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Bill would ban abortions of 'gay' fetuses (Maine legislator got idea listening to Rush Limbaugh)
World Net Daily ^ | February 25, 2005

Posted on 02/26/2005 2:38:04 PM PST by NYer

A Republican lawmaker in Maine has introduced a bill to prohibit abortions based on the sexual orientation of the unborn baby.

State Rep. Brian Duprey wants the Legislature to forbid a woman from ending a pregnancy because the fetus is homosexual.

He said the bill looks into the future in case scientists find what he described as a "homosexual gene."

"I have heard from women who told me that if they found out that they were carrying a child with the gay gene, then they would abort. I think this is wrong," said Duprey, who got the idea while listening to the Rush Limbaugh Show.

But some lawmakers say Duprey is neither interested in creating new policy to protect gays and lesbians nor seriously discussing the issue of abortion. The bill, they say, is a way of forcing some lawmakers to choose between abortion rights and gay rights.

"It will be seen as some kind of political gamesmanship," said House Majority Leader Glenn Cummings, D-Portland.

Last month, Duprey drew attention to the issue of gay rights when he proposed a bill to legalize same-sex marriages even though opposing it himself.

The Baldacci administration and homosexual activists questioned Duprey's motivation. They said the bill disrespected the legislative process and prevented them from having time to build support for the issue.

Senate Minority Leader Paul Davis, R-Sangerville, questioned the bill's premise. "You cannot test for it," he said.

After seeing the proposed legislation, Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport, and Cummings called Duprey's efforts disingenuous. They questioned why he has opposed gay rights legislation protecting adults while pushing for legislation protecting those not yet born.

"It is just something to get him press time. It is not a realistic proposal," Edmonds said.

Duprey said: "Technology is changing every day. They could map the homosexual gene tomorrow."

A spokesman for the governor's office told the Portland Press Herald the administration will review Duprey's bill but declined to comment on it.

Duprey, an opponent of abortion, said he believes support will grow for the measure, though he has no co-sponsors.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections; US: Maine
KEYWORDS: abortion; gayabortion; gaygene; gayrights; homosexualagenda; legislator; maine; rushlimbaugh
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To: Joe 6-pack
"I have heard from women who told me that if they found out that they were carrying a child with the gay gene, then they would abort. I think this is wrong," said Duprey, who got the idea while listening to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
101 posted on 02/26/2005 10:15:46 PM PST by Half Vast Conspiracy (It's the tag line you're upset about, isn’t it?)
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To: 4Liberty

Respectfully, do you really want to stick by the logic?

1) The same folks who say it is fine to shoot an intruder (are PRO-2nd Amendment Rights), are also opposed to abortion. I find this puzzling: I consider abortion and the morning after pill as a form of self defense, if - for example - the birth control accidentally fails.

There are so many things wrong with this statement that it leads me to belive that you are deliberately attemping to equate pregnancies caused by rape or incest (intruder) to pregnancies caused by apathetic, irresponsible, or just plain lazy behavior(inviting intruder into your home then deciding to shoot them to get them out). Firstly, the issues of pregnancies caused by rape or incest were dealt with prior to Roe vs Wade (who incidently never had the abortion, and has since come out strongly against abortion and admitted that she was used by pro-abortion feminists)and abortions under these circumstances were legal. R vs W dealt with the latter form of preganacy caused by apathetic, irresponsible, or just plain lazy behavior(inviting intruder into your home, or abortion on demand).

In attempting to rationalize the extermination of a human life by contrasting it to an intruder(who was invited into the womb or home in all cases except rape/incest)you are using the dehumanizing argument that lowers the level of a life to subhuman in order to kill without conscience - this is exactly what Nazi's did in order to kill the Jews without feeling they were doing wrong - they termed the Jews subhuman, it was not the same thing as say, killing a human being.

In combat, soldiers are in kill or be killed situation where they have to take anothers life to survive and they will often dehumanize those whom they must kill to deal with the fact that they are taking a human life, but at some point most of them ultimately come to grips with the fact that they did take a human life and they had to because it was a kill or be killed situation - the kill or be killed abortion (mothers life in danger)is rare despite the number of late term abortions being used under this argument.

So, all this having been said, I will attempt to summize how I see it:

The scenario of a soldier dehumanizing another whom he must kill in order to survive in a kill or be killed situation most closely corresponds to the mother who has to end a pregnancy to preserve her own life. I believe in both case most of the soldiers and mother who dehumanized these lives in order to deal with taking them will ultimately come to grips with why they had to take the actions they took and humanize the life lost.

The scenario of the Nazi's who dehumanized the Jews in order to kill them without conscience by labeling them as subhumans most closely corresponds to pregnancies caused by laziness, apathy, and irresponsible behavior(or invited intruders). This type of dehumanization is used more as a denial of what one knows is wrong and does anyway, it is dehumanization of convience. It is not life or death, it is mere convience that drives this dehumanization. The Jews were not marched to ovens firing guns back at the Nazi's who exterminated them anymore than the life(which you so affectionately dehumanize by contrasting to an intrudeer) intruded upon the womb - it was invited by lazy, apathetic, or irresponsible actions. Incidently, failure of birth control through not using it could fall into all 3 of these. Failure of BC to work is an exception and not a rule, and it is interesting that Consumer Report rated Planned Parenthood condoms as amongst the worst (coincidenc?).

You may wish to rethink your above argument, and I welcome you to tell me where I am wrong here; that is, of course, your self defense argument is a defense against ones own irresponsible behavior. And if the individuals are so irresponsible as to not be able to consider the long term consequences on their lives from not using birth control, then why should we feel that they are responsible enough to consider the long term consequences of ending a life? Just by not using or knowing to use the birth control have they not already demonstrated that they may lack the decision making skills to deal with an unexpected pregnancy? Oh, the abortion that Roe never had is now an adult and I would be curious to know if you would be willing to look her in the eye and tell her she should not be alive now because she was not a life, sure she would welcome your input.


102 posted on 02/26/2005 11:26:34 PM PST by deepFR
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To: NYer

They'll never find a gay gene. Unless they mean my second cousin Gene whom I haven't seen in ages.


103 posted on 02/26/2005 11:30:05 PM PST by Bullish
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To: NYer

This is *not* a wise path.


104 posted on 02/26/2005 11:31:30 PM PST by k2blader (It is neither compassionate nor conservative to support the expansion of socialism.)
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Comment #105 Removed by Moderator

To: whereasandsoforth
I got it long before you came along, Mr. Do-You-Get-It. I brought up the Equal Protection Clause. DO YOU GET IT? Or is that Blue State gettin' to ya'?

That wasn't too nice a response to NYer -she is quite a nice freeper.

106 posted on 02/27/2005 4:43:30 AM PST by DBeers
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To: DBeers; NYer
I apologize for the tone. I thought I was being ridiculed, but sometimes I can be too sensitive when abortion is the subject.

My sincere wish is to not offend a sweet lady freeper!

Have a wonderful Sunday.
107 posted on 02/27/2005 4:49:30 AM PST by whereasandsoforth
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To: All
If the legislature bans abortion of gays, since gays are withing a minority class protected by the 14th amendment equal protection clause, the ban would for that reason cover blacks, women, downs syndrome and other suspect classifications.
108 posted on 02/27/2005 6:35:26 AM PST by watchdog_writer
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To: Bullish

LOL! A good one.


109 posted on 02/27/2005 7:00:48 AM PST by F.J. Mitchell (When the left hates you, rejoice, for you are right!!!!!)
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To: NYer

So. . .some lives are more valuable than others?

Can abort because of the sex of the child or because you simply don't want the child, but you can't abort if it is to be homo.


110 posted on 02/27/2005 7:18:47 AM PST by Gunrunner2
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To: Can i say that here?


In my explanation, -- the phrase "accidentally breaks," or fails to work, was used. That needs to be emphasized.

I understand all of the arguments that you and others above have made.

The main difference between shooting a hapless stranger who was victimized by a major hurricane, and killing an unborn child, apparently gets down to one's "personal involvement" in your view -- the fact that you PRODUCED the child, but did not conceive Juan Ramos, up here from Honduras, and made desititute by a major catastrophe.

But if we're all God's children, it seems odd that it's fine morally to shoot at someone in your yard in self-defense, but it is not acceptable to take the same step, to protect your resources - biological & financial - from an unexpected intruder in your 'house' (which includes your wife's physical body, of which she is the landlord, and the taking of its scarce biological resources, by an unexpected new life), should birth control fail to work as-intended.

We ALL face scarcity, after all. I think being pro-choice AND pro-gun rights is a consistent position. To support one, but not the other, as those on the right & left do, is consistent position on the matter of self-defense and protection of one's private property.

Therefore, as a libertarian and classical liberal, I think my position is more consistent than yours.

Finally, let me remind you that we are assured "life" AS WELL AS "liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The latter, including relations with one's spouse. If these latter two goals are to be "pursued," along with the potential risks of birth-control failure, then, the right of self-defense -- liberty & property -- attends it.

To deny this, forces you to say an intruder's life when he enters into your home unannounced, should ALSO have supremacy in America -- that you should NOT enjoy or be given the right to protect your property and preserve your liberties, since a life per se has greater value.

Increasingly, better birth control methods preclude the need for abortions, and that's a good thing. Unless you're a Catholic of course, and then -- I guess you have to pound them out, the kids that is, and remain in poverty (along with your many children).

Thanks for an interesting discussion. I remain pro-choice, and this is admittedly a difficult discussion, just as the use of a hand gun in self-defense is a difficult issue, And the attendant questions -- of how to educate one's children about such matters (guns & abortion) so that they become responsible adults and make reasonable choices, comport themselves morally, and make strong marriage commitments despite having "choice," is also relevant here.

4Liberty


111 posted on 02/27/2005 8:44:03 AM PST by 4Liberty (wages & revenues are price signals-- and some people [unions, subsidized cos] can't accept criticism)
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To: deepFR


I responded to some of your good points, in my post above. I hope this helps clarify things -- somewhat!

Thanks,
4Libery


112 posted on 02/27/2005 8:48:53 AM PST by 4Liberty (wages & revenues are price signals-- and some people [unions, subsidized cos] can't accept criticism)
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To: 4Liberty

I responded to some of your good points, in my post above. I hope this helps clarify things -- somewhat!

Actually, I do not believe that you responded to anything that I said; it would appear that you just did the Texas sidestep around these issues with which you were confronted. But while we are on this:

In my explanation, -- the phrase "accidentally breaks," or fails to work, was used. That needs to be emphasized.

Do you know the statistics on this versus pregnancies as a result of apathy, laziness, or irresponsibility? Were you aware that condoms produced by Planned Parenthood tested as the worst by Consumer Reports? The instances that you cite above are rare, and you are being disingenuous in this point.

The main difference between shooting a hapless stranger who was victimized by a major hurricane, and killing an unborn child, apparently gets down to one's "personal involvement" in your view -- the fact that you PRODUCED the child, but did not conceive Juan Ramos, up here from Honduras, and made desititute by a major catastrophe.

This I can not address because it makes absolutely no sense.

But if we're all God's children, it seems odd that it's fine morally to shoot at someone in your yard in self-defense

Check your local laws, but I fairly certain that this is a false statement; you cannot shoot someone in your yard unless you "feel that your life is in danger" - this again, appears to make the rare argument for if the "mothers life is in danger" which was addressed well before Roe V Wade. Again, disingenous argument.

it is not acceptable to take the same step, to protect your resources - biological & financial - from an unexpected intruder in your 'house' (which includes your wife's physical body, of which she is the landlord, and the taking of its scarce biological resources, by an unexpected new life), should birth control fail to work as-intended.

"not acceptable to take the same step", again disingenous as the actual BC would have been that step. Persons to lazy, apathetic, and irresponsible to exercise proper precautions may likely not be the best judges of whether exterminating a human life is acceptable given they are unable to intellectually determine the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy. Your resource argument is one that Nazi eugenists have used as well, I can not imagine one being so pleased to align themselves with that particular group and ideology.

self-defense and protection of one's private property.

The only time this argument would even remotely apply would be if the individual was raped (intruder), else, the intruder was invited in the home (consentual relations) and then shot when you decided you wanted them out. No offense, but this is the weakest argument I have ever heard for abortion.

I think my position is more consistent than yours

Actually, it is not and it appears to be very disingenuous and deliberately distorted and reveals a high degree of denial and dehumanization of human life to absolve ones self of murder (Nazi's did same thing).

Finally, let me remind you that we are assured "life" AS WELL AS "liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The latter, including relations with one's spouse. If these latter two goals are to be "pursued," along with the potential risks of birth-control failure, then, the right of self-defense --liberty & property -- attends it.

The old "my pursuit of happiness" outweighs the childs right to life argument. This is one of the silliest arguments and reminds me of when we were kids and father would get pissed at us and say "I brought you into this world, and by God I can take you out". It was an idiotic thing to same, but at least when he said these ridiculous things, we knew that he was kidding - I fear that the same is not true with the pro-abortion crowd, they genuinely believe that life is property which they can deal with how ever they choose for their own selfish purposes or reasons.

Quite frankly, you make a very weak and selfish argument, and even the Nazi's attempted to present a better argument for thier genocide. Rather than smuggly declaring that you have a strong argument for taking human life, you may wish to actually read what you have typed and ask yourself - is this really what I believe, or I am I spouting off someone elses agenda which I have never really thought about seriously.


113 posted on 02/27/2005 9:23:20 AM PST by deepFR
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To: 4Liberty
I'll respect anyone who can offer a reasoned response for the things they believe. It's obvious that you've put time and effort into developing your opinions.

My disagreement with your stance is that you are equating my exacting on Juan the logical consequence of his actions,(I'm not debating whether they are appropriate consequences, just that they are the logical consequences) with me ending the life of a child as a response to the logical consequence of my actions.

The only consistency I can see in your position is that I have the right to kill either individual, one as a response to their actions, the other as a response to my actions, as long as I am doing so in order to preserve my resources.

I just hope the mom and dad from your scenario aren't disappointed when they grow old and all five children refuse to take them in because they would become a drain on their own scarce resources.

I appreciate your honesty on the subject. Thank you for taking the time to share.

114 posted on 02/27/2005 9:33:27 AM PST by Can i say that here?
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To: deepFR
Actually, it is not and it appears to be very disingenuous and deliberately distorted and reveals a high degree of denial and dehumanization of human life to absolve ones self of murder (Nazi's did same thing).

DeepFR, While I agree with your position, please be more discerning with your comments. The general debate rule of FR is that playing the Hitler/Nazi card is an automatic disqualification.

You can make your case without resorting to such tactics.

115 posted on 02/27/2005 9:40:58 AM PST by Can i say that here?
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To: Can i say that here?

DeepFR, While I agree with your position, please be more discerning with your comments. The general debate rule of FR is that playing the Hitler/Nazi card is an automatic disqualification

I respectfully disagree. The point is a valid one, as the extermination of the Jews by the Nazi's was made largely possible by thier first dehumanizing their victims, or creating the image that they were subhuman, or not human. This has largely been the same tactic used by the left to justify the termination of unwanted pregnancies by treating them as not human life. I agree that it is not prudent to use the association "willy-nilly"; however, there are times (and I believe this to be one) where this particular contrasting and comparing is very relevant.

Regards,
DeepFR


116 posted on 02/27/2005 10:05:10 AM PST by deepFR
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To: Can i say that here?

FYI - The comparison is not one that I invented, it is one that is well known.

State's little-known history of shameful science
California's role in Nazis' goal of 'purification'

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/10/BU91464.DTL&type=science

On Tuesday, a state Senate committee is scheduled to hear a historical truth that might shock most Californians: Almost 100 years ago, their state practiced a form of eugenics that helped inspire Hitler's Nazis.

"California was the second state to pass eugenics laws in 1909," two years after Indiana made it legal to sterilize the "feeble-minded," according to University of Virginia bioethicist Paul Lombardo.

Lombardo is an expert on eugenics, a school of thought popular around the turn of the 20th century. Eugenicists thought they could improve the human species through selective breeding, which meant preventing habitual criminals, inmates of insane asylums and sexual deviants from having kids.

When Lombardo briefs the Senate Select Committee on Genetics, committee chairwoman Sen. Dede Alpert, D-Coronado (San Diego County), expects his talk will raise eyebrows.

"I'll be the first to admit I had no idea this went on in California," said Alpert, adding that when Lombardo's state of Virginia confronted its history of eugenics, it prompted the state's governor to offer a public apology.

"That may be the appropriate response here, but that's something that would come after we get the chance to hear it," Alpert said.

Lombardo sketched out his two-hour presentation, "Eugenics: Lessons From a History Hidden in Plain Sight."

As he explained it, it was around the turn of the last century when scientific thinkers, notably Sir Francis Galton, cousin of evolutionist Charles Darwin, began arguing that allowing the unfit to have children might weaken the human herd and should be controlled by law.

After Indiana passed a pioneering statute allowing state officials to sterilize those deemed unfit to breed, California enacted an even stricter eugenics law. California made it legal for state officials to asexualize those considered feeble-minded, prisoners exhibiting sexual or moral perversions, and anyone with more than three criminal convictions.

As Lombardo explained, by using the term "asexualization" instead of "sterilization," California's law went beyond ordering vasectomies in men or tubal ligations in women. California made it legal to castrate a man or remove the ovaries from a woman, permanently preventing reproduction.

Lombardo said California's asexualization statute passed unanimously in the state Assembly, drew only one dissenting vote in the state Senate and was signed into law by Gov. James M. Gillett in 1909.

It was amended at least twice, in 1913 and 1917, to shift the focus of California's eugenics program away from the castration of prisoners and toward the sterilization of insane asylum inmates.

"If you look at the numbers of people from 1909 through 1950 sterilized in California, it's something on the order of 19,000, evenly split between men and women," Lombardo said. "My guess would be most of those were not castration but were vasectomies or tubal ligations, which are a lot cheaper, faster and safer."

By the time state law was revised in 1951 to greatly narrow the state's authority to forcibly prevent procreation, eugenic sterilization had already fallen into disfavor, thanks to public revulsion at the revelations of Nazi atrocities before and during World War II, Lombardo said.

But in the years after the state embraced eugenics, California intellectuals -- including Stanford's David Starr Jordan and Louis Terman, popularizer of the IQ test -- were leading advocates of the movement, he said.

California was such a prominent practitioner of forced sterilization that it was held up as a model by the Eugenics Record Office, the Long Island think tank that was the movement's unofficial headquarters. The Eugenics Record Office, in turn, had links to the Nazi party during the 1930s.

"There's lots of connections between the Germans interested in sterilization and the Americans," Lombardo said, adding that after Hitler took power in 1933, "the very first law passed by the Reichstag was the law for the sterilization of the hereditarily diseased."

Lombardo cites an incident in which California's sterilization practices were held up as models for the Nazi regime. In 1935, Eugenics Record Office leader Harry Laughlin was invited to an international conference on eugenics in Germany. Unable to attend, Laughlin instead sent his German hosts a diagram displaying the pedigree of "a feeble-minded woman sterilized by the state of California."

The chart shows how the woman was born to a mother deemed by state officials to be "neurotic (and) feeble-minded" and a father termed a "drunkard (and) gambler (with) low mentality." The woman's ovaries were removed, a permissible form of asexualization under California law.

The Germans were far more aggressive than their California contemporaries in practicing eugenics, Lombardo said. "They sterilized at the rate of 50,000- 70,000 (people) a year, compared with California's slightly more than 4,000 in 1927," he said.

While the Nazis practiced eugenics to "purify" their race, Americans had more pragmatic reasons for trying to prevent certain people from having children.

"This was about saving money. It was the economic motive," Lombardo said, encapsulating the view of American eugenicists in these words: "We don't want you generating any more kids we'd have to pay for, and we don't think you could take care of the kid if you had it."

The Nazi horrors revealed after World War II put the final kibosh on this paternalistic practice. But Lombardo has pulled together official documents indicating that as late as the early 1960s, judges in San Diego and Los Angeles counties were still ordering orchidectomies -- removal of the testicles -- as a condition for paroling sex offenders.

One such letter, written in 1962 by the Los Angeles County probation department, mentions one judge who ordered more than 50 former prisoners, most of them guilty of child molestation, to undergo complete bilateral castration as a condition of parole.

"The Supreme Court held that each defendant was free to refuse the proffered conditions of probation and to choose instead the punishment provided by law for the offense of which he was convicted," states the letter dated 41 years ago Wednesday.

Looking ahead to his state Senate presentation, Lombardo said he fears that Americans, who have forgotten their eugenic excesses, could be beguiled into thinking modern science can cure social ills like poverty, crime and disease.

"There's an impulse toward eugenics that is very much alive today," Lombardo said. "The basic belief that we can use science to engineer social progress is an idea that many Americans believe in.

"The point of my presentation is not to paint science as something scary and Frankensteinian," he said, adding that "at least as we forge ahead in the new genetics we should take our history into account."

Lombardo is scheduled to speak from 10 a.m. until noon in Room 113 in the State Capitol in Sacramento. The hearing is free. To learn more about eugenics,


117 posted on 02/27/2005 10:12:39 AM PST by deepFR
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To: deepFR
(shrugs)

I'm just lettin you know. It isn't a matter of being factually correct. The underlying principal is, if you can't make your case without crying "Nazi", then you haven't really made your case.

Unless, of course, the debate actually concerned Nazis or Hitler. That would be a different story.

118 posted on 02/27/2005 10:25:50 AM PST by Can i say that here?
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To: Can i say that here?

It isn't a matter of being factually correct

Always a matter of being factually correct. I believe that more people shy away from this contrast not because it is not a accurate one, but because they engage the left bowing to PC rules - I do not. Political correctness is a tool designed by the left to insulate themselves and shut down genuine debate through the suppression of free thought, speech, and expression and which goes against the first amendment itself. The fact that pro-abortionist may be offended by the contrast should give them pause as to why such a comparison is legitimate, not cry foul because the analogy does not leave them with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Respectfully,
DeepFR


119 posted on 02/27/2005 10:45:33 AM PST by deepFR
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To: NYer
State Rep. Brian Duprey wants the Legislature to forbid a woman from ending a pregnancy because the fetus is homosexual.

I for one will NOT underestimate the THREAT of HOMOSEXUAL FETUSES!

Who knows what their pre-formed minds are plotting for the rest of society from within their devious little wombs!

Scrappleface...yes?!?

120 posted on 02/27/2005 10:49:33 AM PST by Caipirabob (Democrats.. Socialists..Commies..Traitors...Who can tell the difference?)
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