And again, i’d point out this; being a Catholic, pro-life liberal can be quite a long way from the general category of liberal. If you imagine it as a scale, these people are liberal if we’re just looking at the Catholic population; with the population as a whole, they’re likely quite conservative.
“Liberal pro-life Catholics don’t volunteer as much as conservative pro-life Catholics” would be a statement borne out by your evidence.
Interesting. Work at the government level isn’t as good as work at the local level? I’d argue that it can be; what makes you so sure it can’t?
Anyway, I believe the point others were making was if conservatives care so much about life, why do many have a pro-war stance, or indeed join the armed forces? There are people of both sides who don’t follow their idealogy logically; but then, idealogy really isn’t logical, at times.
IMHO we simply don’t know what the status is. From a spiritual point we don’t know when the soul might enter the body. It also occured to me that no spirit intended to come into the world will be denied.
We do know that every embryo has the potential of human life and in that potential is something wonderous that should be given serious consideration. In honoring that potential I greatly respect the work Sarahfeena is doing.
The problem is with those who seek to remove choices from others because of their own beliefs. No woman is denied the right to cherish the life inside her. Some are denied the assistance that allows them to feel they can successfully do that. There are those who want to try and legally compel women to have children they may not want or whose emotional or physical health is threatened by a pregnancy. You must be able to imagine how women can see that as an incredible invasion of their privacy, freedom of choice and their very bodies. I can understand the notion that some people truly sincely believe that an embryo is a person. I have NP problem with that belief when it comes to them making their own choices. I honor that.
However
IMHO those who seek to remove that choice and force women to have children under the cloak of “the sanctity of life” better dam well be doing everything they possibly can to care for the many many children in our country that are in need right now today, not nine months from now.
In fact those who complain that the conservatives aren’t doing enough to help those children should put their money where their mouth is. I guess that means me.
I have little respect for those who stand across the street with huge posters of bloody fetus to condemn the choice of others. “What I firmly believe” is a reason to make your own choices. It is not a good reason to force your choices on others unless you can offer some real evidence that the choice is best for the individual and our society. I have little respect for those like Pat Robertson who have the audacity to claim they know God’s attitude about this issue.
As I said, IMO the answer is to allow the choice but do everything in our power to offer real viable solutions, support and education to those who want to have the child.
That is true. Allow me to amend my statement to say that reducing a baby to ONLY a small bundle of cells, and nothing more, disgusts me.
And I’d like to add that I in no way consider the retarded or otherwise disabled to be anything less than fully human, and deserving of all the respect that a human should be afforded. There are, however, people who don’t see it this way (Peter Singer, for example), and this I find truly disgusting, not to mention scary.
I kind of hate to take this thread in that direction, since a couple of weeks ago I was involved in a very in-depth and detailed discussion of abortion on this very board! I don’t know if I can go through it all again. I believe that feritilization is the moment that humanity begins.
Actually, I live in one of the most liberal communities in the entire country. Compared to much of the population, they are likely quite liberal! Seriously, I know these people. I have worked with them on committees. They are liberal in just about every sense that you could possibly define it. They call themselves pro-life, but some of them **got up and walked out ** of a pro-life sermon delivered at mass. They claim to be pro-life, but they do not walk the walk, that is for sure.
Ah. Well, I apologise for carrying on this line of debate, then. Really, my reason for my question is this; do you support the use of the birth control pill, since that acts to prevent fertilisation in the first place? Would you recommend it to the women who come to your organisation for future use?
Eh, you can’t really say that’s because they’re not actually pro-life for certain, though. It may be that your (priest? preacher?) guy was using faulty or flawed arguments in his sermon; there’s been a few stories on these boards of religious Dopers being annoyed at the flawed content of sermons. I’m anti-war, for example, but I’d walk out of a lecture on those sentiments if the lecturer was arguing war shouldn’t occur because it’s just what the space aliens want.
What I am saying is that they want tax dollars to solve the problems. They think MY tax dollars ought to pay for abortions, even though I vehmently disagree with it. This is the solution, pay taxes and someone else will make these unwanted babies go away. I would love to see people who really want there to be choices to get in there and help these women. Put their actions where their mouth is.
True enough (on the logical part). There is another thread where I went into detail about why I feel that war is a different animal than abortion, embryonic stem cell research, etc, so I am just going to quote one of my posts here (please keep in mind that this is in no way supposed to be a comprehensive overview of the pro-life postion…I am by no means an expert. I am just trying to give examples to show that these issues are not black-and-white to pro-life people, any more than they are to pro-choice people):
I don’t have a problem with the pill, at least for purposes of birth control. We refer women to doctors for their birth control needs.
OK, you don’t know these people, and I do. They claim they are pro-life BUT they are liberal in every other way. They vote liberal, the organizations they join are liberal, they describe themselves as liberal. How much more liberal do they need to be? And in any case, whether or not they are is beside the point. Whether they are pro-life or pro-choice, is there a good reason why they should not get involved in an organization that helps mothers who want to keep their babies?
I can understand why it would. It might be interesting to find some way {maybe an opinion poll or questionnaire} to discover the liberal view of the program and why they choose not to participate.
It would appear that to some protecting the choice to have an abortion is more important than offering real support for the choice to have the child, just as to some denying the choice is the important issue.
not to hijack but IMO I see the need for social programs but I think as a society we want to much for the government to handle it with programs rather than to get out there and do it ourselves. I also think that dehumanizes the issues too much and it becomes a mental exercise in ethics and morals, We become better people and a better society if we actually get out there and do it eyeball to eyeball and really touch and are touched. The government seems to have proved that it is fairly incompetent and wasteful when it comes to these programs. I wouldn’t want to see them go away but I’d love to see them replaced by private organizations made up of some employees and plenty of volunteers like yourself.
Thanks
It makes me wonder if there are similar programs in Nashville.
What the hell?? I can see why you might not agree but I can’t understand disgust Why is it hard to imagine someone having equal reverence for the potential in that small clump of cells and a fully developed clump like you or I? Why would that reverence evoke disgust?
I remember seeing a report on ORiely about a woman who had a boatload of kids who were neglected and abused. I had to wonder where the sanctity of life people were for those children. If someone keeps having kids and then neglects and abuses them I would say they are unwanted.
Even woman who decide they can’t afford another child or the timing is wrong and would not abuse a child that was born. I think it is wrong to insist through laws that those women have the child, and morally repugnant to insist without offering every assistance we can.
I think it is correct to offer aide and education so that no woman feels abortion is her only choice.
I am listening to the radio interview now.
Ramesh’s own verbal presentation of his own ideas suggest to me that he’s your basic vanilla reactionary fundamentalist who has acquired the ability not to froth at the mouth while delivering his overly-simplistic analysis, designed for partisan rhetorical victories, of complex issues. Unfortunately, he is not media-savvy enough yet to be able to confidently stand behind the bottomless hypocrisy that represents current the hardcore conservative political thought that he respresents.
When I saw him on “Daily Show”, Jon Stewart did not give a basic rundown of the book, and began to attack the hypocrisy straight off. It struck me as something of an ambush at the time. But in the “On Point” radio interview, where Ramesh has been given more time to communicate his own ideas. it is now clear to me that Stewart was right on target.
I’m only part way through the interview, but here is my take on what Ramesh is saying so far:
Support for a woman’s legal access to abortion? Party of Death.
Support for the idea that families should make their own very difficult decisions regarding euthanasia without the government stepping in? Party of Death.
Bush, when as governor, he proposed an “electric couch” to execute more than one death row inmate at a time? …Nnno, not Party of Death.
A laundry list of right-wing pundits, when their proposed solution to the threat of terror is essentially, “Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out”? Well, that’s not realy what I’m addressing in my book…
Ramesh’s youthful appearance and childlike voice only serve to reinforce the impression that he is a coddled child who has spent the entirety of his developing years in a neo-conservative Republican echo chamber, and his first venture into the big big world is this book tour. In both interviews I have encountered, he comes across as shocked and crestfallen that, not only are there people who do not wholeheartedly agree with him, but they are having a very easy time poking holes in his bullshit.
There is no way to address a concept as shitheadedly conceived as the notion of an exclusively liberal and Democratic “Party of Death”, that attacks abortion-rights supporters, without starting an abortion debate. You had to see this coming, Paul.
I can accept that many people do see a fetus as a person. I don’t completely understand the insistence that it is a person. I can see that those who see a fetus as a person most morally support protecting them as such. The question then becomes what can we realistically do that doesn’t violate the rights of others. That’s the really tricky part. Making abortion completely illegal then says to a woman that once they conceive that fetus within them as all the legal rights as any existing person. Is that where we want to go. Right now anyone, responsible or not can have children. We have to draw realistic lines we can live with when it comes to neglect and abuse and when we decide a person is unfit to have children we have to be willing and able to assume the responsibility for those children.
The same for outlawing abortion. Even putting aside the invasion of the woman’s rights and her physical body, if we as a society declare abortion illegal then we have to assume responsibility for those children. Perhaps we should work harder at doing exactly that before we seek to pass laws prohibiting the choice of others.
Nobody is saying that AFAICT. We are saying that a woman has the right to choose the abortion option without condemnation.
Strongly agree.
I’ll say it again. I think our government has shown that for the most part it is wasteful and somewhat incompetent when it comes to administering programs like this. I also think we as a society have come to a place where we want to throw money at a problem and have some “professional” government worker handle it rather than help the needy eyeball to eyeball. IMO We are the poorer for it. I think what’s being said is that voting Democrat and paying your taxes may not be a good enough response.
and Sarahfeena has done a marvelous job of showing us the equal and opposite side of that coin. I for one really appreciate it.
Cool. I don’t agree with your views, but I can respect your position.
No, I guess not. We’ll have to do something about those damn baby-killing Catholics. 
Firstly because they aren’t equal, even from the strictest pro-lifer’s view. Potential does (in their view) lend equivalence, but that potential takes time to become the fully developed clump like you and I. During that time, many things can go wrong; that potential still requires input from the mother until it can become fully developed, for example.
Secondly, and here’s the point where I get into the specifics of my own view, I don’t believe potential comes into the equation much. The small clump of cells can pretty much be replaced at any point (although this lessens as time goes on). For me, to compare a fully developed large clump of cells like us with a small clump of cells like a foetus, is pretty much the same as comparing a person to a finger, or a nose. I’ll understand that you disagree, I just want to hopefully show you why disgust is the reasonable emotion for me.
In response to people saying that government work isn’t the be all and end all; I agree. But I still don’t see why it’s less important. Both federal/state level and local work are both important.
Me too, but it isn’t really a revelation.
If the anti-abortion movement were truly interested in reducing the number of abortions, they would be at the forefront of the people trying to get comprehensive sex education taught in school, making sure birth-control is legal and available, and getting plan-b through the FDA. As the exact opposite is in fact true, I find it hard to see as anything other than an anti-woman movement.
I really think that it is just having different priorities. Parishes have lots of different ministries, and people have to choose which ones are most important to them. I understand this, of course, but it would be nice to see a little action from them as well. 
That’s basically my feeling, and you said it much better than I could have (posting too early this morning…I was still half asleep! )
I’m sure there are…a lot of them are run through Catholic Charities, I think.
I have not seen any interviews with him, but I am so amazed to hear so many reports about how poorly he comes off. The book, despite its inflammatory title, is very well-reasoned, and has helped me immensely in grounding my own pro-life philosophy. Interestingly, he says right in the forward of the book that the title does NOT refer to the Democratic party.