very least---a huge percentage.

You are---at the very least---completely talking out of your ass.

Your "slavery" belief has no fact behind it.

So, again, you and Luke can chafe all you want. Controlling women is a large motivation for MANY of these people.

Here we see the shifting goal posts. MOST becomes "some" and "many".

The "slavery" assertion is MOSTLY bullsh*t.

 

[Mark]

Nowhere to any of your posts support that "MOST of the people who oppose abortion also oppose birth control and sex education."





Link

Since I backed down on that and ammended it to MANY your point is, shall we say, dated.

Explain your position is light of the fact that groups have come out opposing abortion AND cervical cancer vaccine. Stop evading, Luke.

From conservative pharmacists refusing to dispense birth control pills to abstinence-only programs and anti-condom campaigns, access to contraception is facing tough challenges from the right. The strategy is similar to one that conservatives have used for abortion: Since overturning Roe vs. Wade looks unlikely in the near term, opponents have turned their sights on limiting access to the procedure. Now members of the religious and political right -- including the Bush administration -- are focusing on contraception, raising concern that they will succeed in curbing women's birth control choices and the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

"I am deeply concerned that they have gone further than I have ever seen them. This is far past a woman's right to make decisions regarding abortion to the point now that it's about their right to make decisions on contraception," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told Salon. Murray and her Senate colleague Hillary Clinton have blocked President Bush's nominee to head the FDA, Lester Crawford, over his inaction as acting director of the agency to approve the morning-after pill for over-the-counter sale. An FDA advisory committee has given the drug overwhelming support as safe and effective, and Canada approved its nonprescription status last week. Publicly, Crawford says his indecision on the drug has nothing to do with ideology, but privately he told Murray it raises his concerns about "behavior," apparently alluding to arguments that the pill will encourage promiscuity.

There are also indications Crawford sides with those that equate Plan B with "chemical abortion." During his confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Clinton asked Crawford: "Would you clarify for the committee that emergency contraception is a method for prevention of pregnancy, not the termination of pregnancy?" Crawford responded: "I may need to confer with the experts in the FDA about exactly what the physiology of it is." Labels on Plan B, the name that its maker, Barr Laboratories, has given it, say "for the prevention of pregnancy."

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/04/27/birth_control/index.html

 

[Luke T.]

Since I backed down on that and ammended it to MANY your point is, shall we say, dated.

Explain your position is light of the fact that groups have come out opposing abortion AND cervical cancer vaccine. Stop evading, Luke.

You are the one evading. To support the belief system that pro-lifers want to enslave women, you attempted to prove that belief by claiming that MOST opposed birth control and sex education. After which you said, "What else do you need to know?" As if that settled it, proved it.

So now that your evidence to support your belief system turns out to be false, you are evading. You constructed a straw man pro-lifer and it fell on you.

What else to you need to know?

There are reasonable arguments and opinions to support the pro-choice position. And there are reasonable arguments and opinions to support the pro-life position.

Opposing cervical cancer vaccines and saying pro-lifers want to enslave women are unreasonable positions. Fortunateley for everyone, the cervical cancer vaccine opponents and "pro-lifers want to enslave women" bozos are a MINORITY.

 

[KingMerv00]

My view on abortion in one concise paragraph:

When does a human become a human? What separates us from an embryo or a fetus? It's not when a sperm cell fertilizes an egg. It's not when you can see recognizable body parts in a sonogram. It's the ability to think. During those first two trimesters the brain is barely developed, certainly not enough to allow thinking as we think of it. Therefore I have no problem with abortion in the first two trimesters. In the case of risk to the woman's health I am in favor of allowing abortions in the third trimester. Why? The woman was here first...she's got dibs on living.

and as an aside...when I once presented this view to friends they objected..."but you could see the baby's hands!". True, but we could also see Terry Schiavo's hands. She was fully developed but all of us who were discussing it were in favor of pulling the plug on her. Why? No brain activity.

Just to expand:

This is the same reason people see humans as superior to animals. Our capacity to think abstractly is what separates us from bugs and cows. Anyone who eats meat implicitly accepts this.

But you never see a conservative with a sign that reads: "Chicken stir fry stops a beating heart." Why? Because the beating heart doesn't make an animal into a human. The brain does.

A fetus without a developed brain isn't human.

 

[toddjh]

But you never see a conservative with a sign that reads: "Chicken stir fry stops a beating heart." Why? Because the beating heart doesn't make an animal into a human. The brain does.

Well, I suspect they would say that it involves the soul, not the brain. Not that I disagree with your point; I just think that they would.

 

[Luke T.]

I think the entire spectrum is covered. From those who think it is human from the moment the sperm penetrates the egg to those who don't think it is human until it draws its first breath.

Somewhere in the second trimester, there may be an overlap between people who believe the same exact thing and yet some call themselves "pro-life" while others call themselves "pro-choice".

I have not settled on when I believe it is human. But even if I arbitrarily decided it isn't human until Day 90, and could be aborted prior to that, I would still call myself "pro-life" because that position is in opposition to Roe v. Wade.

 

[Luke T.]

Something doesn't make sense. 55% of Americans in 1999 believe abortion should be legal ONLY to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.

OTOH, 48% in 2001 consider themselves pro-choice. Since the point of the statement is that the pro-choice are dropping, we can assume the number was at least 48% in 1999,

So how can you have 55% insist on abortion ONLY in special cases, but have 52% not pro-choice? Are there seriously people who consider "abortion only in the case of mother health, rape, or incest" to be a pro-choice position? That is not pro-choice in the least.

Something doesn't make sense.

This is why the way questions are worded on polls is so important. And it is why it is important that when poll results are discussed, that the questions that were asked be printed verbatim.

If what I stated above about "overlap" is true, it would explain the confusion. It is possible two people could hold the exact same belief about second trimester fetuses and one consider themselves "pro-choice" while the other considers themselves "pro-life."