When did abortion come to define women's rights to the exclusion of anything else? It is so blown out of proportion and the Left seems obsessed with it. I have the feeling that they would deem it OK to force women to wear a burkha if they could get an abortion on demand. What's up with that attitude?
anon | Email | Homepage | 07.11.05 - 1:43 pm | #

> If only...if only we had not had the moral police of the Left dictating to Americans about what they should believe.

Ummmm, in what form (regarding THIS issue) has the Left dictated to Americans "what to believe"?

In no sense is this requiring anyone to get an abortion. What it DOES do is prevent a major segment (not even a majority, depending on how you phrase the question at the polls) from imposing its objections to it on any and all individuals out there, regardless of belief.

About the best complaint is against public funding, and that argument can be made about just about ANYthing which gets publicly funded.

If my taxes support the public library, which I never use (hypothetically. In reality, I use it all the time), then do I have the right to raise hell about it?

If I'm Jewish ir Hindu, or whatever, can I complain about public monies (i.e., my taxes) being used for Xmas decorations on the city streetlamps?

I more than amply agree that there are probably a lot of things we fund with public monies which should be looked askance at -- but abortion is just one thing among many -- it's simply the one most out at the fringe of what many find objectionable.
OBloodyHell | Email | Homepage | 07.11.05 - 2:18 pm | #

OBH,

The left dictates morality any time that it dictates to the nation what behavior must be considered "OK".

The "objection" that most opponents have against abortion is NOT about money... it's about the act itself.

We allow local government to decide whether or not to permit alcohol sales, don't we. The one time we tried to legislate that morality it was a disaster.

I disagree with abortion strongly on moral grounds. However, I would happily accept as "a compromise" allowing state and local governments to decide whether to allow abortions.

My objection to gay marriage is more just spiteful resistance to militant gays. Two of my cousins are gay, and I love them both dearly. I would also accept leaving that decision to local governments. The inconvenience would be that a gay couple married in Massechussetts would not necessarily have their marriage recognized in Georgia. But that is as it should be since the citizens of Macon probably disagree with the concept more than those of Boson.
Bryan | Email | Homepage | 07.11.05 - 2:55 pm | #

OBH,

The best way to understand most objections to abortion is to look at it as if the federal government gave women the right to kill their children up to the age of five. They're not "really" human until after that anyway, right?
Bryan | Email | Homepage | 07.11.05 - 3:05 pm | #

What?? You mean the Supreme Court aren't our masters and choreographers?? They can't just make up unconstitutional laws out of whole cloth if they happen to be in a snit that day?
Kelly Norman | Email | Homepage | 07.12.05 - 9:41 am | #

> The best way to understand most objections to abortion is to look at it as if the federal government gave women the right to kill their children up to the age of five. They're not "really" human until after that anyway, right?

You see, this is the flaw inherent in the entire anti-abortion argument. You presuppose the very central issue of the debate. In this, you are no better than a Democrat spouting their "Chimpy McBushitler" diatribes. All fire and flame and no reason.

I don't agree with you that a group of cells with the potential to become a human being is inherently a human being.

I consider humanity to reside in the sense of self, in the sense of thought and reason and memory and time-binding -- all of which have nothing to do with form or DNA.

Were you to demonstrate to me that dolphins or killer whales or giant squid had these qualities, I would argue to grant them the same protection I grant humans. Were some beings to drop down out of the sky from Antares IV, they, too, would be considered human.

I don't consider a lump of mostly undifferentiated cells which certainly does not possess much of the functional organization of a human, and a total brain size/cell count on the same order as that of a housecat, to be a full human with all the rights and protections thereby granted. I consider it highly unlikely that said proto-human has any of the above qualities which make it "human" and not mere "mammalian life form".

Demonstrate that a developing embryo in the first trimester has those qualities, and I'll accept your argument.

Short of that, it's simply a debate on what constitutes "protected human", and mostly religious at that -- there is no scientific basis of any kind for it.

On the currently available scientific evidence, it is improbable that any child possesses any of the above prerequisites prior to about 9 months to a year -- but, by going all the way back to the end of 1st trimester, we are being extra cautious and excluding just about any possible timeframe for which there is likely to be anything of which we speak.
OBloodyHell | Email | Homepage | 07.12.05 - 9:35 pm | #

Further, by arguing that a woman with a child is actually two protected humans, you are opening up several different major cans of worms for The Nanny State to jump on us all about.

If you do something, intentional or accidental, which endangers the foetus, you are clearly committing reckless endangerment, and doing so on an individual who is non compos mentos, arguing for the state to step in as legal guardian. This particularly includes actions by the mother, which means the state is now granted authority over many potential actions the mother may take, on the behalf of her child.

No drinking, smoking, no motorcycle riding, no scuba diving. Heck, what are you doing driving a car, you might get hit!!?

Stay home, barefoot, and put on your chador, you careless, selfish b****!! Protect your child, or we will do it for you!

:-S

Like we need even MORE justifications for The Nanny State to rule our lives?
OBloodyHell | Email | Homepage | 07.12.05 - 9:52 pm | #

> I disagree with abortion strongly on moral grounds. However, I would happily accept as "a compromise" allowing state and local governments to decide whether to allow abortions.

There are some things which ought to be widespread in protections.

At one point, you might recall we allowed states and local governments to decide the humanity of people with certain skin coloration.

The fact that such an incredibly obvious issue was NOT dealt with properly at the state and local level suggests that there are limits to things which are and should be state level as well as Federal.

In other words, like anything else humans do, States Rights can be run straight off the end of the earth with, too.
OBloodyHell | Email | Homepage | 07.12.05 - 9:58 pm | #

OBH,

You said: "I don't agree with you that a group of cells with the potential to become a human being is inherently a human being."

I just think it's wrong to destroy a group of cells containing human DNA that has all of it's potentially human parts and can suck it's potential human thumb. By the end of the first trimester the damn thing even looks human. What would be wrong with saying after twelve weeks of gestation, you can't have an abortion unless your life is in danger? As it is, 88% of abortions happen in the first trimester anyway.

But the militant abortionist can't even accept that compromise. They ignore the facts that after three weeks the "clump of cells with the potential to be a human" has a nervous system, a liver, and intestines, and by day 21 the heart is beating.

Abortion is the Constitutional Right of Women Not to be Inconvenienced. Let's just extend that right to the fifth year post-partem... and if that's not acceptable, let's make the woman make her "choice" in the first trimester. Or maybe even take responsibility for her actions and use some means of birth control other than abortion like, I don't know, the pill, a condom, etc. Or maybe impose a "two per customer" limit.

You said: "At one point, you might recall we allowed states and local governments to decide the humanity of people with certain skin coloration."

And that's been remedied... now we have the Federal Government determining what conditions are necessary to be human. How is that any better? Especially when you could be "almost born" and still not qualify.

OBH,

This topic is one that I could rant on for hours so I'm going to stop now. Suffice it to say that you hit a sore spot for me and I'm just going to have to strongly disagree with you.

And my bitterness has nothing to do with the fact that my son was aborted against my wishes.



What is the purpose of abortion and who uses it?
Bryan | Email | Homepage | 07.13.05 - 3:08 pm | #

Sorry, the last line "What is the purpose..." was the remnant of a line of thought that I didn't pursue. I forgot to delete the question.
Bryan | Email | Homepage | 07.13.05 - 3:10 pm | #

Bryan: Sadly, birth control is not as available as it would have to be in order to make "take precautions" an airtight argument. Many unpragmatic opponents of abortion are also trying to block education about birth control. The abstinence-only programs supported by Bush are the fruits of some of these bizarre efforts.

The private sector is not much better. I recently read that 76% of private insurance providers do NOT cover birth control methods while 79% cover Viagra (or did, before this horrible blindness thing). Anti-abortion activists should strenuously promote birth control and the research to make it symptom-free, but they almost never do.

I know of many women (including 2 of my sisters) who had true contraceptive failures. Mandatory reports from clinics indicate it's common even when women are "careful." I think men don't realize how easily contraception can fail--we seem to shy away from the nitty-gritty of female anatomy. In my sisters' cases, an ill-fitting diaphragm (fault of the gynecologist) and a husband's incorrect infertility diagnosis were to blame. Both had the babies, incidentally, but I call this much more than an "inconvenience." Motherhood is probably the only job as demanding as the presidency of the United States--it may be glorious, but it also utterly destroys whatever your life was like before. Even the most devoted fathers are almost never as "incovenienced" by a child as a mother is.

All this probably doesn't change your moral stance, which is fine, but it makes your pragmatic arguments weaker.
Steven Rai | Email | Homepage | 07.15.05 - 5:40 pm | #