Wow Dawn! I'm surprised no politicians have taken up what you've exposed. I hope they do; or that some of the readers here who have contacts with pro-life pols show them the horror of what is going on with taxpayer money!
jjoyce | 08.10.05 - 5:51 am | #

oh dawn why don't you shut up?
beth | 08.10.05 - 7:36 am | #

oh beth "when arguments fail shoot" seems to be the message of the cartoon, "when arguments fail shout" yours

God bless you Dawn,
francis | 08.10.05 - 7:38 am | #

too original to think of your own intro, eh?
beth | 08.10.05 - 7:43 am | #

Somebody needs a hug...
saintkansas | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 7:48 am | #

too broke for substance to complain about style, uh?
francis | 08.10.05 - 7:50 am | #

those who paint themselves in a corner with a flawed idology tell others to "Shut up"....

Dawn in the memory of my son, Ryan John who died by legal abortion in Nov. 1983...Keep talking and so will I...I am Silent No More.
ann marie | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 8:20 am | #

What sort of human being, faced with the evidence that this "cartoon" provides, among millions of other pieces of evidence, feels that "just shut up" is some sort of discussion?

You know, Beth, it is possible to pass the point where salvation is possible. You can so deaden your soul by tuning God out, that nothing can save you. God will not violate your free will. Choose life. Your own.
Colleen | 08.10.05 - 9:02 am | #

Oh, Beth, why don't you get your own blog instead of commanding what others may write on theirs?
Nightfly | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 9:32 am | #

"I'm One of Those People Planned Parenthood Would Like to Eliminate"

Planned Parenthood doesn't employ eliminationist tactics against is political opponents. It provides reproductive health care and information to women.

The people who use eliminationist tactics are on the other side. The convicted homicide bomber Eric Rudolph is only the most recent example.



-
jri | 08.10.05 - 9:54 am | #

They just think the portrayal and advocacy of murder is okay. As to Eric Rudolph, he is a homicidal maniac and devotee of Freidrich Nietzsche (last I heard he was more than a little irreligious). You fail to also mention that every responsible anti-abortion group has condemened the use of violence. Of course that does not fit the template.
How can you claim they provide reproductive health care when they refuse to provide pre-natal care. they exist for one reason, to end pregancies, period. If they inadverdantly kill a few mothers along the way, no biggie. they will make a public show of support for the surviving family then ignore them.
J Rob | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 10:08 am | #

If we want to go to hell, why won't you let us. I can think of nothing worse than spending eternity with you and your ilk.

Also why don't you look in the bible, there is a line about causing miscarriages or abortions that say it should be fined.
matt | 08.10.05 - 10:12 am | #

What's up with this Beth person? Is she some spiteful cartoon critic?

Look, Beth, don't take it personally if people have different taste in cartoons than you. Some people are Warner Bros., some people are Disney...

But, if you need a hug...come on everybody, let's give lil' Beth a hug. Turn that frown upside down, Beth!

"The people who use eliminationist tactics are on the other side. The convicted homicide bomber Eric Rudolph is only the most recent example."

Glad we finally caught up with Rudolph. There's not a person I've come to know on this site who wouldn't have turned him over to the FBI in two seconds flat if they had information on him. I'm also glad that you have to go back as far as him, and literally a *couple* others, to put together some sort of argument. I won't argue with you in the slightest that people like him need to be put in jail.

HOWEVER....I find it high-larious that you say the following:

"The people who use eliminationist tactics are on the other side."

You have GOT to be kidding me. jri, you have no sense of irony. (Come to think of it, neither does Beth.)

As Daffy Duck would say, "It is to laugh." (I'm a Warner Bros. kinda guy...)
John R. | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 10:12 am | #

Matt, nobody is stopping you. Nobody can.
Colleen | 08.10.05 - 10:38 am | #

Planned Parenthood employs "eliminationist tactics" every day.
Christ-haunted | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 10:41 am | #

Msgr. Reilly's group offers women a real choice. Many of the women my wife counsels are being brought by their libertine boyfriends (have you ever met a libertine who didn't adore abortion?) for whom the idea of woman-as-life-bearer is an annoying accident of creation.

No "pro-choice" person can logically disagree with giving a woman another option -- especially one that is positive, will not harm her, and will not kill her child.

The fact that these people go to such lengths to remove women's choices, reveals their true colors.
Tex | 08.10.05 - 10:44 am | #

About the only remaining allies of you folks who would chain a woman to a bed and force her to nurture an unwanted fertilized egg, are Iran and Saudi Arabia.

A fertilized egg is not a microscopic "baby". Stop pushing your superstitions beliefs on others.

And if you don't believe in evolution, go to a museum of natural history.
Tommo | 08.10.05 - 11:10 am | #

"A fertilized egg is not a microscopic "baby". Stop pushing your superstitions beliefs on others."

Who's pushing anything, dude? We're saying we have the right to protest, and to offer women couseling, without fear of reprisals. In what way is that superstitious?

"And if you don't believe in evolution, go to a museum of natural history."

Thanks for the invite, Captain Random. Last I checked at the natural history museum, species that end pregnancies are either:
1)facing extreme cases of population-wide starvation, or
2) going extinct.
See, what I got from my visit to the museum is that babies happen, and they're allowed by nature to be born, and those that kill them are called "predators," and species don't normally prey on their own.

Or did you go to a different museum?
Kate B. | 08.10.05 - 11:19 am | #

"A fertilized egg is not a microscopic "baby". Stop pushing your superstitions beliefs on others."

Its not superstitious. It's biology.

The only ones who are pushing a superstitous, anti-science mentality are those who suggest that a non-human "lump of cells" magically becomes a baby (entitled to the full suite of human rights) at the moment it takes its first breath. I know of no scientific explanation for such medieval thinking.

Wouldn't it be nice if pro-abortion folks would keep their superstitous beliefs to themselves and let the rest of us base public policy upon accepted medical fact?
Tex | 08.10.05 - 11:38 am | #

Tommo is a fake troll, right? I mean, no one could actually write that nonsense seriously.

Of course, if, as it sounds, s/he is a product of our public high schools, that would explain the lack of scientific knowledge adequately.
Colleen | 08.10.05 - 11:44 am | #

Now, we don't mind some fun give and take, but stop to think for a moment - this Dunder Woman cartoon was PP's own product! We're not putting anything on them, we're just noticing what they've said about themselves and what they'd like to do to us. This wasn't a satire or a slander, this was an in-house product.

So, where is the "Eric Rudolph - Life Crusader" video? You will wait even unto the freezing of Gehenna to find anything like that coming from us. He's a goon and a thug and he deserves his concrete box. Nobody here will say otherwise.

Meanwhile, PP puts out its cartoon in public, reacts to bad publicity by quietly shuffling it to one side - and never repudiates it or retracts the sentiment. It immediately becomes an occasion to say, "Oh, yeah, but what about?..." Really, if PP were right, you'd think they could defend their position with something more sophisticated than schoolyard taunts.
Nightfly | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 11:45 am | #

I find it interesting that you love to focus on the non-violent protestors. Not all anti-choice (I'm sorry Pro-life) protesters are non-violent. I am pro-choice and don't have a problem with people excerising their 1st amendment right. I do have a problem with the following 1) people who feel its ok to shoot doctors who preform abortion or blow up clinics in the name of "saving lives" and 2) "peaceful" protestors who stand outside PP clinics and hold up 6 foot images of aborted fetuses while small children are walking by (Remember PP is a FAMILY clinic as well as a "killing center")
Left Brain | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 11:54 am | #

"people who feel its ok to shoot doctors who preform abortion or blow up clinics in the name of "saving lives"

Who here is advocating following them? Citation, please.

"6 foot images of aborted fetuses while small children are walking by"

And now biology is the enemy? We wouldn't want the kids learning facts, is that it? Yes, those are graphic and disturbing images. So were the Abu Ghraib photos, and those were all over the newsstands, in spite of the kids walking by. I'm not really sure what the objection is to protesters who use factual images instead of violence to make their point. It's not like they photoshop the pics.
Kate B. | 08.10.05 - 12:11 pm | #

Well, as per point one, we have the same problem with those cretins, and regularly denounce them and seek their punishment. We're out to change minds and hearts, not snuff them.

As per point two, you seem to show a little confusion. The pictures show what actually happens inside the clinics. Who's violent, the abortionist who actually does the act, or the person who only notices and mentions it?
Nightfly | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 12:13 pm | #

Ok I never said anyone here advocated my first point. I just pointed out that you love to focus on the portion of your side that is non-violent. YOu only seem to condemn the other portion when it is thrown in your face.

As for point 2. Maybe you think it's OK for a 5 year old child who happens to be accomanying his mother into a PP clinic for family service to be exposed to someone's political agenda in the form of a bloody torn-apart fetus, just to proove a point. If so, it only goes to proove how sad, sad, sad you are.
Left Brain | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 12:20 pm | #

There is nothing more offensive to the intelect than the canard that the existence of a unique human individual at coception is a "superstious belief". Human life at conception is a scientific fact - it is unique from both its mother and father, has its own DNA, and is alive. What is entirely unscientific is the idea that what is otherwise human and alive is somehow not a human life.

Science is only on the side of pro-aborts if they are talking about the science of centuries past.
David | 08.10.05 - 12:23 pm | #

According to most polling, a significant majority of the population seems feels that early-term abortions should be legal, but there should be restictions on late-term abortions. The line between the two is typically synonymous with viability -- late second trimester to early third trimester.

That being said, even if you believe that third-trimester abortion should be banned, any prohibition without exceptions for the health of the mother is, in effect, akin to a policy of forced organ donation. Even those who believe a viable fetus should have equal rights as an adult would be hard pressed to justify why it should have greater rights than anyone else by being able to force another person to donate a kidney against their will in order to live. Why would such an right would end at birth?

As for pre-viability equal rights extending to the "lump of cells," potential is not the same as manifest reality. If something is biologically incapable of independent survival, it is not the same a a fully-developed human life. It is still a potential life. Everyone with two hands and a gun has the potential to be a murderer, but we don't lock them up until they actually kill.
212 | 08.10.05 - 12:35 pm | #

>>As for point 2. Maybe you think it's OK for a 5 year old child who happens to be accomanying his mother into a PP clinic for family service to be exposed to someone's political agenda in the form of a bloody torn-apart fetus, just to proove a point.

I truly don't get it. On one hand you argue it's not a baby, but just fetal tissue. If that's so, then what's the problem with the kid seeing it? Just explain that it's really not a baby and that should clear things up for the little tot. Oh, but I forgot, no 5 year old is stupid enough to see the picture of a chopped up baby, and not realize that it's actually a chopped up baby.
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 12:35 pm | #

>>>That being said, even if you believe that third-trimester abortion should be banned, any prohibition without exceptions for the health of the mother is, in effect, akin to a policy of forced organ donation. Even those who believe a viable fetus should have equal rights as an adult would be hard pressed to justify why it should have greater rights than anyone else by being able to force another person to donate a kidney against their will in order to live.

You are making a false parrellel. The removal of someone's organ is different in nature than the totally natural consequences of a sexual act that results in conception and in the end result ultimately takes nothing permanent from the mothers body.

>>As for pre-viability equal rights extending to the "lump of cells," potential is not the same as manifest reality. If something is biologically incapable of independent survival, it is not the same a a fully-developed human life.

A newborn baby is biologically incapable of independent survival, as is a toddler. Why do we offer protection to the helpless one day old? The line you've drawn is arbitrary.

>>It is still a potential life.

The 'lump of cells' is living by an scientific definition of what constitutes life.

>>Everyone with two hands and a gun has the potential to be a murderer, but we don't lock them up until they actually kill.

This is utter nonsense. Left uninterfered with, the 'lump of cells' WILL become a fully formed baby, not maybe.
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 12:45 pm | #

Left Brain--

I might concede your point IFF children were the intended targets of those pictures. They are not, however. PP, to my knowledge, does not supply pediatric care. If a parent must bring his/her child into an adult environment, then s/he must monitor what the child sees while in that environment. "Billy, don't look at the disturbing torture pictures. Turn off the TV when that commercial comes on." Etc., etc.

In other words, pro-life protesters are adults talking to other adults. They didn't bring the kids.

That an image is disturbing does not make it any less a fact.
Kate B. | 08.10.05 - 12:50 pm | #

A ban on abotion is forced organ donation when a pregnancy threatens the health of hte mother. It just happens that the process that destroys the mother's organ -- pregnancy -- is something of a self-help surgery wihtout a doctor intervening. The absence of a medical intervention does not make the damage less significant or the involuntary nature less wrong. Why would a fetus have the right to destroy its mother's organs in order to live and a post-birth baby (or an important State official for that matter) not?

Also, don't confuse the need for nurturing with biological incapability for independent survival. If its heart can't beat and its lungs can't breathe, it's incapable of independent survival. Newborns and post-viability fetuses are not incapable of independent survival.

Besides, if ability to support oneself were the measure most teenagers wouldn't be far above frozen embryos. ;)

[212, I deleted one line where you accused commenters of "playing dumb." I repeat the insult here as a reminder to please read the comments rules, posted at the left of my main page; the rule here is "polite discourse." You can assert that people are ignoring the facts without calling them names. Also, please read my comment below about staying on topic to avoid having future comments deleted. Thanks—Dawn]
212 | 08.10.05 - 12:56 pm | #

A ban on abotion is forced organ donation when a pregnancy threatens the health of hte mother. It just happens that the process that destroys the mother's organ -- pregnancy -- is something of a self-help surgery wihtout a doctor intervening. The absence of a medical intervention does not make the damage less significant or the involuntary nature less wrong. Why would a fetus have the right to destroy its mother's organs in order to live and a post-birth baby (or an important State official for that matter) not?

Also, don't confuse the need for nurturing with biological incapability for independent survival. If its heart can't beat and its lungs can't breathe, it's incapable of independent survival. Newborns and post-viability fetuses are not incapable of independent survival. Don't play dumb about the distinction.

Besides, if ability to support oneself were the measure most teenagers wouldn't be far above frozen embryos. ;)
212 | 08.10.05 - 12:56 pm | #

Great to see this thread's getting such rich commentary. A couple of reminders:

* I banned the troll (which is not to say she might come back using a different Internet connection, as she has before). I'm leaving her comments up because I like the responses. However, in general, I ask that you please ignore trolls, because I will usually delete their comments when I find them, and I don't want to have to delete your responses too. Thanks.

* Please don't let the topic stray too far off the main issue, which is that Planned Parenthood's cartoon depicts its fantasies of blowing up nonviolent protesters. Instead of arguing the reasons why abortion should be legal, the pro-choicers here should explain how they can defend an organization that proudly depicts what is, by all appearances, a hate crime.

I haven't deleted any comments here yet--this is just a friendly reminder to stay relevant. A lot of people are reading this thread, and they shouldn't have to wade through things that aren't related to the post they just read. Thanks very much for your cooperation.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 12:56 pm | #

"Really, if PP were right, you'd think they could defend their position with something more sophisticated than schoolyard taunts."

But....they're not right! LOL!

So expect the schoolyard taunts to continue...
John R. | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:08 pm | #

As a prochoicer I'd like to share a very telling story about an encounter with a prolifer.
I was shopping in a large mall with my 9 year old daughter, I was 8 months pregnant with my son when a man handing out prolife pamphlets appoached us, I politely refused the pamphlet and started to walk away, he cut us off and insisted I take one (pamphlet) pointing out I obviously supported the cause. I told the man that (my exact words) I had and was having children because I CHOSE to.At that point he started screaming at my daughter and I and tryed to physically grab me, thankfully mall security intervened.
At first I dismissed the incident thinking maybe he was mentally unbalanced, but then realized I had flown in the face of one of prolifes favorite talking points-
that prochioce means prodeath.
delen | 08.10.05 - 1:10 pm | #

"1) people who feel its ok to shoot doctors who preform abortion or blow up clinics in the name of "saving lives" "

Again with this logic. Nobody here- and nobody I know, on the whole planet Earth- feel these activities are "ok." I'm sure there are people who do feel it's "ok"- the perpetrators and those who sympathize with their actions- but they are an extreme minority who will get nothing but contempt from me and everyone else here.

Most especially from our host, who I'm sure would be first in line to say it's not "ok."

"2) "peaceful" protestors who stand outside PP clinics and hold up 6 foot images of aborted fetuses while small children are walking by"

Again...the irony. Oh, the irony! I ask for a light and the Hindenburg crashes on top of me...

You're worried about "small children" ?!?!?! REALLY?!??!?

"It is to laugh...."
John R. | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:13 pm | #

Sorry, Dawn...I was responding to things as I read down the comment section, then got to your post recommending I not get too far off topic. Too late!

Delete where you feel necessary! :)
John R. | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:17 pm | #

Here's a post that's on topic:

Folks like PP (and the current anti-Roberts ad by NARAL) simply have to lie. They have to intimidate and bully. Their hold on the truth is so fragile, they can't stand that abortion have a spotlight of truth shown on it.

So you get these cartoons written by obviously self-centered, self-absorbed and intensely myopic people who make the ridiculous seem so effortless, it's astonishing to normal people. That's why I think people seeing this cartoon is a GOOD thing. Most normal people will see how out of the mainstream these people are.

Giant condoms ripping people's heads off? Come on!
John R. | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:20 pm | #

>>A ban on abotion is forced organ donation when a pregnancy threatens the health of hte mother.

Your original post was unclear on the point you were trying to make. stated this way, I disagree with the use of the phrase 'forced organ donation', but not with the principle underlying the comment. even as a Catholic, the understanding is that someone cannot be compelled to give their life for another and that an abortion which is caused during the treatment of the mother for health reasons is not immoral.

>>Also, don't confuse the need for nurturing with biological incapability for independent survival. If its heart can't beat and its lungs can't breathe, it's incapable of independent survival. Newborns and post-viability fetuses are not incapable of independent survival.

I'd still argue that your distinction is an arbitrary one. Why are only lungs and heartbeat a determining factor. The newborn cannot feed itself and will starve without support. For this and many other reasons (can't walk, can't regulate it's internal temperature very well, etc.) a newborn is most definetely not capable of independent survival.
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 1:23 pm | #

Steve,
I don't think I ever used the word baby. It's you guys who confuse the term fetus with baby.

Kate
Who cares if children are the intended object? The fact is, they see it and the protesters know darn well that they do.

I suppose neither of you would have a problem taking your 5 year old kids to see gory rated-R movies where people get limbs ripped off and faces blown away.

[Left Brain, you know the comment rules: polite discourse. Don't flout them. I just had to delete the last line of your comment because it contained an insult towards other commenters. Surely you can express your views without calling names. Please be polite if you wish to continue commenting here. Last chance. Thank you - Dawn]

Edited By Siteowner
Left Brain | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:26 pm | #

John R.

lets focus on your term "children" not fetus. I'm sorry, where is the irony?
Left Brain | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:28 pm | #

Sorry about that, Dawn.

But I still think it's sad that those who are criticizing me seem to have no problem with what I depicted.
Left Brain | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:37 pm | #

"lets focus on your term "children" not fetus. I'm sorry, where is the irony?"

Only that children are fetuses first.

See, I know this to be true. So does the five year old child who sees a picture of a "cut up fetus" and knows unmistakably that is "what the baby looks like before it comes out of the mommy."

PP knows this to be true as well, that's why they cover the fact up in their propaganda. They have to. Actually, they can't afford not to. If they didn't lie, their cause would run out of steam.

This cartoon is part of that wave of propaganda. Look, Left Brain, I used to be on your side. I was "pro choice" (whatever that silly combination of words is supposed to mean.) But I'm not. Over time, the idea of stopping the life cycle in the womb made less and less sense to me, and it's adherents started to become more and more hysterical and freakish to me.

Now, I can't believe I ever thought it was "ok" to stop a human being's life cycle.

Maybe one day you'll come around to that. I hope you do. Others here will pray that you do. I'm not an expressly religious person, btw. I think it's a common lie that the only people who are pro-life are revved up super-Christians. That's another piece of this insidious propaganda PP is trying to sell. They *want* this to look like a battle between religion and "normal folk". They stand to gain when the battle lines are drawn in such a way.

I'm sorry, all I know is that abortion is the conscious ending of a life. It should be outlawed. And it's not God telling me to feel that way (although I'm sure he's got His own strong opinions about the matter, I didn't need him to form my decision.)

See ya on the flipside, Left Brain!
John R. | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:44 pm | #

Me bad for not proofreading before I click "OK"!

When I said:

"See, I know this to be true. So does the five year old child who sees a picture of a "cut up fetus" and knows unmistakably that is "what the baby looks like before it comes out of the mommy.""

I should have said the child who see a picture of a fetus would know unmistakably that is "what the baby looks like before it comes out of the mommy."

When the child sees a picture of a "cut up fetus", he knows EXACTLY what was at stake, and what happened. He knows intuitively "that coulda been me!"
John R. | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:47 pm | #

John R.

I always appreciate it when one prays for me (that wasn't sarcasm). Maybe one day I will be on your side, stranger things have happened. Till then I have two points:

1)Using your argument that children are fetuses first, I could use the tired reply from people on my side that they are also an egg and sperm first. I know, I know, I hate that argument as well, but it makes just as much sense as your point.

2) Still no condemnation of the act of the protestors!!! I honestly don't get it.
Left Brain | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:53 pm | #

Left Brain,

Somehow, you just can't accept your own inconsistency.

We show kids diseased lungs in school, in order to persuade them not to smoke. In history class we show them the Nazi death camps and their heaped up skeletal corpses.

In Driver's ed, we show them mangled cars and the occasional hideously injured teenager. We do this because we want them to know, really know what the outcome of harmful behaviour is.

Why is it not ok to show them dismembered babies? Particularly, since you and your pro-choice colleagues insist that it isn't a baby, I have trouble understanding your problem. I am afraid that you haven't made your point; indeed, you cannot make it. But do feel free to continue trying.
Colleen | 08.10.05 - 1:53 pm | #

JPE, please post again. Your last comment disappeared because it contained only two words of your own, and they were both sarcastic.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:54 pm | #

OK,

Let me just ask here. Would those of you who are pro-life, and have yet to condemn what I presented in my first post, want your young child to convinced of the righteousness of the pro-lifers in this manner?
Left Brain | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 1:59 pm | #

Collen,

you are talking about at the very least junior high school level. I am talking about 5 year olds. It's the same reason why we have rating systems in movies. Because there is a certain level at which children are able to fully process things without being traumatized for life.
Left Brain | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 2:01 pm | #

I am not overly worried about small children; they will not take in what they cannot understand. This is especially true of still photos; films are more problematic, for obvious reasons.

The children old enough to understand what they are seeing when they see a dismembered baby will be better off for knowing the truth.

I am really amazed that you don't see that a picture that could traumatize a child for life is a picture of something so horrible, it ought not to happen! What sort of picture could a prolifer wave around that would traumatize a child? They do not likely exist or PP would have trotted them out long before now.

And please don't drag out that one picture of the poor woman lying on the floor, who did die of a botched abortion. Without explanation, the picture puzzles; it does not horrify.
Colleen | 08.10.05 - 2:11 pm | #

"Because there is a certain level at which children are able to fully process things without being traumatized for life."

They probably find the images traumatizing because of the fact that they show dismembered babies.

I woulds also hesitate to show my 5 year old pictures of holocaust victims or lynchings. They are disturbing becasue...well...they are disturbing.

Why are they disturbing? Because they show the violent and unnecessary killing of a human being, a person.
Tex | 08.10.05 - 2:13 pm | #

>>I don't think I ever used the word baby. It's you guys who confuse the term fetus with baby.

Your missing the point. If it's just a fetus, then what's the problem with a 5 year old seeing it?
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 2:49 pm | #

Maybe you think it's OK for a 5 year old child who happens to be accomanying his mother into a PP clinic for family service to be exposed to someone's political agenda in the form of a bloody torn-apart fetus, just to proove a point.

When the family service is that his mother is having his sibling turned into a bloody torn-apart fetus?
Mary | 08.10.05 - 3:03 pm | #

A ban on abotion is forced organ donation when a pregnancy threatens the health of hte mother. It just happens that the process that destroys the mother's organ -- pregnancy -- is something of a self-help surgery wihtout a doctor intervening. The absence of a medical intervention does not make the damage less significant or the involuntary nature less wrong.

By that logic -- someone has a heart disease. It just happens that the process that destroys the person's heart is something of a self-help surgery wihtout a doctor intervening. The absence of a medical intervention does not make the damage less significant or the involuntary nature less wrong. A ban on forced organ donation is forced organ donation when heart disease threatens the health of the heart disease victim.

The wrong in forced organ donation is that someone's body is hacked up for the benefit of a third person's healthy, or even life. An abortion is not performed on the mother. It is performed on the baby, who is the one sliced to bits, or having the brains scrapped out, or shot with a fatal dosage of saline solution.
Mary | 08.10.05 - 3:07 pm | #

Steve G.,

I wrote health, not life, of the mother. You can survive with one kidney, but nobody can make you give one up against your will. I doubt opponents to "health of the mother" exception would be OK with forcing that exchange in any context other than pregnancy, and for all the claims of "equal" rights, I don't see how they can rationally justify it there either.

Also, as I alluded to earlier in jest, by your measure of capability for independent survival, most teenagers wouldn't qualify. If you'd like to use brain development as the measure, fine, but I don't think that would go as far as you're trying to stretch it.

What I mean is that, independent of the mother, there is no nurturing or treatment that could allow a pre-viability fetus to live. That is the definition of non-viability or pre-viability. Should a life in such a state, with only the potential, not the actual capability, to live be afforded equal legal protection as a fetus or person who does have that capability.

It seems in vogue to use scientific definitions of "life" in anti-abortion advocacy when it's apparent that bare-faced religious condemnation doesn't have much traction with the majority of hte country. This leads to seemingly counter-intuitive and unconvincing positions on stem cells. The closest thing these true "lumps of cells" will get to a mother is a glass dish.

But it's not a scientific question, it's a legal one -- like citizenship... unless you're proposing blanket citizenship for anyone conceived on US soil. (Somehow, I doubt it.)

----------

On the issue of the cartoon, it seems, as the format (a CARTOON) would suggest, intended to be humor not advocacy.

I've seen web cartoons of frogs in a blender, but I doubt that the author was saying live frogs should be used for health drinks. [Insert Judge Roberts comment here.] I doubt NARAL thinks protesters should be blown up any more than they should be suffocated with full-body condoms. Going poof is a cartoon way to clear the screen.

Blocking the doors annoys them, like someone paying with all pennies at the grocery store with only one cashier. The cartoon is venting.

Why try to claim victim status for a joke cartoon that affects nobody's real life when its the protester-camp that is actively interfering in the legal choices of real people in the real world...

To appropriate a line from 2000, maybe it time for you to "move on."
212 | 08.10.05 - 3:09 pm | #

Why is it ok for planned parenthood to fantasize about murdering peaceful protestors, even in a seemingly harmless cartoon? If you call this venting, then why get up in arms about images of aborted babies? The pro-lifers are just "venting"...
Sydney Carton | 08.10.05 - 3:12 pm | #

I'll start caring about what happens to babies inside the womb as soon as you start caring what hapens to them outside the womb. We have more food than we need, but yet they starve. We have more money than we know what to do with, but yet they suffer. We bomb them, beat them, and ingnore them. And you dare to talk to me about your "culture of life?"

Your allies in the "culture of life" have killed thousands of children in Iraq. You economic policies reduce millions of other to hopeless poverty. I might be half-inclined to take you people seriously if you were half as willing to protest THESE "realities," instead of debating whether or not two cells or four cells makes a life.
Joe Bob | 08.10.05 - 3:19 pm | #

First off Mary I can only hope you do not have children. Exposing a 5 year old to pictures or models of dismembered fetuses and then saying this is what mommy plans to do your little brother or sister is just evil pure and simple I suppose by suggestion this also could imply (to the child) you are lucky she didn't do this to you.
But as a prolifer you would endorse traumatizing a living child to protect an unborn fetus.
delen | 08.10.05 - 3:24 pm | #

The problem with using viability as the basis for your definition of what is and is not a person, is that this point changes.

We have all learned from Susan Torres that a baby is viable any time after 25 weeks. In the future we can expect the amount of time required to shorten further still.

What makes you and me human beings and, by extension, people, must be due to some quality which we posess inherently, not by some accidental (to use Aristotlean language) qualities of something external to our being (like the state of technology).

You and I are human beings...just as a fetus is. Since all human beings are, by definition, people, it follows that you, me, and a fetus, are all people.
Tex | 08.10.05 - 3:28 pm | #

>>You can survive with one kidney, but nobody can make you give one up against your will.
YOu can survive, but a permenant, irreprable physical harm has been done. Not so in Pregnancy. You continue to draw an invalid parrellel.

>> I doubt opponents to "health of the mother" exception would be OK with forcing that exchange in any context other than pregnancy
Your probably right, but pregnancy is a unique in that it just happens to be how a new human being comes into the world (at least for now). There simply is no other context which is equivalent.

>> and for all the claims of "equal" rights, I don't see how they can rationally justify it there either.

Since each person must pass this way into the world, it's quite rational to want to protect in a unique way the ability of the person to do so.

>>Also, as I alluded to earlier in jest, by your measure of capability for independent survival, most teenagers wouldn't qualify.
I'd be willing to argue (despite the level of immaturity of most teens) that if pressed, that left in the middle of a sidewalk in a strange city, they'd be able to get up, walk to find help, communicate, seek food, shelter, etc. At the very least they'd have the physical ability to do so. A newborn dropped into the same situation will simply be unable to survive unless some wholly takes over care for that baby. A newborn baby is as dependent on outside support for its survival as a baby in the womb.

>>What I mean is that, independent of the mother, there is no nurturing or treatment that could allow a pre-viability fetus to live.
Technology is moving fast. It was just recently announced that Japanese researchers are working on an artificial womb that could be reality in just a few years. The 'viability' of the fetus is a moving target and is again an arbitrary line you are drawing.
Anonymous | 08.10.05 - 3:44 pm | #

>> I suppose by suggestion this also could imply (to the child) you are lucky she didn't do this to you.

Do you even understand what you are saying? The child in this hypothetical IS lucky that she didn't do it to them. It's only because Mom 'choose' not to do this to them that they are walking with mom. The irony is staggering.

Also, It's amazing that outrage is over the sign the imaginary 5 year old might see, rather than the fact that the mother is talking them along (like going to the grocery store) for her abortion. ugh!
Anonymous | 08.10.05 - 3:49 pm | #

Darn, that anonymous was me.
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 3:51 pm | #

Steve, I didn't mention that bringing a child to an abortion clinic was outragous because, it seemed obvious and this is a hypothetical situation, however I could see this happening on the way to grocery store (having pictures waved at a child), which I would like to believe would be offensive to anyone regardles of what they believe about abortion.
delen | 08.10.05 - 4:02 pm | #

On a related note, I have wondered what abortionists do on "Take Your Daughter to Work Day"?
Tex | 08.10.05 - 4:07 pm | #

Re: cartoon

As far as I know, nobody has been forced to watch this cartoon. It isn't waved in front of people's eyes as they walk down the street. In fact, you have to download it in order to see it at all -- a voluntary act. They aren't broadcasting for all the world that this is the fate protesters should be delt... unless they also sell exploding body-condom guns, of course.

The cartoon is meant to lighten the spirits of people who are directly targeted by beligerant sign-wavers who prevent them from peacably accessing a medical service no less protected than the sign-wavers right to peacably protest.

To speak of this as some sort of controversy seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel of things to be offended at. Maybe it's time to move on.

--------------

Anonymous,

Why do you ignore that I'm talking about a "health of the mother" exception? By definition, that is a pregnancy that will cause permanent injury to the mother. Even if you think that a unborn human should have rights equal to that of a fully developed citizen, no fully developed citizen is allowed to force anyone, parent or stranger, to undergo permanent injury or organ damage against their will, even if their life depends on it. Why should that change at birth? Of course, if you think the law should mandate that every mother must donate any organ the mother can survive without and that their child may require until their 18th birthday...

As for the moving target of viability, you work with the facts as they are, not as they might be some day. (And why object to arbitrary lines only here; why is adult criminal culpability magically turned on exactly on a birthday between 14 and 18, and why does it vary by state?) Maybe the conversation will change as medicine advances. In the American legal context, a 50% chance of survival -- more likely than not -- would seem the likely measure by which to deem a fetus viable; it is the same measure used in wrongful death, criminal negligence, etc.
212 | 08.10.05 - 4:12 pm | #

The cartoon is meant to lighten the spirits of people who are directly targeted by beligerant sign-wavers

Is that taken directly from the grant proposal?
saintkansas | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 4:20 pm | #

"As for the moving target of viability, you work with the facts as they are, not as they might be some day"

Right. And the facts are that a fetus is a human being. It is a simple fact of biology. It is simple science my friend.

I think you'd agree that if you are to draw such lines, you must give reasons why they must be drawn where they are, especially when human lives are at stake.

Take the following examples:

"In the eyes of the law... The slave is not a person." Virginia Supreme Court decision, 1858

"An Indian is not a person within the meaning of the Constitution." George Canfield - American Law Review, 1881

"The statutory word 'person' did not in these circumstances include women." British Voting Rights case, 1909

"The Reichsgericht itself refused to recognize Jews... as 'persons' in the legal sense." German Supreme Court decision, 1936

"The law of Canada does not recognize the unborn child as a legal person possessing rights." Canadian Supreme Court - Winnipeg Child and Family Services Case, 1997

Not very nice company to share, is it?
Tex | 08.10.05 - 4:24 pm | #

Tex- Most if not all "abortionists" are OB-GYN doctors who preform abortions as part but not all of their practice, which also includes pre-natal care, delivering babies, prescribing birth control, doing exams and tests such as pap smears ect, I think you get the idea, no these doctors are not monsters that"kill babies for a living" as some prolife groups would like to believe.
delen | 08.10.05 - 4:24 pm | #

>>Why do you ignore that I'm talking about a "health of the mother" exception? By definition, that is a pregnancy that will cause permanent injury to the mother.

I am not ignoring it. It's just that it's meaningless. Who defines 'health of the mother' I've heard arguments that this can include almost anything the doctor wants to define it as. Life of the mother, I am fine with. 'Health of the mother' is just a semantic game being played to make any ban, no ban in reality.

And again, the unique fact that ALL persons can ONLY be born by being in their mothers womb makes this a unique context which simply doesn't apply in the organ donation examply you are trying to force.

>>(And why object to arbitrary lines only here; why is adult criminal culpability magically turned on exactly on a birthday between 14 and 18, and why does it vary by state?) Maybe the conversation will change as medicine advances.

Again you try to parrellel things that are not. The difference is that in only this instance are we dealing with the life or death of the person. I won't even debate that arbitrary lines exist all over the place, or whether they are appropriate or not. It's pointless to deciding whether an arbitrary line should be used when a life is in question.
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 4:28 pm | #

"I think you get the idea, no these doctors are not monsters that"kill babies for a living" as some prolife groups would like to believe."

Monsters? No. I try not to demonize sinners, for I am one myself.

People who kill babies for a living? Of course. They get paid for it don't they?
Tex | 08.10.05 - 4:33 pm | #

>> Most if not all "abortionists" are OB-GYN doctors who preform abortions as part but not all of their practice, which also includes pre-natal care, delivering babies, prescribing birth control, doing exams and tests such as pap smears ect, I think you get the idea, no these doctors are not monsters that"kill babies for a living" as some prolife groups would like to believe.

Most if not all Nazi medical professionals were only euthenizing retards, and jews as part but not all of their practice, which included caring for Aryans, prescribing medication, doing exams and tests etc, I think you get the idea. No, these doctors are not monsters that kill Jews for a linving as some Jewish sympathizers would like to believe.

You get the point delen?
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 4:34 pm | #

Tex,

I gave my reasons: physical incapability of independent survival. Now, one can dither about how newborns need care and ignore that being removed from the womb is not the same as being abandoned in the street. Perhaps a baby can't survive without food, but its vital organs cetainly can function, and I'm not speaking about viability in reference to extrincic factors.

Unless my math is wrong 25 weeks (the Torres example) is past the second trimester. This is roughly the point when most Americans believe that there should be restrictions on abortion, which (for the reasons I stated above) must include a "health of the mother" exception unless you believe fetuses somehow have special rights that arbitrarily end at birth. (Why should only "new" humans be special, and why aren't they "new" and special anymore once they leave the womb?)

Prior to that, prior to viability, opposition to the legality of abortion is out of the mainstream. This is especially so for the legality of early-term abortions, when the content of the womb don't make for such evokative pictures to be put on signs and waved for shock value.

The belief that every unique combination of human DNA is a full-fledged and equally-recognized life is even further outside the mainstream, as Frist's recent flip-flop on human stem cells reflects... after all, he's hoping to be elected by the majority of the country, not just the far-right fringe of his own party.

Yes, and the Bush administration does not recognize detainees as having any rights under the constitution either. Legalese all sounds the same. If you can go beyond the mere language of the conclusion and discuss the parallel in legal reasoning, I might credit that Nazi parallel.

The closest reasoning I've seen to that issue is Dread Scott, and that refers only to an issue of location determining rights, it does not address issue of intrincic non-viability or any intrincic attributes whatsoever, and seems (to me at least) inadequate to refute the opposing contentions.
Anonymous | 08.10.05 - 4:42 pm | #

"I gave my reasons: physical incapability of independent survival."

No you didn't. You made an assertion. You gave no reasons.

I see no reason why being weak should make someone less human.

Do you?
Tex | 08.10.05 - 4:47 pm | #

I would like to see someone respond to this argument given by 212:

"Why do you ignore that I'm talking about a "health of the mother" exception? By definition, that is a pregnancy that will cause permanent injury to the mother. Even if you think that a unborn human should have rights equal to that of a fully developed citizen, no fully developed citizen is allowed to force anyone, parent or stranger, to undergo permanent injury or organ damage against their will, even if their life depends on it. Why should that change at birth? Of course, if you think the law should mandate that every mother must donate any organ the mother can survive without and that their child may require until their 18th birthday..."

I'm pro-life but I have a hard time with this one. Trouble is, once you allow "health of the mother" clauses, that leads right into pretty much there being no restrictions at all, so how should this argument be addressed?
Another Sarah | 08.10.05 - 4:49 pm | #

Incidentally, I have a cousin who was born (and survived just fine) at, I believe, 23 weeks.
Another Sarah | 08.10.05 - 4:50 pm | #

Well then at least we can all agree that children after 23 weeks from conception are capable of living independently.

Therefore, we can all agree, abortion after this time should be prohibited.

See, rational conversation can get you somewhere!
Tex | 08.10.05 - 4:57 pm | #

Tex,

Legal arguments about defining "health of the mother" do make it OK to force a woman to lose a kidney because you think someone else might use that exception as a loophole; like many things restricted for medical use (for example, Rush Limbaugh's oxyconten habit), abuse does not negate ligitimate uses.

Incapability for independent survival is beyond being weak. By similar reasoning, someone who hasn't had a heartbeat for half an hour is not actually dead until all of their cells die; they're just in a weak point of life, and death is a moving target anyway -- one day they may be revivable.

Without additional action (ie: gestation) by another, they will not survive. Period. The fact that gestation is an involuntary condition doesn't change that fact. Being presently incapable of living, they are not treated the same as those who are capable, at the beginning of life just as at the end. (Meaning a person experiences macro-death long before they die on a cellular level.)

Viability is a threshold, not a question of degree. Weak is compared to strong, it's a relative measure. Viability is merely the capacity to survive, yes or no. Once someone is capable of surival, they can be measured in terms of weakness or strength. Before that, the term is a poor fit.
212 | 08.10.05 - 5:03 pm | #

Typo in the first paragraph, as you might assume; it should read:

"Legal arguments about defining "health of the mother" DON'T make is OK..."
212 | 08.10.05 - 5:07 pm | #

Also, the arbitrary age of full adult criminal culpability, oddly occuring one one's own birthday, is a matter of life and death for capital punishment.
212 | 08.10.05 - 5:11 pm | #

"Incapability for independent survival is beyond being weak."

No it isn't. You're just saying that because it supports you argument.

The *only* sane way to describe viability is in terms of varying degrees of weakness or dependence, which has nothing to do with one's humanity.

We've already established that a 23 week old fetus is viable...yet even my 15 month old son is incapable of independent survival.

You're making up definitions to suit your argument, and applying them as you see fit without any basis in logic.
Tex | 08.10.05 - 5:16 pm | #

Another Sarah,
I attempted to answer this, and will try to clarify. Your point that 'health of the mother' is extremely vague is one reason why this won't fly. There are others though. The fact that pregnancy is the only doorway for any human being into the world is a radically unique context that renders the other situations moot. Put flesh on other hypotheticals....

A mother has a kidney that her 4 year old child needs. First, it's important to note that in this case other alternatives (a donated organ from someone who's died) may be available, along with possible alternative treatments. In pregnancy, currently there are no alternatives for the baby.

More importantly, most of us already make an exception based on life of a mother in the case of abortion. Anything severe enough to cause permanent, irreprable harm to the mother would likely qualify as life-threatening. Anything that falls beneath the level frankly is more of a nuisance than irreprable, permanent harm. Before we get into any angst over this objection, the objector should give some real non preganancy hypotheticals where they think that the permanent, irrepareable harm another person is a factor, but that person's life is not threaten, AND no alternative exists. I doubt such scenarios exist. Once you get to that level, the exception already kicks in. The suggestion of a kidney being donated has been floated as a comparison, but after all, that really is life threatening and like it or not, it's part of the reason we don't compel organ donation.
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 5:18 pm | #

Tex,

See my above distinction between requiring nurturing and physical, biological incapability of indpenedent survival.

See also, likelihood that an American legal system should use the same measure for viable chance used in most other legal contexts involving causes of death and mortality: more likely than not. Something like this: "If a fetus at the time of the abortion is, but for the process used to separate it from the womb, more likely than not to be biologically capable of surivival outside the womb."

None of which addresses the "health of the mother" issue.
212 | 08.10.05 - 5:24 pm | #

>>Legal arguments about defining "health of the mother" do make it OK to force a woman to lose a kidney because you think someone else might use that exception as a loophole; like many things restricted for medical use (for example, Rush Limbaugh's oxyconten habit), abuse does not negate ligitimate uses.

As I've already pointed out, compelling kidney donation is in itself life-threatening, and is enough of a reason to not accept it. Can you show an example in which the person (whether regarding pregnancy or not) are truly at risk of permanent, irreparable harm, but the situation is NOT life threatening?


>>Incapability for independent survival is beyond being weak. By similar reasoning, someone who hasn't had a heartbeat for half an hour is not actually dead until all of their cells die; they're just in a weak point of life, and death is a moving target anyway -- one day they may be revivable.

The difference is that one involves the natural fact of death, and letting that process run it's course. The other involves the literally violent interruption of the natural process going on to stop a progressing life.

>>Without additional action (ie: gestation) by another, they will not survive. Period.
>>Viability is a threshold, not a question of degree. Weak is compared to strong, it's a relative measure. Viability is merely the capacity to survive, yes or no. Once someone is capable of surival, they can be measured in terms of weakness or strength. Before that, the term is a poor fit.

You've attempted to dismiss this, but it still stands. Without the additional action (i.e. feeding) by another, the newborn will not survive. Period. You have failed to show any fundamental difference in the two situations.
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 5:25 pm | #

>>Also, the arbitrary age of full adult criminal culpability, oddly occuring one one's own birthday, is a matter of life and death for capital punishment.

Since I am against the death penalty, you'll have to take that up with someone else.
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 5:27 pm | #

>>See my above distinction between requiring nurturing and physical, biological incapability of indpenedent survival.

Tex is right. You are just defining things as you please and them applying them to your argument as you see fit. Feeding of a newborn is not fundamentally a nuruturing act, it is an essential neef for the survival of the newborn without which the newborn is biologically incapable of independent survivial.
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 5:31 pm | #

"See my above distinction between requiring nurturing and physical, biological incapability of indpenedent survival."

My 15 month old requires more than nurturing. He is biologically incapable of independent survival. It we don't feed him, he will die.

Again (and again, and again) there is no logical connection betwen weakness and loss of humanity. You have not shown it...not even close.

Even if you could prove that viability is somehow different from weakness (which you have not), you still cannot shown why strength and independence in any way is the mark of humanity.

Your logic is suspect, your conclusions are unfounded.

Good thing too, because if you were right, we would all be drawn to the sinister conclusion that might makes right rather than the opposite (which is, coincidentally, the message of the gospel).

Good evening. I am clear of this frequency.
Tex | 08.10.05 - 5:35 pm | #

Steve G.,

We don't legally compell any medical procedure, permanently injurious or not, no matter how many lives it could save. Eg: blood donation saves plenty of lives, but we don't force people to do it. Losing a kidney is not life threatening. Neither is losing upto 1/3rd of your liver.

You're proposing that doctors overexagerate the real medical consequences of a pregnancy, and if a complication can't be overblown so it qualifies as a "life of the mother" case, then it should be denied. So much for moral honesty.

As for the existance of medical alternatives, do you know how many people die on dialysis waiting for organ matches? The hypothetical potential for alternate organ sources doesn't get you out of the moral trap created by denying the "health of the mother" exception.

The simplest example is urgency; if due to the time and location of the patient, no mendical alternative exists. Car accident in the mid-west; no time for a tissue match or to wait for a donor to be found.

After all, you only need the one kidney. Maybe you wouldn't mind if the state forced you to give up your "extra" one.

As for "inconviniences" -- permanent physical injuries that can't be inflated into "life-threatening" ones -- how about nerve damage from pressure on the spine, or something particular to one pregnancy that will damage the womb and detroy the possibility of having children in the future?
212 | 08.10.05 - 5:37 pm | #

Steve G.,

Specifically, my reference to incapability of survival is an intrincic limitation; having nobody to feed you is an extrincic one. That you refuse to recognize the difference does not make it illogical.
Anonymous | 08.10.05 - 5:42 pm | #

"having nobody to feed you is an extrincic one. "

Not being able to feed yourself is an intrinsic one.
Tex | 08.10.05 - 5:57 pm | #

Obviously, the only sensible and intellectually honest approach to this complex medical and ethical dilemma is to airlift a giant rubber over the Washington Monument, and then blow up the helicopter.

Thanks PPGG!
saintkansas | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 6:02 pm | #

Thanks for getting back on message, saintkansas. I'm assuming they think airdropping a mega-Trojan over the obviously phallic DC obelisk is uproariously comical. Isn't that indicative of improper weaning?

One of the other "hidden messages" in the 'toon is that the "right to choose" does not end at birth. Nope. Post-natal abortions are just as much a matter of "choice" as the prenatal ones, whether the weapon of tissue-mass destruction is a suction pump, a pair of scissors or a condom bazooka. And so what if it's not the abortion recipient's choice? That's ... er ... irrelevant.

But, they're being consistent, don't you know. If it's okay to kill us before birth, why not after? (See the Rt. Hon. Prof. Peter Singer of Princeton U. for further exposition of that theory.) What's the only difference in a human being before birth and a human being after birth?

Simple.

It's just like your friendly neighborhood realtor says: "Location, location, location!"
C.J. | 08.10.05 - 6:47 pm | #

I don't know why pregnancy is being compared to medical procedures... it is not a procedure it is a biological process that happens when you have sex and concieve a child.
sarah | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 7:14 pm | #

- "which is, in reality, the greatest threat of all to the darkness that hates the light. "

Here's another bible quote for you: "Judge not lest ye be judged"
Frank | 08.10.05 - 7:52 pm | #

>>We don't legally compell any medical procedure, permanently injurious or not, no matter how many lives it could save.

Pregnancy is NOT a medical procedure. Again, and again, and again, you are drawing a false parallel.

>>Losing a kidney is not life threatening.

Any operation in which anesthesia has a risk of death associated with it. Any major surgery has a risk of death associated with it. That the risk is miniscule is beside the point. Major surgery IS life threatening.

>>You're proposing that doctors overexagerate the real medical consequences of a pregnancy, and if a complication can't be overblown so it qualifies as a "life of the mother" case, then it should be denied. So much for moral honesty.

What in the world are you talking about? I proposed no such thing. If it really ISN’T a threat to the life of the mother, then OK. If not, then the exception shouldn’t be there. Whose being morally dishonest?

And the issue of alternatives was vastly secondary to the other points made. I’ll drop it if you like. The other points still stand. Pregnancy and compelling someone to continue with it is not a forced medical procedure. It’s not a medical procedure at all. That’s the fundamental flaw in your logic, and why your parallel continues to be false even though you continue to cling to it.
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 7:56 pm | #

As to the question what is the difference between an unborn
pre-viable (before 25 weeks) baby and a child who has been born the obvious one has not been mentioned, the unborn fetus or baby is dependent on one person and only one person for its survival and that person must share her body with that fetus, once born any adult whose's willing can care for the baby.
delen | 08.10.05 - 8:27 pm | #

I'll start caring about what happens to babies inside the womb as soon as you start caring what hapens to them outside the womb.

A conservative is a liberal who got mugged.

Ever wonder why it isn't the other way round? It's because people know that it's the conservatives are the ones who get angry that people who are attacked or murdered. Why don't liberals care about people after they are born?
Mary | 08.10.05 - 8:43 pm | #

>>As to the question what is the difference between an unborn pre-viable (before 25 weeks) baby and a child who has been born the obvious one has not been mentioned, the unborn fetus or baby is dependent on one person and only one person for its survival and that person must share her body with that fetus, once born any adult whose's willing can care for the baby.

No one has mentioned it because it has nothing to do with (as 212 would put it) the intrinsic viability of the unborn baby. The baby (unborn or born) simply cannot survive without support from outside itself. If you are basing person-hood on viability, then by pure logic you must include the born baby as a non-person.
Steve G. | 08.10.05 - 9:17 pm | #

Dear Dawnie,

Don't feel alone, as I am one of those in the crosshairs of one Amelia Bingham: http://jkalb.org/node/1359#comment-5977

Read at least a tiny bit. It is hilarious stuff.

All the Best,

Paul
Paul Henrí | 08.10.05 - 11:15 pm | #

saintkansas,

That would be hillarious.

---------------

Steve G.

You have -- possibly intentionally, possibly because you don't understand it -- misconstrued my argument. It may be that a baby cannot survive outside the womb without support from the outside. However, a pre-viability fetus cannot survive outside the womb WITH support from the outside. It's not that complicated.

As for exagerating medical conditions, you said: "More importantly, most of us already make an exception based on life of a mother in the case of abortion. Anything severe enough to cause permanent, irreprable harm to the mother would likely qualify as life-threatening. Anything that falls beneath the level frankly is more of a nuisance than irreprable, permanent harm."

I took you to mean that anything that would cause "real" harm to the health of the mother would be considered life-threatening. Permanent harm that could not be inflated into some grave threat to the pregnant woman would merely have to be suffered through, ability to walk or bear future children be damned. (Perhaps if serves them right for letting their birth control fail, or maybe just for having sex.)


As for the dependence on a sole individual, it is not morally different than being the sole individual with a matching tissue type when one's child needs an urgent transplant.

If you somehow thing the presence of a doctor or a formal medical procedure changes the fact that for one individual to live requires that the other suffer permanent injury, I think you are splitting hairs in defense of the otherwise indefensible.
212 | 08.11.05 - 3:10 am | #

212, could you kindly take this conversation offline? Both of the people you're responding to have listed their e-mail addresses, so you can write them privately. This thread is so long that I'd like to limit it to posts that are directly related to my original blog entry. As mentioned before, I reserve the right to delete off-topic posts, and I will start doing that if more such posts emerge. Thanks for your cooperation.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 08.11.05 - 3:23 am | #

Dawn,

Yes that was long and redundant.


Anyhow.... I have always found it wierd that the pro-coice community seems to think its the biggest hero of mankind when 50 something and getting closer to 60% of woman have no love for abortion. Only some 15-20% of those between ages 0f 18 and 30 think abortion should be legal for anything.

They act as though they are our biggest hero and we better start thanking them for what they have done for us. I swear they are delusional. I mean really they think we are just assuming that abortion will never be taken from us, the dear right that they have taught us it is, and never considered the possibility that we have rejected thier gift and are activly working to get all those court decisions reversed. We are wrapping thier gift back up-handing it back to them with a hearty no thanks. They just dont understand. I mean its such a great gift.

When I was preggie the first time it was PP that came to my high school, the "guidance councellor" who called them and told them there was a pregnant teen(what level of hell do guidance councellors come from anyhow). So they marched over with a strip of drawings where about 5 months you could start to see something that looked like it might someday be a baby if ever those stubs and fish eyes would get right. And the funny thing it it wasnt a graduated scale model. all the ugly pictures were the same size. And what did this hero offer me? An abortion. Not diapers to care for my child-oh no I got those from the laleche league volenteers(and yes they gave me 24 cloth diapers and newborn wraps.. I used the dipes for burp cloths so it was a generous gift). So I told her to F off(yes I was that coarse) I had an ultrasound the next week. She disuaded me from going because I was too young to understand "all that medical stuff" . I went. I saw. A tiny little 12 week baby swimming around my uterus and I had never so badly wanted to feel another persons hot blood dripping down my hand before in my life. And its not my babys blood Im talking about.

Everyone talks about how prolifers dont care about babies after they are born, ya know cause PP spends half its budget on diapers and baby clothes.. Noo wait. Thats Masters Hands downtown. My bad. Yeah they are the heros and PLers are the big bad rich what men who want to force woman to have babies. And the heros just want woman to have **access** to abortion. Its not like they would try to force anyone into one. Right...
Josephine | Homepage | 08.11.05 - 8:30 am | #

Left Brain and Delen:

Man, I walk away from the computer for a day that this thing takes off! You both seem to have had bad experiences with pro-lifers. I've had bad experiences with pro-choicers. Neither side, however, advocates or endorses aggression or hatred as means of protest except in the cases of fringe extremes. I would suggest that the cartoon in question is such a case: somebody went too far and embarassed their fellows, which may be why the cartoon is now hard to find.

The non-extreme groups, however, have every right to present their cases, and to marshall all the facts in such a presentation. Pictures are facts. No one that I know of is taking these pics to a kindergarten--that would be an extreme. They're taking them to places for grown-ups, where the kids are incidental, are not the intended audience. If protesters cannot show these pics for fear of traumatizing the fictional five-year-old, then peace protesters cannot use pictures of war-time atrocities in their protests for the same reason. Environmental protesters cannot use images of the damage done by pollution in their protests. If one picture is outlawed for adults because the kids might be watching, then all are.

Left Brain, you asked if I would take a kid to see a gory, violent, R-rated movie. No, I would not. I would, however, be outraged if such violence and gore showed up in the G-rated film I took said child to see. That's the difference, here. Proesters--of any stripe--are not taking disturbing images into children-only environment; they're making use of them in the grown-up world.
Kate B. | 08.11.05 - 11:10 am | #

Enough talking! Let's take action! You can help make Planned Parenthood's vile cartoon blow up in its face (nonviolently, of course). Join Project Max!
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 08.11.05 - 11:18 am | #

Thank you Josephine!
J.M.J. | 08.12.05 - 9:37 pm | #

I just had one comment to a previous writer who said something like: "why do you care if I go to hell, it's nunya business" type thang. Hey sorry to tell you this, but sin drags the whole world down (sin=hate) (not sinning=love).

Another writer said: "Judge not, lest ye be judged." Well by golly, if someone is doing something wrong, of course I'm going to judge that to be wrong and try to do something about it. Like if I see someone chasing someone down with a gun. I'm gonna judge that to be wrong and call the cops!

P.S. I wrote my congressman and senators...
J.M.J. | 08.12.05 - 10:55 pm | #

Josephine,

Where are you getting those numbers? Those polls are low even for "partial-birth" abortions; who told you those were for general approval?
212 | 08.17.05 - 3:53 pm | #