so if I’m not gay i should not be offended by homophobic remarks?
he certainly did NOT qualify what he meant by religious minority…he certainly DID tell them to “shut up”…you call that “contributing to a discussion”?
Religious ‘minority,’ a definition: All of those fanatical religious groups which darn big mouths who insist on getting involved in everyone else’s lives to single handedly push/force their own opinions/beliefs on them. The over active minority who would happily send us back to the puritan era or beyond where strict religious regulations suppressed individual freedoms, technology and governments. The mouthy ‘minority’ which fails to consider the effect unwanted babies can have on families and the degree to which being unwanted can have on the child and who steadfastly fights adequate sexual education in the schools that would help prevent such ‘accidents’ and who also fight determinedly the public display of contraceptive advertisements which also would help cut down on abortions.
Religious fanatics. Pea brains. They like to scare the crap out of people because religion is such a powerful subject, the masses easily confused with it and once confused, tend to follow like sheep, as the safer path, not daring to risk anything because the powerful religious leaders might be right about them going to hell if they disagree.
Now, get down off of your high horse, beagledave.
IMHO. more condom use is a pipe dream. THe best way to control birth is through the person that is most affected by pregnancy: the woman.
Offer free depo shots, norplant, the Pill, put lots of freee clinics on bus line and start contraceptive education at 11 years of age.
The issue is not necesarily too many abortions, but too many unwanted pregnancies in general.
thanks…I think I feel sufficiently smug, self righteuous and oppressed now… 
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Skribbler *
**Religious ‘minority,’ a definition: All of those fanatical religious groups which darn big mouths who insist on getting involved in everyone else’s lives to single handedly push/force their own opinions/beliefs on them. The over active minority who would happily send us back to the puritan era or beyond where strict religious regulations suppressed individual freedoms, technology and governments. The mouthy ‘minority’ which fails to consider the effect unwanted babies can have on families and the degree to which being unwanted can have on the child and who steadfastly fights adequate sexual education in the schools that would help prevent such ‘accidents’ and who also fight determinedly the public display of contraceptive advertisements which also would help cut down on abortions.
Religious fanatics. Pea brains. They like to scare the crap out of people because religion is such a powerful subject, the masses easily confused with it and once confused, tend to follow like sheep, as the safer path, not daring to risk anything because the powerful religious leaders might be right about them going to hell if they disagree.
As somebody already said this is not a matter of abortion, but of unwanted births, it´s almost pedophobia, I want you to make this clear for me please are religious groups minorities, or they are the leaders of the masses that follows like sheeps.
It will be very interesting to look at a religious state as Utah where the incidence of abortion is almost none and the rate of crime is the lowest in the whole USA, also no drugs, prostitution or drunk people. And probably the only state in the USA where almost all citizens speak more than one language.
SKRIBBLER – I think your post suffers from being seriously over-generalized.
Okay, but you can see that you’re opinions don’t really define “religious minority” at all.
Yeah, they do do that, and it bugs me too. But I think at some level you must realize that certain people believe certain acts – including abortion – are absolutely morally indefensible. Abortion = murder; as a moral belief, it is as simple as that. Leaving aside the issue of abortion, if you believe (as I will assume you do) that murder is wrong (murder being defined as the unjustifiable killing of another human being), and you step between two of your neighbors to stop one from killing the other, then you too have “gotten involved” in someone else’s life to “single-handedly push/force your opinions/beliefs on them.” The difference is that you presumably believe your interference in their lives are justified, but you believe that the fundies’ proposed interference in your life is not justified.
Again, when you are dealing with people who consider themselves to be governed by their own personal morality, and who truly believe others should be governed by that morality as well (because they are right and we are wrong), then you can expect them to attempt to influence society in any way they can. To some extent, we all do this: all government is oppression, and we as a society do not allow pedophiles to assault kids, for example, just because they disagree with our conclusion that their actions are morally wrong.
I think this, again, disregards the fact that certain people truly believe that abortion is murder and therefore not justifiable no matter what the consequences of allowing the pregnancy to proceed. I do not personally hold this belief, being vehemently pro-choice, but I can at least see that it is a belief that some legitimately and truly hold.
But arguing morality and trying to convince others (and quite a big bunch of others) that their religious tenets are incorrect strikes me as a singularly poor idea, in terms of trying to reduce the incidence of abortion. I’m with you on education, though. I think it is ridiculous to expect people to live with the consequences of their actions and not explain to them precisely what those consequences will be
. . . Are two terms that are not necessarily synonymous.
This sort of thinking always amuses me for the implicit undercurrent that all people who are religious are by definition stupid and all people who are irreligious are by definition smart. If you are religious then you are one of “the masses,” the great unwashed too dumb to think – a sheep. Some people come by their faith honestly and through a process involving a lot of thought – and those people can be just as “fanatical” about what they believe as anyone else. All of which has nothing to do with the topic, by the way.
Pyrrhonist
Yes, all of our country’s problems are interconnected. You can’t do much about abortions without dealings with sexual mores and poverty, can’t do much about poverty without dealing with education, crime and drugs, can’t do much much about drugs without dealings with crime, etc. While trying to find solutions to specific problems is a good place to start, we shouldn’t forget that these problems don’t exist in a vacuum.
I think that we’ve already done most of what we can do as far as preventing abortions directly; we already have sex education, we already have birth control clinics, etc. I think that there are a few more things that can be done, and a good place to start would be to ask the women what can be done about it. Pre-abortion counseling should be a two-way street; we should provide the women with help making informed decisions, but we should also ask the women for help on how we can keep women from finding themselves in a situation where an abortions seems to be the only option. Find out what motivated them to have sex, find out what motivated them to have unprotected sex. Find out what might have motivated them to not have unprotected sex. Find out what, if anything, they were missing in their life. And here is where the larger picture comes in. Women who don’t see much of a future don’t have much to lose, and therefore are going to spend less effort avoiding pregnancy.
Woww!!! I just discovered that we are still considered second class citizens… after all these years finally they are going to ask us our opinion about abortion!!!
WoooooWWWWWW thank you, dude
Jodi, I think your argument contains a significant flaw. You seem to equate all moral action regardless of its basis. I believe this to be a dangerous premise.
First, I think it’s very important to stress yet again that when discussing abortion, we are not talking about “right” and “wrong”, we are talking about legal and illegal; i.e., should the state coerce compliance by punishment of those who commit certain acts. In one’s own private and personal life, moral correctness is an entirely legitimate basis for governing one’s own actions. Such is not the case when determining which values the a segment, even a majority, of the citizenry may coerce upon all.
There are many ways to operate a society, some of which do not value personal freedom at all. But in our time, in our society, we do value personal freedom and protect certain rights even from censure by the majority. There is a meta-logic, a profound thread running through our Constitution and more than two hundred years of legislation and judicial reasoning: The state should not arbitrarily limit a person’s freedom. The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the right to privacy underlying Roe v. Wade is clearly to point and illustrates this meta-logic.
If each person may not merely follow his or her own arbitrary moral code, but impose it on another without rational justification, we risk anarchy. Without rational justification, the idea that an act is morally wrong merely because one believes it to be so, then we cannot distinguish between competing claims of moral rightness without resorting to violence.
Are our laws merely the result of popularity contests between wholly irrational fanatics? If so, why then do we make a pretense of reasoned debate? Why bother with a legislature, a judiciary, an executive, a Constitution? Why not just take a vote of all concerned and hang the minority? Because, at heart, reason is the only faculty we can consistently trust to guide our actions and avoid the horrors of strife and war. History has shown, without exception, that there is no end to the slaughter and pain when people attempt to impose their arbitrary beliefs on others.
If we accept the principle that one’s own moral suasion has an equal basis to a reasoned argument, then rationality itself fails. No matter how strong the logic of an argument and its premises obvious in simple observation, it falls to a simple declaration of moral refusal. And, when rationality fails, history has shown us in no uncertain terms that the worst kind of war is not far behind.
To argue that many of our values are equally arbitrary holds no weight. The adoption of our core values and, more importantly, their persistence, rests on as firm a basis of reason and the evidence of our senses as we can manage. All government is not oppression. At its best, our laws and the government that enforces them rest on a rational understanding of the compromises that human individuals must make to effectively cooperate in a society and increase the scope for effective action and self-fulfillment far beyond what the naked individual alone may even dream of achieving. At its worst, our laws and government impose the most oppressive moral aggression
by the awesome power of society acting in concert. But history has shown that individuals, acting with the light of reason, have good reason to hope to eventually defeat such oppression.
There are many issues in which both sides marshal rational arguments. Many issues are complicated and subtle, and may require years or decades of careful examination before the citizenry may weigh all relevant facets in the light of reason. Proponents of such issues may become quite passionate and dedicated, but their arguments and positions do not per se pose a danger to our society.
Such is not the case with proponents of issues who disregard or subvert rationality. There are those who claim that their personal moral authority transcends reason, those who corrupt, distort and fabricate facts to fraudently cloak themselves in its trappings. Such people risk not only the outcome of a single issue, but attack the very fabric of our civilization and risk returning us to an age of poverty both of the body and of the spirit. They would drag us back to a condition of horror, pain and death from which we have spent millennia attempting to escape.
No doubt those who disagree with me merely need respond, “so you say; your “rationality” is no more valid than my faith.” And, of course, there is no argument in rationality to counter such a response. But I have the lessons of history to guide me and issue its warnings most dire. I will resist the onslaught of irrationality with every fiber of my being, with all the power of my mind and passion of my spirit.
Salt Lake City is not the best argument because it seems that there have been disclosures of corruption within the high muck-mucks of the church itself, serious questions concerning one of the main ‘profits’ and, yes my dear, drugs and the Mafia are in the city.
Better education about sex and birth control is needed along with ignoring any form of censorship that prevents public display of information. We can have all of the booze ads we want on TV, Radio and in Magazines, but the religious right fights very hard to keep sex education out of the schools, dumbed down to basically ‘don’t touch, don’t kiss, don’t screw, don’t have any pleasure,’ which is suppression of knowledge. Soft core porn magazines have to be covered in stores, but violent video games dealing with wanton slaughter and alcohol products are in plain sight.
It needs to be made easier for girls to get medical counseling away from their folks and boys also, concerning sex. Knowledge is all. The more they understand, the better they will be and I have no problem with contraceptives being made legal to sell to under aged kids.
I’d rather have them screwing their little brains out with protection and not getting pregnant or any STD’s that going at it without any and catching all sorts of things. When I was in high school, kids screwed and I would assume that they still are. Back then, however, we could get rubbers from our big brothers, our dads, or even older friends and used them. It was sort of a status symbol and unwanted pregnancies were down from what they are today. So was VD. We just worried about crabs.
So, let the kids know all that they need to know and are going to ‘legally’ learn when they reach 18 anyhow. Knock off the dark ages censorship in the schools and through the media. Only MTV advertises condoms now.
Good theory but in practice, not so much.
You run into the problems of one set of citizens having to make time for monthly/yearly appointments, weight gain, possible increased cancer risks, injections, migraines, increased risk of depression, etc. Not to mention the increased risk of contracting an STD because “more condom use is a pipe dream.”
How about some actual forward steps? Like while the women are traipsing around to all their little appointments for Depo shots, blood pressure checks for those on the Pill, pelvic exams to catch those pesky STDs in time, you big, strong, intelligent men sit in the labs and come up with a useful, convenient and effective MALE birth control pill/implant/shot/plug?
Or maybe when you guys register with Selective Service, you are also required to have a vasectomy? Then, when you want to have children, you just go and have it reversed? What? Sometimes the reversal is not effective? Too bad. Sometimes that happens when a woman has used an IUD or other such contraceptive device for years. Shit happens.
Of course, this is just MHO.
Getting the vasectomy as males register for Selective Service, 18, is too late; get them while they are young. There may or may not be medical hindrances that I am unaware of… but way not do the operation side by side with circumcision? The boy will grow up incapable of fathering until he gets a reversal; disallow reversal surgery under insurance coverage so the cost is out of pocket, say $10 to 15K, so very few children will be born to impoverished fathers. I would also favor a similar operation for women, but tubal ligation is a much more serious operation to a vasectomy. Periodic Depo shots leave too much room for neglect, but some of the responsibility must be the woman’s.
Not only would abortion rates drop to near zero, the birth rate would plummet and lessen overpopulation, and poverty decreased. Yippee! Too bad the idea is probably unconstitutional.
Now now Jodi…certainly you must have realized by reading some of the other posts, that if people who have any shred of religious conviction raise questions about broad swipes and insults…they will surely get branded as too easily offended. 
Gloria, I would love to see your cites for this. My sister teaches high school (this year, previously she taught middle school) in Utah – not in a large city, either – and certainly she has seen drug use, underage drinking and some gang activity among her students. Where did you get your information?
hmmm… vasectomies for all! sounds like a great idea until you remember there are other reasons to use a condom, STD’s would probably go through the roof. I think better sex education is needed, hell when I went to school, only 10-12 years ago we learned the same damn thing every time I took sex ed. this is a penis, this is a vagina. yeah real fun stuff. might be good for the sixth grade but not in high school.
now about the OP, it’s no ones damn bisness if my GF wants to get an abortion or not. it’s her life. the ONLY other person who should have any say, and even thats minor, would be the father.
I think one way to reduce abortions in this country is to give out more information about what really goes on during an abortion. I think if people knew more about the gruesomeness of this procedure less people would choose it.
In response to some of the above solutions, I think that anyone who thinks teenagers don’t know alot about sex already doesn’t know many teenagers.
after 5 years, the success of a reversal is very low. THe body develops anti-bodies to sperm. As a result, motile sperm count, even if it is successful, will be around 0-10%. THe procedure costs about $5,000.
The men will have to go through in-vitro fertilization with intercytoplasmic Sperm injection. The odds of a birth are around 35% and the procedure costs about $6,000-$16,000 per attempt.
I think you said this tongue in cheek. But if not, only those with wealth at 20 could get pregnant. Trust me. No one wants to go through in-vitro.
Joe Malik wrote:
Too bad they don’t feel the same way about marijuana or psilocybin or nitrous oxide or peyote.
Given the will, we could eliminate STDs and make accidental pregnancy virtually impossible within a generation, without infringing on the rights or freedoms of any individual. The solutions to both problems lie squarely within the realm of medical technology. It would take merely money and a commitment to privacy and non-discrimination, and we are a wealthy and free people who value our privacy.
The only hindrance to such an effort are those who would see others suffer and die, who would allow a child to be born, unwanted and uncared for by his or her parents, to enforce their personal vision of morality and consider the abject suffering of these persons both acceptible and justified. I cannot help but view such people with sadness and regret as I contemplate their demons who cannot be assuaged without such suffering.
This is a point where i disagree with some of the pro life camp. Actually I don’t think it would reduce abortions that much. Most pro choice folks that I know would prefer fewer abortions (actually fewer pregnancies) anyway…and tend to view it as a necessary evil or last resort. (please feel free to correct this impression…)
I think most women who have the procedure are at least somewhat aware of the side effects…but choose to do so anyway.
Some people think that abortions tend to go down in times of economic growth…
Also, i recall that related legislation (parental /spousal notification, waiting periods, restrictions on 3rd trimester abortions, lack of federal funding) also tend to reduce the overall numbers…sorry i don’t have a source at hand…if someone has a source to the contrary then I wold retract the above statement