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Both parties are too extreme on abortion
Boston Globe ^ | August 26, 2012 | JEFF JACOBY

Posted on 09/01/2012 1:13:56 PM PDT by presidio9

When it comes to abortion, which political party’s views are more extreme?

Unless you’ve spent the past week as a stowaway on NASA’s new Mars rover, the approved media answer is obvious: Republicans are the abortion fanatics. Between the furor over Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” gaffe and the GOP platform language calling for a constitutional amendment to undo Roe v. Wade, the Republicans have revealed themselves to be — as The New York Times editorialized on

(Excerpt) Read more at articles.boston.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Extended News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: abortion; prochoice; prolife; republicanplatform
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To: presidio9
There are 2 things in that post, one, which has nothing to with any date, is Mitt Romney praising his mother's political courage. That never expires.

*“My position has been the same throughout my political career, and it goes back to the days of 1970,” he said. “There was a woman who was running for political office, U.S. Senate. She took a very bold and courageous stand in 1970, and that was in a conservative state. That was that a woman should have the right to make her own choice as to whether or not to have an abortion. Her name was Lenore Romney, she was my mom. Even though she lost, she established a record of courage in that regard.”*

The other only happened five days ago.

Five days ago Mitt Romney formally changed his abortion position to “health of the mother’, which is a euphemism for ‘abortion on demand’.

21 posted on 09/01/2012 1:52:21 PM PDT by ansel12 ( Aug. 27, 2012-Mitt Romney said his views on abortion are more lenient than the Republican Platform)
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To: bobzeetwin
So did I. But we both made the choice, not someone else.

Not so fast. There were two human lives involved here. Yours was not one of them. One of died and had no say in the matter. That being said, even the Catholic Church permits abortions under the circumstances you described, so, no you really haven't walked the walk.

22 posted on 09/01/2012 1:57:35 PM PDT by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does.)
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To: presidio9

At one time some in the media claimed that both parties were extreme on slavery. But then right and wrong are the extremes of any issue.


23 posted on 09/01/2012 1:59:09 PM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah, so shall it be again.")
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To: bobzeetwin
I doubt that you will discuss anything but, here goes...

"Abortion" for the life of the mother was legal in all 50 states before Roe v. Wade. I put "abortion" in quotes in that sentence because the procedure you describe is not considered an abortion in medical terms. When a pregnancy becomes a threat to the mother's life the doctors will do everything they can to save both lives.

If the fetus is too young to save by any method then the medical battle for its life is already lost and the doctors won't waste time trying to do what they cannot do. That doesn't in any way imply that they made a moral or ethical decision to favor the mother's life over the baby's life. It's a simple recognition of the technical realities of medicine.

If the fetus is old enough to potentially save then the ethical dilemma is reduced to that of any triage situation. It is hoped that both patients can be saved but if time and technical abilities create limits that proscribe any reasonable chance of saving both patients then the one with the best chance of survival is the one they focus on. That would almost always be the mother.

Your emotional reaction precluded you from asking me if my view included "life of the mother" and it obstructed your mind from understanding that such an operation is not even considered and abortion in medical terms. In an abortion there is never any intention to save the baby. The very purpose of abortion in the first place is to kill the baby. The baby is never considered a patient in an abortion.

24 posted on 09/01/2012 2:00:58 PM PDT by TigersEye (dishonorabledisclosure.com - OPSEC (give them support))
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To: ansel12
Five days ago Mitt Romney formally changed his abortion position to “health of the mother’, which is a euphemism for ‘abortion on demand’.

Ansell, God bless you, but the way politics works is that nobody ever gets EVERYTHING they want (except for the Obama Adminstration). Slavery existed in this country with a sizable percentage of the population opposed to it for over a century. If the choice is all or nothing, I choose something.

25 posted on 09/01/2012 2:03:01 PM PDT by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does.)
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To: presidio9

I have not followed this debate until akin muttered his ignorance so I may have missed the debate over how the funding
for raising all these new members of society will be handled. Once the mandate that all birth control be eliminated
is in place, what tax mechanism will be used?


26 posted on 09/01/2012 2:13:58 PM PDT by soycd
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To: presidio9
so, no you really haven't walked the walk.

You don't know what decision was made, nor do you know the result. You assume I made the wrong decision. You assume you would have done differently. You assume my wife was cognitive. You are why I don't get into this with people, because you already think you are right and I am wrong and you don't even know what happened. You think your opinions are absolute. I was forced to decide. The nasty details you want are this: "either one dies, or both die. You decide." STFU A hole. I hope you or your children never have to "walk the walk." It brings tears 30 yrs later.

27 posted on 09/01/2012 2:15:49 PM PDT by bobzeetwin
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To: presidio9

That’s it, a dismissive wave of the hand?

Your candidate just reverted back to his pro-abortion position five days ago, and your reaction is... nothing? A mere ‘let’s get past that’, and a mocking condescension at the poor soul who thinks it important?


28 posted on 09/01/2012 2:15:49 PM PDT by ansel12 ( Aug. 27, 2012-Mitt Romney said his views on abortion are more lenient than the Republican Platform)
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To: presidio9; All
Republican's problem, as Michelle Bachmann countered in the primary debates, is the media question is always framed on the extremes of rape, incest and life of the mother--the edge cases--rather than the 98%/99% of abortion as birth control.

The Left advocates abortion any time, any place, any where in any way. Medical care for babies born alive in botched abortions? Too extreme; it might live. Giving birth feet first, stabbing the back of the skull, evacuating brains and collapsing the cranium? Not extreme; the baby dies.

Well, you all get the picture. They wrap it up in a pretty pink bow as freedom, as reproductive rights, but they don't explain that it means in the real world nor will they allow anyone to inform these women of the details. It's too ghastly, too extreme, too hurtful to inform them, to educate.

Any women describing herself as pro-choice attaches her character, provides her imprimatur, to the whole abortion machine.

Notice we never hear about pro-choicers saying "except in cases of late term," or this procedure or that caveat. It's always framed as I let the woman decide; it's not up to me to offer any conditions, to think, to reflect... 'lalala I can't hear you' or 'Leave my body alone you extremist!'

29 posted on 09/01/2012 2:18:14 PM PDT by newzjunkey (Election night is 65 days away.)
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To: presidio9
the health of the mother

Come on, just tell the truth.

60 million babies have been aborted for the "health of the mother".

That's pro-abortion.

30 posted on 09/01/2012 2:21:52 PM PDT by donna (This is what happens when America is no longer a Christian nation.)
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To: presidio9
Accepting a simple wording change, where 'abortion on demand' is replaced with the phrase 'for the health (including mental health) of the mother' which phrase is understood to mean the exact same thing as 'abortion on demand', means you get nothing.

The way left-right politics work, the right must make compromises only for very tightly worded exceptions to what they want, rather than accepting and declaring victory with a euphemism that is cover for giving the left what they want.

We'll saw this kind of 'success' with Boehner's boner of a compromise on the debt problem. I'm not sure how many more such 'victories' my retirement nest egg can handle. And I'm getting worried about whether 'Repeal and Replace' means replacing ObamaCare with RomneyCare.

31 posted on 09/01/2012 2:29:40 PM PDT by slowhandluke (It's hard to be cynical enough in this age.)
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To: soycd

It’s strange that you gave Zer0 consideration to a private sector solution.


32 posted on 09/01/2012 2:32:06 PM PDT by TigersEye (dishonorabledisclosure.com - OPSEC (give them support))
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To: presidio9
Both parties are too extreme on abortion

Quite right. Both parties ARE, extremist -- pro-choice extremists, to be exact. The difference is that one party is honest about it, while the other lies.

33 posted on 09/01/2012 2:36:27 PM PDT by Romulus
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To: soycd

You are pro-abortion because you fear that new people might become a burden like public transportation costs?


34 posted on 09/01/2012 2:42:16 PM PDT by ansel12 ( Aug. 27, 2012-Mitt Romney said his views on abortion are more lenient than the Republican Platform)
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To: bobzeetwin
You think your opinions are absolute

Actually, I am merely re-stating God's opinions. As another poster to this thread pointed out, your decision was either not an abortion at all, and therefore not relevant to this thread and (presumbly) posted for vanity purposes, or allowable by all religions and therefore, painful but essentially moral and also not relevant to this thread. I sympathize with your situation, but I can't help wondering what, exactly, is your game here?

35 posted on 09/01/2012 2:49:02 PM PDT by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does.)
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To: soycd
I have not followed this debate until akin muttered his ignorance so I may have missed the debate over how the funding for raising all these new members of society will be handled. Once the mandate that all birth control be eliminated is in place, what tax mechanism will be used?

How about private charity, orphanages, and they innate protectiveness that (most of) society has for newborns, same as it was before Roe. Checked the waiting lists for healthy newborn adoptions lately?

36 posted on 09/01/2012 2:51:16 PM PDT by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does.)
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To: soycd
how the funding for raising all these new members of society will be handled.

We seem to be able to find funding for all sorts of other projects that don't pay off till years later.

Human life creates wealth, not poverty. The economic stagnation of Europe and Japan (and increasingly in the USA) is the result of disproportionately aging populations that aren't being succeeded by new generations of young producers and consumers. Investment capital in the hands of the old has no place to go. Tax revenues are inadequate to meet needs because worldwide billions of people have been prevented from being born. This is why socialized health care increasingly pushes euthanasia as a way to dodge social security and health care costs of the elderly

37 posted on 09/01/2012 2:56:37 PM PDT by Romulus
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To: ansel12; donna

I respect both of your views on the issue, and share them on a personal level. But I am talking political reality here. When Roe is repealed, it is going to be addressed on the state level. And that is going to happen either through an ammendment, or a new SCOTUS decision. In either case, godless states like the one I live in are most likely going to have more liberal abortion laws, while others are going to restrict it in all cases. In either case, distracting from the main argument with absolutes is not helpful to the eventual goal, which is establishing a new normal of limited abortions and letting society rediscover that the world will not end when that happens.


38 posted on 09/01/2012 2:57:49 PM PDT by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does.)
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To: TigersEye
This caught my eye near the end of the column.

In 2000, the Democratic platform said the party’s goal was “to make abortion less necessary and more rare.”

If abortion is a right like the others in our Constitution, why work to make it rare?

We are almost forty years since Roe and the people of America are still sharply divided. What other "right" stirs so much opposition? None.

The despicable Roe court even abused a treasure, our Ninth Amendment, to justify unlimited murder.

39 posted on 09/01/2012 2:58:27 PM PDT by Jacquerie (Exterminate rats.)
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To: bobzeetwin
I think you've misread the comment. Suggesting you've not "walked the walk" they are simply saying the circumstance you described is not considered abortion.

"One will die or both" is not akin to the child is killed for reasons amounting to inconvenience, the foundation of abortion. You weren't given a "choice" over the child's long life or sure death as with abortion. You were told, with medical certainty, your child would die--period, but that your wife might live.

It's a bright line distinction that Alan Keyes eloquently expressed in a "gotcha" question during the 2000 primary debates.

I'm sorry you had that experience. No matter the outcome, a life long struggle with grief results.

Some on the pro-life side don't recognize their own misconceptions and emotionalism over careful consideration. In fact "life of the mother" should never really be pulled into the abortion topic since, when it really is that case, it isn't a question of abortion but whether two die or one. Where's the choice?

In cases of rape, incest, financial burden, selective reduction, disinterest in parenting, the whole host of abortion circumstances, there is a life or death choice made over the child. In your circumstances, that choice did not exist because death was a certainty.

In these other cases, the baby would otherwise come to term normally and live its own life. It exists or doesn't on a whim.

40 posted on 09/01/2012 3:00:47 PM PDT by newzjunkey (Election night is 65 days away.)
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