Melinda Henneberger's certainly been an eager mouthpiece for the left in the past. I suppose she wanted to pretend such things at Gosnell wouldn't, couldn't happen although anyone could have predicted it as an outcome of what happens when you devalue human life.
The left doesn't want to know. They want to look at this as a one time aberration, not the symbol of their morally bankrupt philosophy that it is.
The best thing that could come out of this episode would be a woman like Savita Halappanavar.
She is a saint -- no, a martyr! for the pro-LIFE movement!
Let us hope for a thousand Savita Halappanavars! Many, many thousands more! Sacrificing one's life to the pro-life movement is the best trade-off that medicine and ethics could evaaaar hope to make!
Yes wyo! A politically irreconcilable conundrum. Althouse absolutely loves these.
More heat, less light. Let's make sure to resolve nothing and have a great big, empirically removed, completely philosophical internet fight, the likes of which haven't been seen since Usenet was displaced by MySpace, Friendster and Facebook.
Will we have the Pregnancy Police (hyperbole alert for those on the Autism spectrum)? Will a doctor have to report a woman's pregnancy to some state data base and if she has a mysterious miscarriage, will she be investigated?
If you folks aren't familiar w/ this columnist, she is very liberal. Her husband, Bill Turque, wrote the definitive bio of Al Gore. I knew him as a young reporter w/ the KC Star. Her following this story is quite noteworthy. She has kids, and that is most certainly a reason.
So Rits...when do you plan to make that difficult step from sarcastic, irrational teenie bopper to reasoned maturity?
Prolly about the same time you take facts and evidence as seriously as you do argumentation for its own sake.
I might do a (rolls eyes) move here for effect, but no sense in acting out the part (sarcastically) that you're looking to prove.
Anyway, my stance is as always. Gosnell violated the law on many counts, disposed of lives that he had no business killing, and is now used as a rallying cry by a movement that thinks cells are little persons. Whichever one of those points anyone here wants to debate, I'd be open to debating, and have debated many times. Until it just plain got boring.
So I figured it'd be high-time to throw in the satirical and timely twist of pointing out how pro-death the "pro-life" "movement" is when it came to the life and death of Savita Halappanavar.
I mean, as long as we all want rallying cries to make our points.
There is certainly no shortage of outraged attention to the “personhood” movement, which would define life from the moment of conception as worthy of protection under the law.
Pro-lifers will get no traction until we recognize the difference between bad abortions and homicidal abortions. Focus on the homicides. Focus on our laws in regard to death and when people die.
There is nothing in our law that suggests that killing a microscopic organism is murder. A zygote has no head, no brain, no heart, no lungs, none of the biological markers that we use to mark whether you or I are alive.
And it's simply absurd to say that our Constitution forbids all abortions. And that is what the "zygote is a person" crowd is arguing. This argument has done much damage to the pro-life movement.
And it's a horrible idea to ask the Supreme Court to dictate a rule in regard to when life begins. All pro-lifers should do is insist that the baby's life be recognized under our law, and protected.
The argument that an unborn baby is property is obscene. Obviously she is alive at some point. And--contrary to what the Supreme Court says--state law does indeed tell us when people are alive or not alive.
We have legal authority in all 50 states that killing a baby with brain activity is murder. Thus we should fight hard to say that an unborn child is a constitutional person, and as such is entitled to the same life-or-death standards that every other person in the state receives.
In other words, our Constitution forbids a state from permitting homicides against a class of people. But we can't dictate a special "homicide" rule, even if we think our rule is quite good. We have to accept the state's definition of when people die, and apply those rules.
We should stop treating unborn babies as an "other," and start giving them the same life-or-death standards that we apply to born infants. That's what our fight should be about--the legal recognition of the humanity of the unborn.
Inga - that tune will never fly. Totalitarian strangleholds over one's body is something that connies find appealing, you see.
So, what you have to do is make your point as true and gruesome as the ones that they find compelling. That is, point out that their pregnancy police are a force that want to kill the pregnant by forcing septic shock on them - as they have done with Savita Halappanavar.
Notice how none of the connies so far (and, I bet, throughout the night) will contest the obvious gruesomeness and truth of that dastardly act.
You have to keep in mind, you're dealing with a group that thinks torture might be a compelling interrogation tactic, that voted in an administration that acted out Phillip Zimbardo scenarios on prisoners in the countries they occupied, doused them in shit, electrocuted their genitals, etc., etc., etc. They think that waterboarding is something that young, blonde Californians do in the Pacific waves for fun. So, you have to understand their stomach for gruesomeness in making a real point and sticking with it.
Let them speak for Savita Halappanavar, and all the Savita Halappanavars they hope to sacrifice for the sake of the sacred sperm and egg cell unions.
Are there more abortion doctors like Gosnell? Yes.
To understand why you have to consider that abortions are legal up to the 24th week of pregnancy.
Here is a long excerpt from an article in today's NY Post about the Gosnell case written by Kyle Smith:
A primary reason the Gosnell case has received amazingly scant and grudging attention from most of the major media outlets is that it's impossible to discuss illegal abortions without thinking more about legal ones. It's necessary (unless you think abortion should be illegal) to declare an arbitrary cutoff point. But is 24 weeks the right one? Fetuses that old have an excellent chance of surviving once born. By contrast, at 21 weeks or less, viability outside the womb is virtually nil. You can bet that Planned Parenthood, which enjoys strong support from the media, would raise an unholy ruckus at any suggestion that the 24 week limit is not strict enough. Yet when a 23 weeks pregnant woman [in a sting operation] told a Bronx clinic, "It actually looks like a baby" she was told by a counselor "It is at this point." Not to worry, though: all that would be left after the abortion, she was told, would be "pregnancy parts" and "tissue." The New York Times, in the sole article it published on the Gosnell trial before it grudgingly admitted the story was important, incorrectly and revealingly referred to the murdered babies who had survived abortion as "fetuses." Fetus? No. That's misinformation meant to downplay what happened. Once born, you're no longer a fetus. And ending your life is infanticide, not abortion.
What a heartbreaking story! On the one extreme we have Gosnell like people and on the other extreme we have equally irrational nuts who would rather kill the mother.
When they have to break "it" or cut "it " to pieces " in order to remove "it" slice "its'"spinal cord or inject"the solution" to stop that annoying moving after "it " leaves the mothers body, then maybe we can "have a conversation" about adjusting the time frame a bit.
Yep, pm. My job is to publicize their acts as much as Gosnell's atrocities are rightly publicized.
Ing - I dunno if St. Croix has weighed in on the Indian woman in Ireland, but the mere fact that he acknowledges zygote-fetishism for the lunacy it is, is progress enough - for me anyway. That's the rational starting point for anyone claiming to be pro-life to abandon. We can debate the gray areas that lead to the Savita Halappanavars, down the road. But this is progress enough, given where so damn many of them are starting from.
Ritmo, has St. Croix weighed in on Savita Halappanavar?
Yes. The doctors made a mistake in that case.
If you're asking whether doctors have a legal right to kill an unborn child in defense of the mother's life, of course they do. I think that's always been the rule in Anglo-American law.
Æthelflæd said... Oh good grief, any stroll through Googleland will show that the Halapannavar case is so much b.s.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
We have a winner - our first troll taking his stroll in the conspiracy theory mode of mitigation.
But at least the stained glass guy (like Han Solo in carbonite?) is distracted from his likely usual defense of the "special cells".
This is to be expected. Connies love them a good conspiracy. But that case was less scientific than human tragedy so we'll see how credibly they'll advance it.
If you're asking whether doctors have a legal right to kill an unborn child in defense of the mother's life, of course they do. I think that's always been the rule in Anglo-American law.
Thank you! I'm not a fan of the rhetoric, but this is indeed a function of our institutions (something conservatives used to appeal to) and traditions, dating back to Blackstone's defense of quickening as the time when a fetus' life takes exception of any sort. And Blackstone appeals to the ancient normative customs in this regard.
But alas, he didn't have the "advantage" of photographs to use as propaganda.
No, Ritmo. No conspiracy. The doctors all denied making a medical decision based on any abortion law. The law wouldn't hav e prevented it anyway. It is an ugly, prroly built straw man to distract from the questions at hand. If you don't believe the doctors, well that makes you the conspiracist.
the mere fact that he acknowledges zygote-fetishism for the lunacy it is
That's not what I said. I think the creation of a human child is an amazing miracle, and worthy of our respect. I think the disdain that some people have for pregnancy is obscene. And I am against even early abortions, except in cases of rape or medical necessity.
My point is merely that pro-lifers should focus all our arguments on infanticide.
We have laws on the books in regard to when people die. And it's quite evil for the Supreme Court to say that the baby's life is irrelevant. I object to defining her as property. And I object to a Supreme Court that finds an invisible right to dismember or decapitate a baby outside the birth canal.
Ms.Hungary 1955, I don't have any simple ideas like yourself. This is a complex problem filled w/ emotion. Right now I'm just pointing out those w/ the temerity to shoot from the hip on a life/death issue.
How can we FORCE a woman to carry a baby? How can we FORCE a woman to feed a baby? How can we FORCE a woman to clothe a baby? How can we FORCE a woman to soothe a baby? How can we FORCE a woman to carry a baby in her arms and tuck her in at Night? How can we FORCE a woman to carry a baby that may grow up to be Bi-Sexual and not be able to pick a restaurant? How can we FORCE a woman to do the Dishes? How can we FORCE a woman to speak Esperanto?
Your last, and most gruesome "point", St. Croix, you'll have to take up with the AMA and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. I'm not about to. But if you want to argue medical ethics with them, go have at it.
The points leading up to that are based on SCOTUS' obvious respect for precedent and the traditions that Blackstone articulated. Viability was a point taken from his identification of quickening as a new stage of the game. And yes, cells that live in our bodies are our own property. Watson and Crick did not somehow make the Lockean basis for our rights and liberties irrelevant.
The rest of your comment you sprinkle with the usual tear-jerking verbiage, and not unjustifiably so. But you have the advantage of medical technology allowing you to do so. That's fine, but you still have to offer up your own body (which medical technology ALSO now allows) if you're going to say a woman has no say in how hers would be used in that regard. Or pay for an artificial incubator.
Inga, I don't know what the personhood laws actually say or if they actually involve anything binding or are just statements... a "we affirm" sort of thing.
I doubt they're practical as something that can be enforced.
Still, where is the counter-bid? Of course a largish segment of pro-lifers are going to push for life defined at conception. So far as I know the pro-abortion side of the issue is still at the point of, "baby? what baby?","it's a person when I say it's a person", or else "after passing naturally through the magic portal." (Unnatural passage, per Gosnell or that Planed Parenthood lady, doesn't count.)
Pro-abortion has been careful to never address the question of life or admit that pro-life people have any agenda past wanting women to suffer... the baby doesn't exist.
So I'd like a counter-bid. People don't like "personhood" laws that define a person as a person at conception... they should counter-bid.
Who forced her to spread her twat without adequate protection? Are women that stupid? I really don't get it.
If you don't want to be responsible for a human life, then take precautions. It's like saying "oh why bother brushing my teeth? I can just have them surgically extracted later!"
Shut up, Beta. No one forces any woman to not give up for adoption. Anyone of them can leave a baby at any point up to 30-days post delivery anonymously in any hospital no questions asked. Possession of a womb instead of a crib does not violate this right.
And you shut up, too, autistic Chickie. I'm getting about damn sick and tired of your full-on mind blindness and peanut gallery piggy-backing on this. It's a bunch of lame fellatiating, is what it is. Imagine yourself in someone else's shoes, for once in your life. Or just go make a damn voice-over recording. Either way, you'll make about as much of a useful contribution to the discussion.
"Who forced her to spread her twat without adequate protection? Are women that stupid? I really don't get it."
Women really aren't that stupid. But it's important to the pro-abortion lobby to insist that they are that stupid. If they so much as hinted that women were fully functional adults the abortion argument would quickly turn into... "Were you raped? No? Well then, dur!"
Palladian, that's pretty nasty. You want to force women to have babies that they irresponsibly conceived? Do you think they would carry the baby, or just get an illegal abortion in the same or worse conditions as Gosnell. Or maybe keep the baby and abuse it to death? So basically are you saying a woman who gets an early abortion deserves to be treated like a sub human?
And you shut up, too, autistic Chickie. I'm getting about damn sick and tired of your full-on mind blindness and peanut gallery piggy-backing on this. It's a bunch of lame fellatiating, is what it is. Imagine yourself in someone else's shoes, for once in your life. Or just go make a damn voice-over recording. Either way, you'll make about as much of a useful contribution to the discussion.
That just so screams to heard in Churchill's voice!
But I shant do it..not tonight.
But Ritmo, sir, dude: you are seriously starting to sound like mean Titus--especially towards me--today. So knock it the fuck off. I hardly fear you whoever you are.
I always wondered how the message would go over if we told women who got abortions that they were obviously going to abuse their children to death.
Truth is... abusive parents usually *want* their babies. Certainly abuse hasn't ended because abortion was legal. The abuse argument isn't a good one, not if you run a reality-check.
Premeditated acts of murder without cause (e.g. innocent victim) are crimes committed against the individual, society, and humanity. They are actions which cause a general devaluation of human life and the consequences are not limited to the victim. They cannot be tolerated in a civilized society. The murderer, and any accessories, must suffer repercussions for making the wrong choice.
Ethel, the author of this article mentioned Personhood Laws twice, it's worth discussing. Do any of you anti abortion-from conception types KNOW what the hell you are advocating? Do you have any idea of how difficult itwould be to enforce? What he ramifications would be?
Don't you realize that this crazy absolutist stance on abortion will make pro choicers dig in even deeper, fight harder?
Although you might not have motivations beyond basic, primal emotions, I'm trying to make a point that goes beyond that. If you're not capable of having a serious discussion about topics that most sane people find serious, fine. So be it. Knock yourself out. But don't think that your effort to troll for attention on it with the usual goofy puns is going to win points. And BTW, St. Croix did not demolish that point.
I guess sometimes you just can't get beyond a few language games. I suppose I should just let it go, but it does get annoying. Kind of like when your dad was driving the car when you were four years old and started asking repetitive, distracting, nonsensical questions as a way to compensate for the fact that the road was getting more attention than you, and you couldn't drive.
Will women who naturally miscarry be put in the position of PROVING they didn't get an abortion?
Inga, the way criminal laws work, you have a presumption of innocence, and the state has to prove the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
Not every death results in a criminal investigation. Somebody has to report their suspicion to the police. And they look into it.
Say a newborn dies, a case of SIDS. And somebody, a neighbor or family member, calls the police. So what do you do? You look into it. You ask a few questions and you try to be as sensitive as possible.
Only if you have probable cause to believe she killed her baby, would you prosecute her.
But Ritmo, sir, dude: you are seriously starting to sound like mean Titus--especially towards me--today. So knock it the fuck off. I hardly fear you whoever you are.
I like his hatred toward people on the autism-spectrum (of which I'm supposedly one). The yawning cavern of tolerance displayed by the modern so-called liberal!
You're just a mean, fucked-up bully, Ritmo. And I'm surprised that Inga pretends not to see that--as sensitive as she pretends to be towards bullying.
Inga has her own outbursts, so she understands passion. And she doesn't like true bullies.
But what she also doesn't appreciate much is liars. Make sure you're telling the truth not just as you see it for the sake of protecting your own reputation, but when you're wrong as well.
Synova, it's your opinion that abusive types WANT their children, any cites to studies? Statistics to prove that, really have a hard time believing that they want their children.
I like his hatred toward people on the autism-spectrum (of which I'm supposedly one). The yawning cavern of tolerance displayed by the modern so-called liberal!
If you can solve for me the conundrum of how I'm supposed to show empathy for people who lack it (which you supposedly do or don't), then please explain that to me.
In the meantime, I'll show just about as much compassion for you tonight as you'll show anyone else. Which seems to be none.
Maybe the conservatives are right and you're earning your bad situation and tough luck. Either way, you're taking something out on me, and it's as ugly as anything.
I told you a personal tid-bit the other night as a test, to see if you'd be the sort of shit who would come back and use it insultingly against me. And of course you did. You're just as much of a sociopath as I'd hoped you weren't. I shan't engage with you any further.
Inga, my crude comment about women was intended sarcastically, but my incredulity about the inability to prevent pregnancy in the first place was sincere. There are so many effective birth control methods, there is no reason, aside from grave irresponsibility, that unwanted pregnancy can't be prevented.
I told you a personal tid-bit the other night as a test, to see if you'd be the sort of shit who would come back and use it insultingly against me.
Consider my own test whether you'd show compassion to others despite what you're going through. And since on that score, you're certainly failing miserably (reducing women's bodies to "twats"), I'm more than happy to give what you think others should get.
And of course you did.
See above.
You're just as much of a sociopath as I'd hoped you weren't.
Um, it's not wise to state that you're not sure of whether you possess the capacity for empathy before declaring others to be sociopaths. Just a word. To the supposedly wise.
I shan't engage with you any further.
Good. I was getting bored by supposedly high-minded, shallow cultural references by someone who couldn't engage any deeper or moral human issues if his life depended on it, who admitted to murderous fantasies, and who yet fancied certain thoughts about me. I'll consider your shunning of me to be a mercy, given how messed up a place (mentally, at least) you seem to be stuck in right now.
Inga, I don't know what the personhood laws SAY. I only know what those in opposition say they say and I've learned that in almost all cases that someone is howling about how women are going to be forced to be broodmares the facts are something else.
Just a bit ago I posted comments to an abortion thread on some social site (don't usually do that) and while one pro-abortion person was all "reasonable" there was another who posted and posted and posted the assertion that "No baby exists!" Stop saying "baby" she'd order over and over. It's not a baby. It's a fetus. No baby exists. It's not a baby. Stop saying baby.
If you asked her "why" it wasn't a baby, what made it not a baby... "because it's NOT", it's obvious, it's a FETUS. And on and on. And it was a fetus until the day it was born. And don't you say "baby", don't use the term "baby." It's NOTHING.
No cognition... just a definition.
Sure... personhood laws might be an ultimate set-back for pro-life, but I doubt they will be a set-back just as much as I doubt they'll pass. They illustrate that we *ought* to be concerned with the question that no one on the other side is asking or is willing to talk about.
And there is no shortage of people like the woman speaking officially for Planned Parenthood, or Gosnell, or that person posting to the thread who couldn't explain any reasoning at all why a fetus was unimportant medical waste at 9 months before it was born, and a baby after it was born.
"Synova, it's your opinion that abusive types WANT their children, any cites to studies? Statistics to prove that, really have a hard time believing that they want their children."
Inga... they don't give them up.
I don't know why I'd need studies or cites to prove that. Yes, it's not logical or sane, but someone who abuses their child isn't logical or sane. Right? Why expect them to be?
People don't like "personhood" laws that define a person as a person at conception... they should counter-bid.
A person is a live human being.
If life beings at conception, when we are just a microscopic atom, then death happens when our last molecule disappears. Ashes to ashes, microscopic organism to microscopic organism.
But we don't say that. We've never said that. Our measures of human life have said movement or breathing or heartbeat or brain activity. We've never said "if there is an atom of our body in existence."
Under current law in all 50 states, and Washington D.C., human death happens when we have zero activity in our brain stem and our cerebral cortex.
What the courts need to do is take the homicide issue off the table. And you do that not by inventing new rules that we like. We do that by following our existing rules in regard to when people die.
"I daresay most of us women got your point, Palladian, without falling into sexism concern troll mode."
There's a lot of that about.
Pretty laughable to hear someone unsure of his own capacity for empathy calling others sociopaths, and declaring concern to be a carte blanche form of "trolling".
Abusive parents grimly hang on to their parental rights in the foster care system, preventing kids from being adopted, past all reason. Adopting an abused child can be an extremely frustrating, drawn-out process.
Inga, best not to take Palladian seriously tonight. He's only out for those concerned with him personally.
If you think the subjects of this discussion merit serious treatment, though, then Palladian will just go eat worms. Or in some other melodramatic way, declare his own self more important. How dare you discuss the concerns of others as if anyone other than HE undergoes any hardships!
Synova what type of woman doesn't use birth control and has seven or eight abortions? Will this woman who could be forced to carry the baby, possibly start abusing it in utero, by continuing her crack habit, or alcoholism, or prostitution? Did you watch the documentary about the Gosnell clinic St. Croix opted a coup,e of times?
Inga wrote: Palladian, that's pretty nasty. You want to force women to have babies that they irresponsibly conceived? Do you think they would carry the baby, or just get an illegal abortion in the same or worse conditions as Gosnell. Or maybe keep the baby and abuse it to death? So basically are you saying a woman who gets an early abortion deserves to be treated like a sub human?
Do YOU want to force a woman to have babies that they improperly conceived who haven't aborted in 23 weeks?
What pro-lifers really need to do is rally at the next Senate confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. And the nominee should be asked to give us their definition of "person." And they should also be asked if a baby in the womb is a "person" or "property."
Nor should they be allowed to duck the question, since all 9 Supreme Court Justices currently define the baby as property.
The dehumanization of the baby is key to this fight. The "fetus" word is like the word "Negro." It's a quasi-scientific word that's actually designed to create distance and to dehumanize.
Doctors might say "fetus" for baby, as they might say "gravida" for pregnant woman. But the Supreme Court has adopted this rhetoric for propaganda purposes. Even in the Gosnell case, when he's charged with murdering newborns, our Pravda media continues to use the "fetus" term.
It's designed to make homicides acceptable. The entire fight revolves around the dehumanization of the unborn. Supreme Court Justices should not be allowed to slide on this. They should be challenged on this at every opportunity.
What is a person? Define the word for us. And any definition other than "live human being" is, in my opinion, utterly unacceptable.
Unfortunately, women with a "boyfriend of the week" also tend to have babies for the same reason; because they're emotionally needy and think the baby will love them.
I think that brain activity is a reasonable legal point of "personhood" since there ought to be a legal point that is definable in a empirical way. But I don't think that's going to solve the problem of abusive mothers or boy-friends.
What if women just went through the abortion procedure every six months, pregnant or not? Then it isn't an abortion, it is just routine maintenance, like getting your teeth cleaned.
"You want to force women to have babies that they irresponsibly conceived? Do you think they would carry the baby, or just get an illegal abortion in the same or worse conditions as Gosnell. Or maybe keep the baby and abuse it to death? So basically are you saying a woman who gets an early abortion deserves to be treated like a sub human?"
No more than you're saying the baby should be treated as sub human. There's a lot of rhetoric, but the fact remains that defenseless people are dying because their mothers are killing them. By anybody's definition those mothers should be considered sub human.
I'm wondering what defense pro abortion people will have for themselves when they confront God? I think He will know their hearts and there won't be much they can say. Of course, if you don't believe in God the point is moot until you meet up with Him. I wouldn't want to try to make most of the arguments being made here under those conditions. You could give God at least as much of the benefit of the doubt as you're giving abortion proponents.
I sometimes have conference calls with Vinnie and Mac.
They're just around the corner. But when's we wants to get hoagie sandwiches and grape sodas we call each other up. At once.
I remember when Professor Lambeau is looking for the kid solving his math problems in Good Will Hunting, and the janitor says, oh yeah, this is Professor Hayes.
"There's a lot of rhetoric, but the fact remains that defenseless people are dying because their mothers are killing them. By anybody's definition those mothers should be considered sub human."
Or, at least, accomplices to murder.
If a mother puts a murder contract out on her 5 year old daughter, how does the law treat her?
Or, on her 4 year old daughter?
Or, on her 3 year old daughter?
Or, on her 2 year old daughter?
Or, on her 1 year old daughter?
We all know what the law would do.
But, should she hire a "doctor" to murder her baby in utero, she's a candidate for a speaking slot at the Democrat National Convention.
There are plenty out there I assure you. Let the leftist abortion lobby try to protect them at their own peril. Obama has clearly made his claim that he is a supporter of the death culture. Not only killing our unborn children, but also our economy and country. He is the real enemy and I don't care that he is the president.
Special Ed is one of the best characters on Crank Yankers. Download some of the episodes if you haven't already. They're hilarious.
Watching them helps one get some of the infantile energy out of one's system that (ahem) others reserve for the way they approach these discussions on the thread.
In any event, I like the one where he calls up a gymnasium crying, and stating that he'd peed in their pool.
The woman responds in a reassuring voice, that everything will be ok. Which reassures Ed so much that he starts getting excited. Yeayyyy!!! I PEED IN YOUR POOL!!!! YEAYYYY!!!
Apparently he got the wrong lesson from that exchange.
Also watch the one where he calls up Dunkin' Donuts.
Although, I must confess, if there is any solace whatsoever for the 50 million killed by abortion since 1973, one can presume (based on the generally historic rate of filial political ideology) a disproportionate number of them would have favored in utero infanticide like their parents did. So, in around about way, they may* have had chosen for them what they themselves may have chosen for their own children.
*"May," only because we don't know these things for certain. They may have, had they survived mom's need to kill, been utterly repulsed by the act itself, like any normal person.
That, and troll does not understand the definition of "holocaust." No surprise there.
We're being mean, though, Inga. There are really awesome people above who plead for the special treatment that allows them to treat others more rudely than they think they deserve to be treated.
Tim, who refers to other, actually living, breathing humans in the form of demeaning, common nouns, not even pronouns, pretends to be taken seriously when pleading for compassion on the part of pre-formed humanoid larvae with gills and tails.
The special helmet-wearing asshole will not be taken seriously.
Until then, the fact that you hide behind 3rd-person speech (the way toddlers refer to themselves before learning how language works) only reinforces your morally infantile sensibilities. And why no one takes you seriously.
I expect that you will now begin referring to yourself as "Tim" instead of "I" or "me".
"I'm so glad for all the gynecologists and obstetricians chiming in on the Althouse thread. They really give rich insight into the issue of pregnancy."
I'm sorry that no one is around to explain to you how pregnancy happens or what it is, Ritmo.
But I'll try...
You see... when a Mommy and a Daddy love each other very much, they end up with a baby. When Mommy and Daddy want to have a party, they end up with a tumorous mass that needs to be removed before it pops out and becomes a person requiring 18 years of financial support.
Tim couldn't be taken less seriously than if he said: "Me Og. Me hungry. Feed Og."
He is too immature to address others directly.
Maybe someone aborted the part of his brain that processes the fact that others beside himself exist. And not just as the sort of theoretical people-to-be that Holden Caufield wanted to save.
I think some of us are in agreement as to when a human life begins, that being brain activity. As for the absolutists here who think that abortion will be eradicated because of laws that prohibit legal abortions, think again. What I see is a bunch of authoritarians that want to control a woman's right to choose what she can do with her own body.
If you think you can force a woman to carry a baby, you better be prepared to set up the Pregnancy Police, for real.
Exactly. The issue is equal protection and there are already laws and procedures to address its enforcement. Beyond that, there is a cultural process through normalization to promote a behavior and outcome which has a redeeming value to society and humanity.
The people who are attempting to direct the argument to focus on exceptions are the same people who support a redistributive change economic model, institutional discrimination, unmeasured immigration, and other forms and kinds of involuntary exploitation.
It is the same people who choose to normalize arbitrary classes of dysfunctional behaviors while discriminating against other dysfunctional or unproductive behaviors.
This is liberal (i.e. unprincipled). It is progressive (i.e. incremental). It is selective nonsense. It sponsors corruption of individuals, institutions, government, and society. None more degenerate than tolerating or encouraging, really, irresponsible behavior which causes a general devaluation of human life and dignity.
Inga... the fact that outlawing abortions entirely is unlikely to save all the babies, has nothing to do with the motivation of people who would like that to happen. Yes, it's about the babies. It's not about wanting to control women or wanting to stick it to the ones who can't control themselves.
You may as well say that because outlawing murder doesn't stop murder, that the law isn't about murder being wrong but about something else. Of course it's about murder being wrong. That laws don't have perfect enforcement or perfect preventive power is irrelevant.
I agree that a lot of what people would like to do is impractical... but I don't then decide that they're lying about it.
When Waddill arrived, he found two nurses providing routine care to Baby W. Waddill then took over and proceeded to strangle the child to death in front of horrified witnesses including several nurses, an emergency physician, and a pediatrician -- complaining all the while that, "I can't find the goddam trachea," "This baby can't live or it will be a big mess," and "This baby won't stop breathing!"
A pathologist examined the baby's lungs and concluded that she'd been alive for at least 30 minutes. The autopsy found the cause of the baby's death to have been "manual strangulation." The baby's gestational age was determined to have been 29 to 31 weeks.
Waddill was charged with murder in the death of Baby W. All told, over 13 weeks of testimony, the witnesses described three unsuccessful attempts by Waddill to strangle the baby, and the fourth, successful, attempt. But during deliberations, the jury asked for clarification of a procedural point. A few phone calls to clarify the point led to the discovery by the attorneys and judge that there was a definition of "death" in the California health and safety code that the jury had not been informed of. Because the testimony hadn't directly addressed this particular definition of "death," the jurors became hopelessly deadlocked over whether Waddill's actions, though clearly causing what laymen would consider the "death" of the baby, had caused what the law would call the "death" of the baby. The judge had to delcare a mistrial. A second jury was also deadlocked, and the charges against Waddill were eventually dismissed.
To me, it's a rights issue rather than a religious issue.
The issue of abortion, likewise, is a rights issue, except for some reason many people disregard the rights of the autonomous human growing inside a woman.
Before there is brain activity, is there a human? The woman deserves a choice, she needs a window in which to make that choice. Abortion has been around for over a thousand years.
Before there is brain activity, is there a human? The woman deserves a choice, she needs a window in which to make that choice. Abortion has been around for over a thousand years.
So has "marriage", according to the anti-gay-marriage people. Does that make it, a priori, good, or right, or immutable?
A lot of things have been around for thousands of years... infanticide, for one.
And yes... women deserve a choice and control over their reproduction.
Which is why many pro-lifers, even if they don't like it, will support abortion in cases of rape.
Abortion isn't a choice... it's a do-over. And I'm not at all sure that everyone deserves a do-over that involves destroying a life which, if simply left alone, will become a person.
I'm willing to go to "brain activity" for practical reasons, not for moral ones.
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270 comments:
1 – 200 of 270 Newer› Newest»"And do we want to know?"
NO
I dunno.
I'm thinkin' that Kermit Gosnell considers himself black, and that he's helping the community. Please correct me!
I'm guessin' that abortion is rampant in the black community.....cuz life is cheap in the black community.
LBJ and affirmative action attempted to level the field, and judging by the current newspaper headlines that has been a complete failure.
How do we make life in the black community valuable?
Which is really a sad statement, because I am acquainted with many Chinese immigrants, and they don't have a problem.
Carhart.
Of course there are....
In Baton Rouge LA 20 years ago we had such a clinic and it was shut down.
Melinda Henneberger's certainly been an eager mouthpiece for the left in the past. I suppose she wanted to pretend such things at Gosnell wouldn't, couldn't happen although anyone could have predicted it as an outcome of what happens when you devalue human life.
The left doesn't want to know. They want to look at this as a one time aberration, not the symbol of their morally bankrupt philosophy that it is.
Abortion should be regulated to the same extent as guns.
She doesn't support Personhood Laws, interesting supposition, how WOULD such laws be enforced?
Of course there are.
And if Gosnell goes to prison--Barry will pardon him around Christmas, 2016.
The intellectual richness of this thread is sure to be incalculable.
O Ritmo Segundo said...
The intellectual richness of this thread is sure to be incalculable.
Only if you decide to post in it about 12-15 times.
One of us is being sarcastic. I wonder which one.
The best thing that could come out of this episode would be a woman like Savita Halappanavar.
She is a saint -- no, a martyr! for the pro-LIFE movement!
Let us hope for a thousand Savita Halappanavars! Many, many thousands more! Sacrificing one's life to the pro-life movement is the best trade-off that medicine and ethics could evaaaar hope to make!
One of us is being sarcastic. I wonder which one.
The irrational one?
Don't worry, CEO. Many teenagers use sarcasm copiously as a preliminary step before journeying down the road to reason and maturity.
This particular battle has been fought numerous times.
Has anyone changed their mind?
I doubt it.
Yes wyo! A politically irreconcilable conundrum. Althouse absolutely loves these.
More heat, less light. Let's make sure to resolve nothing and have a great big, empirically removed, completely philosophical internet fight, the likes of which haven't been seen since Usenet was displaced by MySpace, Friendster and Facebook.
That should be fun.
So Rits...when do you plan to make that difficult step from sarcastic, irrational teenie bopper to reasoned maturity?
I hope--for our sakes--fairly soon.
Will we have the Pregnancy Police (hyperbole alert for those on the Autism spectrum)? Will a doctor have to report a woman's pregnancy to some state data base and if she has a mysterious miscarriage, will she be investigated?
Yes wyo! A politically irreconcilable conundrum. Althouse absolutely loves these.
Indeed. It's like trolling from boredom.
If you folks aren't familiar w/ this columnist, she is very liberal. Her husband, Bill Turque, wrote the definitive bio of Al Gore. I knew him as a young reporter w/ the KC Star. Her following this story is quite noteworthy. She has kids, and that is most certainly a reason.
All you proponents of Personhood Laws from conception onward, any ideas of how these laws should be enforced?
Put on your hypothetical hats!
So Rits...when do you plan to make that difficult step from sarcastic, irrational teenie bopper to reasoned maturity?
Prolly about the same time you take facts and evidence as seriously as you do argumentation for its own sake.
I might do a (rolls eyes) move here for effect, but no sense in acting out the part (sarcastically) that you're looking to prove.
Anyway, my stance is as always. Gosnell violated the law on many counts, disposed of lives that he had no business killing, and is now used as a rallying cry by a movement that thinks cells are little persons. Whichever one of those points anyone here wants to debate, I'd be open to debating, and have debated many times. Until it just plain got boring.
So I figured it'd be high-time to throw in the satirical and timely twist of pointing out how pro-death the "pro-life" "movement" is when it came to the life and death of Savita Halappanavar.
I mean, as long as we all want rallying cries to make our points.
Whenever the Hungarian battle ax Inga chimes in, the great Broadway tune, "Send in the Clowns" can be heard playing.
Spinelli, what you don't have any ideas?
Bueller?
No one here want to join the Pregnancy Police?
There is certainly no shortage of outraged attention to the “personhood” movement, which would define life from the moment of conception as worthy of protection under the law.
Pro-lifers will get no traction until we recognize the difference between bad abortions and homicidal abortions. Focus on the homicides. Focus on our laws in regard to death and when people die.
There is nothing in our law that suggests that killing a microscopic organism is murder. A zygote has no head, no brain, no heart, no lungs, none of the biological markers that we use to mark whether you or I are alive.
And it's simply absurd to say that our Constitution forbids all abortions. And that is what the "zygote is a person" crowd is arguing. This argument has done much damage to the pro-life movement.
And it's a horrible idea to ask the Supreme Court to dictate a rule in regard to when life begins. All pro-lifers should do is insist that the baby's life be recognized under our law, and protected.
The argument that an unborn baby is property is obscene. Obviously she is alive at some point. And--contrary to what the Supreme Court says--state law does indeed tell us when people are alive or not alive.
We have legal authority in all 50 states that killing a baby with brain activity is murder. Thus we should fight hard to say that an unborn child is a constitutional person, and as such is entitled to the same life-or-death standards that every other person in the state receives.
In other words, our Constitution forbids a state from permitting homicides against a class of people. But we can't dictate a special "homicide" rule, even if we think our rule is quite good. We have to accept the state's definition of when people die, and apply those rules.
We should stop treating unborn babies as an "other," and start giving them the same life-or-death standards that we apply to born infants. That's what our fight should be about--the legal recognition of the humanity of the unborn.
Inga - that tune will never fly. Totalitarian strangleholds over one's body is something that connies find appealing, you see.
So, what you have to do is make your point as true and gruesome as the ones that they find compelling. That is, point out that their pregnancy police are a force that want to kill the pregnant by forcing septic shock on them - as they have done with Savita Halappanavar.
Notice how none of the connies so far (and, I bet, throughout the night) will contest the obvious gruesomeness and truth of that dastardly act.
You have to keep in mind, you're dealing with a group that thinks torture might be a compelling interrogation tactic, that voted in an administration that acted out Phillip Zimbardo scenarios on prisoners in the countries they occupied, doused them in shit, electrocuted their genitals, etc., etc., etc. They think that waterboarding is something that young, blonde Californians do in the Pacific waves for fun. So, you have to understand their stomach for gruesomeness in making a real point and sticking with it.
Let them speak for Savita Halappanavar, and all the Savita Halappanavars they hope to sacrifice for the sake of the sacred sperm and egg cell unions.
Are there more abortion doctors like Gosnell? Yes.
To understand why you have to consider that abortions are legal up to the 24th week of pregnancy.
Here is a long excerpt from an article in today's NY Post about the Gosnell case written by Kyle Smith:
A primary reason the Gosnell case has received amazingly scant and grudging attention from most of the major media outlets is that it's impossible to discuss illegal abortions without thinking more about legal ones. It's necessary (unless you think abortion should be illegal) to declare an arbitrary cutoff point. But is 24 weeks the right one? Fetuses that old have an excellent chance of surviving once born. By contrast, at 21 weeks or less, viability outside the womb is virtually nil. You can bet that Planned Parenthood, which enjoys strong support from the media, would raise an unholy ruckus at any suggestion that the 24 week limit is not strict enough. Yet when a 23 weeks pregnant woman [in a sting operation] told a Bronx clinic, "It actually looks like a baby" she was told by a counselor "It is at this point." Not to worry, though: all that would be left after the abortion, she was told, would be "pregnancy parts" and "tissue." The New York Times, in the sole article it published on the Gosnell trial before it grudgingly admitted the story was important, incorrectly and revealingly referred to the murdered babies who had survived abortion as "fetuses." Fetus? No. That's misinformation meant to downplay what happened. Once born, you're no longer a fetus. And ending your life is infanticide, not abortion.
St.Croix, always the voice of reason. I hope there are a LOT more of you out there.
@Inga
Doctors are mandated reporters to the state on suspected child abuse.
I was reported to the state when my young son (under 2 years) broke his leg.
So they are the children police, so why not be the fetus police.
O Ritmo Segundo said...
-------------
What a heartbreaking story! On the one extreme we have Gosnell like people and on the other extreme we have equally irrational nuts who would rather kill the mother.
Ritmo, has St. Croix weighed in on Savita Halappanavar?
We reports births to the state... and if the kid goes missing the state doesn't ignore it.
Everyone has seen the under-cover video, right?
With that in mind how about a compromise?
When they have to break "it" or cut "it " to pieces " in order to remove "it" slice "its'"spinal cord or inject"the solution" to stop that annoying moving after "it " leaves the mothers body, then maybe we can "have a conversation" about adjusting the time frame a bit.
Of course there are! An abortion performing doctor wrote a book about it over 30 years ago.
Oh good grief, any stroll through Googleland will show that the Halapannavar case is so much b.s.
Yep, pm. My job is to publicize their acts as much as Gosnell's atrocities are rightly publicized.
Ing - I dunno if St. Croix has weighed in on the Indian woman in Ireland, but the mere fact that he acknowledges zygote-fetishism for the lunacy it is, is progress enough - for me anyway. That's the rational starting point for anyone claiming to be pro-life to abandon. We can debate the gray areas that lead to the Savita Halappanavars, down the road. But this is progress enough, given where so damn many of them are starting from.
An Abortion is a Dream your Vagina makes.
- Liza Minelli
Ritmo, has St. Croix weighed in on Savita Halappanavar?
Yes. The doctors made a mistake in that case.
If you're asking whether doctors have a legal right to kill an unborn child in defense of the mother's life, of course they do. I think that's always been the rule in Anglo-American law.
Æthelflæd said...
Oh good grief, any stroll through Googleland will show that the Halapannavar case is so much b.s.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
We have a winner - our first troll taking his stroll in the conspiracy theory mode of mitigation.
But at least the stained glass guy (like Han Solo in carbonite?) is distracted from his likely usual defense of the "special cells".
This is to be expected. Connies love them a good conspiracy. But that case was less scientific than human tragedy so we'll see how credibly they'll advance it.
Django Reinhardt ate my baby.
- Meryl Streep
If you're asking whether doctors have a legal right to kill an unborn child in defense of the mother's life, of course they do. I think that's always been the rule in Anglo-American law.
Thank you! I'm not a fan of the rhetoric, but this is indeed a function of our institutions (something conservatives used to appeal to) and traditions, dating back to Blackstone's defense of quickening as the time when a fetus' life takes exception of any sort. And Blackstone appeals to the ancient normative customs in this regard.
But alas, he didn't have the "advantage" of photographs to use as propaganda.
St. Croix, I'm so relieved to hear you say that.
No, Ritmo. No conspiracy. The doctors all denied making a medical decision based on any abortion law. The law wouldn't hav e prevented it anyway. It is an ugly, prroly built straw man to distract from the questions at hand. If you don't believe the doctors, well that makes you the conspiracist.
I ate a belated fetus with Paul Newman's Own peanut sauce.
-- Robert Redford.
No one believes you, AEthelflaedadaeadasedd.
Except for maybe Charlie Sheen and Alex Jones.
You can do your own Loose Change docu-drama on the supposed cover-up.
I'm sure there's an independent network out there somewhere that will produce it.
Maybe even show it at Sundance.
Oh, Sundance loves them some Dr. Carhart.
Can we all Agree that Cannibalism is Wrong most often?
In most conditions.
Renee, what a horrid future. How can we deny women even the very lmited window of 8 weeks for an abortion? How can we FORCE a woman to carry a baby?
Without barbequue sauce, of course.
the mere fact that he acknowledges zygote-fetishism for the lunacy it is
That's not what I said. I think the creation of a human child is an amazing miracle, and worthy of our respect. I think the disdain that some people have for pregnancy is obscene. And I am against even early abortions, except in cases of rape or medical necessity.
My point is merely that pro-lifers should focus all our arguments on infanticide.
We have laws on the books in regard to when people die. And it's quite evil for the Supreme Court to say that the baby's life is irrelevant. I object to defining her as property. And I object to a Supreme Court that finds an invisible right to dismember or decapitate a baby outside the birth canal.
Will women who naturally miscarry be put in the position of PROVING they didn't get an abortion?
Will their gynecologist have to sign a certificate of innocence?
Ms.Hungary 1955, I don't have any simple ideas like yourself. This is a complex problem filled w/ emotion. Right now I'm just pointing out those w/ the temerity to shoot from the hip on a life/death issue.
What happens if the gynecologist's report is inconclusive? Will there be some punishment? Reeducation of some sort?
And just like that...Saint Croix destroys...in one fell swoop, Ritmo's swell fap.
How can we FORCE a woman to carry a baby?
How can we FORCE a woman to feed a baby?
How can we FORCE a woman to clothe a baby?
How can we FORCE a woman to soothe a baby?
How can we FORCE a woman to carry a baby in her arms and tuck her in at Night?
How can we FORCE a woman to carry a baby that may grow up to be Bi-Sexual and not be able to pick a restaurant?
How can we FORCE a woman to do the Dishes?
How can we FORCE a woman to speak Esperanto?
I guess I can stop vis a vis you. You're waving red flags and saying, "look @ me..I'm the voice of all women."
Your last, and most gruesome "point", St. Croix, you'll have to take up with the AMA and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. I'm not about to. But if you want to argue medical ethics with them, go have at it.
The points leading up to that are based on SCOTUS' obvious respect for precedent and the traditions that Blackstone articulated. Viability was a point taken from his identification of quickening as a new stage of the game. And yes, cells that live in our bodies are our own property. Watson and Crick did not somehow make the Lockean basis for our rights and liberties irrelevant.
The rest of your comment you sprinkle with the usual tear-jerking verbiage, and not unjustifiably so. But you have the advantage of medical technology allowing you to do so. That's fine, but you still have to offer up your own body (which medical technology ALSO now allows) if you're going to say a woman has no say in how hers would be used in that regard. Or pay for an artificial incubator.
Fair's fair.
Spinelli, I was a precocious three year old, but my mother wouldn't have let me enter the Ms. Hungary contest at that age.
Your opinion is valued, please feel free to join the discussion.
Inga, I don't know what the personhood laws actually say or if they actually involve anything binding or are just statements... a "we affirm" sort of thing.
I doubt they're practical as something that can be enforced.
Still, where is the counter-bid? Of course a largish segment of pro-lifers are going to push for life defined at conception. So far as I know the pro-abortion side of the issue is still at the point of, "baby? what baby?","it's a person when I say it's a person", or else "after passing naturally through the magic portal." (Unnatural passage, per Gosnell or that Planed Parenthood lady, doesn't count.)
Pro-abortion has been careful to never address the question of life or admit that pro-life people have any agenda past wanting women to suffer... the baby doesn't exist.
So I'd like a counter-bid. People don't like "personhood" laws that define a person as a person at conception... they should counter-bid.
How can we FORCE a woman to carry a baby?
Who forced her to spread her twat without adequate protection? Are women that stupid? I really don't get it.
If you don't want to be responsible for a human life, then take precautions. It's like saying "oh why bother brushing my teeth? I can just have them surgically extracted later!"
Shut up, Beta. No one forces any woman to not give up for adoption. Anyone of them can leave a baby at any point up to 30-days post delivery anonymously in any hospital no questions asked. Possession of a womb instead of a crib does not violate this right.
And you shut up, too, autistic Chickie. I'm getting about damn sick and tired of your full-on mind blindness and peanut gallery piggy-backing on this. It's a bunch of lame fellatiating, is what it is. Imagine yourself in someone else's shoes, for once in your life. Or just go make a damn voice-over recording. Either way, you'll make about as much of a useful contribution to the discussion.
Who forced her to spread her twat without adequate protection? Are women that stupid? I really don't get it.
No misogyny in this statement at all. None whatsoever.
How's your own attempt at "personal responsibility" working out there, Sir?
"And yes, cells that live in our bodies are our own property."
Because you want that to be true?
"...if you're going to say a woman has no say in how hers [her body] would be used in that regard"...
Because that fetus just snuck up behind her and lept up her vagina... she had no choice at all.
of course there are. and we need to shine bright sunshine under that rock.
"Who forced her to spread her twat without adequate protection? Are women that stupid? I really don't get it."
Women really aren't that stupid. But it's important to the pro-abortion lobby to insist that they are that stupid. If they so much as hinted that women were fully functional adults the abortion argument would quickly turn into... "Were you raped? No? Well then, dur!"
of course there are. and we need to shine bright sunshine under that rock.
Re: "O Ritmo Segundo said...
Shut up, Beta. No one forces any woman to not give up for adoption. "
Esperanto-Hater.
Palladian, that's pretty nasty. You want to force women to have babies that they irresponsibly conceived? Do you think they would carry the baby, or just get an illegal abortion in the same or worse conditions as Gosnell. Or maybe keep the baby and abuse it to death? So basically are you saying a woman who gets an early abortion deserves to be treated like a sub human?
And no the baby doesn't deserve to die either.
"And yes, cells that live in our bodies are our own property."
Because you want that to be true?
Because the day you say it's ok for the government to come to your door and extract parts of your body is the day that you might have a point.
"...if you're going to say a woman has no say in how hers [her body] would be used in that regard"...
Because that fetus just snuck up behind her and lept up her vagina... she had no choice at all.
Because everyone knows that contraception that isn't 100% successful makes her A HORRIBLE PERSON.
Geez. Don't you have a science class at vacation bible school to teach or something?
"Possession of a womb instead of a crib does not violate this right."
Possession of a penis instead of a scalpel does not make me a Rocket Surgeon.
Re: "Because the day you say it's ok for the government to come to your door and extract parts of your body is the day that you might have a point."
At this point they are just offering Meade ninety dollars for his spit.
And you shut up, too, autistic Chickie. I'm getting about damn sick and tired of your full-on mind blindness and peanut gallery piggy-backing on this. It's a bunch of lame fellatiating, is what it is. Imagine yourself in someone else's shoes, for once in your life. Or just go make a damn voice-over recording. Either way, you'll make about as much of a useful contribution to the discussion.
That just so screams to heard in Churchill's voice!
But I shant do it..not tonight.
But Ritmo, sir, dude: you are seriously starting to sound like mean Titus--especially towards me--today. So knock it the fuck off. I hardly fear you whoever you are.
Early pregnancy police - a nice distraction from Gosnell, Carhart, et al.
In your quest to troll for relevance, you remind me of that anecdote about choosing stocks by throwing darts at the stock symbols, Beta.
"Or maybe keep the baby and abuse it to death?"
I always wondered how the message would go over if we told women who got abortions that they were obviously going to abuse their children to death.
Truth is... abusive parents usually *want* their babies. Certainly abuse hasn't ended because abortion was legal. The abuse argument isn't a good one, not if you run a reality-check.
"Are there more abortion doctors like Kermit Gosnell?"
That is like asking if there are more Dr. Mengeles.
I have no doubt there are more monsters. No doubt at all.
You're just a mean, fucked-up bully, Ritmo. And I'm surprised that Inga pretends not to see that--as sensitive as she pretends to be towards bullying.
Re: "So basically are you saying a woman who gets an early abortion deserves to be treated like a sub human?
And no the baby doesn't deserve to die either."
One gets to be treated as a sub human; one doesn't get to live at all.
And the Opposite applies.
My friend who had 3 abortions in 2 years was just another repeat birth control failure victim.
Premeditated acts of murder without cause (e.g. innocent victim) are crimes committed against the individual, society, and humanity. They are actions which cause a general devaluation of human life and the consequences are not limited to the victim. They cannot be tolerated in a civilized society. The murderer, and any accessories, must suffer repercussions for making the wrong choice.
"Because everyone knows that contraception that isn't 100% successful makes her A HORRIBLE PERSON."
No, it's not 100% successful... just 99%... if you use a single method... a lot less than 99% if you don't give a fuck.
So... pretty much a failure of contraception is short hand for that last bit.
Ethel, the author of this article mentioned Personhood Laws twice, it's worth discussing. Do any of you anti abortion-from conception types KNOW what the hell you are advocating? Do you have any idea of how difficult itwould be to enforce? What he ramifications would be?
Don't you realize that this crazy absolutist stance on abortion will make pro choicers dig in even deeper, fight harder?
I hardly fear you whoever you are.
Although you might not have motivations beyond basic, primal emotions, I'm trying to make a point that goes beyond that. If you're not capable of having a serious discussion about topics that most sane people find serious, fine. So be it. Knock yourself out. But don't think that your effort to troll for attention on it with the usual goofy puns is going to win points. And BTW, St. Croix did not demolish that point.
I guess sometimes you just can't get beyond a few language games. I suppose I should just let it go, but it does get annoying. Kind of like when your dad was driving the car when you were four years old and started asking repetitive, distracting, nonsensical questions as a way to compensate for the fact that the road was getting more attention than you, and you couldn't drive.
Everyone abort everybody. I want the Squirrels to Win.
Will women who naturally miscarry be put in the position of PROVING they didn't get an abortion?
Inga, the way criminal laws work, you have a presumption of innocence, and the state has to prove the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
Not every death results in a criminal investigation. Somebody has to report their suspicion to the police. And they look into it.
Say a newborn dies, a case of SIDS. And somebody, a neighbor or family member, calls the police. So what do you do? You look into it. You ask a few questions and you try to be as sensitive as possible.
Only if you have probable cause to believe she killed her baby, would you prosecute her.
But Ritmo, sir, dude: you are seriously starting to sound like mean Titus--especially towards me--today. So knock it the fuck off. I hardly fear you whoever you are.
I like his hatred toward people on the autism-spectrum (of which I'm supposedly one). The yawning cavern of tolerance displayed by the modern so-called liberal!
You're just a mean, fucked-up bully, Ritmo. And I'm surprised that Inga pretends not to see that--as sensitive as she pretends to be towards bullying.
Inga has her own outbursts, so she understands passion. And she doesn't like true bullies.
But what she also doesn't appreciate much is liars. Make sure you're telling the truth not just as you see it for the sake of protecting your own reputation, but when you're wrong as well.
Or else she won't appreciate you none too much.
That is all.
Synova, it's your opinion that abusive types WANT their children, any cites to studies? Statistics to prove that, really have a hard time believing that they want their children.
I like his hatred toward people on the autism-spectrum (of which I'm supposedly one). The yawning cavern of tolerance displayed by the modern so-called liberal!
If you can solve for me the conundrum of how I'm supposed to show empathy for people who lack it (which you supposedly do or don't), then please explain that to me.
In the meantime, I'll show just about as much compassion for you tonight as you'll show anyone else. Which seems to be none.
Maybe the conservatives are right and you're earning your bad situation and tough luck. Either way, you're taking something out on me, and it's as ugly as anything.
I told you a personal tid-bit the other night as a test, to see if you'd be the sort of shit who would come back and use it insultingly against me. And of course you did. You're just as much of a sociopath as I'd hoped you weren't. I shan't engage with you any further.
I'll show Compassion to anyone for 1,000 dollars an hour. If they are naked it is 1,000 dollars an hour.
Consistency.
Inga, my crude comment about women was intended sarcastically, but my incredulity about the inability to prevent pregnancy in the first place was sincere. There are so many effective birth control methods, there is no reason, aside from grave irresponsibility, that unwanted pregnancy can't be prevented.
I told you a personal tid-bit the other night as a test, to see if you'd be the sort of shit who would come back and use it insultingly against me.
Consider my own test whether you'd show compassion to others despite what you're going through. And since on that score, you're certainly failing miserably (reducing women's bodies to "twats"), I'm more than happy to give what you think others should get.
And of course you did.
See above.
You're just as much of a sociopath as I'd hoped you weren't.
Um, it's not wise to state that you're not sure of whether you possess the capacity for empathy before declaring others to be sociopaths. Just a word. To the supposedly wise.
I shan't engage with you any further.
Good. I was getting bored by supposedly high-minded, shallow cultural references by someone who couldn't engage any deeper or moral human issues if his life depended on it, who admitted to murderous fantasies, and who yet fancied certain thoughts about me. I'll consider your shunning of me to be a mercy, given how messed up a place (mentally, at least) you seem to be stuck in right now.
Inga, I don't know what the personhood laws SAY. I only know what those in opposition say they say and I've learned that in almost all cases that someone is howling about how women are going to be forced to be broodmares the facts are something else.
Just a bit ago I posted comments to an abortion thread on some social site (don't usually do that) and while one pro-abortion person was all "reasonable" there was another who posted and posted and posted the assertion that "No baby exists!" Stop saying "baby" she'd order over and over. It's not a baby. It's a fetus. No baby exists. It's not a baby. Stop saying baby.
If you asked her "why" it wasn't a baby, what made it not a baby... "because it's NOT", it's obvious, it's a FETUS. And on and on. And it was a fetus until the day it was born. And don't you say "baby", don't use the term "baby." It's NOTHING.
No cognition... just a definition.
Sure... personhood laws might be an ultimate set-back for pro-life, but I doubt they will be a set-back just as much as I doubt they'll pass. They illustrate that we *ought* to be concerned with the question that no one on the other side is asking or is willing to talk about.
And there is no shortage of people like the woman speaking officially for Planned Parenthood, or Gosnell, or that person posting to the thread who couldn't explain any reasoning at all why a fetus was unimportant medical waste at 9 months before it was born, and a baby after it was born.
It just was.
Once pregnancy occurs, there's a new life, a new person, whose inalienable rights must be observed and protected.
Inga,
I respect your opinions even when I do not agree.
As a Nurse you no doubt see things on a daily basis that I am lucky to never see.
That said, I Am Right. All the Time. And Good-looking. Luxurious hair, etc etc.
I daresay most of us women got your point, Palladian, without falling into sexism concern troll mode.
Once pregnancy occurs, there's a new life, a new person, whose inalienable rights must be observed and protected.
Blah blah blah. Talk of personhood from someone who needs to "crudely" (in his own words) reduce women's bodies to "twats" to do so.
You gettin' all that, Inga?
A lot of backtracking I expect we'll see on this gentleman's part, tonight.
As Chick's father said, if one party can't control oneself...
"Synova, it's your opinion that abusive types WANT their children, any cites to studies? Statistics to prove that, really have a hard time believing that they want their children."
Inga... they don't give them up.
I don't know why I'd need studies or cites to prove that. Yes, it's not logical or sane, but someone who abuses their child isn't logical or sane. Right? Why expect them to be?
Re: "sexism concern troll mode."
I rented that once. I thought it had something to do with "The Hobbit."
I daresay most of us women got your point, Palladian, without falling into sexism concern troll mode.
There's a lot of that about.
People don't like "personhood" laws that define a person as a person at conception... they should counter-bid.
A person is a live human being.
If life beings at conception, when we are just a microscopic atom, then death happens when our last molecule disappears. Ashes to ashes, microscopic organism to microscopic organism.
But we don't say that. We've never said that. Our measures of human life have said movement or breathing or heartbeat or brain activity. We've never said "if there is an atom of our body in existence."
Under current law in all 50 states, and Washington D.C., human death happens when we have zero activity in our brain stem and our cerebral cortex.
What the courts need to do is take the homicide issue off the table. And you do that not by inventing new rules that we like. We do that by following our existing rules in regard to when people die.
Palladian, yes IF ONLY all those women in the Gosnell clinic used birth control... If only.
"I daresay most of us women got your point, Palladian, without falling into sexism concern troll mode."
There's a lot of that about.
Pretty laughable to hear someone unsure of his own capacity for empathy calling others sociopaths, and declaring concern to be a carte blanche form of "trolling".
Hilariously delusional.
Palladian, yes IF ONLY all those women in the Gosnell clinic used birth control... If only.
Education, or something, failed them.
Abusive parents grimly hang on to their parental rights in the foster care system, preventing kids from being adopted, past all reason. Adopting an abused child can be an extremely frustrating, drawn-out process.
Inga, best not to take Palladian seriously tonight. He's only out for those concerned with him personally.
If you think the subjects of this discussion merit serious treatment, though, then Palladian will just go eat worms. Or in some other melodramatic way, declare his own self more important. How dare you discuss the concerns of others as if anyone other than HE undergoes any hardships!
Seriously, Inga. How dare you?
Wearing ice cream on one's head does not make one a sundae.
Troll a la mode.
Synova what type of woman doesn't use birth control and has seven or eight abortions? Will this woman who could be forced to carry the baby, possibly start abusing it in utero, by continuing her crack habit, or alcoholism, or prostitution? Did you watch the documentary about the Gosnell clinic St. Croix opted a coup,e of times?
Also... concerning abuse.
I have a problem with the concept of "better off dead".
Okay Inga... how about this?
Everyone can have one abortion... total free-bee.
And a tubal.
"I have a problem with the concept of "better off dead".
Me too.
People are out to get Palladian tonight, Inga.
Be careful of that.
You don't want him getting paranoid about the meaning of your intention to discuss something other than him.
Inga wrote:
Palladian, that's pretty nasty. You want to force women to have babies that they irresponsibly conceived? Do you think they would carry the baby, or just get an illegal abortion in the same or worse conditions as Gosnell. Or maybe keep the baby and abuse it to death? So basically are you saying a woman who gets an early abortion deserves to be treated like a sub human?
Do YOU want to force a woman to have babies that they improperly conceived who haven't aborted in 23 weeks?
Synova, better off aborted before the 8th week, before brain activity, than to have their brains bashed out by the boyfriend of the week.
What pro-lifers really need to do is rally at the next Senate confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. And the nominee should be asked to give us their definition of "person." And they should also be asked if a baby in the womb is a "person" or "property."
Nor should they be allowed to duck the question, since all 9 Supreme Court Justices currently define the baby as property.
The dehumanization of the baby is key to this fight. The "fetus" word is like the word "Negro." It's a quasi-scientific word that's actually designed to create distance and to dehumanize.
Doctors might say "fetus" for baby, as they might say "gravida" for pregnant woman. But the Supreme Court has adopted this rhetoric for propaganda purposes. Even in the Gosnell case, when he's charged with murdering newborns, our Pravda media continues to use the "fetus" term.
It's designed to make homicides acceptable. The entire fight revolves around the dehumanization of the unborn. Supreme Court Justices should not be allowed to slide on this. They should be challenged on this at every opportunity.
What is a person? Define the word for us. And any definition other than "live human being" is, in my opinion, utterly unacceptable.
Yes, an abortion before the 8th week and a tubal, it's a deal.
Re: "Synova, better off aborted before the 8th week, before brain activity, than to have their brains bashed out by the boyfriend of the week."
Eight-week-old fetuses should not have boyfriends. That's just wrong.
Inga wrote:
And no the baby doesn't deserve to die either.
And yet it is dying.
What were you saying about treating something as subhuman? Isn't that definitionally the definition of a fetus to pro choicers?
Unfortunately, women with a "boyfriend of the week" also tend to have babies for the same reason; because they're emotionally needy and think the baby will love them.
I think that brain activity is a reasonable legal point of "personhood" since there ought to be a legal point that is definable in a empirical way. But I don't think that's going to solve the problem of abusive mothers or boy-friends.
Some of you all should get on a conference call and yell at each other for awhile.
And when the Eight-week-old fetus has a boyfriend with a 1976 Trans Am and a denim patch of the Zig-Zag Man: That's just Double-Wrong.
Saint croix wrote:
And they should also be asked if a baby in the womb is a "person" or "property."
Or a clump of cells, or a parasite.
Some of you all should get on a conference call and yell at each other for awhile.
I already did that today. I called my mother.
"Yes, an abortion before the 8th week and a tubal, it's a deal."
When I'm king of the world, you've got it.
What if women just went through the abortion procedure every six months, pregnant or not? Then it isn't an abortion, it is just routine maintenance, like getting your teeth cleaned.
Inga wrote:
"Synova, better off aborted before the 8th week, before brain activity, than to have their brains bashed out by the boyfriend of the week"
Um, you can prosecute the boyfriend of the week for doing the beating. And are those really the only two options you are envisioning for women?
Some of you all should get on a conference call and yell at each other for awhile.
I did it on Friday, too. It's called a faculty meeting.
"Are there more abortion doctors like Kermit Gosnell? ... And do we want to know?"
Journalism!
Would PETA get involved if we called a fetus 'birth veal'?
Palladian,
You do your faculty meetings via conference call? Sweet!!! Then nobody can complain that you're surfing on your iPad during the meeting...
You do your faculty meetings via conference call? Sweet!!! Then nobody can complain that you're surfing on your iPad during the meeting...
We rarely have them, so I'm really, really lucky. Maybe one a year.
"You want to force women to have babies that they irresponsibly conceived? Do you think they would carry the baby, or just get an illegal abortion in the same or worse conditions as Gosnell. Or maybe keep the baby and abuse it to death? So basically are you saying a woman who gets an early abortion deserves to be treated like a sub human?"
No more than you're saying the baby should be treated as sub human.
There's a lot of rhetoric, but the fact remains that defenseless people are dying because their mothers are killing them. By anybody's definition those mothers should be considered sub human.
I'm wondering what defense pro abortion people will have for themselves when they confront God? I think He will know their hearts and there won't be much they can say.
Of course, if you don't believe in God the point is moot until you meet up with Him.
I wouldn't want to try to make most of the arguments being made here under those conditions.
You could give God at least as much of the benefit of the doubt as you're giving abortion proponents.
Conference call, yes!
America's very own holocaust, distributed, nationwide, house to house, neighborhood to neighborhood, city to city, state to state.
CDC estimates 50 million killed by abortion since 1973.
Pro-Choice = Pro-Infanticide.
Own it, "Pro-Choicers,"
Here is an undercover video of a Bronx abortion clinic discussing abortions at 24 weeks.
I sometimes have conference calls with Vinnie and Mac.
They're just around the corner. But when's we wants to get hoagie sandwiches and grape sodas we call each other up. At once.
I remember when Professor Lambeau is looking for the kid solving his math problems in Good Will Hunting, and the janitor says, oh yeah, this is Professor Hayes.
"There's a lot of rhetoric, but the fact remains that defenseless people are dying because their mothers are killing them. By anybody's definition those mothers should be considered sub human."
Or, at least, accomplices to murder.
If a mother puts a murder contract out on her 5 year old daughter, how does the law treat her?
Or, on her 4 year old daughter?
Or, on her 3 year old daughter?
Or, on her 2 year old daughter?
Or, on her 1 year old daughter?
We all know what the law would do.
But, should she hire a "doctor" to murder her baby in utero, she's a candidate for a speaking slot at the Democrat National Convention.
And, we all know that's true, too.
50 million murdered in utero since 1973.
That's just outstanding.
America's holocaust.
Dr. NFL Helmet Head would like to get his forceps out and save America from its HOLOCAUST. Yep, you heard that right. Holocaust.
NURSE!!!
What a hero, that helmet head. Helped protect him on his journey into this world as well. Yep, you betcha.
There are plenty out there I assure you. Let the leftist abortion lobby try to protect them at their own peril. Obama has clearly made his claim that he is a supporter of the death culture. Not only killing our unborn children, but also our economy and country. He is the real enemy and I don't care that he is the president.
"Are there more abortion doctors like Kermit Gosnell?"
Of course there are.
All of them.
Ritmo, Tim's life has been saved a few times by that helmet, don't poke fun.
Was he wearing roller skates at the time?
Are there more abortion doctors like Kermit Gosnell?
Dr. Lawson Akpulonu
Like this?
Yes! Just like that, that's uncanny.
I think the breakdown of sympathies on this page reveals that:
The more infantile you are, the more likely you are to dismiss the rights of the womb carrier.
That would certainly explain some of the more childish and selfish commenters on this thread tonight.
I think Meth needs a helmet too.
Special Ed is one of the best characters on Crank Yankers. Download some of the episodes if you haven't already. They're hilarious.
Watching them helps one get some of the infantile energy out of one's system that (ahem) others reserve for the way they approach these discussions on the thread.
In any event, I like the one where he calls up a gymnasium crying, and stating that he'd peed in their pool.
The woman responds in a reassuring voice, that everything will be ok. Which reassures Ed so much that he starts getting excited. Yeayyyy!!! I PEED IN YOUR POOL!!!! YEAYYYY!!!
Apparently he got the wrong lesson from that exchange.
Also watch the one where he calls up Dunkin' Donuts.
Although, I must confess, if there is any solace whatsoever for the 50 million killed by abortion since 1973, one can presume (based on the generally historic rate of filial political ideology) a disproportionate number of them would have favored in utero infanticide like their parents did. So, in around about way, they may* have had chosen for them what they themselves may have chosen for their own children.
*"May," only because we don't know these things for certain. They may have, had they survived mom's need to kill, been utterly repulsed by the act itself, like any normal person.
That, and troll does not understand the definition of "holocaust." No surprise there.
Meth-Head is definitely helmet material.
We're being mean, though, Inga. There are really awesome people above who plead for the special treatment that allows them to treat others more rudely than they think they deserve to be treated.
And they resent that.
They may have also resented being thought of as human persons before losing the vestigial gills and tail, Tim Troll.
Although, a veteran helmet-head like yourself surely has room in your special needs class for such interesting characters as them.
Helmet-Head Tim, Fish-Man and Froggy.
It's like a kindergarten for Sponge Bob and some select few earthlings.
Cool.
Yes, indeed, Ritmo.
The one where he calls the movie theater is good, too.
It's kind of like watching Republicans talk economics.
Are there more abortion doctors like Kermit Gosnell?
Bruce Steir
Are there more abortion doctors like Kermit Gosnell?
Abu Hiyat
Why not just go and add George Tiller to your list, you freaking sociopath?
Troll has no argument but presumed insults against the CDC estimate of 50 million killed by abortion since 1973.
Again, not surprising.
Troll has limited faculties, but unlimited internet access to express them.
Ironic, that.
Good for the internet.
I'm so glad for all the gynecologists and obstetricians chiming in on the Althouse thread. They really give rich insight into the issue of pregnancy.
Troll's Dictionary:
Anti-Holocaust = "freaking sociopath."
Moral sense weeps.
I hadn't seen this before. A letter the AMA wrote to Senator Rick Santorum.
Troll's Dictionary:
Issue - "pregnancy."
It's all about politics.
Troll's life is very small.
Tim, who refers to other, actually living, breathing humans in the form of demeaning, common nouns, not even pronouns, pretends to be taken seriously when pleading for compassion on the part of pre-formed humanoid larvae with gills and tails.
The special helmet-wearing asshole will not be taken seriously.
Those huge exceptions are not read by the helmeted and their ilk, St. Croix.
Troll can only insult.
Intelligent argument is beyond troll's reach, in another galaxy, no doubt.
Troll thinks insults win.
Troll is stupid.
Best part is, Troll knows he's stupid.
Troll-Tim:
Grow some fucking balls and address me directly.
Until then, the fact that you hide behind 3rd-person speech (the way toddlers refer to themselves before learning how language works) only reinforces your morally infantile sensibilities. And why no one takes you seriously.
I expect that you will now begin referring to yourself as "Tim" instead of "I" or "me".
Troll thinks he understands complex notions such as "exceptions," but he deludes himself.
Troll thinks he understands scope of practice issues, but he deludes himself.
50 million murdered in utero since 1973.
Troll thinks that's just perfect.
Are there more abortion doctors like Kermit Gosnell?
Steve Lichtenberg
"I'm so glad for all the gynecologists and obstetricians chiming in on the Althouse thread. They really give rich insight into the issue of pregnancy."
I'm sorry that no one is around to explain to you how pregnancy happens or what it is, Ritmo.
But I'll try...
You see... when a Mommy and a Daddy love each other very much, they end up with a baby. When Mommy and Daddy want to have a party, they end up with a tumorous mass that needs to be removed before it pops out and becomes a person requiring 18 years of financial support.
Troll wants to be addressed directly, but doesn't make an argument beyond insult worth addressing.
Silly troll.
Tim couldn't be taken less seriously than if he said: "Me Og. Me hungry. Feed Og."
He is too immature to address others directly.
Maybe someone aborted the part of his brain that processes the fact that others beside himself exist. And not just as the sort of theoretical people-to-be that Holden Caufield wanted to save.
I think some of us are in agreement as to when a human life begins, that being brain activity. As for the absolutists here who think that abortion will be eradicated because of laws that prohibit legal abortions, think again. What I see is a bunch of authoritarians that want to control a woman's right to choose what she can do with her own body.
If you think you can force a woman to carry a baby, you better be prepared to set up the Pregnancy Police, for real.
Make an intelligent argument worthy of a moral, human being, and maybe you'll get a response.
Until then, you're just another troll, trolling the internet.
Think I have time for that?
Only en passant.
I think some of us are in agreement as to when a human life begins, that being brain activity.
Some of us, of course. The rational.
And then there are others who are offended at the idea of defining human existence according to brain activity.
Such as people who wear helmets in their daily routines and use common nouns to address others, such as "Postman comes! Hello Postman!"
"What I see is a bunch of authoritarians that want to allow a woman to kill her child".
FIFY.
Saint Croix:
Exactly. The issue is equal protection and there are already laws and procedures to address its enforcement. Beyond that, there is a cultural process through normalization to promote a behavior and outcome which has a redeeming value to society and humanity.
The people who are attempting to direct the argument to focus on exceptions are the same people who support a redistributive change economic model, institutional discrimination, unmeasured immigration, and other forms and kinds of involuntary exploitation.
It is the same people who choose to normalize arbitrary classes of dysfunctional behaviors while discriminating against other dysfunctional or unproductive behaviors.
This is liberal (i.e. unprincipled). It is progressive (i.e. incremental). It is selective nonsense. It sponsors corruption of individuals, institutions, government, and society. None more degenerate than tolerating or encouraging, really, irresponsible behavior which causes a general devaluation of human life and dignity.
Make an intelligent argument worthy of a moral, human being, and maybe you'll get a response.
Is that what you tell all the poor, little fetuses, Tim?
And Tim would keep a brain dead relative on life support indefinitely, or until the hospital got a court order to stop it.
What I see is a bunch of authoritarians that want to control a woman's right to choose what she can do with her own body.
Why does a woman get to choose what she can do with someone else's body, specifically the genetically differentiated human being inside her?
Inga... the fact that outlawing abortions entirely is unlikely to save all the babies, has nothing to do with the motivation of people who would like that to happen. Yes, it's about the babies. It's not about wanting to control women or wanting to stick it to the ones who can't control themselves.
You may as well say that because outlawing murder doesn't stop murder, that the law isn't about murder being wrong but about something else. Of course it's about murder being wrong. That laws don't have perfect enforcement or perfect preventive power is irrelevant.
I agree that a lot of what people would like to do is impractical... but I don't then decide that they're lying about it.
Are there more abortions doctors like Dr. Gosnell?
William Waddill
When Waddill arrived, he found two nurses providing routine care to Baby W. Waddill then took over and proceeded to strangle the child to death in front of horrified witnesses including several nurses, an emergency physician, and a pediatrician -- complaining all the while that, "I can't find the goddam trachea," "This baby can't live or it will be a big mess," and "This baby won't stop breathing!"
A pathologist examined the baby's lungs and concluded that she'd been alive for at least 30 minutes. The autopsy found the cause of the baby's death to have been "manual strangulation." The baby's gestational age was determined to have been 29 to 31 weeks.
Waddill was charged with murder in the death of Baby W. All told, over 13 weeks of testimony, the witnesses described three unsuccessful attempts by Waddill to strangle the baby, and the fourth, successful, attempt. But during deliberations, the jury asked for clarification of a procedural point. A few phone calls to clarify the point led to the discovery by the attorneys and judge that there was a definition of "death" in the California health and safety code that the jury had not been informed of. Because the testimony hadn't directly addressed this particular definition of "death," the jurors became hopelessly deadlocked over whether Waddill's actions, though clearly causing what laymen would consider the "death" of the baby, had caused what the law would call the "death" of the baby. The judge had to delcare a mistrial. A second jury was also deadlocked, and the charges against Waddill were eventually dismissed.
Wow.
Why is murder wrong?
To me, it's a rights issue rather than a religious issue.
The issue of abortion, likewise, is a rights issue, except for some reason many people disregard the rights of the autonomous human growing inside a woman.
Why does a woman get to choose what she can do with someone else's body, specifically the genetically differentiated human being inside her?
Because they had a conference call?
Before there is brain activity, is there a human? The woman deserves a choice, she needs a window in which to make that choice. Abortion has been around for over a thousand years.
Before there is brain activity, is there a human? The woman deserves a choice, she needs a window in which to make that choice. Abortion has been around for over a thousand years.
So has "marriage", according to the anti-gay-marriage people. Does that make it, a priori, good, or right, or immutable?
The woman has a choice. It's called birth control.
A lot of things have been around for thousands of years... infanticide, for one.
And yes... women deserve a choice and control over their reproduction.
Which is why many pro-lifers, even if they don't like it, will support abortion in cases of rape.
Abortion isn't a choice... it's a do-over. And I'm not at all sure that everyone deserves a do-over that involves destroying a life which, if simply left alone, will become a person.
I'm willing to go to "brain activity" for practical reasons, not for moral ones.
Inga:
Palladian's taking a position more convoluted than Procrustes doing Pilates:
Anti-Lockean libertarianism.
It's intellectual fraud.
The equivalent of an intellectual abortion, if you will.
If only it were a perfect world. Oh reality.
The first liberties defined in modern Western civilization included the right to be secure in one's person, i.e. their body.
Leave it to the dogmatically authoritarian faux-glibertarians to take that one away.
Of course it's not a perfect world.
It can't be.
But enforcing a culture of death (to borrow a phrase) is unlikely to make it better.
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