So who pays for it?
You miss the point. Having a BEATING HEART doesn’t make something human - i.e. cows and chickens have BEATING HEARTs.
It also isn’t a child by any stretch of the imagination, but I know that will go right over your head. If you have decided that it’s a “human” from the moment of conception and you just cannot keep that decision to yourself, you are welcome to put out ads where you offer to pay all expenses of a pregnancy, and then take the baby once it is born. But you are not allowed to force anyone to go thru the danger of pregnancy nor the completely live altering issue of having a child to raise. Particularly if the woman doesn’t want the pregnancy/child to begin with.
Well, assuming that a pregnancy ultrasound is done the same way that one ultrasounds a non-pregnant uterus, I don’t think they shove anything up your innards at the airport…
(bolding mine)
Not only does this sound like a delaying tactic that assumes no prior research or knowledge on the woman’s part, it’s also basically what tax-funded ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ do– offer sonograms (and little else) to pregnant women seeking help.
Here’s how these bills would go down in an anti-choicers wet dream, care of Christianity Today
So what? It’s not the only one.
This is not directed specifically at Diogenes: What consequence is everyone worried about? What bad thing will occur as a result of this? If it’s as pointless as most are describing it, then so what? If it’s not–then why is it bad to present someone with real information that might affect her decision? This is a real test for me (to the extent he is an influence): If President Obama truly meant what he said about trying to reduce abortions, if he is not the knee-jerk, “anything pro-life if a horror,” play-to-the-base ideologue, why wouldn’t he support such measures (I realize this starts at the state level)? Again, what bad thing might occur? Might an abortion or two be avoided–shudder!–a stated objective of the current administration?
Aha, now I see what this is. It’s another attempt at pushing waiting periods, and therefore waging economic warfare on poor women. Women who find it difficult to get away from work and such long enough to travel ( possibly to another state ) just once, much less multiple times.
Two things, both of which have already been stated somewhat:
-
The ones with waiting periods make it much more difficult for low-income women or working women to obtain an abortion, as it doubles the number of appointments necessary. In states in which most abortion providers have been driven out of town, a woman may need to drive several hours to reach the nearest clinic. Requiring a long waiting period may necessitate an overnight hotel stay or multiple long-distance car trips. I believe this is a deliberate consequence of these bills.
-
The fact that a woman has made up her mind to have an abortion doesn’t mean that it was an easy decision, or that she’s not grieving over what she’s doing. Being forced to listen to the heartbeat of a fetus you’ve decided to abort will cause unnecessary further emotional trauma.
Daniel
So, these bills are designed to economically burden and emotionally traumatize women, and disproportionately already disadvantaged women. Is the goal here that if she is willing to abort, we might as well try to drive her to suicide?
Tell me, do these laws allow any exceptions for rape or incest?
Well, if she’s getting an abortion, she’s obviously already a loose woman with no morals and the world wouldn’t be losing much if she did. </crazyfundieperson>
They rarely do. The standard line is “Why should this poor child (the fetus, not the pregnant woman) pay for the crimes of her parents?”
Tradition. “Unto the seventh generation”, and all that. If you think they are bad human beings, what on Earth makes you think they will be better parents?
In the case of rape it’s just trying to deal with your pain by inflicting it on a innocent life.
One of the best pro-life saying I have heard is “You will never forget your child you never knew”. I believe this is absolutely true and is cruel torment that abortion causes to the woman that the pro life movement is trying to prevent, plus the dehumanizing cruel death of the baby. Abortion punishes woman and baby alike, is has to be, what you sow you shall also reap.
Some would say that the abortion would traumatize the woman regardless of how she tried to hide it from herself, haunting her with the cry of unborn life. It’s far better to get it out in the open, letting her know that is it her baby, as it’s easier to identify what is causing the pain in her life. If she realizes that it is her child and she decides not to abort then she is spared that pain altogether.
One of the many things that you believe to be absolutely true which are not.
For one thing, the government has no business preaching religion at people (and that’s ALL this is), for another, the more restrictions and harrassments placed on women who need to terminate pregnancies, the more likely they are to seek less safe means of doing it. As always with anti-choice legislation, it’s not going to stop abortions but only increase the chances that women will try to self-abort or have them done illegally (or just go to another state if they can).
What is it that anybody thinks will be ACCOMPLISHED by this kind of a law? What’s the goal? To encourage women to have unwanted babies? Why? How does that benefit the state?
I would say that the problem in and of itself is that it is rather a gross overstep in terms of the government pouncing upon you. Having information is a good thing - being forced to have information is not. The examples of law offering a ultrasound seem fair enough to me, on those grounds. But being forced to? No thank you. I’m trying to think of a reversed situation of this; would it be reasonable to require prospective parents who intend to keep their baby sit down and look at some photos of starving street kids? That’s giving information out too, so what would be this forced appeal to emotions? And what is the result of choosing not to look, when it is required? Is it simply no abortions for that woman, and do we really want to force a woman to have a child she (quite clearly shown, by that point) does not want to have? Are we talking a punishment of fines or even jail time?
Where do we draw the line when it comes to what information someone should have? We should talk about preventative measures, and that means before pregnancy; should we ship off a fetus photo to every man, woman and child in the country and force them to look at it? We want to avoid war, too; so visceral pictures of death and destruction for all is clearly necessary, and they must look at them. Where’s the line drawn, and why is it drawn there?
Presenting it, offering it, that’s all good and fine. Forcing it is not. And I don’t think it would be a particularly good idea, either; I mean, if a woman has got so far in planning an abortion such as this, and is indeed swayed by a simply emotional appeal, what does that say about their capabilties as a parent? Given their apparent quite considerable desire not to have a kid, how long do you think the appeal will have an affect? Because if it’s not forever, if it’s not totally mind-changing, if it’s simply a temporary appeal - you’ve now got a parent (or two) with a baby they didn’t and don’t want. I won’t get into the reasonableness of essentially emotionally blackmailing someone into having a child, because from the other side of the fence this is a small sin as compared to killing, but emotional blackmail of this sort just does not last. Which really isn’t a good situation for anyone. More information is good, yes, but not pushed upon someone, not badly timed and crudely put.
And, in the larger scheme of things, if this thread is any judge, it rather seems to make your side look bad.
In order to hurt women, physically and emotionally. Laws like this are all about misogyny and malice.
You’re broadbrushing. There is a segment of the pro-life grouping that wants to control women’s lives. There is also a segment (arguably a larger one) that sincerely believes that the fetus is a human being and abortion is murder. Recognizing the sincerity of the opposition’s beliefs does not mean we necessarily condone or accept the opposition’s beliefs or the methods they wish to use to make people conform to them.
You don’t have to lie about the opposition to disagree with them.
What makes you think I’m lying ? Or that the people who care about anything but hurting women are anything but a small minority ? The movement simply doesn’t ACT like a group of people who regard a child/fetus as anything other than a club to beat women over the head with.
It’s the woman haters who are in control; who are the driving and controlling force in the “pro-life” movement.
Let me edit that “lie”…I don’t think you’re lying. I don’t even think you’re wrong about what you posted in this post. The leadership definitely seems to be in it for the control and the money they get by instigating the emotions of their flocks. But, coming from a devout Catholic family, let me tell you that that is not the rank and file. And there are a LOT more rank and file than there are leaders.
Just keep in mind that the majority of pro-lifers that you are going to argue with are going to be sincere in their belief that abortion is murder. Unless you find yourself arguing with people like Randall Terry and James Dobson often.
Edited to add: I just wanted to make clear that I’m pro-choice, myself. I’m doing an Obama here and trying to remember that the folks on the other side can’t be 100% monsters…most of them are just like me, just with different ideas and beliefs. I try to save my vitriol for the politicians and instigators.
But it’s the people like Randall Terry and James Dobson who actually matter. Even assuming you are right; so what ? How does that make a difference to the victims ? If your supposedly well meaning “pro-lifers” support the woman haters, then the movement IS about the hatred of women.
Why not, when the “ideas and beliefs” are themselves monstrous ? Would you say the same about the KKK ? The Nazis ?
Sometimes, the other side IS evil.
It is my considered opinion that you are utterly wrong, to the point of being silly. Most of the people I know who are opposed to abortions, and who are more strongly opposed to abortions, are women. They are not stealth members of some domination-over-women cartel - they are suckers who have been fed a melange of stories and misinformation that leads them to believe that from the moment the sperm hits the egg, that = baby. A cute, loveable baby. With cuteness and loveableness. And anybody who wants to stop that blob of cells from coming to term is a BABY KILLER!
It even makes a sort of vague semi-sense if you believe in souls - the body may be a completely unviable cell mass, but the soul which is stapled to it already looks like a cute and cuddly 6-month old! (Or a somewhat less cute and cuddly twenty-year-old, depending on who you ask.) What kind of cruel person would slaughter the cell mass and sentence the baby soul to a life of eternal joy and perpetual infinite happiness?!
The insidious thing about religion is that while the leader might have an agenda, the followers need not have one and will do much the same things nonetheless. But attacking those people as having the agendas they don’t is completely wrong, pointless, counterproductive, and foolish. Even if the imagined agenda is an easier target than their real beliefs.