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| being pro life outside the political arena | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 12 2008, 06:24 AM (4,739 Views) | |
| QuirtEvans | Nov 15 2008, 08:35 AM Post #251 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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So it's OK to destroy a life if you are in the process of creating a life ... but if you have no intention of creating a life, it's wrong to destroy the life that you inadvertently created? That makes absolutely no logical sense. Moreover, it does not deal with the cases of rape and incest. In those cases, there was no intention to create a life either. And, in those cases, you can't use the lack of "wouldn't welcome anything less than a full legal ban on abortion" argument either. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Dewey | Nov 15 2008, 08:41 AM Post #252 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I will accept any legal position that serves to make abortion less common. I will not accept any moral position that serves to define it as not destroying a human life.
That is incorrect. The only way that it could be correct is to believe that defining abortion as destroying human life is synonomous with saying that it should never occur. This is not accurate.
Because he wasn't. Both are heinous, but murder is more heinous than child abuse. Both our legal system and (at least the majority of) our moral beliefs would agree with that position, and always have. The fact that people hysterically screeched at IT's pointing out the obvious - that killing someone is *worse* than merely hurting them - and in the process, trying to smear him with the claim that he didn't care about child abuse - was absolutely shameful, and only gives evidence of how absurdly out of kilter abortion-rights proponents are in their views.
That's almost correct. She should not abort her child, but not on the basis that murder is worse than rape or incest - which it most certainly is. Rather, she should not abort her child on the basis that to do so is morally wrong, and that killing the unborn child will in no way reverse the fact of the rape or incest. Killing the unborn child will only compound the tragedy.
The only distinction between the two in moral terms is that in one instance, the victim has a face, which we desperately don't want to have to look into. The intent of killing remains, and it's the intent that matters.
Yes. There are acceptable means of birth control, and unacceptable means. That's actually the crux of the whole abortion debate. Abortion as birth control is morally reprehensible.
Let me tell you what my ultimate goal is, without any smokescreen. I don't want there to be a single abortion in this country. But as I've already said, I don't believe that that can happen through laws. It can only come about through a change of heart - I believe, through spiritual transformation, a new way of understanding the meaning of human life. That doesn't happen by passing a law. It's the transformation that I want to see, and for which I work. Societal transformation rarely happens in big steps, but incrementally, through a series of small steps. So yes, I want to see the most sane and reasonable limitations placed on abortion now, while I hope for even further limitations in the future, as people's hearts change even more. The current abortion laws - like any laws - are nothing more than a legislative reflection of our collective morality. So when I say I want to see increased limitations on abortion in the future, it's because I want to see people's attitudes about abortion changed, to the point where they want, and will implement those limitations - not to force those limitations on a majority of the public that doesn't want them.
For the moment speaking only legally, that is by definition the case with any political/legislative process. You've said that you support certain limits on abortion rights. To oppose the adoption of these limits on the basis of future battles that would go further than you wish to is simply illogical. Future bites of the apple can, and will, only occur if the moral will of the general population supports it. Fighting tomorrow's potential battle today does no good for either tomorrow's, or today's, battle. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Dewey | Nov 15 2008, 08:53 AM Post #253 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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If you're engaging in activity which by design was devised to cause procreation, you must accept the reality that even using contraception, life may be created - and you must accept the responsibility that comes with that decision. Not doing so is what really makes no logical sense. In this case, no one "inadvertantly" had sex; it was an intentional act. The only question is whether one wants to accept the consequences of creating life, "wanted" or otherwise.
That's right, and that's also where our obligation to others - in this case, the unborn child - comes into play. I do not support abortion in cases of rape or incest. Period. I don't apologize for that. The life created through that tragedy had nothing to do with those circumstances, nor will killing that life do anything to erase the reality. As I've already said, doing so will only compound the tragedy. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Axtremus | Nov 15 2008, 09:19 AM Post #254 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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The parallel I gave is perfectly valid -- when you have multiple fertilized eggs to choose from in an IVF process, there is plenty of opportunity to screen out those with genetic disorders, and choose only to implant zygotes of certain gender. (See IVF Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis.) Personally, I think it would be highly irresponsible to not do genetic screening for IVF. Do you support aborting babies found to have genetic disorders? Or do you want to ban or restrict IVF pre-implantation genetic screening? If so, what restrictions would you impose? In both cases -- IVF and sexual intercourse -- we are talking about selectively discarding unwanted innocent human lives created in the process of, and with the intention of, creating life. (The line of argument I'm pursuing with you here has no dependency on the mother's health condition. We can certainly branch out on a different line of argument that focus on trading off the mother's health with the embryo(s)' survival if that's what you want to do. Though I prefer to follow through with the current line of argument first before we branch out.) |
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| Dewey | Nov 15 2008, 09:48 AM Post #255 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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No.
I would personally vote to *not* permit such IVF screening, and to *require* scientific/medical use of surplus embryos created in the process, as a stipulation for parents engaging in IVF. My intention isn't to impose anything. My wish, as I said earlier, is for a transformation within people such that they would not want to abort, or for that matter, genetically screen for sex, hair color, or frankly, even birth defects, during IVF. If parents don't think they can love a child with the "wrong" genitalia or hair color, or even one with a disability, then they should go back to the kitchen table and discuss whether they really want to be parents to begin with, or if they wouldn't be just as happy buying a nice dog. I apologize for that bluntness, but I believe it's true. Of course we all have preferences for what our children might be. But that simply isn't our call. Frankly, even that newborn baby that you think is perfect is going to throw you more curves in your life than you can ever imagine - and that, I believe, is very much by design. We give life, and mold life, in our children, but I believe that God's intention is for our children to give life, and mold life, in us. And often - maybe even usually - that happens in ways that we would not have chosen for ourselves. My wish is for people to understand in their hearts that what they're trying to create is life, and that all life, regardless of particulars, is a blessing. I want to see a society that is of such a heart and mind to embrace the blessing of IVF, but that wasn't so self-centered as to consider those lesser issues in the larger picture of what we are to learn in the creating of life. In the larger sense, I don't see enacting laws to bolster moral positions as an imposition. Society does it with virtually every law enacted. But ultimately, I don't want to impose anything. I want to live in a society that wouldn't *want* to engage in those behaviors. Until then, I'll vote my conscience, and I'll try to make my case to others. If at some point, a sufficient number of people in society agree with me, then the law will change. And I will consider that a good thing. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| kathyk | Nov 15 2008, 10:49 AM Post #256 |
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Pisa-Carp
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"Hysterically screeched." What I pointed out to IT( who made the comparison in the first place), was my incredulousness that he could possibly believe that killing a weeks old zygote could be more morally reprehensible than viciously abusing a child. That sort of rigid thinking is in my mind dogma at its worse and rather scary. Likewise, that you would condemn the millions of women who chose with great difficulty to end a pregnancy with criminal intent.And your point about the rape victim is so horribly wrong headed. No, an abortion won't undo the rape, but it will cut short the suffering of the rape victim and prevent the piling one trauma on top of another. Just imagine the damage to a young girl who after enduring the indignity and trauma of a rape then having to endure the trauma of carrying the rapist's spawn in her body. If it was your 13 year old, barely pubsecent daughter, would you really make her endure carrying that pregnancy to term? I find that utterly cruel. For me, it's a simple matter of putting a greater value on actual life outside the womb than potential life in a womb. |
| Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/ | |
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| ivorythumper | Nov 15 2008, 11:04 AM Post #257 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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You are right about this. However, the courts and moral philosophy both recognize extenuating and mitigating circumstance regarding culpability and punishment. Also, it is important in this discussion to realize that pre-Roe almost universally women were simply not prosecuted for having abortion. That they were is a lie propagated by the proborts, along with back alley and rusty coat hanger rhetoric. The laws were aimed specifically at doctors and unlicensed practitioners. There are also laws on the books that are better on the books than not, but that are not enforced with draconian zeal. I think it is very bad public policy to have a law (or a lack of law) that permits the intentional killing of innocent human beings. That is a jurisprudential judgment. They don't That is not what I said. I don't admit of degrees of heinousness. Abortion, child porn, child abuse are all heinous acts and deserving of public censure and the state has the moral obligation to protect the weak and victims. My explicit point was that "It is a graver injustice to deprive someone of life than to abuse them. Both are evil, but at least the victim can go on living and healing from their trauma in the latter two cases." It is a graver injustice to financially ruin someone than to pick their pocket (assuming all they own is not in their pocket). This is something that the legal system recognizes as well. You use strange phrases such "Presumably, rape and incest are no worse than child abuse, and therefore not as heinous as murder." Rape and incest and child abuse are all heinous, as is murder. Yet we all pretty much understand that where as murder is a much worse crime in that it irrevocably deprives a person of everything, rape and incest and child abuse do not irrevocably deprive a person of everything. It really is a worse thing to kill someone than to sexually abuse someone or enslave them -- it is a graver injustice -- but all are properly considered heinous. Agreed. No, I don't think so. The pro life lobby only developed in response to the perceived insanity of the change in law that allowed with death of innocents, and further that the government ought to assist in the death of innocents. This whole affair was brought on by abortionists who wanted to legalize their trade for profit motives (see Nathanson's Aborting America). There are only two documented cases of a woman being charged with her own abortion prior to Roe v Wade: Penn in 1911 and Texas in 1922. Commonwealth v. Weible, 45 Pa. Super. 207 (1911). Crissman v. State, 93 Tex. Crim. 15, 245 S.W. 438 (Tex. Crim. App. 1922). This was never about prosecuting women -- the abortionists wanted legal protection for themselves, not the women. They have to say so. Just like the probort camp cannot admit of anything less than the complete right for any woman to decide whether to keep or abort her child. You'll not get parental consent or notification out of them, or even a limitation to X time. The sane compromise is to revert back to pre Roe, where abortionists were the criminals and women obtaining abortions were treated as victims. You as an attorney might appreciate this link. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| QuirtEvans | Nov 15 2008, 11:06 AM Post #258 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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Exactly. And it's also about not forcing one life to be the host for another. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| QuirtEvans | Nov 15 2008, 11:09 AM Post #259 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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This is another one of your snarky misnomers. I know of no one who is in favor of abortion. No one. People are in favor of a right to choose. If you insist on calling one side "proborts", then it's equally fair to call the other side "womanhaters". |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| John D'Oh | Nov 15 2008, 11:11 AM Post #260 |
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MAMIL
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IT - would you seriously claim that taking a morning-after pill is committing a graver injustice than torturing a 4 year old child? |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| QuirtEvans | Nov 15 2008, 11:12 AM Post #261 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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That's a bit like saying you're free to drive, we will just prohibit the manufacture of cars. If doctors cannot lawfully perform abortions, women will do it for themselves. Pre-Roe, many did. And many died as a result. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| ivorythumper | Nov 15 2008, 11:24 AM Post #262 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Do you really not get it, or are you just posturing Kathy? I did not draw the comparison, I substituted terms to see if Quirt's argument held water. Again, I could have said "housebreaking and credit card fraud should be safe, legal and rare" to show the problem with the sort of thinking. When the argument developed it was necessary to point out that indeed, killing someone is really worse than abusing them. I am shocked that you cannot appreciate that basic principle.
What is "potential life"? Only an egg and a sperm that have not yet united. Show me from any medical text book on embryology or fetology where they use the term "potential life" to describe the zygote or the blastula or the embryo? You dishonestly use that sort of unscientific language of "potential life" to assuage your conscience for advocating the killing of innocent human beings. And your argument basically comes down to "it doesn't look like us" therefore we can kill it. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Dewey | Nov 15 2008, 11:28 AM Post #263 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Yes. Your repeated attempted manipulation of IT's words was disgraceful.
Yes, you've told me many times in the past that you find my ideas scary. File updated.
I do no such thing. I do claim that they've made an incorrect moral judgment. That's very different.
So actually giving birth to the child would be a tragedy? I disagree.
The "rapist's spawn" is a child, kathy. Children are responsible for the neither the nature of their conception, nor the moral character of their parents. The "rapist's spawn" is every bit as entitled to life as a child that the rapist has legally conceived. Indignity? I would suggest that most of us have, and will, endure "indignity," and far more than nine months of it, in order to preserve and nurture some human life. Carrying such a child to term is not something done for the guilty rapist, but for the innocent child. I don't adhere to a morality of hatred, least of all taking out one's hatred for one person on an innocent third party.
If it were my child, and I had the legal right to require it, yes, I would. I would cry my eyes out for months, and I would want to kill the rapist. But I would still allow that child to be born. I would hope that my daughter would understand that carrying the baby to term, and giving it up for adoption, would be the only loving, humane and moral way to treat the unborn child. If she didn't, I'd pray that she eventually understood it some day. And even if she didn't, and she never forgave me for the decision, I would still decide in that direction. I would hope that she would feel preserving another human life to be worth nine months of inconvenience. I would hope that she would understand that killing the unborn child would do nothing to erase the trauma she'd suffered, and that doing so could very likely make the trauma even worse. I would hope that she came to understand - maybe even through this experience - that "indignity" is something that we're all asked to endure from time to time, if we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. I don't find that cruel at all. I consider it to be not making a bad situation worse. I consider it to be finding the good that might arise from a terrible situation. I consider it to be finding where God is in the situation.
No. For you, it's a simple matter of placing a greater value on the potential indignity and feelings of the life outside the womb, than the actual life of the one inside. That's what I find cruel. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Copper | Nov 15 2008, 11:37 AM Post #264 |
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Shortstop
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Let's say this baby was born. Would it at some point become something other than "the rapist's spawn"? Or would the child always be known as "the rapist's spawn"? |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| QuirtEvans | Nov 15 2008, 11:38 AM Post #265 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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Uh, no. The argument comes down to this ... there are certain things that separate human beings. One of them is brain function. That's why, when brain function ceases, someone can be declared legally dead. If there's no discrete brain, and thus no brain function, it isn't a human being yet. There may be other factors that are relevant too, but brain function is an indispensable quality of humanness. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Dewey | Nov 15 2008, 11:42 AM Post #266 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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So if I'm in an auto accident and my brain ceases to function, I'm not human? I may in fact, be "dead," but I remain human. Whether one is human is determined by DNA, not brain function. Don't confuse the terms "human" and "alive." |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Copper | Nov 15 2008, 11:42 AM Post #267 |
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Shortstop
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So what would be "brain function"? Would two cells communicating be enough? Or would you need 3 or 4? |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| Luke's Dad | Nov 15 2008, 11:56 AM Post #268 |
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Emperor Pengin
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Most people seem to get by with just the two... |
| The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it. | |
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| kathyk | Nov 15 2008, 12:19 PM Post #269 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Of course if the child is born it's a child worthy of all of the love and protection of any other child; however, it still is the product of the rape. God save the child from that knowledge. And God give the the family pf the raped child who chooses to take that child into their own family the strength to avoid seeing the rapist every time they look at the child. Why not save the child from the additional trauma and end the pregnancy when it is little more than spawn? To me that is the obvious humane course of action. I think you people really get yourselves into moral trouble with your rigidity on the issue. |
| Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/ | |
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| kathyk | Nov 15 2008, 12:26 PM Post #270 |
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Pisa-Carp
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For what it's worth, Dewy and IT, I quoted IT's words and extrapolated from them. You can call it twisting, but his words were right there juxtaposed with my thoughts. I still will never fathom how people can be more concerned about preventing women from terminating their own pregnancies that have barely begun than protecting the myriad of born children that suffer in our country due to abuse and deprivation. Man, if the energies of the right to lifers were focused on those children, just think what a better country we might have. |
| Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/ | |
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| ivorythumper | Nov 15 2008, 12:31 PM Post #271 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Jeffrey is completely in favor of abortion. In fact he insists that there are no detrimental effects and that "post abortion syndrome" is a fabrication of the pro life camp. You can use womanhater if you wish, you will only look nutty doing it. I will use words as I think best describe someone who is in favor of legalized abortion. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Copper | Nov 15 2008, 12:33 PM Post #272 |
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Shortstop
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Oh, OK. |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| ivorythumper | Nov 15 2008, 12:35 PM Post #273 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Is it a graver injustice to torture a 4 year old child or to kill a 4 year old child? Is this some sort of binary thing that if we decry one we are approving the other? You are way smarter than that sort of nonsense. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Luke's Dad | Nov 15 2008, 12:35 PM Post #274 |
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Emperor Pengin
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Because the joy of life can, will, and does outweigh the pain. |
| The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it. | |
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| ivorythumper | Nov 15 2008, 12:44 PM Post #275 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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No Quirt. There are anacephalic babies who are still human beings. You can use all sorts of weasel words like "humanness" to eliminate anyone you want from the human pool ascribed human and civil rights. We all know about the history of that, and I am surprised you would go there given that horrid history. You use these terms without understanding that "human" describes the type of "being". What else is it but a member of homo sapiens sapiens in a particular stage of development? As far as my statement, I stand by it. Kathy hides behind the poster boy against child abuse and argued that the fetus picture she showed was not every bit as fully a human being as the poor boy she used as a political prop. They are both human beings. They are both equally deserving of protection against abuse and murder. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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What I pointed out to IT( who made the comparison in the first place), was my incredulousness that he could possibly believe that killing a weeks old zygote could be more morally reprehensible than viciously abusing a child. That sort of rigid thinking is in my mind dogma at its worse and rather scary. Likewise, that you would condemn the millions of women who chose with great difficulty to end a pregnancy with criminal intent.


4:26 PM Jul 10