Well, maybe, but it doesn’t reveal anything about Ryan we didn’t already know.
And if I was told this, I would go out, get addicted to meth, and find all the type A adrenaline junkie crap that is physically hazardous and do it until either I die, lose the kid or get to fat to climb the rockface. Rifle and tower sound about right.
Or I would immediately leave the country and go to a fucking sensible place where abortions are legally obtainable.
Because most rapists are coloreds, most rape victims are white, and we don’t want any more mulattoes running around the US of A. I mean, DUH!
:rolleyes:
What was the point of interjecting this into the thread?
Knock it off.
[ /Moderating ]
Yes, sir.
ETA: While “method of conception” is a little dry and avoids that creepy sex talk, I have no problem with it. It leaves all the options open, and I love options.
Why do you assume that he is ‘indifferent’ to women? For all you know, it was a tortured, agonizing decision for him.
If you believe that life begins at conception, and that the fetus represents a human soul, then it is fully consistent to believe that the fetus has a right to be born, and that really has nothing to do with the circumstances around its conception. Nothing about that means you are indifferent to the suffering of the woman who was raped. It could just mean that you’ve decided that bringing the baby to term is the lesser of two tragedies.
Oh, I sure hope so. The more tortured, the better. I genuinely hope he started from a position of real emotional conflict and had to weigh the issue carefully between his respect for the rights of the individual and the lives of fetuses. I hope he feels lingering regrets for his ultimate stance on the issue.
I rather doubt that he does, though.
And yet strangely, I don’t typically hear the pro-life position put in these terms - the notion that the fetus’s right to life outweighs the woman’s right to control what happens to her body. Much more often, it’s that the fetus has a right to life, period. The woman? At most, she’s something in the equation that has to take responsibility, and take it in only a pro-life-acceptable way. Her position is not to be considered a tragedy - that suggests she might have cause to take steps to alleviate that tragedy.
I haven’t heard any statements about the lesser of tragedies from Ryan. Do you know of some?
I don’t know what his views are - but in searching his campaign site it appears that social issues are not even part of his platform. The guy’s simply a right wing policy wonk. Is he particularly active in social conservatism? Does he give speeches on abortion or write a lot of social policy? I know he co-sponsored some bill with Akin, and that was a bad idea. But it doesn’t mean he’s a social warrior like John McCain or Rick Santorum.
I agree with you that I hope it should be a tortured, agonizing decision. So much so that I can’t bring myself to do that - the rights of the woman have to take precedence. Period. In all cases. About as far as I’ll go on abortion is to agree with parental notification laws, while recognizing good arguments on the other side. I’m also torn about late-trimester abortions, when there is evidence that the brain is fully working. I think that the best cutoff is probably the point where the fetus is viable outside the womb, because at that point a third option appears in which the burden is lifted from the mother without killing the baby. But I agonize over even that, because it’s a tough issue and it goes to the core of what it means to be human. No one should take it lightly.
That said, what’s lost in all this discussion of Ryan’s social positions is that Romney and Ryan are simply not running on a social conservative platform. Romney repeats over and over again when asked that he wants to focus on the economy, and has no interest in fighting the culture war.
But of course, it’s the opposition’s job to attempt to portray the essence of Republicanism in the worst possible light in terms of public opinion. Since social conservatism is the least-popular part of the Republican’s platform, Democrats want to define them by it, because they’d rather argue social issues than the economy for obvious reasons. Squirrel!
No one takes it lightly, but you have to recognize that you may have a certain opinion of “what it means to be human” but other people may have a different opinion. And it is a bit arrogant (not to mention false) to think that your opinion is the only correct one.
I agree with you. Issues like “when does life begin” or “do fetuses have a soul” are ultimately unanswerable, so no one can stake a claim to scientific fact or absolute knowledge. That’s why I default to saying I just have to let the mother decide.
Here’s one thing that bothers me, though: If a woman is planning to abort a baby, isn’t it important to do it as quickly as possible? If we really don’t know when a fetus is self-aware, isn’t it really important to not allow the brain to develop any further? That’s my problem with late stage abortions. It seems that in many cases it could have been done sooner, but the woman just delayed out of indecision or fear.
Even if the pregnancy is involuntary, the mother should still have a burden of acting in the most humane way possible towards the fetus, and that would generally mean either aborting early or taking the baby to term, if you have the choice. I won’t impose my beliefs, because I don’t believe it’s my choice to make. But I can express disapproval of some decisions and help change the culture a bit.
I totally agree. Whatever your opinion of the personhood of a fetus is, it just makes sense from a health perspective to do the abortion as early as possible.
I’m not sure you realize how far from this goal the “right to lifers” have taken us in the US. In many places women would have to drive long distances to get to a place to get a safe abortion. There are waiting periods, and all sorts of obstacles.
And it is getting worse.
The indifference we are seeing is in part an indifference in risks to the health of the woman from this kind of delay.
As for Ryan, he was a co-sponsor, with Atkin, of a bill defining life as beginning at conception, and opposes abortion in the case of rape, though he might have temporarily changed his opinion to match that of Romney.
Also, I have not heard any conservative mention the anguish of a woman forced to go through a pregnancy in order to bear the child of her attacker. Maybe you have stumbled across this. But this is indifference in my book.
I daresay another large part is indifference to what she wants, what she has planned for her life.
- “You wanted to go to college? Too bad for you, bitch.”
- “Your economic situation will worsen if you have another child? Too bad for you, bitch.”
- “Your conservative family will throw you out if they find out you’re pregnant? Good for them! And, of course, too bad for you, bitch.”
Which is fine if you think that fetus is not a human being. But if you do think that a fetus is a human being, then letting the mother decide is condoning murder.
That’s exactly right, and that’s the nature of the dilemma.
No it isn’t. First; if a fetus is defined as a “human being”, all you’ve done is create a category of “human being” that it isn’t particularly morally significant to kill. Playing word games with what you call it won’t change what it is. And second, even if it was a genuine person it still wouldn’t be murder to kill it for battening onto someone as a food source, any more than it would be murder to kill a vampire trying to drain your blood.
In your opinion only.
No, by any definition consistent with the rest of our common ethical positions I’m correct. Defining killing a fetus as murder requires that you throw out much of the rest of modern ethics to create an “ethical” system specially designed for the purpose of calling abortion murder and oppressing women. It simply isn’t consistent with normal ethics to call it murder; not even close.
The real question is when should a developing embryo/fetus/baby deserve rights and legal protection?
As to Ryan’s “Method of conception” statement, it runs into some of the same objections as a different phrase, “accident of birth” - it might sound off but isn’t much of a loaded phrase. The latter phrase would seem inappropriate in a discussion about abortion though it is somewhat commonly used uncontroversially in other circumstances.
Would “Accident of conception” have sounded any better? Certainly not in a discussion of rape.
I find the conservative point on abortion quite the opposite of their talk. If it hadn’t been for their ancestors they wouldn’t be here , so life began (even as the Genesis story tells) thousands(if nor eons) of years ago. It doesn’t seem to me they are very interested in that “LIFE” once it is born. They(as I see it) want all fertile eggs to come to personhood, then once born, call helping them entitlements; can’t have it both ways! I believe it is an excuse to force their religious beliefs on others. In my opinion they should be more than happy to support the woman and child, how they intend to do this with out money or other help is a problem.
Romney may be thinking of the economy,but if a woman has too many children to support he wants to cut entitlements,so once born and he has played to the base…then every thing is just hunkey dorey?