JGL53

Well, that's it for me.

I had a feeling the apply self-named long winded fool was one of those people who are incapable of ever admitting they are wrong, EVER, to any degree whatsoever, even concerning some minor, unimportant point. I have just proved this. Just read my previous post and then read his disingenuous runaround of an "answer".

I am not a psychiatrist or a pychologist. Are any reading this thread? If so, what, pray tell, is the proper diagnostic medical term for someone like long winded fool? Megalomaniac? Egomaniac? Narcissist? A male Ayn Rand? Just curious.

theMomma

One thing I haven't seen adressed. Even if abortion were made illegal, it would not stop abortions. Middle class and wealthy women would have basically the same access to abortion that they do now, either through travel or through social connections, while poor women and teenage girls would go back to the back-alley abortions. It wouldnt' stop the abortions; however, poor women and teenage girls would be a lot more hesitant to actually get help if they have complications. Would it cut down the numbers of abortions performed? I don't think there's really a way to know that.

The other reason I feel abortion should be legal is very very personal. When I learned I was pregnant with triplets, my doctor, my husband, and I discussed the risks of carrying this pregnancy vs. the risks of reducing the pregnancy (aborting one or two of the embryos). This was an intensely personal choice, and one which no committee or government agency had ANY business helping me and my husband make. The outcome of that pregnancy, btw, I almost died and had to deliver permaturely, one baby died and the other two were hospialized for quite some time. However, these were risks I chose to take; I can't imagine a govenernment agency telling a woman she HAS to go through what I went through. Plus yes, I am quite disfigured from the pregnancy.

JGL53

While I and a majority of Americans have nothing but sympathy for your desire to keep the government out of the personal decisions in your personal life, anti-legal abortion people 'reason' another way.

They are fanatics/absolutists/dogmatists in the advocacy of their 'ideals'. They have determined that abortion is murder and no further argument is going to dent their steel craniums.

Like all dogmatists, e.g., marxists/communists, objectavists, fundamentalist religionists of all stripes, anti- legal abortion people have determined what the TRUTH is, for all time, and really don't cotton at all to the suggestion there may be exceptions to the rules. They have determined the ideal that all SHOULD live by, no matter what the real world circumstances may be.

Millions of women each year worldwide have abortions, regardless of whether it is legal or illegal in their respective countries? Well, that's no argument in their view. If it takes 1984 to put these murdering females in their place, then so be it. All must one day bow to the TRUTH, as they have determined it.

Dr Rick

Comedian

It's just gotta' be; no one would ever seriously spew the stuff that lwf has. Just look:

The hiliarity of lwf's position is apparent: confronted with facts that explicitly contradict his absurd argument that unborn fetuses have human rights, he delivers the punchline:

He just ignores those things that utterly refute his argument!
C'mon now, of course this is a joke.

How 'bout a round of applause for the guy?

Ah, he's giving us an encore:

Can't you see the subtle humor here; lwf is arbitrarily insisting upon the imposition of his chosen definitions for any given term irrespective of what the authors may have actually meant because he's using "scientific definitons" and "logic."

Of course, he's wryly implying that chimpanzees must then have human rights because the same "scientific definitions" make them members of the human family, so the UNDHR must "logically" apply to some other primates besides us.

Pretty funny, huh?

Okay, he's not side-splittingly funny, and his delivery clearly needs work, but imo the kid's got potential.

Rick

dk

I don't follow Rick. The US Declaration of Independence says, "All men are created equal". Lincoln's Gettysburg bridges the emancipation of the slaves with the Declaration, that starts "Four score and seven years ago..." It appears to me you're obliged to address the issue somehow, or loose all credibility.

long winded fool

This is true. Outlawing infanticide also does not prevent infanticide from occurring. In fact, it occurs in a far more barbaric and brutal fashion when women aren't simply allowed to take their infants to their pediatricians and have them "put to sleep." This does not make outlawing the killing of infants cruel and barbaric. Laws simply outline the accepted mores of society. They punish cruelness. They do not take the cruelness out of people.

long winded fool

double post

theMomma

Except abortion is not infanticide. I wasn't arguing for infanticide to be made legal, so I can only think you bring it up to either have a strawman to knock down or to apply the slippery slope arguement that if abortion is legal then infanticide will become legal.

You ignored the second half of my post, which is where I personally was faced with a pregnancy that I could easily have died trying to carry, and in fact nearly did die. Pregnancy is not necessarily a mere inconvenience; there are all sorts of complications that just aren't talked about, and can have lasting effects. And every woman's situation is different.

The truly ironic thing, if abortions were to be made illegal, the very legislators who enacted those laws families' would still have access to safe abortions.

long winded fool

I agree that abortion is not infanticide. I was comparing these two things to illustrate that the probable consequences to those who break the law and even innocents who may be involved have nothing to do with whether or not the law should be in effect. Yes, with legal abortion women are allowed a much safer and healthier means of abortion than if abortion were illegal. Similarly, if infanticide were legal, women would be allowed to end their babies' lives in a much more painless and humane manner. Since it is not, women who choose to engage in this behavior are often forced to drown, poison, or abandon their infants to the elements. (If not subject them to more painful fates that need not be mentioned.) Very horrible, but it is not therefore logical to legalize infanticide to try to prevent this.

I'm not blind to the major complications that can result from pregnancy, and I think that legally any human being can be killed if he or she is threatening the life of another. I argue that logic forces us to respect the equal and inalienable rights of all human beings, not the least of which is the right to life, assuming that the foundation of the laws of this country is rational. I argue that it is illogical to make an exception on the most important legal right any human being has for the convenience of another human being. This right can rationally be revoked only if said human is threatening the right to life of another, as in the case of life-threatening pregnancy, among other things. While I do not know the exact details, I would assume that you would have had the right to abort even if abortion were illegal, since killing a human being in self-defense is justifiable and you say you almost died.

I'll try to illustrate the crux of my argument and where I stand so people won't be so quick to throw out ad hominem arguments: NO government should have the right or the responsibility to tell any woman what she must endure or what she can do with her body. This is not justifiable, as women have the right to privacy and personal freedom to choose their own lifestyle and pursue their own opinions about morality, philosophy on life, and religious beliefs. EVERY government ought to have the right and the responsibility to enforce laws, by force, which protect the lives of all and not just a select majority of human beings from other human beings who would take their lives under its rule. Human beings who unjustifiably destroy other human beings ought to be removed from society until such time as they are rehabilitated, if ever, and until such time as they understand the stiff penalty for violating this vital and fundamental law. All human beings have the inalienable right to life. When you start to make exceptions for some, you lose the ability to claim equal and inalienable human rights. You essentially destroy the foundation of American democracy.

theMomma

Ok, but there are alternatives to infanticide; for instance, women can leave their babies in a hospital emergency room with no questions asked. Infanticide is very rare, abortion very common, which also makes them very different. One in four pregnancies are aborted.

In my own situation, I delivered my babies as soon as it became obvious I was going to die if I didn't. The hospital bills for the surviving children were well over $100,000usd with no complications at all, and had I not had excellent medical insurance I have no idea how that would have been paid for. However, at 10 weeks pregnant, if abortion were illegal, would you feel that the potential risks would justify reducing the pregnancy? And who do you feel should make that decision? And if abortion were illegal, even if it were obviously in the woman's best interest to reduce a pregnancy, the doctor could not give that advice, therefore seriously hindering the care he would be able to give.

I'm also not talking major complications. I have several friends that after having children have cronic bladder control problems. I personally have so many stretchmarks and such loose skin that in order to look normal I will need plastic surgery (granted, this generally only happens with pregnancies of multiples).

Your feelings on this won't stop abortion. Making abortion illegal won't stop abortions. And as I said before, middle class and wealthy women will still be getting their *safe* abortions, while poor women and teenage girls will be seeing whoever promises them to end their pregnancies. It happened before abortion was legal, and as long as women want to end their pregnancies, it will continue to happen. Of course, the poor women and the teenage girls who have complications after seeing these back-alley abortionists will have to choose to seek medical care and go to prison or die.