Annie:
*hugs*
- my prayers are with you.
Thank you so much for your courage and honesty! You're in my prayers.
re: the man who said "My wife had an abortion AND we also adopted a child!", I'm 27 and live in that liberal capital of the Left Coast, S.F. Many of my peers believe that overpopulation is the root cause of all other problems today: hunger, war, disease, and of course global warming. It is what we were taught in school and what we see on TV every night.
Given that, bringing yet more children into the world is seen as a selfish and immoral act. Some of my friends have confessed to wanting 1 natural child of their own, but beyond that the only responsible approach is to adopt. Hence the boast of this misguided man: he has done his part for the future of humanity, his wife had an abortion AND they adopted!
We pro-lifers need to counter the myth of overpopulation in order to convert my generation.
God bless you.
:: hugs ::
For all who do not know Annie, she is a faith filled wonderful women.
She works tirelessly in trying to get the message out. She has organized SNM in CT a few times where I have been blessed to stand with her.
You certainly gave those women (all of them) something to think about. Sounds like a lot of justification was going on, it only works for so long.....
You're the best Annie.
Thanks !
fascinating account. i would like to hear more about the 22-year-old guy who came alone to mourn his lost fatherhood. what is his story? you piqued my interest in the set up then left me hanging! d'oh!
i marched on sunday. my views are passionate and strong. but i respect your feelings and your views. you are right -- the most difficult block for me was walking past the "women deserve better" signs. i didn't expect that at any point i'd pay to attention to anyone on the sidewalk. but your group -- along with with the smiley signs -- captured my attention. it hasn't changed my view.
but it made me think and i continue telling people about how the grotesque signs and the yellers and condemnation did nothing for me but the group with the friendly faces, with the friendly signs, with the looks of sincere concern -- it was a little hard because maybe there is a valid pro-life argument that we have yet to hear.
i admire your courage and your strength.
Annie,
I applaud your loving courage and will say a prayer of thanks for you.
Angel,
Annie's words may not have changed your view but I pray that in time they will open your heart.
t
Thank you, angel. That took courage to post, even here. You may get slammed by other pro-choice folks who comment here for it, but thank you. I too hated the grotesque and vicious pro-life stuff, more on that later in a post...
I wasn't the one who talked to the 22 year old fellow directly, I just heard bits from the woman who was walking and talking with him at the end. Perhaps it's better we don't know more. More men might wonder, "maybe he was like me?"
Thanks Annie for your powerful and loving witness to the unborn and for so many self deluded and mislead parents who have chosen or may one day consider choosing abortion.
God be with you and yours.
With love, respect and admiration,
Dr Mike
Thank you for your courage to stand there amongst the hatred and spite. I had no idea you or anyone from the Pro-Life side would take such abuse.
Now I have a question, which I would like you to email me with your answer, if possible. As I watched the national news coverage of the march, I saw Pro Choice mothers (and fathers) include their young children, indoctrinating them so early in the Culture of Death! Obviously, most of the children were young enough not to know any better than to parrot what their parents were saying and not really understand what it was that they were being told to support. (Or at least I hope they didn't know with full understanding the horror of the "rights" they were trying to support.) Is the inclusion of young children (boys, too) a new tactic in this march, or do you know if it was used as much in the 1992 march in D.C. or other major events such as this?
-Jennifer Peterson
no, i still say i want to hear more! 
i can't help it; i'm always amazed when i hear that a man cares about his aborted child/ren. i know that's very sexist, and i apologize to men, but it's honestly the way i feel after seeing so many guys mistreat the mothers of their children whom they can't abort fast enough. i saw it in high school, college, and now as an adult who jumps at the chance to help women solve the problems that cause abortion.
and annie, the next time someone says snidely, "well then you shouldn't have had an abortion!" the reply could be, "finally, something we both agree on."
they mean to abandon us with that comment, but we can turn it around to reflect the truth that no one should lose a child in an abortion.
God bless you for your strength and courage. I am sorry for all that you have suffered, not just on Sunday.
God bless you. I'm sorry for what happened to you, but from your blog the other day, it seems that Silent No More may have changed more than a few hearts.
Thank you for being so brave.
Just found your blog (via fructusventris.stblogs.com)
May God continue to bless you and give you the courage to stay firm.
Thank you for your writing - I shall direct others here as well.
You are a brave woman. God bless you!
Annie,
Do you think you could write a book based on all your experiences at these marches?
Very good, informative reading. And very sad.
Eric
Your account reminds me much of how Jesus was treated when he was tried.
He remained silent while lies were told about him, he was spitted on, hit and he stood there praying for those very souls who attacked him.
The Sadducee's thought they were right and they demanded that Jesus die because what he was saying was inconvenient to them.
You might never know how your example and the example of those with you helped un-harden a heart and help to bring the truth about what pro-life is into the world.
Thank you.
God bless you.
God bless you, and thank you for your story.
Interesting post. I am proud to say I marched in favor of a woman's right to choose on Sunday.
I'm sorry you regret your decision. I understand that you’ve realized it was not the right thing for you to do, but we all have to face the choices we make, own up to them, make peace with them--not impose our failures on others to numb the pain we feel. Women deserve the right to make the best choices for them, whether it's adoption route or terminating. Women deserve the right to choose to have children they want when they are best prepared to have them. Life is precious: I take it seriously and want to make the best of it. I would never take abortion lightly, and I want the freedom to make private decisions that will affect me without having to feel terrorized. At the end of the day, I'm the only one to blame if I regret a decision I’ve made. I would never endeavor to make others complicit in that pain.
I admire your courage and I respect your conviction.
All of you who had the courage to stand on the Mall and speak the Truth are an incredibly brave and courageous bunch! God Bless You
Antigona:
Based on what we have read at this site, who was terrorizing who? Also if life is so precious, why kill it?
Thomas,
I wonder, how many of you compassionate souls favor capital punishment anyway?
God bless you.
*hug*
Thank you.
I had an abortion when I was a teenager. Over three decades later, I'm still regretting it.
This is probably nothing new to you but it's always struck me that some of the most passionately pro-life women I know are those who have had abortions.
God bless you. You're in my prayers and I'd appreciate yours.
Oh yes, I saw you Annie, and some of your friends. You love life so much you allowed people with signs praising jim kopp for killing bernard slepian to march along with you. You regret your abortion or you regret the fact that more abortionists with families of their own aren't murdered? I would have taken you a lot more seriously if you werent there with people praising murderers.
Antigona:
Antigona:
You didn't answer the question. Maybe because you really can't. Again, if life is so precious why kill it, especially the innocent? Good luck and God Bless
I'm sorry you regret your abortion, and sorry for all the women who made the wrong choice or were coerced or pressured into having abortions they didn't really want. But do you really believe that because you made a wrong choice, no woman should be able to make a choice for herself about abortion? I would like women to have better alternatives to choose from, but I want to have the right to choose!
I've never had an abortion, but have certainly made some decisions in my life that I very deeply regret, and would do anything to be able to go back and change. But I would never advocate legislation preventing other people from having the right to make those decisions. Sure, I'd hope that they'd choose more wisely than I did. But they have to have the choice. That's what being a free adult is about.
There are some reasonably sound logical arguments against legal abortion, but "I regret my abortion" is not one of them.
Jay: An utterly despicable, heartless smear. You said that because Annie explicitly disowned that bunch, didn't you?
Bow down before your infernal demon master and receive your reward for a job well done.
Oh Jay, my oh my, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? Seemed an awful lot on your side were in praise of murderers(and not just doctors, what of those with the signs that said "Euthanize Christians"--I'm sure you made an effort to distance yourself from them as well as boo your distinguished guests who suggested that the president and Mr. Ashcroft's mothers should have murdered their own children in utero). Perhaps, the world, if they had the benefit of a balanced press, would not take you seriously either with some of the shameful slogans and behavior of those who call themselves "pro-choice".
BTW, Jay, would it kill you to admit that there was some shameful behavior on your side of the fence. Much of it documented here, but even more documented at the source via the signs and behavior that went on. If your voice is so strong, why does your side need to resort to verbal attacks, vulgarity, and lude behavior to get its point across. I dare say your voice would have been stronger if you behaved more like adults with some semblence of class and humiliation when it comes to such a serious issue.
Dear Annie,
Thank you for recounting your experience of that day with us. May God be with you and all of your family always.
With prayers,
Kelly
good grief, the "choice" rhetoric is getting deep in here. all of us "lifers" is passionately for the personal choice of when or whether or not to have a child. none of us would ever dream of telling someone else when to have a child or forcing anyone to have a child.
what we are NOT for is the choice to kill a child. women are smart enough to make that choice WITHOUT killing anyone. we know what causes babies and so, outside of rape, we know what choice to make if we don't want children.
the "pro-choice" dishonesty is rampant. you folks were not marching for anything so just as the right to decide when to have a child. you were marching for the choice to have sex and then kill the resulting child so as to avoid any sexual consequence or responsibility. your signs should have read "sexual freedom at any price."
you constantly complain that no one has a right to tell anyone what to do with their body, when your WHOLE ENTIRE PURPOSE is to have the ULTIMATE control over someone else's body. "don't tell me what i can do with my ovaries," you howl as you fight for the right to destroy someone else's ovaries. total hypocrisy.
the ONLY way any of your arguments works is if an unborn child is not a child, and that hackneyed "pro-choice" argument is quickly dissolving as time and technology march on.
and btw, capitol punishment?!? you can't be serious bringing that up. we're not talking about killing mass murderers on death row to protect society, we're talking about killing innocent children for orgasms. apples and oranges.
and using "personal choice" to justify killing children is a crock. i can't kill you and then use "personal choice" to justify my horrible, unethical decision. for cryin out loud, i can't even snort cocaine with my very own personal, feminist nose, because my government says i don't have the right to. (and despite the fact that i might choose to do it anyway, my government hasn't legalized it to make it safer for me.)
"choicers", here's a tip, and really think about this:
if your argument doesn't work when applying it to children outside the womb then it doesn't work when applying it to children inside the womb... unless children inside the womb are not children, and science has proven they are.
we should never discriminate against people based on age, ability or location. and we certainly never have the right to kill people based on these things.
i'm glad my feminist peers have the courage to come out with their self-imposed child loss experiences and resulting grief, because it combats the concept that abortion is not harmful to women emotionally. it certainly adds some much-needed dimension to the subject.
but ultimately, it matters diddly squat whether i regret killing my child or whether you don't regret it at all. the only thing that matters is what is being chosen, and you "choicers" are talking about the choice to kill children.
if a child lives in one's house or in one's womb, no one has the right to choose to kill him/her.
should say "whether or not a child lives in one's house or in one's womb..."
Thanks for your comments, Annie! I would have loved to have been there with you. I am post-abortive myself and have attended SNM events - awesome!
For the record, there are folks who disagree with the taking of human life by any method - abortion, capital punishment, war, etc. . . I happen to be one of them.
Kelly Clark, you have my prayers, as you asked. God bless, and thank you.
Answers to some of the other q's to follow later, here in comments. No time right now.
I thank God you had the courage to stand there and witness your faith to those you mocked you and scorned you. You took up your cross and you bore it well. I pray that I can be with you the next time these feminazis take to the streets.
Hello,
Antigona, I can't speak for those of other faiths, I can say that for Catholics, the death penalty and abortion are not moral equivalants. That said, the Church teaches that the death penalty should only be used in rare circumstances when it is necessary to protect society from the person. An instance would be if a terrorist was in jail for murder and could incite more murders from jail. More details on this are here:
http://www.thrownback.blogspot.com/
Secondly to Jay, I would not judge the entire prochoice community by the behavior of those who hurled verbal abuse at Annie. While I disagree with them, I know that not all of them would use tactics like that. In the same vein, the majority of prolifers despise the types of signs you are describing and I think you know that.
Nicole
I've never had a slave, but have certainly made some decisions in my life that I very deeply regret, and would do anything to be able to go back and change. But I would never advocate legislation preventing other people from having the right to make those decisions. Sure, I'd hope that they'd choose more wisely than I did. But they have to have the choice. That's what being a free adult is about.
Gee, change one simple word and you could have been a Southern White Sympathizer from 1830. Interesting, isn't it? Back then, slaveowners did not consider slaves "persons" either. Something to think about.
I am proud to say I marched in favor of Hitler's right to exterminate Jews on Sunday.
I'm sorry you regret your decision. I understand that you’ve realized it was not the right thing for you to do, but we all have to face the choices we make, own up to them, make peace with them--not impose our failures on others to numb the pain we feel. Hitler deserves the right to make the best choices for him, whether it's relocation route or terminating. Hitler deserves the right to choose to have the Jews he wants when he is best prepared to have them. Life is precious: I take it seriously and want to make the best of it. I would never take exterminating Jews lightly, and I want the freedom to make private decisions that will affect me without having to feel terrorized. At the end of the day, I'm the only one to blame if I regret a decision I’ve made. I would never endeavor to make others complicit in that pain.
Scary, huh?
Antigona:
I don't mean to pick on you, but I just want you to take an honest, objective look at what you are writing. You seem like a reasonable person, and perhaps if you reflected on how your words come across, you might reach a different conclusion.
Life is precious: I take it seriously and want to make the best of it.
What you seem to imply is that you take YOUR life preciously, and want to make the best of your life. Nothing wrong with that. With abortion, making the "best" of your life means destroying that of another. That is the ultimate basis of the pro-choice position.
Hitler and slaveowners used the same logic to justify their actions - making the "best" of their lives was more "precious" than destroying the lives of Jews and blacks. Think about it for a while.
Jennifer P., I wasn't there for their 92 march. I don't know if bringing the children is new. There are some children brought to the Marches for Life, too, but remember, that's in Jan.; little children aren't brought out for that weather. This was a beautiful if overcast day. T-shirt and light jacket weather. This year's MFLIFE was densely populated with teenagers and college students. For us, the difference is, we are truly pro-child and pro-family. The marchers were really fighting for “abortion- without exception, without compromise, without apology.” That’s their primary cause.
Jay, I think you must know better than to assume that we in our SNMAC group “allowed” those horrible “prolife” people and their disgusting signs to be with us. Those pro-death people were NOT part of our group; WE possessed the ONLY legal permit for the side of the street and that corner that we were on. Police shooed away from THEIR original sites the “God Hates You” ones and braggarts praising killers of abortion doctors. I watched one of the former groups try to usurp our spot; we immediately asked the police to move them up the block past us because we didn’t want to be considered part of their Bible-thumping “holier than thou” message. We did not succeed, to our horror and dismay, so they were interspersed with our women and men. I don’t know where the death-braggart sign ended up, I do know it had been across the street from me.
It doesn’t help you when you jump to conclusions like this before you ask us what really happened. It looks like you just buy what the media sells.
For the record, I used to be in favor of the death penalty, but even though Nicole is right about the Catholic view on that, I am now against it. As I've said before, for those of us in the current majority of prolifers, the term Pro-Life means "Pro-woman, pro-child, pro-family, pro-elderly, pro-disabled, pro-every-human-being-from-conception-to-natural-
death." But that doesn't fit in a sound-bite, nor does the media want you to know that.
The really more appropriate term for us is the "Respect-Lifers."
I agree with you Annie. I was trying to clarify the Catholic view for the person that asked. For me, I feel prolife means the same thing as you do and I am saddened that the death penalty is used entirely too much in our society and around the world.
God Bless and thank you. I hope to have your courage some day.
Peace, Nicole
You will, Nicole. Because it was God who gave it to me, and He's got an overabundance of it! God bless you too.
My wife, my son and I were at last year's and this year's March For Life (this year with our second, in-utero) and we saw lots of other little kids there. It was amazing to see a bunch of what looked like kindergarteners marching and chanting slogans (I think they said something like "we love babies..." something). Last year, when the march began, I must've cried for almost ten minutes when the procession of miniature caskets went by. Just thinking of all the little babies like my little Davey that people had decided weren't worth life hurt so much.
Thank you again for what you're doing. You're all in my prayers.
God bless.
I agree with others that this is an interesting post (to me because I'm seeing it from the other side, as a proud pro-choice woman, who has also had an abortion), and I wanted to comment on two things that struck me while reading it.
When you said this:
"...one woman started a chant that about a hundred marchers began screaming at me, “THAT WAS YOUR *CHOICE*!” essentially telling me I had no right to be upset or to regret."
I don't think that's what they meant at all. No one is denying you your right to be upset or to grieve, etc. What they are out in the street defending (and I only wish I could have afforded being there myself) was *their* right to make their own choice. As a pro-choice woman I am not asking that women who have abortions and later regret them be silent, not grieve, not be upset....I am only asking that they respect *my* feelings, my emotions, my beliefs, my right to choose...just as I respect their's. Does that make sense?
I also wanted to comment on one other thing because it struck me so forcefully...here:
"Can any of you pro-choicers stop for just a moment, and imagine nothing but a flimsy piece of fence standing between you and 100 frenzied people...who are screaming their disgust and hatred for you?"
Yes. And it happens to women every day on their way to abortion clinics and planned parenthoods and women's health centers all across this country. And it's not always only verbal abuse or harassment or intimidation; many also face violence, physical threats, having their information posted on the web, etc. My former next door neighbor was screamed at & intimidated on her way into a Planned Parenthood to get a check up for Strep Throat (yes, strep throat...a lot of PP's provide free health care to low income women).
Sorry...got cut off again. I'm used to boards where I can just ramble w/ no limit.
My point is that we do know what it's like being the focal point of anger & it makes me sad b/c I feel like some of those women were probably taking their anger at being the ones yelled at so often and turning it around on you. I don't think that's productive but I understand it. It doesn't excuse it or mean you deserved it.
I also think that people were probably angry b/c they went to a march to defend their rights and then pass someone who they believe to be advocating taking away those very rights.
I know there is a diff. b/n Pro-life (having the personal opinion that abortion is wrong/immoral) and Anti-choice (working to take reproductive rights away from women or seeking to impose your personal view on them legally), but people tend to confuse & meld them together at emotionally-high events like this. So incorrectly or not, many people saw you as a person who wants the gov. to strip them of their rights.
Sorry to ramble...hope this explanation from the other side is useful.
100 screaming, frenzied, hatefilled people? "It happens to women every day on their way to abortion clinics and PPs..." Are you telling us this from your personal experience and your neighbor's, that 100 screaming people were there as you and/or she went into the clinic? I doubt that. And I doubt that it happens like that anymore at all, anywhere.
Even one hate-filled or threatening person is one too many, either so-called "prolife" or "pro-choice," but this sounds like you're quoting the news media's soundbites about this, not real facts based on your personal experience.
At the clinic where *I* offer women real, substantial help and NO condemnation, the pro-lifers can barely muster 20-25 people. Most I've seen was 200 (that was only when the Bishop was there, and all they did was pray for the women and sing songs). Other than that, it's the same, small core group, in one of our major cities. I know other cities where it's the same size group.
A man in his 80s who was there when I went for my abortion 25 years ago, still screams at the women. A so-called "Catholic" but he isn't. He screamed at me then, “You’re a murderer!” He still does, at the same place where I offer compassionate help. He also says, "If you die on that table in there now, you DESERVE to die!" I cringe each time, I've tried everything to stop him. I befriended him over a year ago, and later said to him one day, "Did *I* deserve to die too?" He looked down, shamefaced, and mumbled, "No." I said, "Neither do these girls." But did that stop him? No, unfortunately. I'd give both arms to silence him and all like him. But despite his venom, my friends and I have helped between 1 and 8 women each of 2 days a week to realize they don't have to have abortions, that there IS a lot of love and help for them, from us and the centers we know offer this. And they are so thankful someone finally offered them the REAL help they needed.
Planned Parenthood NEVER gave them - or me - the kind of free health and other kinds of care that we and the life-affirming, FREE AND CONFIDENTIAL pregnancy centers do.
Annie,
Thank you for being there. You were in my prayers and thoughts.
You my sister are brave and I can only imagine what it was like as I had just a little tiny bit of it on Good Friday outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota. Where 50 to 60 Pro-Choicers were marching and pushing their signs and laughing at us, while we held our "I regret my abortion" signs during a prayer vigil.
Rest my dear friend, rest. May the Good Lord bless you for a job well done.
Our heavenly Father is looking down on you smiling and crying at the same time.
I love you He is saying and I am sorry you went through that, but your suffering is not lost.
Peace
Dear Annie,
I know the Gloria and Michael you speak about, as they told me the same stories you have written down here. I would like to send the link of this entry to them, but I cannot get it. Would you please send it to me and then I will send it to them?
Thanks. I was praying for you all and am glad all was without terrible incident.
Annie, all I can say is God Bless you..You have truly walked the Valley...
Thank you, Andy!!! I've just sent you an email, pls. let me know if you don't get it for any reason! I am so glad to be able to get the account to Gloria and Michael! I had prayed that somehow they'd be able to see it! God bless you!
Thank you so much for your witness and courage! I am so excited that you were there and that pro-choicers were able to see the other side of their choices, especially the people who haven't had abortions who don't know where that choice can lead. I am part of a pro-life group, Youth For Life, made up of high school and college kids. I am am planning on sharing your account with them. Thank you again! And God bless. All of us in Youth For Life will be praying for you.
Responding to Keri by stealing a page from c matt's playbook:
I know there is a diff. b/n Pro-emancipation (having the personal opinion that slavery is wrong/immoral) and Abolitionist (working to take property rights away from Southerners or seeking to impose your personal view on them legally), but people tend to confuse & meld them together at emotionally-high events like this. So incorrectly or not, many people saw you as a person who wants the gov. to strip them of their rights.
Since hearing about this march and the possibility of innocent people getting hurt, I thought no pro-life person should be there. But after reading your experience at the march, I feel I was wrong. You all did a magnificent job and I thank you for what you did and endured for the sake of so many. Your presence could help change the heart of some and if we do that it will of been worth it.
God bless you all for going.
Nance
My wife is expecting and at times we discuss what it would take to intentionally destroy the life growing inside her. We can not fathom the amount of evil selfishness that it takes to make that "choice". These are truly the last days, the only somewhat positive is that you no longer have to guess which side people are on. They are all to willing to publicly demonstrate their committment to evil.
Isn't it ironic that these people desecrate the blood of those who have died in battle for this country by spilling the blood of those innocent lives they died to defend??
May God continue to keep and bless you!!
Todd M.
Excellent response, Joseph! Puts THAT argument totally in the proper perspective.
c matt,
I must say this it the first time I've been compared to Hitler. Hilarious.
I guess it all comes down to the fact that I separate church from state. The belief that life starts at conception is a religious one, and as such it cannot bear on the law of the land, because our constitution protects us from having religious interpretations of life, right and wrong rule us.
Calling abortion murder and justifying capital punishment on people who ARE alive, who ARE breathing at the same time is imposing your religious beliefs on the population at large. And that is simply not legal.
Now, if we were living in Iran, then it would be a different story.
Joseph,
abolitionist: A person who favors the abolition of any institution, especially negro slavery
emancipation: The act of setting free from the power of another, from slavery, subjection, dependence, or controlling influence; also, the state of being thus set free; liberation; as, the emancipation of slaves; the emancipation of minors; the emancipation of a person from prejudices; the emancipation of the mind from superstition; the emancipation of a nation from tyranny or subjection.
Ergo, an abolitionist is a person who believes in and fights for emancipation. Confederates gave the term abolitionist a "dirty" connotation because they saw the abolitionists as intent on taking "property rights away from Southerners or seeking to impose [their] personal view on them legally."
Read some history books before rambling on the connotations of certain terms. Then read a dictionary.
“The belief that life starts at conception is a religious one”
No, it is a biological fact: Keith L. Moore (in his well-known med-school textbook): "The cell (a single-celled zygote) results from fertilization of an oocyte by a sperm and is the beginning of human life." (The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 2nd Ed., 1977).
Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania: "I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”
Professor Jerome LeJeune, professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down's Syndrome: "After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being...This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion, it is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception."
"Abolitionist," with a capital A as Joseph wrote it, has long been considered to be originally defined as Joseph referred to the term. Also, some dictionaries have changed some words from long-used meanings to read completely differently (“marriage” is a good example).
Antigona-
I assume you are a feminist, or at least have feminist sympathies, so let me ask you a question: One of the chief complaints of modern feminism is that women are underrepresented in the sciences. Yet you yourself, when you say that the idea that life begins at conception is a religious belief, show absolutely NO understanding of the most basic tenets of biology! It is a simple biological fact that life cannot come from non-life. Therefore, if at any point in its development, an unborn child were NOT ALIVE, it could no more become alive than a rock could become a bird. How can feminists complain about the underrepresentation of women in the sciences, when they refuse to pay basic science any real respect? What kind of a role model are you setting for young women when mutilate science for the sake of your ideology?
I hate hearing all of this garbage about the "separation of church and state". Have a quick read of the Constitution and you'll see that the purpose was clearly to prevent the government from setting up a state church (such as the church of England), NOT to keep anything religious out of anything related to law or government.
More info
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
from the Constitution of the United States of America
Again, religion is PERSONAL, INDIVIDUAL. It has no place in government. I grew up in a Christian home, and I learned from my parents to respect other people's beliefs. But they also taught me that dogma has no place in government. Dogma is what's killing young Americans in a foreign land right now. Because the President of this country believes that God has called him to "liberate" the people of that land.
Freedom of religion is a civil right for the individual citizen, should the citizen choose to believe. Privacy is a constitutional right. The pursuit of happiness is a constitutional right. Liberty is a constitutional right. Christian rule of the USA, not so much.
Antigona - The beginning of life is properly a scientific issue. It has been tied in recent years to religion because religious people are just about the only ones willing to defend that point of science, not because it is a matter for religion. There are pro-life atheists out there.
Life begins at conception, by scientific definition (growth; ingestion of nutrients). Logically, that life once begun is a human life. Murder is the taking of a human life. Therefore, abortion is murder. There - a purely logical chain that makes no reference to religion.
"Privacy is a constitutional right."
Actually, it isn't. Neither the 14th amendment (misused in Roe v. Wade) nor anything in the Constitution or any amendment gives us a "right to privacy." You can look it up. The amendment only guarantees that no state "shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of the law." Meaning, you CAN lose your life, freedoms, etc., but only when our government takes the proper steps (arrest, fair trial, etc.). That doesn't guarantee us an absolute "Right to privacy." But in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court created this idea using "substantive due process." It means that, instead of assuring we all get fair treatment by the law, the High Court contradicted and expanded the meaning to say we also will be promised a certain OUTCOME. It created its own new rights outside the constitution. Legal experts on both sides have exposed this as faulty reasoning.
Antigona, yesterday you brought up capital punishment and I explained to you that although abortion and capital punishment (in my faith) are not moral equivalents, many prolifers are in fact anti death penalty. That would include me and I believe Annie also spoke up to say she was against capital punishment. I'm just curious why you would come back the next day and make the same generalization about the death penalty.
Funny thing is, many prolifers can't understand how you could be anti death penalty yet not mind abortion. It doesn't make sense to us either.
Nicole
Women do deserve the right to make the best choices, but abortion is NOT one of them!
Antigona-
You're just not listening. Abortion is not a religious issue at all. Life begins at conception. Each individual human being begins at conception. We must respect the rights of the unborn if we wish to consider ourselves civilized.
In response to Annie Banno, yes I am telling you from my personal knowledge, not from any "soundbites" (which I found insulting that you would suggest as a sort of dig but whatever). I had my abortion in CA and there were no screaming protestors. My neighbor I mentioned was screamed at by protestors and called all sorts of names for a medical visit to a Planned Parenthood that had nothing to do with abortion. This was in NC. I also visited that same PP in NC for health care unrelated to abortion (FREE pap smear and birth control) but thankfully did not encounter any protests. My sister recently went with a friend to an abortion provider in SC and they were screamed at & taunted on their way inside, which is something I don't think any woman should have to deal with - ever.
I hope that answers your questions.
Antigona -
After listing all those rights, what do you think about the right to life?
Joseph - Your post is intellectually lazy, so I'm not really sure what kind of discussion you hope to encourage with it...but for starters it's not only sexist, it's racist in it's casual exploitation of black history in support of disenfranchising another historically oppressed group.
Whatever.
I'm not sure if this blog gets the same kind of discussion as a message board...it doesn't seem possible with the set-up, as more and more new posts get started and new comments don't bump anything up. So I'll cut out and thank you for letting me read your thoughts from that day, Annie, and offer my perspective from the other side.
Peace & Love to you,
Keri
Antigona-
That's exactly my point, supporters of emancipation believed that slavery is always wrong, regardless of the circumstances, and therefore should be legally abolished. Southerners who did not personally choose to own slaves, but still defended the institution of legalized slavery, were not pro-emancipation at all, but rather pro-slavery.
By exactly the same logic, to be pro-life means to believe that abortion is always wrong, regardless of the circumstances, and therefore should be legally abolished. A woman who would not personally choose to have an abortion, but still defends the institution of legalized abortion, is not pro-life at all, but rather pro-abortion.
Further, many Abolishionists were driven by their personal Christian beliefs. Should the Constitution have prevented them from bringing their "religious interpretations of life, right and wrong" into the political sphere?
Keri-
Rather than respond to my analogy, you have resorted to calling me "lazy", "sexist", and "racist." Sticks and stones...
Keri, I asked if you or your neighbor had been screamed at and verbally attacked by ONE-HUNDRED FRENZIED PEOPLE AT ONE TIME. Your answer does not say if you thought there were THAT MANY people pressing not 2-3 feet away from you, shrieking ridicule and accusation at you.
I fight the so-called "pro-lifers" who scream, name-call and taunt, but I can't get them to stop. It isn't right for even one person to do that to another. But you still have not said if it was **100** people--in a mob of thousands, I might add-- who did this to you.
If it was, THEN you know exactly how it felt and how dangerous it could have been. Remember when this 100 was screaming at me in unison, the riot police were farther up the street, not between me and the crowd...
If life's beginning is scientifically substantiated, why has the government been unable to establish abortion as murder and, therefore, irrefutably illegal?
The fact is that scientists and biologists disagree as to when exactly life (a term itself not easy to define) begins. The lack of consensus on this keeps the law from calling abortion murder—the stronger push comes from religious position on this debate (hence my reference to it). Some women can't afford pregnancies and aren't in the best position to be caring, stable care-providers. And for many of us brown-skinned women, adoption is not really an option. Not really. So, we have to do what's best for us. If the ideal is for everyone to enjoy a lifelong ability to form, refine, and pursue her own vision of the good, then it is insufficient to focus on children alone: we owe some consideration to the autonomy of women.
It's been real. Y'all take care and stop judging others so much!
A
I wish people would stop using the "judging" line. If to say what is right or wrong is to judge, I'm okay with that.
"If life's beginning is scientifically substantiated, why has the government been unable to establish abortion as murder and, therefore, irrefutably illegal?"
Because they haven't decided when that life is worthy of "rights". There is no denying, scientifically, that the single-celled embryo is a new, unique living organism that is distinct from its parents. This is simple fact. It applies with human embryos, just as it applies to any other animal embryo out there. When I was working in a lab that does research on zebrafish embryos, we studied primarily the first 24 hrs of life. As soon as the egg was fertilized, scientifically, we had a new zebrafish. If we had to wait until our zebrafish developed a spinal chord (or any other arbitrary landmark) to call it a new organism, research in the first 24 hrs would have been completely pointless. Genetically, biologically... at fertilization, a new organism is created.
You've bought the rhetoric, not the science book.
me and Annie,
Bravo! My dad is a professor of constitutional law, and although I am not not an expert on it, I do know something of it. I get really tired of people mouthingh popular platitudes about the Constitution, particularly these three:
1. Separation of Church and state. I can't really add to what me said. She was absolutely spot-on. And yet, it gets used to attack any initiative based on someone's concept of ethics.
2. Equal Rights. This phrase is not found in the Constitution. the phrase is "equal protection under the law", meaning the law has to apply to everybody, not that everybody gets to do what they want
3. Privacy rights. The 4th amendment guaruntees that people won't have their privacy violated by unwarranted and unreasonable searches and siezures. It does NOT say that you get to do anything you want as long as it is behind closed doors, nor does it say that you can't pass laws regulating private behavior. It does not. Period. And that was the logic SCOTUS used in last year's Lawrnce v. Texas ruling, overturning sodomy laws.
Thanks for speaking up, Jonathan, good explanations...there's another buch of comments on this started in one of the other posts on this page, not sure which one....my first cousin-once-removed is a 30+ year experienced Constitutional lawyer, considered one of the top ones in the nation by a lot of his peers. (BTW, I think you did a typo, it's the 14th amendment, right?)
You love life so much you allowed people with signs praising jim kopp for killing bernard slepian to march along with you.
I guess it would've been better for her to spit on them, throw eggs and them, tear up their signs and drag them through the streets?
Oh wait, that's what the marchers did to the people with a sign that said "I regret my abortion" and not the ones holding signs praising Kopp.
So what's _their_ excuse Jay? I guess they like the doctor murders because it enables them to paint all anti-abortion activists as fringe.
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