[url]http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/610886/posts[/url]

That's discrimination!  I'm a male, so I can't take advantage of this free offer!  I demand justice! ... um... [stick]

Like Tom Peterson used to say, "Free is a very good price!"

Oh marvelous:  Abort a fetus for the Constitution!

I'm [i]not[/i] anti-abortion, don't get me wrong.  But I severely disagree with using it as [i]primary birth control[/i].  

This guy has his head up his posterior.

DK, I've not seen any statistics myself.  I'm basing it on a friend who was an OB-GYN surgical nurse for a city hospital in San Antonio.  She said she had wanted kids until she say 17 year-olds coming in for their 5th (!) abortion.  And she said that was not the exception to the rule.

I have no reason to doubt her.

i don't have any hard and fast statistics, but i remember one time quite a while back seeing an expose type newspiece on abortion clinics.  one of the types of people they featured were women who had been back to the clinics not once not twice, but three and four (and in one woman's case it was something like 6 or 7) times.

They are a lot of stupid [i]people[/i] out there.

Very much looking forward to the day that unrepentant abortionists [size=5][b][red]BURN IN HELL[/red][/size=5][/b].

The blood of 30 million unborn children [b]will[/b] be avenged.

They should run a two-for one special, or something.

Perhaps a mother-daughter special. On Mother's Day, no less.

Or coupons saying "get 50% off your next abortion."

Or how about a refer-a-friend program.

Or maybe a give out a toaster oven with each abortion.

And have balloons and clowns for the kiddies.

A dunking booth might be nice, and bobbing for apples.

You know - nothing like a nice carnival atmosphere to get people in a "murder for hire" frame of mind.

[rolleyes]

garand(GodIsGonnaHaftaApologizeToSodomAndGomorrah)man

You're also VERY misled. Brutally killing innocent children for any reason is UNACCEPTABLE! They are the only ones that are innocent parties in many of these "situations".

Post from DK-Prof -

Gee, Professor, you missed your chance. Nazi Germany would be just the place where you could find such a system.

'Course, it helped if you were Aryan back then, and hurt if you were anything else!

And then again Red China, also foolishly referred to by some as the 'People's Republic' (heh-heh, don't get me started on that!).

There's a 'one child' limit on births (unless you're a Party official, but then you wouldn't be if you're asking questions), with anything more being required to be aborted! [b]Forced, if necessary![/b] Now that's a very PRO-CHOICE country for you (so long as the government has the choice).

Now THAT may be the system for you![:D]

BTW, you're not an 'only child' are you? If you're not, which brother or sister would you like to see the plug pulled on?

Eric The(NowThat'sAPro-ChoicePositionEvenYouWouldHate,Right?)Hun[>]:)]

Agreed.  They pay the ultimate price for someone else's "poor judgment" or "inconvenience".

[(:|)]

Here are a few tidbits to add fuel to the fire....

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was an avowed eugenicist.  What better way to "purify" the human race than to remove the undesireable elements via abortion...

Hot rumor from one of Madonna's unofficial biographies is that she has had 11 (ELEVEN) abortions.  What a fine role model for young women.

The Roe in Roe vs. Wade has regretted her decision to terminate hre pregnancy and has advocated against abortion ever since the ruling came out.

Why, DK-Prof, I'm almost blushing. Of course the Nazis were irrational, just not in the way you described. Your fault with the way that the Nazis did it is simply because you didn't like the 'guidelines' used by them.

BTW, they didn't just go with appearances - you could be the most blonde haired, blue eyed Aryan fellow in the world, appearance-wise, but if there were just one drop of Jewish blood in your veins, you were soap! At best!

I just gave you an example of two nations who thought it wise to take over the reproductive end of their citizens' lives, and you have rejected the Nazis, out of hand! Well, what about the Chinese birth control laws, any hope for you in that direction?

Surely, there's many a slip 'twixt sigh and zygote (that's from National Lampoon, BTW), so do you have any trouble having government physicians remove 'fetal tumors' from unwilling mothers-to-be?

Eric The(HaveYouMentionedThisToYourOlderBrother?)Hun[>]:)]

Great Now we are offering Free Murder to women, maybe we are living in America-Gomorrah
[uzi]

If that's the case (and it is), you should be very worried! [:\]

AND

Yeesh.  Here's my take - I think the original [i]Roe v. Wade[/i] decision was a good one, because, like DK I believe the right to choose whether or not she is ready, able, or willing to bear a child is the decision of the woman and the woman alone.  

Bear with me.

I think the follow-on [i]Doe v. Bolton[/i] was a major fvckvp, because it removed the "first trimester" restrictions on her time to decide.

"[i]Because I don't see zygotes and embroys as HUMAN BEINGS until they are at least third trimester and viable[/i]"  What happens, DK, when second-trimester "parasitic cancers" can be removed from the womb and brought to full viability in pre-natal EU?  It's becoming more and more likely.

I truly believe that a 1st trimester embryo is just a collection of cells with a minimally functional nervous system.  It's part of Mommie's body, not a separate being.  Sometime between the end of the first trimester and the beginning of the third, that's no longer true.  When that change occurs, it's not a "clump of cells" any more, it's a person - with rights every bit as important as Mommie's.  She no longer has a "right to choose".  She had three months to make up her mind.  Only if the pregnancy holds [i]physical risk[/i] to the mother's health should a second trimester or later abortion be permitted, and only after a swift review by physicians.  

Sooner or later the technology for ex-utero gestation will be viable.  Then what?  Is it a person or not at 3 weeks?  Then when does pulling the plug on an embryo with a bad but "survivable" genetic defect constitute homicide?

People, abortion is going to occur, just as crime with firearms is going to occur.  The objection is exclusively spiritual in nature, until the law recognizes the embryo as a "person".  It's between the woman and her God.  Let's try to make the law at least reasonable.

not really...technically.  there is always a  chance to be saved, right garandman?  [:)]

I always get amazed when pro-gun people speak out against abortion. everyone of us is terrified that the government will take away one of our rights (the right to bear arms) and many make extreme references such as "they can have my gun when they pry it from my cold dead hands" and other badass BS such as that. But it never strikes anyone as hypocritical when they want to take away someone's right to choose. One person sees it as a baby and the other sees it as a choice. Dont bring morals or made up beliefs in an old man in the sky. It is not about that, what it is about is I have the right to choose and it doesnt effect anyone else at all except me, the female involved and the clump of cells. Untill one of those three is you, mind your own buisness.
-jay      

I am sure they would be happy to pull SOMETHING out of you.

Agreed.  After all, what business does the government have to take away our right to kill innocent human beings?  After all, it's in the Constitution, I think.

signed,

a "clump of cells" named PoliticalScience [(:|)]

This is what it really all boils down to. I can live irresponsibly and if a child is concieved that wasn't intended, I have rights, don't tell me what to do. Blah, blah, blah...[>Q]

No person has the "right" to kill an innocent child. It is the most evil act a human being can do, IMO. Straight from the pit...no doubt about it.

Mother Teresa once said:

'It is a poverty of the soul to take the life of a child in order that you may lead the life you wish.'

Eric The(GodBlessHerSoul)Hun[>]:)]

"For the record - I am VERY pro-safety.  In fact, I think there are plenty of guns already, and would not oppose a system in which disarmament was REQUIRED - unless you could document that you were responsible adult(s) who are financially solvent, mentally stable and have allow the police to store your gun for you."

Yeah, makes sense to me...

Last time i checked, abortion was not against the law. Therefore it is a person's right to choose what is best for their present situation. Their situation, not yours. Who the hell are you to cast judgement? If aborting a fetus goes against your morals and casts one into hell because you pissed off your loving god , then obviously this is not the right choice for you. I feel different however. I am glad i have the right to choose and have exerciseds that right in the past and would have no problem doing it again if the need arose and the circumstances were the same as before.  
"innocent human beings"? "innocent child"? I too am against the killing of so called innocents. Too many make the mistake of pressing their morals into the situation. This is not a morality or religious issue, but a biological one.  As long as the clump of cells cannot survive on its own, it is not a child in my opinion. For the record, i am totally against the partial birth method of terminating a pregnancy. The child can live entirely on its own and is therefore its own entity. But as long as it needs the mother to survive, it is part of the mother and not seperate. This post is just my opinion. I am not forcing it on anyone else and i dont expect others to force theirs on me.
-jay

Couldn't have said it better. People can't be willing to relinquish one set of rights for another.

For the life of me I can not understand how people can think that abortion in any form is acceptable.  There is no denying that from the moment of conception, life is formed.  There is no denying that life is of human origin.  But since it can't speak for itself, some people reason that it is ok to brutally murder it for their own personal gain.  So, in the end human life is destroyed.  Regardless of belief in the Bible, basic human decency or even elementary interpretation of the law tells you that killing others except in self defense is wrong.  Except when we have to do it so we can go party and spread wide and get knocked up again.  You can call it a mass of tissue, and technically thats what it is, but technically, its also a seperate, unique, and individual entity.  Dependant on the mother, yes, but of differing genetic makeup, sometimes of differing blood type, a seperate entity itself.  No one can deny that.  But we can sure kill it if we have a whim to do so.  In the end, no pro-choice person can say that abortion is right.  In the end a person is needlessly dying, and thats not right(you can bring up rape, incest, or if the mothers life is on the line, but that is not the majority of abortion cases that happen.  They are the slim minority, and are of a different argument in themselves, personally, I belive that the only acceptable abortion is the one in which the mothers life is in jeopardy.  The other two, adoption is always there).

Anyhow, just my thoughts.

Just wanted to say something about the whole "able to survive on its own" as a defining characteristic of being a person. No newborn can survive on its own.  It requires food that it can't procue, warmth it can't provide, and shelter it cannot find.  It needs protection from dangers.  The list go on.  other organisms, tapeworms for example, are totally dependent on one organism for survival.  Are they considered part of the host organism?  No, they are a seperate entity.   So just because something can't survive without something else dosen't make it part of the other entity.  It still has its own characteristics, its own life, its own uniqueness.

Again, just my thoughts, I don't apologize for them and can only hope to persuade others with their logic (or lack there of, i know its a little spotty, after all, its 1:13 am where im at and i just got off an 8 hour shift at work).

Hey, wouldn't it be nice if they were to give out free abortions to grown liberals, democraps and all those that want to take our freedoms by first disarming us.

Every pro lifer should take 8 or 10 unwanted crack babies home and raise them, so as not to appear utterly hypocritical.
If you don't like abortion, don't have one.

I think you need to go back and reread your history.  I KNOW "Norma Roe" and the trial dragged on and she DID have the child.  The daughter was put up for adoption and has a strained, at best, relationship with her birth mother.  

The whole point of filing a lawsuit was to push the issue of abortion... everyone basically knew that the trial would drag on too long for her to have an abortion herself.  She was a pawn.  Plain and simple.  

Post from Hannah_Reitsch -

Well, Hannah, I can assure you that it's much more likely that a pro-lifer woulf take care of unwanted 'crack' babies and would raise them a whole lot sooner that pro-choicers would!

Why? 'Cause that's the answer pro-choicers have always given! Meanwhile, the Church has done miracles in caring for unwanted babies - all over the world!

Now, what in the world does that bumper sticker slogan have to do with this argument?

The same arguments used for abortion ('it's my body, and I can do with it whatever I want') can be used to justify just about anything that mankind has turned its evil mind to.

Eric The(Pro-Life,WhatElse?)Hun[>]:)]

Well, sometimes bumper stickers just sum it up nicely, Eric.
Same with the gun stickers.
If a woman chooses to terminate her pregnancy, it is no one's business but her's and the father's.
And how many crack babies are YOU raising?
Or are you merely insisting that women follow your narrow religious views and philosophies?
It is none of your business, your religious views apply only to YOUR choices.
Abortion is no one's business but the 2 people that started the pregnancy. Period. All the self righteous do-gooders in the world will not change this fact.

Post from Hannah_Reitsch -

No, it isn't! Even the US Supreme Court has never ruled that the State does not have an interest in the pregnancy during the Second and Third Trimesters, so even in their view the 'State's business' begins at the end of the First Trimester!

And where does the father fit into all this? He has absolutely [b]no[/b] rights regarding the woman's decision to continue her pregnancy!
Whether she does or not, it's simply not his business either, according to the courts!

And there is absolutely nothing he can do to prevent the woman from continuing in her pregnancy if he does not wish it to continue. He is stuck for child support no matter what!
Even their agreement that he not be held liable has been struck down by Courts if the woman later determines that, yes, child support would be nice!

None, how about you? [:D]

But do I need to be raising crack babies in order to have an opinion about the morality of abortion? Where is [u]that[/u] commandment written?

I do support my Church and my Church provides plenty of monetary support to all sorts of needy mothers, including those mothers with less than perfectly healthy children. We run one of the largest 'Church Pantries' in the Dallas Metroplex, with almost 5,000 families using our food services for some part of the year.

What is [u]your[/u] Church doing?

Here's a partial listing of our Church's services for the local community:

Adult Education
Highland Oaks Boy Scout Troop #143
Camp Can Do MInistry
[b]Caring & Sharing Ministry[/b]
[b]Children's Ministry[/b]
Communications Ministry
Communion Ministry
[b]Concern Ministry[/b]
[b]Cooks-for-Christ Ministry[/b]
[b]Counseling Center[/b]
Deaf Ministry
Discovery Ministry
Faithwalkers Ministry
[b]Feeding the Homeless[/b]
Fellowship Ministry
[b]Finance Ministry[/b]
First Touch Ministry
[b]Helping Hearts Ministry[/b]
Junior High Youth Ministry
Kids for Christ (KFC) Ministry
Leaders to Christ (LTC) Ministry
[b]Meals on Wheels Ministry[/b]
Men's Ministry
Missions Ministry
[b]Nursery Ministry[/b]
Prayer Ministry
[b]Prison Ministry[/b]
[b]Sarah's Daughters Ministry[/b]
Security Ministry
Senior High Youth Ministry
Singles Ministry
Small Groups Ministry (HomeTEAMS)
Sound & Tape Ministry
[b]Special Education Ministry[/b]
Sports Ministry
39er's Ministry
[b]Women's Ministry[/b]
Young Adults Ministry

- continued -

The ministries which I've highlighted are the ones who actively handle special problems that are being experienced by local families. Not just the families of members, but mostly for non-member families.

Women should follow religious views and philosophies that they have been following for thousands and thousands of years, period.

Not [b]my[/b] narrow views, but the views that even pagan Greece and pagan Rome enforced, and their philosophies, as well!

Do you remember Greek and Roman history on the subject? Let me refresh your memory about what these pagans thought!

History contains no mention of 'criminal' abortions prior to the period of decadent morality in classic Greece. The crime seems not to have prevailed in the time of Moses, either among the Jews or among the surrounding nations, for otherwise he would certainly have spoken in condemnation of it.

No mention of it occurs in the Bible in the long enumeration of sins laid to the charge of the Canaanites.

The very first reference to it is found in the books attributed to Hippocrates, who required physicians to bind themselves by oath [u]not[/u] to give to women drinks fatal to the child in the womb.

Three centuries later in Rome, we meet with the first record of laws enacted by the State to check this crime. Exile was decreed against mothers guilty of it; while those who administered the potion to procure it were, if nobles, exiled to certain islands, and if plebeians, condemned to work in the metal mines in Sicily and elsewhere.

It is, obviously, not my own religious views that oppose abortion, but the views of pagan Greeks and Romans, who knew or cared nothing for Christianity!

Of course it is my business! Anything that degrades, cheapens, and takes the lives of anyone in our Republic is our common business and is suitable for discussion by everyone!

Then you are in favor of the mother's right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion right up to the time her water breaks?

How about right up to the time just prior to the emergence of the child's head?

Is abortion permitted [u]then[/u] as a matter of right, so long as the mother desires it?

I suppose that partial birth abortion should remain perfectly lawful, as well?

Eric The(BraveNewWorld?GodHelpUsAll!)Hun[>]:)]

That's a lot of ministry!

Eric - How do you feel about birth control or the morning after pill?

Eric, while I do still want your legal analysis of my Second Amendment essay, I have to say that your "evidence" that no abortion took place prior to Greek civilization based on the fact that the Bible doesn't mention it "for otherwise (Moses) would certainly have spoken in condemnation of it" is a bit weak.  

However, I will concede that abortion is almost definitely a characteristic of "civilization" - nomadic peoples suffered a high enough death rate that "unwanted" children must have been a pretty rare thing.  Did not the Romans expose unwanted children?  

Fathers had the right to decide whether to keep or expose their newborn babies. The midwife placed babies on the ground, and only when the father picked it up was the baby formally accepted into the family. Deliberate abandonment of an infant to the elements was practiced on obviously deformed infants, or when the father felt the family could not support another child. It was assumed that these babies did not die, but were picked up and taken as slaves, but the practice was not illegal, and it was, to me, more cruel than first-trimester abortion.

So the Greeks had a drink to induce abortion?  I wonder how long it existed before men discovered women were using it.  Once the technology existed, abortion has always been a woman's decision.  It will remain one.  And it's between her and her God.  The Roe v. Wade decision said that she had three months to make up her mind.  Somewhere between 3 and 6 months that clump of cells in the uterus becomes a human being with legal rights of its own.  Good enough for me.

Post from 1GUNRUNNER -

Well, since any healthy male has sufficient sperm to impregnate just about the entire female population of the world (I know I do!), there is nothing morally wrong with preventing pregnancy by any means.

Whether it's good old [i][b]coitus interruptus[/b][/i] (which, BTW, is how [u]most[/u] of us probably got here!), rhythm method (which is how the rest of us got here!), condoms, birth control pills, etc., there is simply no potential child to begin with, so no problem.

'Morning after' pill?  I'm not certain how that works, so I don't know.

But to ease everyone's troubled mind, if anyone wants to choose abortion during the First Trimester, that is between them and God.
The States should remain in the background unless the mother is under the age of 18.

During the Second Trimester, the mother should be permitted to obtain an abortion after some consultation with a physician, simply in order to make certain that she understands the gravity of her decision.

Third Trimester - only if the mother's life is in imminent danger. Not her health, not the child's health, but the mother's life.

That's it! Now, do I still think it's an immoral act? Hell, yes!

Is it a sin? Hell, yes!

Eric The(TheWoman[u]Had[/u]AChoiceWhenSheDecidedToHaveUnprotectedSex!)Hun[>]:)]

Post from KBaker -

Sorry, but that's not what I [u]tried[/u] to say. What I tried to say was that we have no record that there were any 'criminal' abortions (meaning an abortion that was held to be 'criminal') [u]prior[/u] to the time of the Greeks. In other words, abortions were [u]likely[/u] to have been occurring, but not at a sufficient enough rate or notoriety that would have caused the civilization to attempt to remedy the problem by enacting criminal laws against the practice!

The rate and notoriety of abortions among the Greeks caused them to 'outlaw' abortions under most every condition. This is the first record of a 'criminal abortion' law.

Strange, isn't it, that Greek law permitted the death by exposure of a live-born child (for several reasons, mostly involving health), but criminalized the death of an un-born child?

The part about Moses and the Bible simply means that abortions were so few and far between in a nomadic people like the Israelites, who valued the birth of children for obvious reasons, that there was no criminal legislation on the subject at all!  Abortions just didn't happen often enough to justify a law prohibiting them! That's all.

That's how we can judge what was occurring on a daily basis by a people so remote from us in history - just look at what conduct they were concerned enough about to write laws that would prohibit the conduct!

Not to my knowledge, but the Greeks most certainly did.

The Roman [b][i]Pater Familias[/i][/b] had absolute right of life and death over the entire family! He could easily strangle an adult daughter, by law, for a whole hosts of reasons, including marrying against his wishes.
And no one, not even the Emperor in the time of the Empire could punish him for what was considered a private act. In practice, it was a right that was seldom exercised, however.

Eric The(I'llGetToThatReview,ButInitiallyItLooksVeryPersuasiveOnAPointThatIsExtremelyConfusingToMost)Hun[>]:)]

So you are Pro Choice.

Eric:

I'll accept that.  I had read about the Roman practice of exposure, but did not know the Greeks practiced it.  Exposure was also the right of unmarried or widowed women in Rome.  The Jews were known to collect some of the exposed.  Some ancient scholar noted it in some text I read saying that, if in nothing else, the Hebrews didn't practice exposure and made a practice of saving the exposed.  Sort of a back-handed compliment.

I'm glad we agree (legally) on the 1st trimester thing.  I'm waiting for technology to come up with a viable artificial womb.  THEN what?

Post from 1GUNRUNNER -

Only narrowly in the political sense, and only to a degree. I actually consider myself Pro-Life. I would rather go in that direction, but at this point in our Republic's history, we need everyone we can find to come inside the Republican Party's 'Big Tent.'

Let God decide whether those who choose abortion can find their way to Heaven with a dead child as a witness against them!

But that's not politics, that religion.

Let me tell you a little story. When I first got admitted to practice law, it was in Shreveport, Louisiana. I had connections with the Southern Baptists there and got on its list of attorneys who would handle adoptions.

When I got the adoption ball rolling, I was handling approximately 4 adoptions per month!

The cutest little babies you ever saw!

We had a Juvenile Judge, Gorman Taylor, who presided over all of the adoption cases, and he would always ask one of the lawyers, representing the adopting parents, or appointed to represent the child, to say a prayer at the end of the hearing. The prayers were always the most beautiful imaginable and seldom did anyone leave the Courtroom without shedding a tear or two.

That was in 1979, 1980, 1981.

In 1982, an abortion clinic opened across the Red River in Bossier City, Louisiana. You may remember this clinic because it was in the news often that Summer. Two airmen from nearby Barksdale AFB in Bossier City, would come on their off-duty time and pray in their uniforms on the front lawn of the abortion clinic.

Their superior officers demanded that they not wear their AF uniforms when praying at the clinic. They came back in civilian clothes.

The publicity surrounding the airmen's protest ultimately landed both airmen in deep doo-doo with their superiors and IIRC, they were reduced in rank and discharged!

Well, anyway, when the abortion clinic opened in Bossier, the rate of adoptions that I was handling began to drop within a few short months. Fron an average of four per month, it went to two, then one per month.

Then in 1984, an abortion clinic opened in Shreveport (The 'City of Churches') and the rate dropped to zero!

Was is that young Louisiana females were suddenly deciding to keep their babies, to marry their children's fathers, and to raise a family together?

Nope. I don't think so! These beautiful children were still being created, they just weren't being born!

Eric The(GodWillDamnUsForThisForCertain!)Hun[>]:)]

Touching story - but, I guess that's why they call it choice.  I don't know anyone with a "Pro Abortion!" sticker on their car.  I did see a senior couple the other day in a newer Cadillac with two big "Nuke the Bastards!" on the back.  Made me laugh.  I always wanted to get a bumper sticker that read "There ain't enough room on this bumper sticker for what I've got to say!"

1(nowyou'vegotmedoingthissillystuff)Gunrunner [:D]

It was the Nazis and Communists among the industrialized nations that first did away with the laws the protected unborn children. That any of their wanton butchery should find a foothold in the land that once taught that all our rights, including the "right to life", come from the hand of the "Creator" and exist, if the Declaration of Independance is to be believed, from the moment we "are created".

[url]www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020118-10.html[/url]



In his essay, "How Tyranny came to America" Joseph Sobran has this to say:

"Take abortion. Set aside your own views and feelings about it. Is it really possible that, as the Supreme Court in effect said, all the abortion laws of all 50 states — no matter how restrictive, no matter how permissive — had always been unconstitutional? Not only that, but no previous Court, no justice on any Court in all our history — not Marshall, not Story, not Taney, not Holmes, not Hughes, not Frankfurter, not even Warren — had ever been recorded as doubting the constitutionality of those laws. Everyone had always taken it for granted that the states had every right to enact them.

Are we supposed to believe, in all seriousness, that the Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade was a response to the text of the Constitution, the discernment of a meaning that had eluded all its predecessors, rather than an enactment of the current liberal agenda? Come now."

And since someone mentioned Mother Teresa:
"If abortion is not wrong, then nothing is wrong."

To put it in plain english, if Jesse Jackson, Hillary Clinton and Rosie O'Donnell say it is good for America, it can't be.

Nothin like mixing baby killing with some economic incentives.


My take on this doctor: I'd give a stray dog my bed before I let this doctor in my house.

"We are a people that believe in basic rights. We believe in self government by consent. That didn't just happen. It happened on the basis of certain principles. And those principles state very clearly that the basis of human rights is not human will or choice but God's will, the Creator's will.
That means that if we reject that principle we are destroying the essence of our whole way of life. And that is what is involved in abortion when we assert that a human choice, the choice of the mother, determines the childs right to life. That cannot be true in light of our American principles."
Alan Keyes