Abortion; Is this true?
 

I just heard that the GOP has successfully changed the definition of "rape" so that only women who can prove they were the victim of violent rape, which would NOT include statutory, "date" rape, or rape committed while the victim is drunk or drugged can receive a federally funded abortion. That she must basically show that she was beaten, or overpowered and physically forced into sex against her will.

Now, before your head explodes, I have never approved of "abortions of convenience". An adult woman who simply goes out and gets pregnant, willingly having concentual sex, then decides, "Ooops, I just don't want this right now.", and has an abortion makes me sick. Sorry, but it does.

But, if she's deliberately drugged and raped while she's unconscious?

If she's like, twelve?

Even if she goes out partying and some sicko finds her passed out and humps on her while she's incapacitated......I just don't know if I'd pressure her to have that baby.

I'm pretty sure that this measure is designed as part of the greater plan to whittle down PPACA. But as a stand alone issue, I think it is a bit too narrow and dangerous to the legal rights of women to define "rape" only as "sex by force".

Dave

An adult woman who takes responsible precautions (pharmaceutical or otherwise) but, then, becomes pregnant and carries a child that she does not need/want to term out of misplaced guilt makes me sick.

And $$$ support, in appropriate circumstances, to stop situations that are likely to generate more significant long-term burdens -- to those involved and us as citizens -- over time seems exceedingly prudent: once.

The convenience agenda and application is the issue. Past that, I believe we should be as liberal as possible.

Especially as they don't give a tinker's dam what happens to the child once it is born.

Where exactly did you "hear" this?

The issue was the GOP inserting the word "forcible" in front of rape for future implementation of the Hyde Amendment (which limits Federal funding for abortion). The GOP caught such a ration of sh*t for this stunt that they backed off.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020304370.html

Actually, Whell, I couldn't recall......................

Until.........Whoop, there it is!

(Really, I saw it from Jon Stewart.)

Dave

Nothing to be sorry about. I feel the same way.

But I don't see what's wrong with this idea. I mean, let's face it. We all know a lot of time she wanted it but just called it rape after the fact. Crazy women. Slip some drugs in their drink and all of a sudden you're the bad guy.

ROTFLMAO! That would make a GREAT tag line!

Pete

Then of course there is the prospect of some woman who has abortions as a convenience raising a potential citizen, I am not at all certain that prospect appeals to me. In punishing her (you had the fun, now have the kid) are we perhaps punishing ourselves as well.

Of course, but self-righteousness feels good, doncha know?

Pete I once heard a lady describe childbirth at the procedure of pushing a grapefruit (skull) through a hole the diameter of a pencil lead (entrance/exit from the uterus). I do not propose to tell any woman how to manage her body since childbirth is something I am incapable or performing. The matter is entirely between her and her doctor. The procedure you pictured is rare and was developed for a medical reason. As I have not graduated from Johns Hopkins I am not going to second guess it.

everyone should have been aborted in the 1st place. problem solved:D

There can be no doubt what it is though.

I'm uncertain over the whole issue. It is very serious.

As far as childbirth, I always think of Bill Crosbys' telling about his wifes. She STOOD UP IN THE STIRRUPS AND SCREAMED,

GIVE ME DRUGS! lol :D

Part of original sin ;)

Pete

Rare may not aproach being a strong enough word. And illustrations like that are used to mislead people about what abortion really is.

But, at the same time, if people would be more reasonable about the discussion we could probably find solutions that make procedures like that virtually unknown (well, even more so than they already are). As long as we continue to use this as a divisive issue intended to make a bunch of men feel morally superior to another group of men we're unlikely to get anywhere.

Dunno. I know I don't like the dead fetus pictures being part of the discussion. If we used that argument, we'd make open heart surgery illegal. I'm sure it's nasty to look at too.

Open heart surgery isn't murder, it's repair.

No pics, fine. We can just stick with the written description, as if it's any less barbarous. I guess if it makes us feel superior to the savages who left their unwanted babies outside to die by exposure...

Or a happy picture perhaps :)

http://www.truthorfiction.com/images/Samuel%20Armas.jpg

Pete

Well, Pete. Thanks for that.

Thing is, we're not so far apart on abortion. But as long as people refuse to have a reasonable discussion about how best to eliminate it we're not getting anywhere.

http://www.christianandamerican.com/...02/embryo1.gif

If you really think all human life is precious, from the moment of conception, why not use this picture?

Or this one:

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Page...-execution.jpg

Or this one:

http://www.criticalconcern.com/img/casket08.jpg

Pete, I once sat through a video presentation of this proceedure with my brother.

We were at a rally for a Republican candidate in Warren, Ohio. When the crowd seemed less than enthusiastic they broke out the gore and started referring to Democrats as "baby killers". It was the most disgusting display of political insanity I had ever seen, and one of the things that turned me off to the GOP. If someones ideas are so vapid that they feel they must resort to such things to gain support, they won't get any votes from me.

Dave

If you read my posts in this thread you'd see where I stand Blue. But not stating clearly what's at stake reminds me of the folks who wanted to stop showing the footage of the twin towers burning because it hurt their cause. Or the folks back during ww2 who wanted to stop showing the footage of pearl harbor burning because it hurt their cause. Over and over.

Let's at least be blunt about what we're actually discussing. Like men. I did not show a picture of what's left from a normal abortion.... actually they keep them as whole as possible because the parts are valuable. Hardly a handful of cells.

And I was harsh to use the word savages. But I consider the practice barbarous.

Pete

Then don't get one.:eek:

I used the word 'savages' to describe the practice of leaving unwanted babies outside to die.

Heck, you can kill'em, but for goodness sake don't dare spank one in public.

Pete

I know, Pete.

I just happen to think I am intelligent enough to know it isn't pretty. I don't need to have it shoved in my face, especially not by a losing political candidate. The whole episode just seemed pathetic to me. No different than anti-war protesters waving around gory pictures of dead soldiers.

Dave

There are several possible outcome if abortions are banned;

Coathangers in some dark alley, (the woman later dies due to sepsis)

Woman carries to term and abandons the baby,

She has the baby and keeps it (and is reminded of the bastard who raped her for the rest of her life).

The child is put up for adoption and spends 18 years in an orphanage, (because our adoption laws are bloody stupid, why do you think adoptive parents go overseas)


The woman dies, because her doctor was right.

My attitude may be slightly colored because my own Mother was not supposed to have any more children after my brother, but birth control was more art than science. She developed Padgett's Disease in her late fifties probably due to my having robbed her of calcium - nature is funny that way, the foetus gets everything, the woman gets whatever is left over.

Padgett's Disease is pretty damn painful, developing it in your fifties and living until 91 can make for a pretty painful existence, she would have been better to have aborted me but that was not a choice.

I'd say you should be grateful your mother had you then. She couldn't have known, at the time of your birth, that she would contract Padgetts later on anyways.

Dave

I am certainly not ungrateful, indeed I was more than fortunate in parents in that at no time in my life did I doubt their love, for each other and for all their children. I used to pray that He would let me take her pain, but I guess things don't work that way.

The medical opinion was that she should not have any more children after the first three, and to top it all off I was a difficult birth having tried to be a breech birth. Granted she could not have known about Padgett's but there was whatever other risk the doctor assumed might happen.

Of course I am glad to be alive, Florence is more than glad, but I am not at all certain that I was worth the price.

I like your attitude Rob. But we'd certainly been the poorer without your insights and sense of humor.

Pete

Or the folks who didn't want video of the coffins of American soldiers shown while they were trying to rally the public.

Or the folks who didn't want their "interrogation" techniques made public.

Or the folks who want executions to be done in private so people do see what the systematic murder of Americans looks like.

I just wish we spent half - hell one quarter -the energy we expend fighting over the unborn on the born.

Grown folks have choices.

Pete

Whatever gets you through the night, Pete. Sanctity of human life my ass.

Nobody got to choose who their parents were. We're all concerned about some poor woman in the projects aborting her fetus, but once it pops out, we're quick to complain about welfare or food stamps or public education. We offer nothing to clean up the areas of our country that offer almost zero chance of growing up in any manner that will result in anything less than jail. We're mighty quick to build the jails, though. And have little trouble murdering the "child" 20 or 30 years later.

The people who happened to be under our bombs when we decided to liberate them had little say in the matter either, Pete. But some things just have to be done. No sanctity of human life there. Sorry, we need the oil too badly.

We can be all for preserving human life. I think that's a noble cause. But to say we're doing it in one case then so clearly not doing it in so many others is far more of a societal sin than abortion in my opinion.

+1, emphatically. The whole sanctity of life argument with respect to abortion made by the religious right falls apart when it comes to the death penalty, supporting a trumped up invasion of Iraq that killed over 100,000 innocent Iraqis, or even denying health coverage to 30 million fellow citizens.

Sometimes I think self-righteousness about abortion is nothing but an a cynical attempt to gain the moral high ground at someone else's expense.

Still choices Eddie. A guy signs up for the military, another goes on a spree raping and killing 5-10 women, the consequences are theirs.

Military casualties and legal executions are not murder. Civilian casualties, hmm. Tough one. But citizenry is responsible for its' government, some here on both sides think.

And of course, we can't stop wars by hitting a switch either.

Everyone has to play the cards they're dealt.

Pete

.........

* Neither is abortion (Roe vs. Wade)

As for it being moral to kill 100,000 civilians in a war declared on erroneous grounds, that's a pretty low bar for morality.

Both abortion and denying health care cause death. Neither are murder.

Hell eating red meat causes death. Life causes death. My parents killed me.

Agreed, since Roe vs Wade, abortion does not meet the definition of murder.

And we didn't kill 100k Finn. Many were Iraqi on Iraqi murders. A mistake overall? Many yell so.

Pete

I guess part of the point I was trying to make (albeit poorly) was the selective outrage over abortion by many of its opponents.

I admire the Catholic Church (with which I was affiliated many years ago, but no longer) for their consistent stands on these issues. They're anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, against the Iraq War, and favored PPACA (except Federal funding for abortion, of course). The consistency in these views is admirable.

I find the Religious Right's positions on these issues internally inconsistent to the point of being non-sensical.

Not a choice to live in a neighborhood where bullets fly and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it is a choice not to fund our police departments in a way that would reign in crime in our worst neighborhoods.

http://www.wcnc.com/news/Two-year-ol...100596894.html

Citizenry is responsible for its government?!?! Then why the hell are we "liberating" them from a brutal "dictator"?! Doesn't that state pretty clearly that they had no choice in the matter? And isn't that the exact argument the terrorists use to justify killing Americans? Hey, you're responsible for what your government does, so it's okay to kill you.

As for playing the cards you're dealt, that's well and good for me. But we're stacking the deck against a lot of folks, Pete.

And you can say "legal" executions are not murder if you like. Why do you say so, Pete? Because it's legal? Newsflash: So is abortion. But, hey, don't like that word? Fine- I'll quote. Not my word's Pete:

Exd 20:13 Thou shalt not kill.

I went with the King James version because my Charismatic Christian friends tell me it's the most literal translation. I always think it’s worth looking to the Gospels, though, as they are the teachings of Jesus.

Matthew 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you

No, it's pretty clear. I see no special case against abortion from a biblical point of view that can't be applied to any of the other examples.

You guys are too quick for me today.

Happens to me all the time Eddie :)

As the future great Salvor Hardin would say, the atom blaster is an excellent weapon, but it can point both ways. If abortion is equal to the death penalty, then there is a dissonance with the left's support of abortion as well.

Pete

PS if you can't tell, I've been reading the Foundation again ;)

I agree, Pete. I honestly do. We need to have an honest discussion about abortion in this country. The problem is that the extremes on each end (no offense, Pete, but you're on one of them) scare the majority in the middle out of the debate. The people on the left fear that if they give one inch, abortion will be slowly outlawed. And for good reason. That is indeed the objective of some on the right. Nibble away at it until it’s gone altogether.

But there is reasonable room here. I do *not*, for example, think an embryo the morning after conception is a human being. Sorry. I don’t. It’s a cell. As such, I’m not against RU486. I am opposed to very late term abortion barring very rare instances where the mother’s life is at risk. Personally, I’d give my life for my child, but it’s not my decision to make for someone else.

Somewhere in between there is a judgment call. There’s a line we could draw that wouldn’t be perfect, but better than what we have now. I don’t know how that would work, legally, given my understanding of the Roe V. Wade decision. Unfortunately we can’t have the debate, so nothing will happen.

Another Irony- the people standing at the boarder yelling “illegal!” think the law of the land is wrong. Go figure.