I know this is a bit of a hijack, but tonight’s ‘Sixty Minutes’ was really disturbing to me, and I am whole heartedly against abortion. There is a group, I’m fumbling for the name, but they have published the names of abortion doctors across the United States. (CBS fuzzed the names) They didn’t SAY it was like a wanted poster, but I don’t know how else the crazier end of the faction would take it. It was scary. I’m against abortion, but I think to take the law into your own hands and bomb anything, is WRONG. While I understand the reasoning, ‘killing babies is wrong…so what I do is stopping THAT at least here.’
It will NEVER excuse their actions.
The basic problem is, it doesn’t stop it anyway, it only alienates people from open discourse about it. No one wants to be seen with crazies, so polarization happens and then NO ONE talks without screaming.
Even the screamers at the gates, I can’t believe their purpose is to appeal to that young woman to just ‘think before you do this’. Maybe they lose sight of the human element and see only their own glorification, which blocks any reasoning at all. They forget that they are talking (or bellowing, as the case usually is) at TWO people, if they can love the baby, they can stretch and remember to love the mom who is most likely scared to pieces already.
I’ve never seen anyone who has changed their minds because just the ‘right thing’ was yelled at them…
“It took something like this to make the Miss America Pageant look good to me.” Patricia Ireland on the TV show 'Who Wants To Marry A Millionaire?"
Deprive women of reproductive rights?? Forgive me for nit-picking, but isn’t that in fact being exercised when a woman chooses to use birth control or not?
Probably and the same could be said for pro-choicers, too.
After I saw some pictures it dispelled any notion I accepted from pro-choicers that it was only a mass of tissue.
What I fail to understand is why there are so many unwanted pregnancies. With all the options available for contraceptives, there shouldn’t be any unwanted pregnancies.
You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims. -Harriet Woods-
Alcohol / drug related sex
Lack of knowledge on the part of the couple
Excess of horniness on the part of the couple
Rape
Sometimes contraceptive measures fail.
Unwanted pregnancies are a sad fact, and just because women can take the Pill isn’t going to stop that sad fact.
I’ll agree that rape is different because it was an involuntary sexual encounter, but not the rest.
If a woman would go to the extreme of having an abortion because she didn’t want to have a child, then why doesn’t she insist that both her and her mate use birth control?
There’s a lot more options than one type of birth control pill.
You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims. -Harriet Woods-
Science can’t say when human life “begins” because everything involved in the reproductive process is already alive. The biological parents are alive when they mate. The sperm cell and oocyte are alive when they combine to form a zygote. The blastula is alive when it implants on the uterine wall. The embryo is made of millions of cells, all alive.
But then again, cancer cells are also alive, as are E. Coli bacteria and hair follicles.
The abortion issue is not about determining when life begins, it’s about determining when one mass of living cells becomes an individual, separate and distinct from another mass of living cells that it originally came from. We want to find a dividing line between when a foetus is just an attached part of the mother, and when a foetus is a separate individual; and the best candidate we have so far for determining where such a dividing line should go is the viability of the foetus outside the womb, i.e. can a foetus at thus-and-such a stage of development live without an umbilical cord attaching it to its mother. Roe v. Wade tried to establish a legal guideline for viability, and their rather simplistic trimester system probably needs to be revised, but as far as I’m concerned the concept of viability is still the best way to answer this question.
The truth, as always, is more complicated than that.
And here’s my definition of choice: If you think it’s wrong, don’t do it. That means having an abortion, owning a gun, eating meat, whatever. If it offends your sensibilites, don’t do it. But if the thing that offends you is legal, and my participation in this thing is not going to harm you, please don’t try & stop me.
On the abortion issue specifically: I’ve had one, at Planned Parenthood. I had lots and lots of time to think about it too, since they only do them one day a week, and you do have to have an appointment (that’s why I never understood anyone trying to push that 24 hour mandatory waiting period thing–I had to wait 5 days). I got there at 9 am. There were protesters there, but not too many. They were outnumbered by the escorts. I was also there with my boyfriend, who was 6’4. I think he scared them. But once I got in there, I was counselled, counselled, counselled. I had until about 3 seconds before the actual procedure took place to change my mind.
I’ve also relinquished a child for adoption. I excercised my right to choose not to abort. That is a choice as well. No one forced me to stay pregnant. It was my decision. It was the right one. So was having an abortion, at the time that I did.
The protestors, regardless of what they are protesting, are accomplishing something. They are making us look at them. They are making us think about the issue they are for/against.
they are not being hypocrites. their rationale is that by killing a few, then many are saved. so in essence, by killing the killer [person performing the abortion], then many would-be babies are saved.
That depends on whether the creature they wish to abort is a rights bearing human. If, as Tracer indicates, science cannot answer this question, then abortion is a moral issue between a woman and her God or conscience, and not a civic issue between her and her government.
John - I’ve got to say it: for a Republican, you’re a hell of a good guy. Now you can shoot me.
Seriously, I’m in almost exactly the same position you are with respect to abortion. I find the problems with the positions of either of the two ‘sides’ in the debate to be insurmountable, and what middle ground there is seems to be a thicket of contradictions. It’s good to have some company in the thicket.
:rolleyes:
:rolleyes: You’re right, Edlyn - after all, the pro-lifers are doing everything they can to make contraceptive information, and contraceptives themelves, available to horny teenagers. Especially the ‘imagine Jesus is your date’ contraceptive. [/sarcasm]
Back to the OP: actually, there’s a clear rationale behind the abortion protests, and one that has been 'fessed up to by some of the organizers: make abortion services scarce. All the protests, all the harassment (and occasional murders) of doctors and abortion clinic personnel, encourage doctors to stop providing abortions, and discourage new doctors from going into that particular line of medical practice.
Now you can shoot me.