tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11871879.post6772849218341929529..comments2008-02-25T14:28:18.129-05:00Justin Stressmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093511297065444266noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11871879.post-23460932343904423852008-02-25T14:28:00.000-05:002008-02-25T14:28:00.000-05:00Jason, I appreciate your posts... but that said, I do disagree with a few points.<BR/><BR/>You say that a fetus is undeniably and independently alive, but that is really not true. If you remove a fetus from its mother before around the third trimester, it will die. Period.<BR/><BR/>Now I seem to not have made it clear in the article, but I do not support late term abortions unless it truly is to save the life of the mother. I think the wording of the current precedents, which I think is the Doe vs Bolton case, is too loose in this regard in allowing frivolous late term abortions, while Roe vs Wade seems to adequately address the issue of different levels of acceptability during the first, second and third trimesters.<BR/><BR/>Another thing you obviously spin is that abortion is not always "murder", and to use such a term is to be dishonest in order to try to evoke a negative response. The vast majority of women do not enjoy the act of abortion. For many it is the most difficult decision of their lives. The issue is that it is their choice whether or not to put their own life, which is the investment of countless people and many years, over that of a fetus that knows nothing of the world and is, if early term, not even conscious of the world around it. That last point is another reason why there is a difference between early and late term abortions.<BR/><BR/>To try to act like a few day old zygote or blastocyst is THE SAME as an infant is a LIE. The ONLY reason people make that comparison is to try to evoke a FALSE emotional response. The differences between those are VASTLY greater than those between a newborn infant and a grown adult, and no sane person is going to try to claim that they are exactly the same.<BR/><BR/>Another point is that you don't have to be pro-abortion to support a woman's right to choose. I know many women who would never personally have an abortion, but understand that they do not have the right to tell another woman what she can and can't do with her own body.<BR/><BR/>First stop and think about that.<BR/><BR/>Next, understand that an early term fetus is not even conscious nor able to survive on its own. It is a dependent part of the mother, a living and developing POTENTIAL person. Not an actual person, but a potential future person. It is a transitional, developmental process. To use a very crude and simple analogy, consider a cake. You put together the ingredients etc... you put it in the oven, but it's not really a cake until it's done cooking.<BR/><BR/>I'm not making light of the statistic, nor do I argue with it. The statistic I regularly hear is 3,000 abortions per day.<BR/><BR/>However, in the end I simply don't think we have a right to tell a woman what she can and can't do with her own body, and Roe v Wade supports that, but also sets limitations on how far that right extends and rightly sets increasing limits on abortions as the pregnancy progresses, all but banning late term abortions. If a fetus can survive outside of the mother, it is THEN an independent and protected human being and deserves its due protection, but if the mother wants an early term fetus out of her body and it cannot survive on its own, that is unfortunate, but still her right. Now I also, in light of that, agree that the current system is sickening in its use of partial birth abortion in order to skirt the necessity of protecting a born child etc... or of the blatant abuse of doctor prudence in determining the "health of the mother" clause in order to enable frivolous abortions... but these things do not justify a complete ban on a woman's right to choose.<BR/><BR/>Again, supporting the right to choose does not mean supporting baby murder or of even supporting abortion. It means that you understand that you don't have the right to have the audacity to think you can control another woman's body.<BR/><BR/>Anti-abortion people often intentionally use misleading and outright false terminology to try to evoke negative emotional response, this is telling of the inherent weakness of their argument that they resort to such intentional deception.Justin Stressmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11093511297065444266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11871879.post-67984790627657481022008-02-24T17:32:00.000-05:002008-02-24T17:32:00.000-05:00TP:<BR/><BR/>Most conservative estimates number all abortions in this country at about 1.5 million a year. Planned Parenthood, which takes 10 billion in US tax dollars per year to kill innocent children, admits to 200,000 a year alone. <BR/><BR/>Considering there are other, lesser known, but still as large abortion organizations out there, not to mention hospitals and private practices, most conservative estimates number it at around 1.5 million. <BR/><BR/>The US department of health and human services released information a few years ago that said that surgical abortions were estimated around 2 million for the previous year. I think that number is a little high, but you get the idea. <BR/><BR/>Some antidotel evidence: The sidewalk counselors at the Hope(less) Clinic in Chicago report that no less than 45 women a day enter for abortions (this does not count the women entering for birth control and other services). The clinic is open 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. It is one of 8 (I think) clinics in Chicago. <BR/><BR/>So the Hope(less) Clinic accounts for 11,250 every year. Now there are other clinics like this, at least one in every major city that report similar numbers. Assume one major city per state and you've got 562,500. And that does not count the other ancillary clinics in these major cities or the other clinics in outlying areas. (Wisconsin, my state, has 4 alone, and that is very low comparatively) <BR/><BR/>As you can see, it's no stretch to get to 1.46 million (4,000 a day)Jason Mariannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06259942185679723931noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11871879.post-62310781030901994222008-02-21T13:40:00.000-05:002008-02-21T13:40:00.000-05:00I am curious where this "4000 abortions a day" figure comes from...<BR/><BR/><BR/>I rarely hear "It was worth it" Albright saying killing 500,000 Iraqi kids directly due to US sanctions (under her watch) was condoned. (youtube that)<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>Phreadom, good job compiling military campaign donations! Much appreciated. Why the accusation of fuzzy math on Obama?<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>PhreaTPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11871879.post-84063397166408447002007-12-30T00:51:00.000-05:002007-12-30T00:51:00.000-05:00It seems this blog is maintained by a pro-choice individual, so I think you may want to get the viewpoint of someone who is pro-life.<BR/><BR/>Ron Paul does indeed want to remove the jurisdiction of the Federal courts from the issues of life, marriage, prayer in school, etc. Why? Is it because he doesn't understand what he is doing and wants to pander? No. Is it because he is secretly trying for a specific result in these matters? NO.<BR/><BR/>Simply, RP wants finally exercise checks and balances on the Federal courts. Period. It is the right of the people, through congress, to dictate to the courts what rules they must obey. No one argues that the President and Congress are out of control, so why would anyone argue that the courts have somehow remained constitutionally grounded? The only reason I can come up with is that the person likes the conclusions the court is reaching.<BR/><BR/>Now, as for abortion: First of all, it sickens me that the pro-choice side uses this health of the mother objection to allow any abortion at any time. Can you not see how that has been manipulated? Besides, why should an innocent defenseless person die because another is ill? Sad? Indeed it is, but two wrongs do not make a right.<BR/><BR/>Additionally, we talk about the non-specified right to privacy and thus, the right to abortion. I suppose an argument can be made from the 9th and 10th amendments for such a thing. But he who argues this must admit that no such right is spelled out verbatim in these amendments. They must be inferred, drawn out of the vague language there. <BR/><BR/>On the other hand, the 5th and 14th amendments are crystal clear that a person shall not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law (i.e. a trial)(the fifth makes it clear on the federal level, the fourteenth on the state level). The person who makes this argument must prove then that the pre-born baby is indeed a person. However, I believe that simple logic makes that argument for us. The pre-born are undeniably human and undeniably and independently alive, therefore they are undeniably a person. One look at a 4-d ultrasound will confirm this conclusion.<BR/><BR/>Taking an innocent life is wrong, no matter what the circumstances. Occasionally it is necessary or unavoidable, but nonetheless, it is always wrong. It should be, and indeed is, the job of this and every government to protect innocent life within it's own borders, especially when that life is defenseless. <BR/><BR/>It is time we stopped making excuses for the 4,000 murders that happen daily in our country. I'm voting Ron Paul because he will give us the opportunity to begin to end our holocaust, one state at a time. The day we begin to end abortion could not come soon enough.<BR/><BR/>May God grant Paul victory, and may He forgive us for our awful atrocities.Jason Mariannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06259942185679723931noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11871879.post-54090813345275609382007-12-25T18:15:00.000-05:002007-12-25T18:15:00.000-05:00[For clarity, this response will use the abbreviation PAC for 'pro-abortion-choice' to refer to people and positions in favor of people's legal ability to choose to have abortions. ]<BR/><BR/>I'd like to respond to just one sentence in this article.<BR/><BR/>"In this vein the Roe v. Wade decision defends those fundamental personal rights, that of a woman's right to privacy and the right to control her own body."<BR/><BR/>The right to control one's own body is fundamental to our societal and legal principle of inalienable natural rights . There is no valid constitutional argument against it, nor to the anti-abortionists attempt to deny it.<BR/><BR/>What I STRENUOUSLY object to is the PACers and Justin's attempt to pass off this right as obviously and indubitably applicable to the issue of abortion.<BR/><BR/>By defining a disputed term (the woman's body) to include the fertilized egg and the zygote, embryo and fetus, the PAC position attempts to remove a-priori - via definition of terms - the issue of contention from the debate. It is an attempt to win the abortion debate by defining terms to suggest that the unborn child is just tissue in a woman's body, like a tumor, wart or pimple.<BR/><BR/>This contention happens to also form a central pillar of the legal position established by Roe Vs. Wade and reflected in the quote above. The problem is that when debating the correctness of Roe vs. Wade, one can not accept the SCOTUS and PACer definition of a 'woman's body' as established fact; If you do, the debate ends right there.<BR/><BR/>Why do PACers always resort to such underhanded litigous shenanigans? The answer is that their entire position is seriously undermined by biology.<BR/><BR/>When a fertile man and woman have sex, the man ejaculates sperm, containing his DNA, into the womb of a woman. If the woman is ovulating, the sperm may fertilize the woman's egg (containing her DNA). This is called "conception" and it is the point in which the offspring, with individual, unique DNA is created. This offspring grows in mass and complexity until it eventually becomes a partially-sapient thing that masturbates and posts to blogs.<BR/><BR/>The masturbation begins inside the womb. The blog posting outside.<BR/><BR/>Those are the biological facts that the PACers attempt to gloss-over with maldefined words at the outset of the discussion.<BR/><BR/>Cognizant of these facts, the anti-abortionists claim that any fertilized egg must be granted the status of a human and that the state has a constitutional obligation to protect it from violence.<BR/><BR/>However, we as a society do not need to accept the absolutist conclusions of the anti-abortionists. We can acknowledge that life begins at conception, yet decide on pragmatic and biological grounds that a human life at the early stages should not enjoy the status and constitutional protections of a human being under the constitution. <BR/><BR/>The pragmatic benchmarks are then ones that allow abortion at early stages of development and deny it at later stages; Brain development and viability outside the womb (with or without artificial life-support). We already apply similar standards to people with severe brain damage (obviously human), so why not here? <BR/><BR/>Despite protestations to the contrary, the Roe vs. Wade decision inherently declares the unborn to be tissue of the woman's body, subject solely to her discretion. It denies the biological facts that the unborn are human offspring, unique in genetic composition and containing the genetic seed of both the mother AND the father. It claims to not determine when human life begins at the same time as denying that the unborn are human life. As a legal decision Roe vs. Wade thus can not stand the test of internal consistency. <BR/><BR/>Societies throughout history have come to differing conclusions on point at which they consider offspring to acquire rights of a full human individual. This point has ranged from conception to several years.<BR/><BR/>It is thus a cultural moral and ethical choice where to create - through legislative action - a legal definition of when or under what conditions to recognize a human life. Lacking such a definition on the federal level, there is no basis upon which the federal courts have authority to rule on abortions cases.<BR/><BR/>Could the legislatiure constitutionally pass a law defining the point at which to recognize a human life or is that reserved to the states (or a constitutional amendment)? I don't know, but I do know that this question is outside of the scope of the debate on the constitutionality of the Roe vs. Wade decision.cowbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04316435067649311895noreply@blogger.com