[Callahan]

Actually "I'm personally opposed..." was Kerry's line. Biden's too.

The pro-life side is winning these days because science is on our side. Did anyone catch "In the Womb" on National Geographic last night?

Here's my question: When abortion is illegalized, how do we punish offenders? I think America is willing to overturn Roe, but not so willing to toss women in prison.

[Amalie]

Just a quick follow-up to your post - SCIENCE is the answer in this debate. That is where the truth of what is actually going on exists. The question then comes down to the reality of getting people on a moral footing to accept it; that is the actual BATTLEFIELD for this issue.

Will the medical community at large, which is in the midst of several struggles on cost-mandated /right-mandated death cases at the moment, be willing to make this evidence part of their reality, or will it be brushed aside as irrelevant in a worldview already strongly based in moral compromise.

[Askel5]

The pro-life side is winning these days because science is on our side.

What is the "scientific" basis for the rape/incest/health of the mother exemption to the right to life?

Abortion will never be illegal because the GOP has not only established its legality in certain instances but (1) set forth abortion as the linchpin to a successful population control policy; (2) framed as "economic discrimination" any state's outlawing a poor woman's access to abortion; and (3) entrenched in the national consciousness both the "right" to (abortifacient) birth control.

If you wish to be "scientific" about abortion, you might as well believe that the contracepting "pro-lifers" will also one day outlaw abortifacient contraception.

I find it ludicrous in the extreme that "scientific" pro-lifers can preen themselves on "reducing abortions" even as their allegedly pro-life leadership not only condones but even funds the Human Farming by which conceived human lives are ground up for "humanitarian" research.

Try not to get carried away with the PR efforts of the potemkin pro-life movement. It's like believing that the impeachment of Clinton had a ghost of a chance from the get-go. The fact that our nation -- like Russia -- now wishes to stem the tide somewhat among desirable breeders in no way translates to a genuine desire on their part to roll back the state-mandated "right" to prevent and destroy unwanted lives.

As Specter so rightly pointed out to NPR during the fracas over his appointment a few months ago, Roe is practically irrelevant. THe attention paid it is only indicative of the Shell Game at work here. It's the Casey decision -- which Specter reminded them was courtesy of conservative justices appointed by Republican presidents -- which served to enshrine the personal right to decide who is and is not fully human.

I'm not arguing with you that it would appear that the work done by individuals to change hearts and truly inform women has its effect. I'm just as thankful for the likes of cpforlife.org as you and I have personal experience which attests to the power of persuasion as backed up by a sonogram where a woman's choice is concerned. But I think it's premature, if not entirely unwarranted, to pretend that the pro-life movement is "winning" somehow simply because some of the numbers and even the occasional Hillary Clinton soundbite seem to support that argument.

When you summarily remove 45 million souls from a population in the space of a generation, it's only natural that there will be the same decrease in abortions that naturally accompanies the same decrease in lives able to conceive in the first place.

Additionally, the fact that most now consider birth control and "family planning" to be somehow a moral alternative (as opposed to the foundation for) legal abortion should not exactly be a point of pride for pro-lifers. The "clean hands" removing the Creator from the most intimate, potent and creative of all human acts is in its way more sinister than the specter of legalized murder of children in the womb. At least with abortion, folks appear to still be cognizant of the fact they are preventing and taking real lives.

If you want to be "scientific" about it and you wish to dwell on the Numbers, I think you'll find that we're already headlong into a killing spree of the conceived that soon will dwarf our over-30 year slaughter of children in the womb.

Just as contracepting heteros have no basis on which to claim their children-optional union is any different than that of homosexuals who share their "right" to confect children on demand with for-profit third parties, pro-lifers really have nothing to crow about where the naturally-dimished number of abortions is being touted even as the funding of human farming is being institutionalized at the state and federal level.

Our self-styled "pro-life" leadership is only now getting to the heart of darkness where their concerns over down breeding, sex selection and improved genetic stock of the "state educated" productive labor pool is concerned.

OVERPOPULATION
HON. GEORGE BUSH
OF TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Monday, June 30, 1969
[pp. 17926-17927]
Mr. BUSH. Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Republican Task Force on Earth Resources and Population, I would like to comment on two newcomers to the Washington scene. They are Dr. Philip Handler, the new president of the National Academy of Sciences and Dr. Roger Olaf Egeberg, the Assistant HEW Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs subject to his confirmation by the Senate. I was extremely heartened by the sense of urgency expressed by both of these national leaders on the problems of overpopulation and dwindling resources. In a recent interview with This Week magazine, Dr. Handler stated:

"The greatest threat to the human race is man's own procreation.

[...] Dr. Egeberg has displayed his keen awareness of the crisis our world is facing by emphasizing that at the top of his list of priorities will be intensified efforts in environmental and population control through technological innovations and family planning, the reclamation of waste products, and the development of a low pollution automobile. We look to these two men for dynamic and purposeful leadership as the new administration charts its course. I include at this point in the record the text of the interview with Dr. Handler: OVERPOPULATION: NEW SCIENCE PRESIDENT SEES IT AS GREATEST THREAT TO MANKIND "Man is on the threshold of a biological revolution," says biochemist Philip Handler. "It will influence the life of each of us Just as greatly as the industrial revolution affected every living person."

[...]

Dr. Handler. The greatest threat to the human race is man's own procreation. Hunger; pollution; crime; overlarge, dirty cities--even the seething unrest that leads to international conflict and war--all derive from the unbridled growth of human populations. It is imperative that we begin a research campaign in human reproductive physiology.

TW. Don't we already know enough?

Dr. Handler. We thought we were quite knowledgeable, until today's problems pinned us to the wall. Our knowledge turned out to be primitive.

The oral contraceptive pill and lUDs (intrauterine contraceptive devices) have been successful because they divorce the act of sex from the act of using contraception. What we now need is a cheap, safe mechanism in which failure to use contraceptives would result in failure to conceive, rather than the present situation, which is the other way around--failure results in conception.

....

Dr. Handler. There are something over 300 known hereditary diseases of man. We have learned to circumvent a number of them by keeping young people alive who suffer from those diseases. They grow up and reproduce, and spread their genes in the population. Instead of improving, the genetic pool of mankind is deteriorating. I think the total good of humanity demands that we minimize the incidence of these defective genes. We have no historical ethnic to guide us in this matter, but perhaps such people hould not be allowed to procreate.

The other side of the coin is to prevent the problem In the first place. There are some who hope to make DNA--containing only "good" genes--and insert it into the germ plasm of prospective parents. Maybe that will be possible In the distant future.

Or you could improve inheritance by breeding. As its farthest extreme, using the processs I described for cattle, one could, conceivably, deliberately make more Einsteins, Mozarts, or whomever you choose. Another, more practical way is to pick distinguished men and preserve their sperm by freezing it in "sperm banks." Then married couples might enjoy their own sex relationship, but when they want to have a child, use sperm from the sperm bank.

Actual Agenda of the Orwellian "Pro-Life Leadership"

[Askel5]

When abortion is illegalized, how do we punish offenders? I think America is willing to overturn Roe, but not so willing to toss women in prison.

This always has been the sticking point ... as if the woman -- hopped up on hormones and under the extreme duress of an unexpected pregnancy -- were somehow barred from the defenses of genuine mental turmoil. You punish the abortionists, Callahan. They are the murderers-for-hire whose shills actually seek out and counsel women to pay for the murder services they offer. A few of the more deformed consciences aside, most women suffer -- both physiologically and especially psychologically -- from abortion. I think any court of law ought to be able to make the call based on the circumstances of the woman's apparent premeditation or conviction where the abortion was concerned. For example, a mentally-deficient woman or a minor hustled off to the abortionist by a guardian or parent has no choice in the matter and is entirely free from culpability. A woman clearly distressed by the one-time experience of abortion likely would be best served by a probationary placement of some sort in a home for unwed mothers or adoption agency. But a woman who has three or four "birth control" abortions under her belt already and who secures the services of a trusted abortionists for some extravagant sum probably should share to a far greater extent the punishment meted out to her longtime partner in crime. Does that sound rational?