# Pro-Life=Fundamentalist Moron **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 29, 2010, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399 "2010-07-29T01:23:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/201 "2010-08-02T17:38:35Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > So what? They’re wrong. > > > > I thought the visit occurred after the angel came and told Mary that she was pregnant with the Son of God. I don’t remember where I read it but the leaping by John fetus was (I thought) due to the rpesence of Jesus. > > No, the Angel in Luke’s Nativity never tells her she’s pregnant, he tells her “you will be with child and give birth to a son.” She asks how that’s possible since she is a virgin and he says, “the Holy Spirit will come upon you” (unfortunate choice of words, I know). Then Mary goes to visit Elisabeth and greets her. Then it says, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” > > It doesn’t say the baby recognized Jesus. Mary wasn’t pregnant yet. I remember reading somewhere that John was born 6 months before Jesus. Perhaps I am mistaken. Is Luke the only place where they talk about this encounter between Mary and Elisabeth? > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Leviticus says that the penalty for klilling a child up to 5 years of age is a fine. Is your point that the old testament drew a line that we would not draw today? > > > > “Leviticus 27:6 > > If the person is from a month old up to five years old, your valuation shall be…” > > > > 5 shekels for a boy and 3 shekels for a girl. Yes, the Bible draws a line. Even in your example, it does not value infabnts less than a month old, but Exodus 21 (I got the book wrong, sorry, it was Exodus, not Leviticus), if someone hits a pregant woman and causes a miscarriage but no other harm is done, the guy just has to pay a fine of the husband’s choosing, which seems to imply it’s not even a crime if the husband does it, and it does not call it murder or impose the penalty for murder (which is death). Here’s the passage: [indent]If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, 24Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. 9 **Ex. 21:22-25** ). [/QUOTE] [/quote] Well my point is that the type of penalty that is imposed for a death may not indicate whether or not there is a human life. I doubt anyone would say that a one month old child isn’t a human being and yet the penalty for causing the death of a newborn baby is the same as for a fetus. I don’t know if you can translate that into putting a fetus in the same category as a newborn baby but it certainly doesn’t translate into saying that fetuses are not human beings. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/202 "2010-08-02T17:40:18Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > > [@Guinastasia](#): > > > > This, my body is. Take and it eat, you will. In memory of me, do this. > > It could just be a symbolic saying that was taken by some to think Jesus was actually giving His body or blood. The word “is” can mean just a symbol. Like a lover telling his beloved,“Here’is’ my heart take it and say we will never part”. The lover is not really taking his heart out of it’s body, nor did Jesus let His apostles bite him to eat His flesh,or actually drink his blood. > > Some people look at a fertile egg and belive it is a baby, that is their belief and they have the right to belive it is so, but if they are truly Pro-life( not just pro-birth) then they should be more willing to sacrifice for the already born and be as adament about the people already born who are suffering hunger etc. all over the world. That’s not the way their brain works. They’ve been hanging out with Republicans far too long and they only value human life to the extent that republicans find it politically expedient for them to value human life. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/203 "2010-08-02T17:45:42Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Also, the NT references against drug-using sorcery (pharmakaia) may well have applied to abortifacients. I may have read that passage in leviticus out of context, I was using google. I don’t know how much support this provides for the notion that people in classical times thought that fetuses were alive but here is one line in the hypocratic oath “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.” At least one guy back in the day thought that there was some moral equivalence between killing and abortion. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/204 "2010-08-02T17:52:46Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > [@Marley23](#): > > > > I’m not going to pretend the issue is cut and dried, no. Treating an embryo or a fetus as a person is ridiculous, treating it as nothing even close to a person is going too far in support of an argument that does not require it. But the answer to your question is politics. For a politician it’s easy to vote against an anti-abortion law but it’s almost impossible to vote against a law imposing harsher penalties on people who kill pregnant women. > > Do you think that might be perhaps because people think of the fetus as being a human life? It’s a given that some people think of a fetus as a human life. > [@](#): > > Why is it that harsher penalties for killing pregnant women (and in some cases, causing a miscarriage) are the result of political expediance while opposing restrictions on abortion are not? I didn’t say anything about political correctness. I said it’s politics: politically it is difficult to vote against a law that stipulates tougher penalties on people who kill pregnant women. That’s why laws of this type get passed. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/205 "2010-08-02T17:56:03Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > Why is it that harsher penalties for killing pregnant women (and in some cases, causing a miscarriage) are the result of political expediance while opposing restrictions on abortion are not? > > Because the people who push the laws for harsher penalties are anti-abortionists who have a known and malignant agenda. Because they are people who show no concern for either fetuses or children except how to use them as weapons against women. And they probably are quite happy that the woman ended up dead. Wow. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/206 "2010-08-02T17:58:46Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > Do you think that might be perhaps because people think of the fetus as being a human life? > > It’s a given that some people think of a fetus as a human life. > > > [@](#): > > > > Why is it that harsher penalties for killing pregnant women (and in some cases, causing a miscarriage) are the result of political expediance while opposing restrictions on abortion are not? > > I didn’t say anything about political correctness. I said it’s politics: politically it is difficult to vote against a law that stipulates tougher penalties on people who kill pregnant women. That’s why laws of this type get passed. I know this is a bit nitpicky but if it is hard to vote against harsher penalties for killing pregnant women, why not just impose harsher penalties for killing pregnant women. Why impose a second murder charge (and in some states you get charged with murder for stabbving a pregnant woman in teh stomach if the woman survives and teh fetus dies). I’m not talking about political correctness when I say poltiical expedience but the point is probably not important. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/207 "2010-08-02T18:02:27Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > [@Marley23](#): > > > > It’s a given that some people think of a fetus as a human life. > > I didn’t say anything about political correctness. I said it’s politics: politically it is difficult to vote against a law that stipulates tougher penalties on people who kill pregnant women. That’s why laws of this type get passed. > > I know this is a bit nitpicky but if it is hard to vote against harsher penalties for killing pregnant women, why not just impose harsher penalties for killing pregnant women. Why impose a second murder charge (and in some states you get charged with murder for stabbving a pregnant woman in teh stomach if the woman survives and teh fetus dies). I’m not talking about political correctness when I say poltiical expedience but the point is probably not important. Because these laws are part of a pro-life strategy to chip away at the legality of abortion. So it serves their purpose to treat killing a fetus as murder, and as equivalent to killing the woman. Harsher penalties for killing pregnant women does not serve that purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/208 "2010-08-02T18:46:11Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I remember reading somewhere that John was born 6 months before Jesus. Perhaps I am mistaken. That is the tradition, yes, but it doesn’t actually say that in the Bible. In fact, Luke actually suggests that John was an adult before Jesus was born. > [@](#): > > Is Luke the only place where they talk about this encounter between Mary and Elisabeth? Yes. Only Matthew and Luke have nativity stories, and their stories are completely different. Luke is the only Gospel to claim that Jesus and John the Baptist were related or connect their births at all. > [@](#): > > Well my point is that the type of penalty that is imposed for a death may not indicate whether or not there is a human life. The OT proscribes death for all instances of taking human life (even accidentally) except for slaves, babies less than 30 days old, and fetuses. > [@](#): > > I doubt anyone would say that a one month old child isn’t a human being and yet the penalty for causing the death of a newborn baby is the same as for a fetus. The Bible draws a distinction between babies (or fetuses) less than 30 days old, and all other humans. > [@](#): > > I don’t know if you can translate that into putting a fetus in the same category as a newborn baby but it certainly doesn’t translate into saying that fetuses are not human beings. I would suggest that the Bible does exactly that. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/209 "2010-08-02T23:19:03Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because the people who push the laws for harsher penalties are anti-abortionists who have a known and malignant agenda. Because they are people who show no concern for either fetuses or children except how to use them as weapons against women. And they probably are quite happy that the woman ended up dead. Oh just SHUT UP already. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/210 "2010-08-03T04:34:41Z")
According to the rabbi who performed my circumcision and bar mitzvah ceremonies, the Talmud is clear that abortion is NOT murder because “A fetus is not a person. A fetus is only a potential person.” In order to convince me that Jewish law views abortion as murder, you just have to convince me that you know more about Judaism then rabbi Klears did. **Friar Ted** is correct that any Jew of Jesus’ time would have known that abortion is forbidden. However, he is wrong as to the reason. Abortion is forbidden because it goes against the commandment “Be fruitful and multiply”. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/211 "2010-08-03T06:30:38Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think that if you have a lot of resources or a lot of extended family around, you can probably survive post-natal depression but if you have neither resources or s sufficient robust support system, it gets a lot tougher. I’d like to think that we can do better, much better, should be expecting much more than merely surviving post-natal depression. There’s nothing wrong with a woman doing whatever is necessary to avoid it, and especially when she has children who are relying upon her care, and the effects of a bout of post-natal depression would affect multiple people. > [@LouiseE](#): > > Perhaps we can encourage him by acknowledging his advance in self awareness, instead of immediately chiming in with reasons why it is inadequate or incomplete. Yeah, I’m not interested in giving the dog a milkbone when it manages to shit on the tile floor rather than the Persian rug when it has a doggy door and can do its business outside whenever it wants to. ---
**Author:** ![xanthfreek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9d8465/32.png) [@xanthfreek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xanthfreek)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/212 "2010-08-03T07:53:31Z")
**Lavenderviolet,** I _so_ agree with you, and I’m a pro-choicer. I think you have outlined, in a most erudite way, a sane and real approach this subject. Too much polarization has created a no-middle-ground flailing battle (each side thinks they are completely right and the other side is completely wrong) to this whole issue and it’s time for people to kick back, take a deep breath, and try to find some mutually compatible elements from both sides. In the days before legal abortion, back-alley butcher shops were killing not only babies, but mothers as well. Sub-standard equipment, lack of expertise, and greed (illegal abortions cost a lot of money) were just a few of the factors that led to such inhumanity. I’ve heard (TV specials) self-reported incidents where some woman aborted her own fetus with a wire clothes hanger. Prostitutes have been notorious for this; a lot of self-aborted babies have been found in garbage cans. Legal abortion certainly beats \*that \*all to hell! Plus there are cases where abortion is necessary, as in medical emergencies. So there are benefits to legal abortion, even though I believe that it should be a last resort. I think logic and reason should guide this issue, rather than one-sided morality, blind, zealous religious fanaticism or unbridled, unfocused emotion. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/213 "2010-08-03T08:06:40Z")
> [@xanthfreek](#): > > **Lavenderviolet,** I _so_ agree with you, and I’m a pro-choicer. I think you have outlined, in a most erudite way, a sane and real approach this subject. Too much polarization has created a no-middle-ground flailing battle (each side thinks they are completely right and the other side is completely wrong) to this whole issue and it’s time for people to kick back, take a deep breath, and try to find some mutually compatible elements from both sides. No. That is a foolish tactic that never works with the right wing, and has lead the Democrats to near impotence. Attempting to compromise with the Right is useless and self destructive. And attempting to compromise on an issue like this, where the other side is simply monstrous is wrong. Would you compromise with a demand that women be subjected to state mandated rape? Because that’s what this is the closest equivalent is. And no, it doesn’t matter that “the other side would say the same of you” because they are flat out wrong. A fetus is not a person no matter how they much they insist it is. ---
**Author:** ![anya\_marie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@anya\_marie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anya_marie)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/214 "2010-08-03T09:07:08Z")
I hope that i do not need an abortion, but it worries me to see “pro-life” protestors outside he clincs that i go to, interfering with the right of women to get health care. It frightens me to think that what they want contributes the most appaling ignorance to promote an agenda. It’s appalling that there are girls who don’t have basic knowledge about how their bodies work in 2010. It’s depressing that for all the focus on purity for girls that there is not an equal or greater effort to persuade boys to be chaste AS WELL. If you want to abstain, that’s great. There are also those of us who do not choose and I for one resent “pro-life” efforts to interfere with the sale and prescription of contraceptives. ---
**Author:** ![Baboonanza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f475e1/32.png) [@Baboonanza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baboonanza)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/215 "2010-08-03T10:25:30Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > What do you expect me to say “Oh go ahead” or “Yeah that’s no big deal”? I think if you’re truly think something is evil or immoral or wicked you should speak out. I think that’s an admirable view actually, and it’s not like people won’t jump on anybody round here who admits to doing something morally dubious. There have been many, many pit threads where somebody has posted something thinking they’d get simpathy and have actually been chastised (sometimes correctly) for doing something morally dubious or being an asshole. And the people doing the chastising have been a lot less polite than **Curtis LeMay**. You may disagree with his views on the issue, so do I, but guess what? I think a lot of your views are fucking stupid too, and at least he has the honesty and courage to speak up when he thinks something is happening that is wrong and do so in a polite way. Let he who has never been a complete wanker cast the first stone. Edit: Oops. I didn’t realise this thread had 5 pages, this is really a response to the people on the first page. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/216 "2010-08-03T12:30:38Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > In fact, Luke actually suggests that John was an adult before Jesus was born. > … > > The OT proscribes death for all instances of taking human life (even accidentally) except for slaves, babies less than 30 days old… Cites? ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/217 "2010-08-03T12:31:53Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > Because the people who push the laws for harsher penalties are anti-abortionists who have a known and malignant agenda. Because they are people who show no concern for either fetuses or children except how to use them as weapons against women. And they probably are quite happy that the woman ended up dead. > > Oh just SHUT UP already. :rolleyes: Thank you, Guin! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399/218 "2010-08-04T00:06:14Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > > [@Guinastasia](#): > > > > Oh just SHUT UP already. :rolleyes: > > Thank you, Guin! I aim to please! 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-life-fundamentalist-moron/548399.md?page=10)