“Confident abortion is here to stay. Accessibility may be curtailed, but its fundamental integrity will be protected by the courts…”

In my opinion, that’s a sick thing to be confident about. Accessibility to being able to kill an innocent life is just wrong. People need to think about the consequences of their actions…they get into a situation and want a ‘quick fix’ solution when they did wrong. They need to grow up and get a conscience!

#19–Philip–”I’m not a leftist, not at all”

If you say so.

What always amazes me is that leftists lie about who they are. Philip says he isn’t a leftist.

Then he talks about “Bible-beating rubes”.

There’s a real anger on the left side. There always has been.

These are simply people who are fundamentally unpleasant and want to control other people. It is why they ended up on the left. All one need do is read the Huffington Post to see what kind of people they are. Obscene, angry, and vile. What ever happened to “peace and love”?

What these liberals who congregate in big cities fail to grasp is that they are only 20% of Americans. The rest of the country consists of independents and conservatives.

We should thank Obama for showing the country what the post 1960′s left really believes.

Robert, thank you for mentioning my post, and thank you for sharing such excellent point for us all. Your daughter is beautiful!!! Thank God for everyone who chooses life!!!

I’m an anti-federalist who supports limited government, fiscal responsibility, free markets, non-interventionism, and individual liberty.

I strongly believe that the republican constitution crafted by our founders must be preserved and protected.

My ideal politician: Calvin Coolidge.

I tend to vote Republican, though in 2008 I tossed my ballot to the Libertarian candidate.

Nope, not a leftist, and controlling other people definitely ain’t my thang. Which is why, despite deep personal misgivings about abortion, I do not think the practice should be roundly banned.

Sorry, try again.

All that being so, I’m still a Yankee snob at heart. Education, science, reason, civility: These I prize. Controlling other people “ain’t my thang,” but neither is grossly populist, overtly religious red meat conservatism.

Nope, not a leftist, and controlling other people definitely ain’t my thang. Which is why, despite deep personal misgivings about abortion, I do not think the practice should be roundly banned.

The latter does not flow from the former, unless you are an anarchist.

Is it “controlling” men to prevent them from abusing their wives? Is it “controlling” fathers and stepfathers to stop them from raping their daughters? Is it “controlling” people’s sexuality to outlaw rape? “Controlling” people’s choices of income to outlaw theft? “Controlling” how people make money to outlaw slavery?

Give me a break. The very purpose of our laws, which any conservative would know (ahem), is to prevent acts of aggression – whether physical, financial, or from the our government or other governments. Our laws are there so that we do not act by the greatest strength – so that the strongest do not get to beat up on those who are too weak to fight back.

Abortion is an act of aggression by one stronger and more politically popular human being against another, more vulnerable and less politically protected humans. If this were a matter of big, strong men torturing women or children, you would have a problem with it; however, since the victim is an unborn child, you think it’s acceptable.

Your shortsightedness is fucking pathetic.

The other fucking pathetic thing about you is that you fail to see the huge pro-life effort in this country. As an active member of the pro-life attorney groups in my state, I know how hard people work – often with no compensation – to fight for life. Many of my friends donate their time and money to crisis pregnancy organisations – crisis centres that are routinely trashed by you and your pro-death ilk, who despise the fact that they do not provide abortion referrals. I know pro-lifers who adopt children that no one else would want. (A fantastic example of a woman with nationwide name recognition who does this is Michelle Bachmann; between her biological, adopted, and foster kids, she’s had 23 children.)

I’ve done my time praying outside clinics.

I’ve given money and raised money for crisis pregnancy shelters.

I worked to change my alma mater’s academic leave policies, which make it virtually impossible for pregnant women to choose life and get an education. (I teamed up with a pro-choice student for that one, in fact – finding common ground and all.)

I give my time and my legal (and scientific) education to the pro-life movement.

My friends run crisis pregnancy centres, donate absurd amounts of money to them, and help give women real options.

But you think that all we have are blog posts? Fucking pathetic.

“Add to that the number of women who are speaking out about after-abortion regret,”

I’m sure that has nothing to do with the endless hounding and hand-wringing of bluenoses like yourself.

Philip, your chauvinism is showing. Do you really think that women are so weak that, every 22 January, they would travel thousands of miles to hold up signs saying “I regret my abortion”, simply because a few of us express our love and passion for people at all stages of development? That we are that easily lead?

Do you really think that women are so incapable of logic that we’ll develop psychological problems because people disagree with us?

Or is it that once an abortion has happened, a woman realises that she killed her baby?

Chauvinist, got me.

Well, well. I don’t know where to start, you having spewed so thick a muck of nonsense, distortion, and half-truth.

First, let’s make something clear: My point about female guilt over abortion has nothing to do with chauvinism, nothing to do with “disagreeing.”

From many voices, and from all corners of society, heavy charges, stinging charges — “murderer,” “baby-killer” — are leveled at women who choose abortion.

This is not mere disagreement or hectoring. It’s beyond that. This is prolonged, unyielding harassment.

It is abuse: Abuse issued in decrees from figures of authority; abuse whispered ear to ear at parties; abuse cried in the streets from angry sign-wielders.

Even when the abuse is rejected, the charge (rightfully!) denied, it packs an awful psychic wallop.

“I’ve done my time praying outside clinics.”

Hah. Please, let me encourage you to keep utilizing this highly effective tactic. It has worked wonders feeding those starving kids in Africa my mother always told me about.

Let me also remind you, Roxy, that praying is not all you pious loudmouths do outside abortion clinics.

Anyway, your litany of self-sacrifice is less than impressive. Also, it’s pretty much as I said: Typical penny-ante activism, low-level politicking, street theater, empty gestures, blah blah blah.

Not exactly the response I expect from folks who claim to be witnessing OH MY LAWD THE WORST HOLOCAUST IN HISTORY! I mean, would you pray outside the gates of Auschwitz, or would you grab some f-ing heat and pour hell on those murdering m-f-ers, may your brave and good soul find God?

You see? Your very hidden insincerity betrayed by your very obvious inaction.

This bit I loved, really cracked me up: “A fantastic example of a woman with nationwide name recognition who does this is Michelle Bachmann; between her biological, adopted, and foster kids, she’s had 23 children”

23? 23?! “Fantastic,” you say; “fantastically neglectful,” I say.

Yikes, I thought Bachmann had serious psychological issues before. Now . . . wow, the woman truly is fit for the asylum. Worse than Palin!

Okay, to the heart of the matter: “If this were a matter of big, strong men torturing women or children, you would have a problem with it; however, since the victim is an unborn child, you think it’s acceptable.”

That’s an absurd comparison, the abortion of, say, a six-week-old fetus and the torture of a six-year-old child. It takes real blindness to nuance to think otherwise.

Its absurdity has been recognized for ages, which is why even the Catholic Church held a permissive view of the practice until fairly recently, distinguishing pre-quickening ‘terminations’ from post-quickening ‘homicides’ as late as the High Middle Ages.

Hysteria over abortion is a relatively new phenomenon in civilization, even in western Christendom. The practice, so long as it occurred pre-quickening, was largely excused until just two or three hundred years ago.

People got sort of bent during the 18th century, and by the 19th things reached fever pitch. Thankfully, with the 20th we came to our senses.

I imagine — I, ahem, pray — we remain sane for a while longer, though you Bible folk breed like so many rabbits . . . 23!

ROFLMAO.

Shorter Phillip P:
1. pro-life lawyers don’t do anything to help the pro-life movement;

2. stating a biological fact is harassment and abuse; and

3. people who actually do a tremendous amount of concrete good are the objects of your scorn.

I shouldn’t be mean to you; you’re worthy of my pity, not my scorn.

Hysteria over abortion is a relatively new phenomenon in civilization, even in western Christendom.

The Hippocratic Oath, which pre-dates Christianity by several hundred years, condemned abortion:

I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.

Actual facts are a bitch… particularly to pro-aborts.

RSM,
A dad who can write a totally postive article about his daughter, with no reservations…is a loving dad. Congrats to you and the family. -TR

That’s an absurd comparison, the abortion of, say, a six-week-old fetus and the torture of a six-year-old child. It takes real blindness to nuance to think otherwise.

First of all, it requires more than your say-so to make it reality. (See, Actual facts are a bitch, supra.)

Second, and more importantly: this country permits abortion up through the end of the second trimester. What is the difference between a partial-birth abortion and the torture and killing of an infant?

Of course, if you want to walk headlong into the issue of the fact that we:
1) allow partial-birth abortion but spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to save wanted babies at the exact same stage of development; and
2) we make abortion a constitutional right but foetal (or embryonic, as in California) homicide a, well, homicide,
you are more than welcome to.

Yes, an embryo whose heart has begun to beat a mere week ago is different from a six-year-old child, as I am different from my six-year-old self; nevertheless, that does not lead inexorably to the justified killing of all the embryos, nor all the adults, nor some six-year-olds in comparison to adults but not in comparison to embryos.

Need I remind you, Philip, of the biological fact (See, Actual facts are a bitch, supra) that you were once an embryo, then a foetus, then an infant? Abortion does not affect a different species; it affects humans at a different stage of development.

I know it’s a bit of piling-on, but I have to go back to this ridiculousness about how the pro-life movement is somehow illegitimate because it is relatively new:

The reality of the longevity of the movement aside (See, Hippocratic Oath), there are several other social justice phenomena that are of recent vintage:
*abolitionist movements: slavery has a several-thousand year history of being morally acceptable;
*treating women as their own legal entity and not as property; the latter goes back to at least ancient Roman times;
*allowing all adults to vote (even in the vaunted Athenian democracy, only about 15% of adult males were allowed to vote, given the restrictions upon the franchise);
*religious pluralism (at the time of the Founding, many states had explicitly religious laws… despite the fact that many people fled their native countries to avoid religious persecution);
*racial integration;
*prohibitions against marital rape (IIRC, those have only come about in the last few decades);
*etc.

So which of those, Philip P., are you happy with seeing go the way of the dodo bird, being of relatively recent vintage and all?

When is it “enlightened” to throw off the prejudices of one’s forefathers and when does tradition mandate that we take up those prejudices?

As I said, it’s a purely theoretical exercise, since prohibitions on abortion pre-date Christianity. (FYI: most “quickening” requirements were evidentiary, not normative, in nature: as women didn’t have access to sonograms and at-home pregnancy test kits, quickening was the best way to tell if she was with child and therefore, if she had an abortion or if her child had been killed.)

Such a heated debate over a blog? I mean, I guess I understand why, but honestly no one can change anyone else’s opinion. That’s one of the things that makes humans beautiful, no one is the exact same, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. In which case, I’m going to just throw this out there. Have “pro-lifers” ever thought about WHY the girl is getting the abortion? Y ou might argue that no matter what “murder is murder,” but what if the girl was raped? Some may choose to keep their baby, but don’t you think that’s a legitimate reason to not keep it? Again, some may argue about adoption, but do you really know how many children are still without families to love and nurture them? Also, some girls get an abortion because they have no financial support, no proper living conditions, and/or no family support. If you wanted to bring a baby into this world, wouldn’t you want the best of the best for that child? Don’t get me wrong either, if the girl does choose life then all blessings for her. However, this kind of dispute is most of the time better left up to the girl making her decision. And that’s my two cents.

“Picketing? Adoption? Letter writing? Wow, welcome to Useless, Population You.

You might as well brag about picketing Dachau.

You’re all cowards. You see millions being eviscerated, brutally, savagely murdered. You claim annihilation at a massive scale.

And how do you respond? Political theater. Christ.”

Your words, Philip P. You are doing exactly what you are accusing prolifers of doing…”letter writing,… political theater”. “Useless population”…What a hypocrit! What exactly is your anger accomplishing, anyway?

All the people fighting for womens rights, I like to see if you actively defend battered women, equal pay rights, human trafficing etc….I seriously doubt it. Answer me this, why has the abortion rate gone up, when all the birth control you could ever want is at your fingertips, but so many abortions why? It in itself has made people careless, giving their final option abortion, so oh well I forgot my birth conrol, but if I do happen to get pregnant I can just get an abortion! Don’t even try to convince me any differently.

Natural Law, and the fierce propensity of growth and life in the natural world, even if one believes in “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest”, demonstrates and supports what great thinkers throughout the ages noted and what the Founders included in the U.S. Constitution as the first… Right to Life. Without that Right to Life, there is no way to uphold Right to Liberty, nor one’s Right to the Pursuit of Happiness (or to personal property). Why do you think we are increasingly struggling over Liberty and Property rights in this country? It is because we have not firmly and consistently held up the Right to Life
The Creator gave us the Right to Life, not a constitution nor a court of law; they merely recognize it or fail to as the case may be. So where is the injustice, in affirming and protecting the God-given, natural right or in fighting to make it arbitrary under the guise of another person’s “right to the pursuit of happiness”. If one finds happiness in the taking of another’s rights, then they are a criminal by definition, and it is against such that laws and governments were formed in the first place. Our government was not intended to act beyond what we ourselves could rightfully do or condone, not by popular demand, but based upon solid principle.

God created each life….what right do we have to take it away??? To take God’s beautiful creation, LIFE, and think we could dare destroy it is a slap in the face of the Holy Omnipotant God of the Universe. You absolutely can’t argue back on that. End of discussion!! Amen

A man and women about to engage in sexual intercourse know that there is a chance of a pregnancy, so there is their choice, now because they cannot survive without continuing on, no big deal, abortion is readily available, they have there pleasurable moment, and who will really suffer now if she gets pregnant, the poor little baby, and people who do care about this little voiceless human being, and try their best to save his life, is some kind of evil, person trying to make choices for others! How can sexual desire be so much more important than a life! Maybe people can find some other ‘recreational” activity that won’t result in a death if something dosen’t go as planned!!!

If you drink and drive, and then cause an accident, who’s at fault, did somebody force you to drive?

one last note to “Phil: not a leftist, and controlling other people definitely ain’t my thang. Which is why, despite deep personal misgivings about abortion, I do not think the practice should be roundly banned.” -But it can & should be CURTAILED, Limited, and RARE ..

Good blog, Carmen. Every man and every woman has a choice. A choice to engage in sex using birth control or not. That’s where the right of choice should begin and end. Not after a life has been created should any human being have the choice to end that life. We all have choices…many people just make them on the wrong end of the question!