"Pro-life" and "pro-choice" are both stupid expressions

[lowbrass]

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]

Somewhat, but my religion has nothing to do with my politics.

[/quote]

You are religious, and your political leanings are to the right. That makes you part of the religious right. I am not religious, and my political leanings are to the left. That makes me part of the secular left. Doesn’t mean I’m best buddies with Micheal Moore. Does mean I’m within the same broad spectrum of people on the left. Of course your religion has something to do with your politics. You may not be aware of it, but it does.

The religious right.

I didn’t say, “You are the same as Jerry Falwell”; I simply said you have your own religious right to blame if social programs are lacking. I could re-word it as, “You have the religious right to blame, a group whose more radical members do not entirely share your views.” Would that be better? Please consider my statement retracted and replaced with the above.

I said there’s no difference, didn’t I? You win. Let it go.

That’s absurd. if you’re going to continue to attack me on something, don’t tell me to “let it go” when I defend myself. If you want it to be let go of, it is entirely within your power to do so.

[Sarahfeena]

[QUOTE=lowbrass]
You are religious, and your political leanings are to the right. That makes you part of the religious right.
[/QUOTE]
No, it doesn’t. You may want to look over this Wikipedia article, which explains what the “religious right” is all about. It is not someone who is religious and who is right-leaning politically. It is a specific political platform involving conservative social values, most of which I don’t align myself with (I tend towards libertarianism, and do not believe that the government should control peoples’ private religious or moral lives).

I am not religious, and my political leanings are to the left. That makes me part of the secular left. Doesn’t mean I’m best buddies with Micheal Moore. Does mean I’m within the same broad spectrum of people on the left. Of course your religion has something to do with your politics. You may not be aware of it, but it does.

You have no idea if it does or not. In fact, I tend to disagree with most of the political philosophies that I have been taught by my religion. This is probably an odd concept to you, but the reason I tend to disagree with them is because they are too left-leaning. So go figure out how that makes me a member of the “religious right.”

I didn’t say, “You are the same as Jerry Falwell”; I simply said you have your own religious right to blame if social programs are lacking. I could re-word it as, “You have the religious right to blame, a group whose more radical members do not entirely share your views.” Would that be better? Please consider my statement retracted and replaced with the above.

You can word it any way you want to, but you’d still be wrong in characterizing my affiliation with that group. It’s interesting that you are trying to lump me in with people I don’t agree with, when this entire conversation started when you objected to my lumping you in with people like Der Trihs.

That’s absurd. if you’re going to continue to attack me on something, don’t tell me to “let it go” when I defend myself. If you want it to be let go of, it is entirely within your power to do so.

OK, let me go over this one more time. You asked me to explain the difference. I said “fine, there is no difference.” You now claim that I am “continuing to attack” you. Can you explain to me how conceding your argument is continuing to attack you?

[lowbrass]

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]

OK, let me go over this one more time. You asked me to explain the difference. I said “fine, there is no difference.” You now claim that I am “continuing to attack” you. Can you explain to me how conceding your argument is continuing to attack you?
[/QUOTE]

O.K., now I will respond. And before you respond again, remember that it was within your power to drop this, and you instead chose to continue to dredge it up. So please don’t complain or give me any feigned exasperation that I “won’t drop it”, because it is you who refuses to drop it.

Anyway, I did not say that “conceding the argument” = “continuing to attack”. Complete strawman. Earlier, you wrote:

If there are people on the left that YOU don’t want to be lumped in with, please remember that the same is true for people on the right.

This implied an equivalence between what you did to me, and what I did to you. They are not equivalent, and I explained why they are not equivalent. YOU took a quote from SOMEBODY ELSE, and said it was MY position. All I did was state that you are broadly on the same side of the fence with the religious right. I did not incorrectly attribute any quote, opinion, or idea to you that was not yours. Please stop saying you “already conceded the point”, unless you are prepared to drop it. If you want to concede the point, then you can’t continue to hammer away at me on it. Thank you.

[Captain_Amazing]

[QUOTE=lowbrass]
You are religious, and your political leanings are to the right. That makes you part of the religious right. I am not religious, and my political leanings are to the left. That makes me part of the secular left. Doesn’t mean I’m best buddies with Micheal Moore. Does mean I’m within the same broad spectrum of people on the left. Of course your religion has something to do with your politics. You may not be aware of it, but it does.
[/QUOTE]

The “Religious Right” is a term of art in politics. It’s not used to refer to religious people who are right wing…It’s a specific political and social movement. Sarafeena may not be part of the Religious Right just because she’s religious and right wing.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Political discussions are boring! Can we please get back to killing babies?

[Sarahfeena]

[QUOTE=lowbrass]
O.K., now I will respond. And before you respond again, remember that it was within your power to drop this, and you instead chose to continue to dredge it up. So please don’t complain or give me any feigned exasperation that I “won’t drop it”, because it is you who refuses to drop it.

Anyway, I did not say that “conceding the argument” = “continuing to attack”. Complete strawman. Earlier, you wrote:

This implied an equivalence between what you did to me, and what I did to you. They are not equivalent, and I explained why they are not equivalent. YOU took a quote from SOMEBODY ELSE, and said it was MY position. All I did was state that you are broadly on the same side of the fence with the religious right. I did not incorrectly attribute any quote, opinion, or idea to you that was not yours. Please stop saying you “already conceded the point”, unless you are prepared to drop it. If you want to concede the point, then you can’t continue to hammer away at me on it. Thank you.
[/QUOTE]
There are two separate issues here. First, is my applying Der Trihs’ opinion to you, which I already apologized for:

[QUOTE=Me, in post #289]
No, not at all. In fact, given what you say here, I am going to assume that I either misconstrued your opinion somehow, or I am attributing someone else’s opinion to you accidentally. If either one is the case, I apologize.
[/QUOTE]

The other issue is whether or not referring to the fetus as a “kid” is dishonest, which is where your analogy came in. This is the issue I said you might as well drop, because I’m not nearly invested enough in the outcome of this discussion to go back through all the posts and try to figure out if your analogy is an accurate one or not. SO…I am willing to say you are right about it, assuming that I am the one who missed something somewhere.

As far as what I said about not lumping me in with the religious right, I fully understand that I attributed someone else’s opinion to you. I, again, apologized for that. But what I am saying to you is that the agenda and platform of the “religious right” is so specific that if you make a statement that I belong to it (which you did):

[QUOTE=you, in post #301]
That makes you part of the religious right.
[/QUOTE]

That means that you are attributing opinions to me that are not my own, which I don’t appreciate any more than you do.

[JohnnieEnigma]

I don’t understand why pro-life would be a stupid expression. If one supports and wants to protect the life of the unborn, they are indeed pro-life. If one respects life and wishes to protect it, they are indeed pro-life. Why the objection? unless the concept of supporting the life of the unborn repulses someone?

Same for pro-choice. There are women who feel strongly about having a right to “choose”… this whole concept of “choice” for them is very relevant and real for them. It’s in line with the “My life, my body, my choice” belief system …

I’m not offended by either expression…

[irishgirl]

There is this wonderful publication called The Lancet, you might have heard of it.

In October they had an edition called “Women Deliver” linked to the Millenium Development Goal for reducing maternal mortality from 1990 by 75% by 2015. This is not going to happen, by the way. Approximately 530,000 women die worldwide every year due to complications related to pregnancy and childbirth, that’s one a minute. A high proportion of those deaths are due to unsafe abortion.

19 million unsafe abortions are carried out worldwide, killing 68,000 women a year. 48% of abortions worldwide are unsafe, 97% of them in developing countries.

It is a fallacy that restrictions to abortion decrease abortion rates.
The lowest rates of abortion are in Western Europe (12/1000 women), where abortion itself is less restricted and contraception use is high. The rates are similar in Northern Europe (17/1000), Southern Europe (18/1000) and North America (21/1000).

The notable excpetion to this is in Eastern Europe (105 abortions for every 100 livebirths), because a low birth rate and ease of access to abortion services are combined with difficulty accessing contraceptive services.

There are countries which have total bans on abortion, without exception for the life of the mother. They are: Nicaragua, The Vatican, Chile, Honduras and El Salvador. Despite only Cuba and Guyana having unrestrictive access to abortion, 4 million abortions are estimated to take place in Latin America annually, with 31 abortions per/1000 women the estimated rate.

When South Africa liberalised their abortion law in 1996, the mortality rate from abortion fell by 91% from 1994 to 2001. The rate of abortion itself did not significantly rise.

If you really want to save lives, make abortion safe and legal and contraception easily accessible. That would be truly “pro-life”.

A lot of my cites are from Lancet articles that you have to register to read.

http://www.thelancet.com/
Article names:
Sex, politics, and money
Sexual and reproductive health: a matter of life and death
UN study expresses concern over national antiabortion policies
Unsafe abortion: the preventable pandemic

In particular:
Induced abortion: estimated rates and trends worldwide

[Stratocaster]

irishgirl, there are cites / stats in this very thread that contradict your contention that restrictions don’t appear to reduce abortion rates. Check out Bryan’s cites (and the discussion that followed) if you’re interested.

[Annie-Xmas]

I think almost everybody but the hardline anti-abortionists agrees that abortions should be safe and rare. The only disagreement is if they should be legal or illegal.

Maybe the names should be “pro-legal” or “anti-legal.”