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Inching away from the abyss? More in US identify as pro-life
The Gallup and Pew surveys on pro-life identification show that more Americans see themselves as pro-life than last year, and fewer see themselves as pro-choice. Those disputing the legality of abortion under any and all circumstances rose slightly. The Gallup poll found 51 percent identifying with pro-life, up 7 points from last year while pro-choice ID dropped 8 points. Some observers speculate that this means Obama's all-things-abortive-are-rights mentality has caused counter-momentum in the popular thinking about the propriety of abortion.
Of course Nancy Keenan, in partisan robot fashion, disputed the poll, making the lame argument that recent elections meant more people were pro-choice. She assumes the issue is what moved voters and not the economy and war. I think she knows the truth, but lies for her organization. And that should cause us to distrust NARAL, PP and like abortion industry lobbies with a monetary interest in perpetuating their own existence in the name of 'rights.'
Can a mortal wrong be a right without creating bad case law under the letter and spirit our Bill of Rights?
Many here have said they are not "for abortion" personally, however favor policies that keep it a legalized choice and a subsidized industry. Such proponents tend to avoid explaining what is wrong with abortion that they are not for it, because this would expose contradiction with the position that it should be a right.
In part this is because the valuation of life in degrees from conception to birth does not permit distinctions unless one makes eugenic or utilitarian judgments about who lives and who dies. The implications of such judgments are worse than any other rationalization for a violation of any other right less egregious than the deprivation of life.
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This should cause a stir. Way to keep the contradictions front and center, Mike. These sacred cows are killing us. No pun intended.
May 16, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Abyss?
Maybe you're right, Mike, and all the people who have abortions and all the people who perform them are mortal sinners and doomed to hell.
Why don't you let the God you profess to believe in make the final call on that?
May 16, 2009 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't see a single mention of sinners or God or any of the inflammatory rhetoric this comment implies. I think reasonable people can agree on reasonable regulations for questions of this nature without resorting to God as a higher authority.
May 16, 2009 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right, Jason. Mike did not invoke God in this particular post, although he has in the past.
I should have stuck to the line of argument he was actually making.
I think he explains what abyss he is talking about two comments down.
May 16, 2009 11:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think he is a little overwrought with the reasoning, but can hardly be faulted for coming to the conclusion that an "abortion industry" exists and will continue to protect that existence even if it means opposing common sense laws that regulate the practice.
Those groups would have more credibility with me if they actually championed restrictions and limitations rather than treating any curtailing of abortions as the slippery slope to overturning Roe v Wade. They are as unhinged in their own way as the "pro-life" are in theirs.
May 17, 2009 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
acanuck, truth is, hell is a place where there are no children or childlikeness left in us.
May 16, 2009 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a place where morose adults infect young folks with their despair and fear of the future and call upon them to abort unborn children in obedience to that fear and despair. That is right up there with televangelists stealing old folks' money and tossing their prayer requests in the dumpster. Why? Because televangelists and abortionists have monetary conflicts of interest in their most preached propaganda; both don't really believe in souls; and both toss priceless persons or their heart's prayers in the dumpster.
May 16, 2009 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you also oppose capital punishment? Or does life begin at conception and end at birth in your view?
May 16, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
The concerns of the Mike7woodsons of the world end at the orifice of the female reproductive tract.
May 16, 2009 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, lamenting tragedian, let us all concur with your empty slogan-speech and then we, yes we too can be bumper sticker literature experts.
May 16, 2009 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Grouch, when's the last time an unborn baby robbed a liquor store, put its clerk in the freezer with a bullet in her head, and then shot a cop walking in for a coffee?
Have you any idea how sophomoric that comparison is?
May 16, 2009 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, an unborn child couldn't do that because he/she hasn't been born yet, and therefore isn't alive.
May 17, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
The unborn child is not alive?
Is it dead then?
Or is there a special form of being, somewhere between alive and dead?
May 17, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Beg the question fallacy.
May 17, 2009 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
All of humankind on earth that you do not see because they are covered up by some sort of visual obstruction must also then not be alive, because they are all dependent on others to keep them alive too. Food supply, cold chain, health care, heat, cooling, water supply, etc. etc. The walking dead, eh?
The only difference is development and dependence. All of us are more developed but at a different level of dependence than the unborn.
If you could step out of your shell for a while and see that your entire ideology is directed toward a Plato's Republic scenario, I hope you would reconsider adopting the implications.
May 17, 2009 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
'In part this is because the valuation of life in degrees from conception to birth does not permit distinctions unless one makes eugenic or utilitarian judgments about who lives and who dies. '
We do that all the time. If you can't afford the chemo, you don't get it. If you can't afford the heart surgery, you don't get it. If you can't afford the organ transplant, you don't get it. If you are mentally ill, feel free to die in the gutter.
If you are an abused woman and your partner tells you he'll kill you if you get pregnant, he may well do it.
If you are an infant, you are more likely to die in the US than in most any other first world country.
But the abortion pill is becoming more common so unless you want to criminalize miscarriage and have the FBI investigate them all, all you are doing is fighting to humiliate poor, vulnerable and very young women because anyone else who needs an abortion will find a way to get one.
May 16, 2009 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
So your argument begs the question: how did we get to this place in our collective lives together as Americans, with you and others rationalizing utilitarian execution with the 'everyone does it' argument and lecturing me with self-righteousness as if you represented poor, vulnerable and very young women in their best interests.
PP and its sycophants have a social agenda that programs young people in outdated, repudiated Freudian memes about sexual repression so that they fear not to be sexually active despite theirs and their partners' inability to support families. By doing so, PP insures that there is plenty of demand for its providers' abortion services.
May 16, 2009 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
PP? That would be P L A N N E D PARENTHOOD, ie, responsible sexual behavior, with contraception in order to make PARENTHOOD PLANNED. Get it? I didn't think so.
May 17, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes and no.
May 17, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mike,
You just don't seem to get some very simple facts of human biology. I'm named after my great-great grandmother who died giving birth to her 7th child while she and her husband were homesteading out on the middle western prairie. Until the 20th century women didn't live much past 40, many died in childbirth, many of their children died as infants.
Today, young girls are healthier and mature physically much earlier than they once did. That does not mean that their judgement matures earlier, only their capability of becoming pregnant. Again because of improvements in health, women are able to become pregnant later in life as well. It is totally unrealistic to believe that women would not adapt to these facts of life by taking steps to avoid having dozens of children.
You cannot realistically police this. There is not enough law enforcement to investigate every miscarriage or every potential conception to guarantee that no abortion pill or morning after pill or contraceptive destroys fetal life.
May 17, 2009 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
You've missed the ball. I've not called for criminal punishment for women on this issue.
Spontaneous abortions or miscarriages are not volitional and engineered by human willpower, intent, choice and culpability. Comparing them is inapt.
May 17, 2009 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now I didn't address your third paragraph about coercion. We ought not make a policy that rewards coercive, abusive men. We ought to make a policy and find innovative ways to bring these men to their knees -- they are a scourge on society -- an expensive one we all pay for. Let's not enable them with an abortion policy. Good golly Miss Molly!
A person who is coerced to do something isn't responsible for doing what they were coerced into doing if they feared for their lives. However, what are the statistics for that scenario among all elective abortions? No matter, I'll stay with your condition.
Where such a scenario exists, it has been my position that the man coercing a woman to do such a thing ought to be held criminally responsible for coercion of another to murder an unborn child. After the murderer is put away, then Mom can get treatment for her many visible and invisible injuries and losses on a path toward finding someone who would joy in her, in a child that came from her, and in his own son or daughter and in the family as a whole. A male who cannot have those feelings chooses not to be a man, but an empty hedonic machine who cannot love others. How far men have fallen into insecurity, ill-resolve, and slavery to our eyes and imaginations rather than to the reality of the human beings given to us to love and care for in our lives. God help us all.
The way to make the world a better place is not to abort the innocent children of such people, but to change the hearts and minds of such people as soon as is humanely and if you believe it, divinely possible. A child, the love of a child, and finding out who we are by having the courage to greet that child fresh from the womb tells a man who he is. For many of us, it can take some time for that to sink in. It's love that makes a person turn from living like a hedonistic machine and seek something better.
Love takes pains to make life for others better. Any partisan, right or left who scoffs at that has lost his or her memory and gratitude for the love shown them; and that causes a deep despair; a desolation. Even we, whether partisans or not, can find it in our hearts to love one another if we persevere and do not give up trying.
In this, the obstacle is the path, per the old zen quote.
Or, to paraphrase the Lord Jesus Christ: take up your cross; lose your life and you will find it...
and so on.
May 16, 2009 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
And that should cause us to distrust NARAL, PP and like abortion industry lobbies with a monetary interest in perpetuating their own existence in the name of 'rights.'
Well, speaking of dishonesty, the above statement is dishonest in the extreme. First, as you well know, NARAL and Planned Parenthood do not perform abortions and are not funded on the basis of how many are performed. Second, there is no "abortion industry".
PP and its sycophants have a social agenda that programs young people in outdated, repudiated Freudian memes about sexual repression so that they fear not to be sexually active despite theirs and their partners' inability to support families. By doing so, PP insures that there is plenty of demand for its providers' abortion services.
Do you really and honestly believe the above statement? Because what you are saying is that Planned Parenthood deliberately encourages young people to get pregnant, so that they can have abortions even though PP doesn't make any money from abortions and the providers make only enough to keep open and running. There is no profitable industry related to abortions, Mike.
PP encourages sex education so that young people don't get pregnant. It is abstinence only education that has been repudiated, not contraception.
Once again, if your concern is for doing away with abortions, your attention would be focused on reducing the number of pregnancies through education and contraception, not hoping that sex between unmarried and/or unready partners will just go away.
May 17, 2009 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
NARAL and PP receive support from private abortion 'providers' and those who quietly support eugenics, or who have been socialized to believe in the cause. The support they receive is monetary. The staff of these organizations who are salaried have a monetary interest (their pay) in keeping abortion legal because it is expected of them among their donor-benefactors.
Non-profits can profit Shell; and they do. However, they simply cannot pay out dividends out of those profits. However, they can invest more in what keeps the donations, grants, bequests, devises and other income streams going, and they can increase their staff salaries accordingly. To say they are not with a conflict of interest is non-credible.
You write: "..the providers make only enough to keep open and running." Prove that with data and I'll be more inclined to believe it.
May 17, 2009 3:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Beware of single polls.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/eds/2009/05/guns-germs-babies-fun-with-pol.php and see the original Nate Silver article linked there.
"Can a mortal wrong be a right without creating bad case law under the letter and spirit our Bill of Rights?"
What is that supposed to mean? You blew off a direct serious challenge (OldGrouch) with juvenile parrot claptrap. Do you want to be taken seriously here?
May 17, 2009 4:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Come on. Comparing capital punishment to abortion isn't a serious challenge.
There must be a reason why America performs more abortions than any country in the world. I don't agree with Mike's reasoning on that, but it is hardly a crime to point out that there is an "industry" that profits from this paradigm. I suspect it is making sex "dirty" & "forbidden" that leads to unwanted pregnancies by virtue of not receiving the right education or even understanding why contraception is a requirement for sex and not a nice to have.
So, though Mike has some obvious opinions to are outside the mainstream of TPM thought, doesn't necessarily make the idea that we have too many unwanted pregnancies a non starter. I am glad the FDA lifted the ban on RU486. Now many of those pregnancies won't get started in the first place, avoiding the debate altogether.
May 17, 2009 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe we are more hypocritical than other peoples or maybe we just keep better statistics.
One of the odd facts of biology is that children become capable of conceiving children about a decade before their judgement capabilities fully develop. You can educate a 14 year old. You can do nothing about her lack of judgement other than try to keep her out of situations where she needs to use what she doesn't have. Unfortunately, that's not always possible.
May 17, 2009 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
We have failed our children in a multitude of ways, not the least of which is giving them the knowledge and confidence they need to make the right choice in such a situation.
May 17, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's not biological evolution, that's too many hormones in our meat and milk.
May 17, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason, Jason, are you kidding? Why don't you ask Mike what he thinks of RU486?
Mike? If everyone used RU486 would that make you happy? Would the debate be over?
May 17, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
As I said, I am not really all that in line with his thinking on the subject, but I can understand his point of view to a certain extent. I think reasonable people can disagree on when life begins. I happen to think the morning after unprotected sex isn't even open for debate. At that point, pregnancy isn't even a foregone conclusion let alone a growing life.
May 17, 2009 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
RU486 isn't used as a "morning after pill." Post-coital contraception is simply high doses of a birth control pill (Ovral). *
The usual use for RU486 is actually as an abortion pill to terminate an early (2 months or less) pregnancy. It works by functioning as an anti-progesterone (progesterone being the hormone that nurtures a pregnancy). In early pregnancy, the follicle that produced the egg makes progesterone, and beginning the second trimester that function is taken over by the placenta. When the progesterone level goes below, say 10, the pregnancy stops progressing.
*Low-dose RU486 could also be used as emergency contraception, but the proper dose is actually not available. Also, a pack of Ovral is far less expensive and has fewer side-effects.
May 17, 2009 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the correction. I think the point remains that by making emergency contraception available over the counter, we are avoiding at least one potential abortion decision. By providing sex education to teenagers, we avoid even more. The real goal of any policy should be to limit something that we can all agree is a worst-case scenario for most women.
May 17, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amazing expertise on how very small human beings are killed using biochemical weapons. Achtung, Baby.
May 17, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
They are not "very small human beings" the day after unprotected sex. This is why we will never make headway on this issue. Each side frames their arguments with hyperbole and half-truths.
May 18, 2009 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your absolutes are less reliable than the ancient absolutes. No offense to you if I don't find yours persuasive (never this, never that..).
Your assertion that conceived reproductive cells of man and woman are not a human life, albeit very small, is more of an arbitrary assertion than saying that it is life.
That which does not make it by nature has died because nature is not perfect, not because nature intends something or can have culpable mental states for deliberately taking a life.
Those conceived human reproductive cells that will make it but are intentionally destroyed by their developed fellow human beings are human lives aborted from life. Were they not alive, there would be nothing to abort them from. Were they not human, those conceiving them would have to be some other creature. Funny, they seem to be human beings almost every time.
And this is partly the irony of what you argue. To say that the reproductive cells conceived into a new human life are not a human life is also to say that those who conceived them are not human or alive.
It is exactly the parents' humanity and life that has been "reproduced." What, are you saying that conception is not part of reproduction? Are you saying degrees of development and dependence should matter in judging the existence of intrinsic life value? I'm sure that gives the infirm, injured war vets, the elderly and quite a few disfavored citizens the chills.
We're all dependent on others and on the world and on God for our lives, world, survival, 'evolution through death' and so on.
May 19, 2009 1:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
You don't seem to find anything you don't already agree with persuasive. If you are truly arguing that the day after unprotected sex, the accident in a woman's uterus a life then we really don't have anything to talk about.
May 19, 2009 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Accident?
Look, when you go driving, you know there is a chance you will have an accident. You try to avoid it, but the risk is there. You knowingly take that risk. You intentionally take that risk.
If you have an accident, you don't get to deny your responsibility in the accident. You have certain duties. You don't get to drag the other driver into your car and kill him in hopes he has no heirs to sue you.
In sex as in traffic, there are risks, and we're no less responsible for the former than we are the latter.
Oh, but you say we should not be, because it's an "accident." Sorry if that sort of false premise doesn't convince me.
May 21, 2009 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
A load of sperm sitting in a fallopian tube waiting for an egg is not a life. No matter how many false analogies you weave that will never be true. Let's just agree to disagree on this one.
May 22, 2009 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
You've pushed it back some, haven't you, with the unconceived cells in storage?
What's their value? Ask the man who cannot produce them, I suppose, but they're not a distinct human life with their own DNA as is the case after conception.
In many ways people define human being as an identity tied to thoughts . . . action . . . and this is information at one level. However, it is also perception. Why, when human DNA in its natural conceived state within Mom is also identity information, do you discount the human life there?
May 22, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not dialing back anything. The "accident" I was referring to correcting with emergency contraception is unprotected sex in the days after the event. If you are asking do I think stem cell research on frozen embryos is a good idea when the alternative is the incinerator, yes, I think that is perfectly moral as well. Other DNA in storage such as sperm or eggs are no more immoral than masturbation or a miscarriage.
I happen to believe that until a very specific moment in time when brainwaves and a heartbeat are detectable, then abortion is a reasonable reaction to an unwanted pregnancy. Better that than yet another unwanted (and usually abused) child in the world. After that moment in time and a compelling case must be made for protecting the mother's life. Otherwise, I think that procedure is indeed murder.
However, where we disagree is this notion that my definition of "life" should mean anything at all to anyone else. My opinions and ideals are my own. Boiling this issue down to either or choices misses and opportunity to fix the real problem which is unwanted pregnancy. That problem can be cured with education and shared prosperity and widely available contraception.
May 22, 2009 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Unwanted pregnancy" in the abortion-as-birth-control propaganda parlance is a euphemism for throwaway humanity. It is petulant, irresponsible, and obdurate.
Unwanted pregnancy? What is she pregnant with?
Why does her body gear up to support life if there is no life to support? And if she's human, how is that life not human?
May 24, 2009 12:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are being way too literal. It is a pregnancy that will ruin a mother's life or kill her. That is what we are talking about. How is her actual life less important than potential life? There is zero nuance in your opinions on this subject.
May 24, 2009 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am taking pains to spell out and navigate the nuance to get to a solution, but your form of nuance institutionalizes nuance for nuance's sake. That too is an extreme.
If a person is not wise enough to abstain from sex where he or she does not want responsibility for its clear risks, neither is that person wise or aware enough to prognosticate about whether bearing a child and putting her up for adoption or keeping her child will "ruin her life"?
Factually, you are using ideology that bearing children ruins life to replace a factual case by case inquiry into whether it actually will ruin a mother's life.
Again: there is no dispute with the science, an embryo is a human life. Philosophically, you and others deny its intrinsic value merely because you and those you purport to advocate for wish to do something in conflict with that life's survival, development and growth.
In truth, the DNA is that of an utterly new person related to, but not identical to the mother's DNA.
On stem cell research, by the way, here is a breakthrough that it makes sense for the government to support with research grants and mandate on establishment:
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1398
May 26, 2009 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not being overly nuanced. Mine is a very clear position that takes into account actaul reality.
Your opinions amount to, "Well, people shouldn't fuck." or "Every child is a blessing from Jesus." That is totally divorced from reality and does nothing to move the conversation forward. You are seeking compromise. You seek capitulation. You seek victory.
I never said ever child destroys the life of the mother. That is more of your ideological debating tactics. I said SOME unplanned pregnancies have the POTENTIAL to screw the mom's life up. The younger she is, the more potential there is that such an event would not only destroy her life, but would set that child up for failure as well.
Or you so much of a zealot that you would see even more suffering women and children in the world to satisfy the dictates of a 1,700-year-old work of fiction that gives murky advice at best when applied to a modern context. Forgive me if I stopped believing in fairy tales when I was a kid. Fairy tales contain life lessons, to be sure, but they are not meant to be taken literally. One must examine the context of the words to learn the lesson. Just parroting back chapter and verse isn't wisdom. It's being a robot.
To put it another way:
I can say "Merry Christmas" without believing in Santa Claus. I can feel the idea of Christmas without believing that Jesus was born through the seduction of teenage girl by an angel. I can wish upon my friends and family and neighbors the spirit of the season without believing that a man died from crucifixion and rose from the dead three days later.
God gave us free will and intellect for a reason. I think that if God actually did exist in the form the Bible says He does, He would be pissed as Hell that the various religions and churches have caused as much trouble as they have. He would certainly not be a fan of the Bible as His supposed Word.
May 27, 2009 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK Jason, here is exactly what you said above, that is, the thing you just said you didn't say (wow):
Jason Everett Miller wrote: "It is a pregnancy that will ruin a mother's life or kill her."
Then above you go into ALLCAPS mode hyperventilating about having said "SOME" which you clearly didn't. Don't let desperation in an argument cause you to mislead your readers as you have with your denial.
June 2, 2009 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
If it's not a serious challenge to you, jason, why don't you just make the comparison clearly in a way which shows either the hypocrisy of Mike's friends in the abortion issue or their clear-headed rationality? Both issues are about killing what at least one side considers people. Mike's reply was sewer oriented instead of adult discussion.
I know you have an agenda to promote some kind of inclusiveness here, but please don't sacrifice reason on the altar of "why can't we be friends", by the band War (heh), with or without music.
May 17, 2009 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just don't think the death penalty and abortion are realistic points of comparison with regards to policy.
I do agree that someone who supports the death penalty yet opposes abortion needs to explain the contradiction and apparent hypocrisy. I am against the death penalty for policy and equal justice reasons, not because I don't think certain people deserve to be killed.
I think inclusiveness being used as a synonym for everyone agreeing. That is wrong as far my argument goes. We will definitely not agree on everything. Hell, even people who mostly agree have disagreements. Any married guy or gal will back that one up. However, I do think we can move toward a more inclusive society that finds negotiated agreements for issues of this nature instead of stagnant cultural warfare for another generation.
May 17, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I think inclusiveness being used as a synonym for everyone agreeing."
I think it is interesting to note when typos creep into comments thus suggesting a whiff of lack of truth. If you mean my usage, it was not such a synonym in particular even if friends all agree that they ARE friends as they disagree about other stuff.
May 17, 2009 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it is interesting when you read into typos way more than is likely to be the case. You did you use inclusiveness as a synonym for everyone agreeing when that is clearly not my opinion. You need to put away the Boomer paranoia. It pollutes your thinking process sometimes.
May 18, 2009 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
"You did you use inclusiveness as a synonym for everyone agreeing "
Stop lying, jason.
May 18, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
May 18, 2009 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
"a little too easily" means "exactly correct".
No, my use of 'inclusive' does not cross any boundaries you've stated. Any unstated boundaries of yours are your doing, not mine. Further, I explained to you something about its meaning in the following reply, and you evidently blew it off, with yet another counfounding typo, without ever restating the first typo'd sentence I had pointed out.
At that juncture you've convicted yourself. The first time was mere suspicion, the second time constitutes empirical proof.
Just stop it.
The evidence:
"You did you use inclusiveness as a synonym for everyone agreeing "
"I think inclusiveness being used as a synonym for everyone agreeing."
May 18, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Using typos to make a semantics argument. I think it is you who needs to "just stop it" as you tie yourself into rhetorical pretzels of meaning never stated or even implied. Trying to somehow guess what my unstated intentions are seems too much hubris even for you.
May 18, 2009 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you would write without gross errors, or even state when asked in simple terms which reading you did mean, your words would not require black arts to discern whatever meaning a reasonable person, not you, would have meant by using them.
"meaning never stated or even implied"
Right. You failed to say anything meaningful when you twice used "typos" to hide any true intentions you may have had. If you prefer "Nonsense." to "Lies." as the apt label for your text, fine.
May 18, 2009 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Gross" errors? The missing word "is" is a gross error? You've never had a typo? Do I have to go back to commenting on nothing BUT your typos again. I have never said that being inclusive means everyone needs to be friends. Not once. Despite your idiotic protestations. You are simply a hack who can't back up his opinions without resorting to linguistic trickery. You can fuck off now.
May 19, 2009 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Touchy, eh. That was a song title, by a band call War.
"you have an agenda to promote some kind of inclusiveness here"
You -- "I think inclusiveness [is NOT] being used as a synonym for everyone agreeing."
Is or is not? That's a severe typo distinction. If you thought "is", you thought obviously wrong. Is you thought "is not" that would be true of the usage.
"You did you use inclusiveness as a synonym for everyone agreeing "
In your other quoted remark, no matter which 'you' I take out (statement or question), it's still nonsense or a lie. And since I had just before that stated the contrary clearly, you're either not reading my comments or you are lying about them.
May 19, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I missed the is. That is all. Nothing more and nothing less.
I said "I think inclusiveness [is] being used as a synonym for everyone agrees on everything. That is wrong as far my argument goes."
Meaning, in case you always disconnect everything from what came before it, I think YOU are using inclusiveness in that fashion since I have never implied that. Further, this is something you have said before and I have corrected you on before.
Your continued intransigence based on semantics and hair splitting is absurd.
May 19, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is absurdity your end? If so, fine, continue being absurd. But you keep demonstrating problems which you allege, but cannot prove, of me and my text.
And you keep lying.
May 20, 2009 12:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, I just quoted you comparing my "quest" or "missions" (I forget which now and don't feel like digging it out) for inclusiveness as meaning everyone should be friends.
You even suggested a song to cement your point.
You were being snarky and overly literal and pretty much an ass. I called you out on it and you continued to obfuscate and make inane arguments based on semantics. I haven't lied about anything. It's right there for the world to read should they be bored enough to take the time.
Do you understand what "lying" means? You are clearly suffering from early onset dementia. Seek medical attention.
May 20, 2009 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
"If you mean my usage, it was not such a synonym in particular ..."
I guess you skipped that, and what followed, from way back.
May 20, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason, comparing capital punishment of someone rightly and justly convicted for a capital crime is skew of the killing of an innocent person that abortion is.
The proper comparison to the abortion of an unborn human being, however small, is someone who is unjustly convicted of a capital crime being executed.
May 17, 2009 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Innocent people are on death row, waiting to die, each and every day. Thousands have been killed over the years. That is why the death penalty is wrong.
My main point was that, policy wise, the death penalty and abortion have zero to do with each other. One is a criminal punishment issue and the other a medical one. One can see a very distinct moment when "the quickening" arrives and we are now discussing an unborn person rather than a blob of dividing cells with a still unknown fate, given the number of miscarriages and whatnot.
We can draw a clear distinction in the case of abortion that is impossible to do with the death penalty. There is no argument that can be made against first term abortions or emergency contraception that doesn't rely on divine intervention, something men should really stop reserving for themselves.
May 18, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jason, not really.
Quickening isn't science or parental instinct, it's an arbitrary definition of human life rooted in subjective capacity to see movement.
Justifying first trimester abortion with the existence of miscarriage is like justifying the killing of motorists to reduce traffic congestion because after all, motorists have accidents all the time.
Not that this blog is going to see the light of day anyhow - the TPMCafe regulars don't have any minority blogger bump-up policy for those who disagree with them. They just pile on and suppress recommendations so that no one sees the debate or participates in it. They comment and comment on the issue, but don't recommend the post in which they comment unless it is someone they already agree with.
May 19, 2009 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not see the light of day? You have almost a hundred comments. It will see the light of each and every person who comments on it and is followed by other people.
The "quickening" is a religious definition and not a scientific definition. Here is a pretty good blog post by someone how has a better understanding of the Bible than I do, but the term I referred to isn't secular in nature.
Heartbeat and brainwaves is scientific and comes at the end of the first trimester. You are making an argument based on potential life. You are making an argument based on religion that conveniently forgets that perhaps this is all God's will? Would we have developed the procedures if he hadn't wanted fewer babies raised in desperate situations?
Oh, wait, you are now going to dismiss that particular argument in favor of some obscure Bible passage that has nothing to do with the modern world.
May 19, 2009 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, heartbeat and brainwaves are manifestations of the life, continuing signs of development of the life, however they are not the life itself. They are one of the miraculous things that come from life and sustain life as life develops, and in the case of humanity in the womb, there is dependence on parental breathing and heartbeats. Such dependence is not scientific grounds or religious grounds for denying life.
May 20, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Without a brainwave or a heartbeat there is no life but mitosis and miosis.
If a soul is to actually be found in the human form, then I hardly think God is going to throw it away on a biological process that may or may not actually lead to life. If there are no souls, then this argument is completely academic. Either way, good people can disagree on the moment when life starts. Pretending that you somehow have the "truth" while the rest of us a just sinners is the surest way to ensure nothing ever gets done.
Such ideolofical rigidity keeps the discussion at the fringes instead of the place where actual compromise is made, which is the center.
May 20, 2009 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, you've mischaracterized the balance of my argument to those here who do not share my view of when life begins. To them my argument has been that in the absence of certainty where we disagree, erring on the side of protecting life versus protecting convenience or upward mobility makes imminent sense (regarding abortion as birth control).
I've held my position on when life begins as fact because it the belief is reasoned and it is real. I'm not adopting it for rhetorical purposes only. Pretending it is not a conviction when it is may be the way to avoid offending you, but that's not worth equivocating on an important conviction.
May 20, 2009 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing serious in that comment.
May 17, 2009 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're blowing it off again. That convicts you where it was only supposed before.
The problem is that you want to justify homicide in some cases but not in other cases. That is, you selectively choose an absolutist non-rational position in one case while you embrace a relativist rational position in the other.
May 17, 2009 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here was grouch's comment:
"Do you also oppose capital punishment? Or does life begin at conception and end at birth in your view?"
Opposing capital punishment is irrelevant to opposing abortion. Let's suppose it was wrong not to oppose capital punishment. Would abortion be right because someone opposing it committed the wrong of failing to oppose capital punishment? No. Of course not. So it is a red herring question. No value in red herrings.
The second sentence is a rhetorical non-sequitur. It's also absurd and designed to waste time, as is your b.s. indignation defense of it.
May 19, 2009 12:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
No. The distinction is that a few disorganized cells do not a person make! A blastocyst is not a living being. I have participated in putting plenty of blastocysts into prepared uteri, and I can tell you that many of them don't "take." They are not living people.
And as to Jason's argument that we should leave "God" out of this, I invite anyone to make an argument against abortion without invoking religion.
May 17, 2009 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'll take that challenge.
If a woman doesn't know she is pregnant within the first three months, we need a compelling reason to end a life at that point. Once there are discernible brainwaves and a heartbeat, I think it is hard to argue we are talking about disorganized cells. That may be a moving target, but certainly no longer than the first trimester or a little bit into the second.
Once we are without a doubt talking about a life, then the bar needs to be raised in order to end that life. That bar can't be any lower than a serious health risk to the mother. Otherwise, we are simply barbarians who are using abortion as a method of birth control.
All without mentioning God or religion. :O)
May 17, 2009 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Point taken. I should have said a first-trimester abortion. I agree that after the point of viability it becomes an issue of an actual "right to life."
When I worked as a nurse practitioner in a student health clinic I once had a patient who complained of weird sensations in her abdomen. When I examined this graduate student (PHD candidate!) I found her to be 5 months pregnant! The baby was kicking and that was the weird sensation! She was so shocked, and immediately declared she would have an abortion. I spent hours talking her down, and among other things, explained that she simply could not have an abortion. At the time I was actively seeking to adopt a baby, and tried to keep my own prejudice out of it, but I am happy to say, she had the baby, kept it and did just fine.
Don't know why I am sharing this, but here it is.
May 17, 2009 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great story. It amazes me that a woman could not have her period for five months and not think something was wrong. If my wife is a couple days late, we are on full baby watch. I would think that was a fundamental woman thing and am always shocked to find out that isn't necessarily the case.
May 17, 2009 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have seen people deliver in the Emergency Room who didn't know they were pregnant. There are conditions (PCOS) where people don't have periods at all. How about the girls who deliver at the Prom? Denial going on there.
I agree, though. It is odd. (and unusual to the point of being rare)
May 17, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Which brings us back around to the main point again, which is policy should be designed to address the rule and not the exception.
May 17, 2009 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, I don't think that was the point of the blog entitled:
What that Mike said makes you think his main point was that policy should address the rule and not the exception?
May 17, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, not Mike's point. Our shared point. Mike is clearly off the reservation on this one, or at the very least unable to see the gray.
May 17, 2009 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, Sorry. Missed that.
Have you noticed that Mike disappeared from here hours ago?
May 17, 2009 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I try not to read too much into that as people tend to "disappear" around here only to come back and offer a reasonable explanation for their absence. I tend to be a bit of a communications junkie, so try not to hold people to my standards of being on point constantly.
May 17, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wishful thinking.
May 17, 2009 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
What specifically is the grey? Maybe you haven't spelled the grey out that it may be discussed. I've addressed lots of grey, much of it intentionally foggy, but I've addressed it. Solving problems demands it.
You're correct that I'm off the reservation. I don't live on intellectual reservations created for me by those who would have me join them in the reservations they've let others build for them. I defy your reservations.
May 17, 2009 9:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
My recent comment points at a grey area of paradox or outright contradiction worth answering.
"Obama acknowledged that "no matter how much we want to fudge it ... the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable." " - recent article about the ND speech
I say Obama is wrong here. It's clear that whatever possibly irreconcilable aspects might exist are NOT the substance of the issue. That is, there is plenty of room for clarification.
mageduley posted a youtube link illustrating the total lack of rationality in some fraction of those protesting against abortion. The support abortion being made illegal but admitted they had not even thought about the consequences such as punishment.
If that is why the polls show increasing support for making abortion illegal, "heaven help us". We are indeed becoming a nation of brainwashed idiots. But it is possible those people can be rescued, thus I think Obama's remark is wrong-headed.
May 17, 2009 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think those YouTube takes are reliable until it is verified that they aren't staged, but that's just a matter of vetting evidence.
Another angle: if pro-abortion rights factions are wrong, there is a holocaust happening in the U.S. under our noses. If right-to-life factions are wrong, then women bring children to term and they can be adopted. In the absence of certainty (grey area) we ought to err on the side of protecting life and avoiding the worst case scenario, genocide. At present we're seeing the opposite path.
May 19, 2009 2:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
The gray areas are all those things that aren't black and white in this discussion. I mentioned many, but here are two in case you missed them: Health of the mother and early enough that we are clearly talking about dividing cells and not "life" as we know it. If you are going to be combative when someone doesn't agree with you - though is busy defending your right to say it - then I suspect nothing will ever change.
May 18, 2009 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
A guy with Teddy Roosevelt's photo for his avatar bemoans combativeness. That's rich.
May 19, 2009 2:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Teddy wasn't combative when trying to convince people of a political position. Walk softly and carry a big stick was the way he conducted business. That is a far cry from the ideological battle you have waged on this blog.
May 19, 2009 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, Teddy engaged in toughening with a friend using large sticks to hit each other with in the wilds.
Explain what is specifically ideological and I'll take your criticism into consideration. Your assertions about ideological or religious components to discussion use labels as a substitute for specificity and good argument. Fortunately, you use fair arguing principles most of the time and labeling less of the time and that is refreshing in the blogs.
May 20, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would say that was more of a personal way to approach making oneself tough rather than how to champion change in a complex system.
I am not trying to use catchphrases in place of reason here. Abortion is one of those topics that lends itself to the extremes in political ideology. There reason I have the feeling your arguments are based in an ideological framework is the rigid nature in which you have debated the subject.
It is hard for me to point to any one line, but the overall gist is that once an "accident" has occured, any intervention in that process is paramount to murder. That seems to be an extreme position to me that most likely will lead to entrenched ideological warfare rather than common sense. All sustainable policy considerations for a pluralistic society must be made in the spirit of compromise.
Again, not trying to throw around labels, but in this particular case I can't see any way around it.
May 20, 2009 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reason for rigidity in this area of argument is what is at stake. Whether life or death decisions made for others, no matter their level of development or dependence; who threaten no one else's life with that development or dependence; demand a wisest-course of action approach in support of the fundamental right to life. The value of life makes this a hard target topic.
May 20, 2009 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The implications of the current abortion policy-regime are rule-relevant.
People here frequently try to raise capital punishment as a misdirection to false hypocrisy discussions about right to life.
In truth, in a country where helpless innocents may legally be killed off because they're inconvenient, preventing the killing of innocent persons wrongly convicted does not take on much urgency so long as the public doesn't (1) see the execution; (2) feel or hear the guy kicking while the current shoots through his body; (3) isn't made to think about these facts; and (4) can rationalize that since they weren't on the jury, they can't second guess it.
The proper death penalty comparison with abortion, BTW, is the innocent person wrongfully given a death sentence. And even the person who did commit capital murder gets more appeals and delays than an innocent unborn human being.
President Obama says abortion is not a casual decision. You wouldn't think he was in the same party with some of the folks here who speak of an unborn human being as equivalent to some neutral tissue that has no value; they even compare unborn human life to cancer. I wouldn't call that a heart-rending position on abortion.
May 17, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
"People here frequently try"
As you say, "in truth" this is bullshit on your part. People such as you frequently try to distract from the point by such moves as you started there. It just dishonest of you.
"helpless innocents" is nonsense because tissue is neither innocent nor not innocent.
The "proper comparison" for pro-lifers is the relativism in support of death penalty with the absolutism in support of making abortion illegal.
moi -- The problem is that you want to justify homicide in some cases but not in other cases. That is, you selectively choose an absolutist non-rational position in one case while you embrace a relativist rational position in the other.
Obama has his personal opinion about what is casual or not, but in general surgery is not a casual choice so it's a meaningless comment when you examine it.
"I wouldn't call that a heart-rending position on abortion."
Thanks for admitting your preference for bullshit which plays on irrational sentiment!
May 17, 2009 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
A right-to-life is not a "non-rational" absolute. If birth will kill a mom, and there's no way around it, abortion to save the life of the mother is a key exception which deals with the right to life. Some use self-defense rationales. Point: that isn't an absolute position because it contains an exception. Yet my blog here is intended to address not the exceptions, but elective abortion as birth control, from which the largest number of abortions are committed.
My point about heart-rending decision is simply that many pro-abortion rights polemicists argue that it is "just tissue" and therefore sloughing it off is not a serious matter -- "happens all the time." That means Obama has glossed over that contingent within the pro-abortion rights faction that does not see abortion as a heart-rending choice, but merely a matter of utility.
If there is a heart-rending choice to be made, then we're dealing with human life.
May 20, 2009 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good job there. Why then, but not just days before viability?
May 17, 2009 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone on this thread has the First Amendment right to make an argument involving or invoking their faith No one needs to walk on the fragile shells of egos that can't can't face the religious or non-religious ethical voices evaluating what is right and wrong among us.
If the unborn were not a human beings no one would have to kill their lives to avoid having to deal with the reality of their humanity and life revealed visually at birth.
May 17, 2009 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The unborn are not human beings, even according to Church Law, until the arrival of the "Quickening" (which many theologians have read to mean the soul) some three months into the process. If you are going to argue a point, at lest use the facts. Until there is a discernible brainwaves and heartbeat, we are talking about dividing cells. Those are the facts, Mike.
May 18, 2009 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
That may be your Church's teaching, but not mine.
Dividing is another way of saying "reproducing" and I doubt you would deny they were human cells reproducing and their sum total growing. Would they be reproducing if they were dead or inert? No. And they're reproducing into larger life from smaller life, not, as cancer, toward death.
May 19, 2009 2:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Half of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. I guess we could say that God is the most prolific mass murderer in history then. You are applying black and white definitions to a subject full of gray areas. Just like you censured others on this blog for doing.
Hypocrisy seems to be a common trait for those lacking in self reflection. Judge not lest ye be judged. More Biblical wisdom the most religious Americans can't seem to follow.May 19, 2009 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your assumption is that defects in human and other biological processes are the fault of God. I don't share that assumption.
May 20, 2009 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, he is either omniscient or not. God can't be responsible for certain things and not others. How does one decide what is his "fault" and what isn't? That is the problem with using religion as a frame for any argument. The specifics are little too complex to be handled by any sort of orthodoxy - secular or spiritual.
May 20, 2009 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
God's omniscience and omnipotence are not inconsistent with inaction. In many cases, and I suspect omniscience would know ultimate outcomes and their worth, God's inaction may exist in order to have greater mercy on the greatest number and on each individual. What we ought to fear more than anything is our own intransigence against participating in the cure with God and other people. At some point, others' hypocrisy ceases to be an excuse for our own inaction. Our own inaction is assured if God does it all for us; does all the good for us.
Also, given teachings from prophets and spiritual royalty, many wise have concluded (usually in old age) that death is not the end, nor is it the worst thing. Life in sin, disease, conflict and hardship going on forever with no cure would be worse.
However, how we conduct ourselves in this life, with all of its "sham, drudgery and broken dreams" (attempt quote from the Desiderata) has much to do with the subject of curing our diseases, spiritual and physical. Many understand death to be a process in the cure because of what God has done, therefore, what was to be done about it all has already been done. It's all over but the last sufferings before the cure ... and the reason for that is that we willingly participate in the cure for our own sake and for that of others.
When will we take responsibility for the state of this world and our lives and deaths?
May 20, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but picking and choosing what is important among the various and sundry "Words of God" is what becomes problematic.
God or Jehova or Allah or whatever gave us common sense in order to avoid the need to for writing things down. He gave us the creation as an example of systems. He gave us free will with which to exercise that understanding. Further, assigning canonical law to secular endeavors is even more problematic than figuring out who is actually right. God was pretty darned vengeful in some texts and Jesus exhorted us not to judge others, as that judgment is reserved for God alone.
There is clearly a disconnect between the world and the Word.
May 20, 2009 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you need to look at the vengeance of God in the Old Testament from a deterrence perspective. Have you read of the historical incidence of a life for a life, eye-for-eye, among the tribes of Israel? Were these morals enforced at law without exception or judgment?
Have you considered the seemingly murderous call for Abraham to sacrifice his own son Isaac, thwarted by God at the last minute?
Or, have you considered the story of Solomon bluffing with a horrific solution to a dispute over maternity? His objective was to elicit truth-telling from these women; to see who loved the child the most.
May 20, 2009 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eye for an eye means we are all unable to see clearly.
I hardly find the notion of a vengeful God to be in keeping with the notion of a just Jesus, all of which contained in the same book with the same amount of dogmatic force. I choose to believe in other miracles of creation than what has been penned by men for their own aggrandizement and enrichment.
have you read Age of Reason? Until you have (it is quite short) and given it at least as much weight as the book you keep quoting as some sort of authority on anything beyond its own fictional account of history, we are going to have a hard time discussing anything.
The bible is not a history book.
It is contradicted by its own internal inconsistencies, never mind the inconsistency of those interpreting it these last 1700 years. At best, it contains some universal human truths that have been explained by many theologies throughout the last 50,000 years of recorded human history. At worst, it was a systematic fraud created to formalize and legitimize a sect that had been fed to the lions for the previous 300 years since Jesus' death.
These things need to be taken with more than a grain of salt and much more than a hint of skepticism if they are to be useful as a guide to our lives today.
May 21, 2009 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Forgot the link ofr Age of Reason.This should be required reading for anyone who claims the bible as an authority for anything other than their own personal lives.
May 21, 2009 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
You actually started the discussion of God in this tributary of the thread. Here:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/mike7woodson/2009/05/inching-away-from-the-abyss-mo.php#comment-3470542
Yet you claim I am quoting religious text out of context, or unreasonably. That's amusing. I wrote in response to comments in which you discuss church teachings and the theology of quickening.
You also think that by quoting "Age of Reason," you are trying to establish your credentials as reasonable while implying that those who would quote scripture are not. Clarence Darrow quoted scripture. Shakespeare quoted it. Even the CIA quotes it. And these are only a few. I guess all of those were unreasonable people?
Why don't you be more specific about the contradictions in the Bible that you're talking about. Also, please point out your proof that the same theology in the Bible is derivative of 50,000 years of pre-existing theology, and render for us the meaning of that, please. What is the statement supposed to prove?
In any case, the vengeance of God depicted in the Old Testament was directed at purifying Israel as they lived on earth. It was also about protecting them from fierce enemies. There is no eternal condemnation discussed there, is there? Isn't it usually up to physical death but no further? I'll look again to see.
May 24, 2009 1:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is getting too narrow. Here is my reply.
May 24, 2009 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
If abortion becomes illegal, what should be the penalty for breaking that law?
Jail time? The Death Penalty?
The only reason to make something illegal is to punish behavior that violates that law. What punishment should that be?
You would be interested to see what these religious activists think the penalty for women should be. Check out this news vid when these demonstrators were asked that very question:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6t_tdOkwo
May 17, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe just tattoo a red "A" on their foreheads, for, er, abortionist.
Ya think?
May 17, 2009 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
My view has been that criminal penalties for women would be less effective than civil mandates such as counseling, rehab and community service related to the sociopathic recklessness of abortion as birth control.
Mothers who knowingly and freely risked their pregnancy have a special emotional and bodily status that I think should exempt them from criminal culpability regarding abortion. In truth, abortion is itself a punishment enough, however, there are no small number of people in the world who serially self-punish. With abortion, however, her serial self-punishment, or one-time self-punishment in killing her own child doesn't only affect her. It affects the unborn child and the father. And, as many have theorized about the death penalty, it brutalizes and sears the consciences of men and women so that they are desensitized to inhumanity that is packaged in rationalization.
Rapists and coercive partners coercing abortion ought to be held criminally responsible for abortions.
Corporate eugenic organizations and their knowing officers, directors, agents etc. ought to be held criminally and civilly responsible for conducting, counseling and propagandizing for abortion as birth control because it is eugenic racism mislabeled as health care where the abortion is not necessary to save the life or prevent life shortening health issues of the mother.
Men who knowingly abandon mothers of their unborn children and their unborn children should be held liable for prenatal and post-natal contractual partner support and child support and medical expenses with similar legal structures to existing child and spousal support statutes.
When you make black and white false choices in your arguments, you perpetuate the gridlock mentality of partisan willful negligence.
May 17, 2009 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
May 17, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama should then explain how it was Martin Luther King Jr. used scripture to powerful effect in obtaining the possible. He wanted inequality, racism and segregation banned.
How is it again that religion is the art of the impossible?
May 24, 2009 1:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
The "abortion industry" argument makes no sense. It all seems to hinge on "abortion providers" seeking a greater number of customers, then helping advocacy groups stay alive through financial contributions. The problem is, abortion providers are obstetricians and obstetric nurses. Performing an abortion means turning a patient into a non-patient (since obstetric services are only needed by the former). The financial incentives work in favor of obstetric health care providers keeping pregnant women pregnant for the duration of term, and delivering live babies (then clinics and hospitals will get additional money from neo-natal and pediatric care). Providing abortions entails financial sacrifice, not avarice.
May 17, 2009 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a great point. Mike, I think he punched a fatal hole in your argument as far as providers goes.
May 17, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not so fast pickabone and Jason.
Clinics don't do neonatal care, so there would be no financial incentive there. Clinics processing abortions also reduce the greatest malpractice exposure risk area out there: obstetrics. So if a clinic specializes in abortions, as those do which carry out the greatest number, the obstetric malpractice risk plummets with respect to the unborn because there is no patient to follow; in fact, we've artificially obviated the unborn patient concept by legal definition out of touch with science. What is left is the malpractice risk as affects the mother, however, that is much lower than that which attends malpractice issues affecting children throughout and later in the term.
Financially, the drop in risk and volume of sub-specialization cases (double and tripled up rooms per physician) as well as pay-up-front terms can actually make abortion very profitable to those who major in it.
I suppose you could show us the financials for abortion clinics?
May 17, 2009 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
So your theory is that it is more profitable overall for obstetricians to perform abortions than to provide medical care for a full-term pregnancy and child-birth? I think it's up to you to provide the financials to support this rather exotic premise.
Stick to your main argument. This "abortion industry" business is little more than rhetorical flim-flam intended to dehumanize the people engaged in a practice they believe is humane (and you believe is murder).
Again, it's your theory. The burden is on you to show that the numbers support it. The starting point is this: abortions are inexpensive enough for teenagers to afford them without insurance or assistance from their parents. Go.
May 17, 2009 11:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Again, we're talking outpatient procedure. We're talking volume. We're talking less red tape because the up front sum is due and paid. Less on collections. Multiple rooms. It isn't so cheap a procedure that it doesn't add up nicely. Here is testimony to the profitability of abortion clinics:
http://articles.latimes.com/1999/jan/23/business/fi-811
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/141955891.html?dids=141955891:141955891&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Jul+26%2C+2002&author=DAVID+WHARTON&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=An+E-Ticket+Ride%3B+Doc+Allred+made+a+small+fortune+in+the+abortion+business+and+spent+one+to+rescue+Los+Alamitos%3B+it+has+been+no+ordinary+life&pqatl=google
http://www.mfc.org/contents/article.cfm?id=1444
http://www.plannedparenthoodrx.com/annualreport/report-04.pdf
scroll to last 5 pages of the annual report to see general financials in support of assertions at mfc.org; also look here:
May 19, 2009 1:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't understand, did you think I wouldn't follow the links you've provided?
The first is a notice about a lawsuit the PP charges patients. Ok, how is that proof of profitability?
The second is just a headline about one guy who made a profit. The article itself is behind the LATimes paywall, so I'm not going there.
The third is a page published by an anti-abortion pressure group asserting merely that PP ended the year in the black.
Finally, the last is PP's own report, which you cite as backup for the claims of the third. If you actually look at the numbers, you'll see that in the absence of private and public grants, PP would be operating at a loss. Specifically, Revenue from Clinic Income = $306.2M and Expenses from Medical Services = $487.6M, a deficit of ~$180M. What these numbers show is that donations subsidize operations, not the other way around (which was the crux of your initial argument).
May 19, 2009 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your selective reading skills are up, as are your art skills at painting gloss over the substance of the content you've ignored.
Obtaining public and private grants is a means of profiting for non-profits which are fully allowed to profit, just not pay out dividends to shareholders or members. Grants are part of the profit, and snake oil sales jobs about abortion bring in that money. Salaries are paid, and raises are approved. People are paid to perpetuate this industry. And do you think the fund raisers are not paid healthy sums? Do you think lobbyists do not profit? Your naivete, feigned or real, doesn't recommend your arguments on this sub-topic. There is more than clinics and providers in the industry; much more.
Your review is deathly weak. The private abortion services group that sued PP in LA is the largest private (for-profit) abortion services group out there. They sued PP for engaging in for-profit activities in LA. If that's not clear to you, it's time for ran honest re-reading of these links.
Tanking data only because of who publishes it, is a false impeachment of the data itself. Should all data cited on this website be dismissed by all readers because this is a leftist website? I'm sure you wouldn't want your data citations tossed because you wrote them into TPMCafe.
May 20, 2009 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am pro-death.
May 17, 2009 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm all for the "zero-sum" solution. The fetuses should be implanted in death row inmates. Then the right's love of capital punishment balances out the left's pro-choise wishes. In the end, everyone gets a little of what they want. It's like Solomon splitting the baby, right?
May 17, 2009 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Once again you are the pilot of my ROFLcopter
May 18, 2009 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me that the biblical evidence against abortion is shaky at best. Jeremiah 1:5 seems to indicate to me that the soul exists before and separately from the body. Do you think God is so limited that He would consign a soul to an embryo He knew would be aborted or frozen, and that He would be so powerless as to have to then consign that soul to Hell/Oblivion?
Of course, if you're going to take Psalms literally, make sure you put your wife out during her period in accordance with Leviticus.
How about you start listening to what Jesus said and stop picking at people's behaviors that you disagree with (on tenuous evidence).
May 18, 2009 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink