Posted on 01/07/2002 9:36:18 AM PST by Notwithstanding
Actually, the Constitution does not define person or individual. Even in R v. W (or later judicial rulings) there is no such definition, only a (false) statement that no one knows when life begins (ridiculous in light of the knowledge base of the study of human embryology - look at the interest in embryonic stem cell research and lack of interest in gamete stem cell research), and that prenatal humans have not historically been treated as "full" persons under the law of the US. The facts that neither are infants even today, and that at one time slaves and women were not treated as full persons indicates to me that Blackburn was not clear in his thinking.
I don't believe that any ruling states that the pregnant woman is only single person. Perhaps you are confused by rulings which assert that the woman's right to liberty and privacy over-ride that of the infant to life, and the duty of society to protect life, until a certain, variable point in the pregnancy. The result is an arbitrary division of humans into two classes, prenatal and postnatal, with unequal protections from killing. Inspite of the historical position that all men are "created equal."
He doesn't care, doc. His perspective is "law".
Information on abortion statistics are published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly by the CDC. Deaths due to abortion have only been collected since the early '70's.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001467.htm
Of special interest is the simultaneous fall in mortality due to spontaneous abortion and that due to elective abortion in the '70's. This is probably due to improved surgical techniques, antibiotic use, and the vacuum suction.
Further, such Federal funding undermines the express purpose of the Goverment as described in the Constitution. That document says that the government is to "provide" for the common defense, while "promoting" for the general welfare. Here's an article that makes that distinction better than I could: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/marvinolasky/mo20020109.shtml
It wasn't meant to imply that you or anybody else should desist in your efforts.
I think many "liberals" aren't liberal at all; they are people who merely have heard no alternative to liberal 'thought' due to their near monopoly on mass media. They are people who have been lied to, people who aren't presented with facts, but an endless barrage of propaganda.
Then there are those doing the lying, the "ruling elite" types, such as madg.
What's wrong with just going to a doctor? Oh, I forgot. Poor people don't have health care. Guess we better call Hillary to fix that problem for us. You can go to your county hospital and get them just as easily as Planned Parenthood.
Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I thought organizations who receive tax money can't support a candidate? Is that right or wrong?
From Madg above: "And aren't SAFE abortions better than back-alley coathanger jobs? These are certainly health-related matters...."
Your "Public Health" organization is funding millions towards democratic candidates (more than say, ENRON ever gave Bush by a factor a several times), who have sold their votes on abortion to get this money .....
And you hide behind "back alley" abortions charade that was never true: "Legal" abortion kill more women than these supposed back alley lies ever did. Less than 1% of abortions are "for the health of the mother" - the rest are for convenience. To prevent her from losing her figure, to prevent stretch marks, and to make her look pretty, Planned parenthood demands that WE pay them money to kill her child.
Rather the opposite of what evolution teaches isn't it?
Planned Parenthood lives and is funded for abortion. Every action they do either creates more abortions, or increases the risk of more pregnacy: condoms ARE NOT effective ineither preventing pregnacy NOR in preventing AIDS.
And Planned Parenthood opposes abstenance training .... though that is only proven method that works.
Simply for the fact that if people knew what they were really after, they would have no support. Which is why they act just like every totalitarian before them, and those that will come after them. They need to control the way people think. It's what they are.
He Rides A White Horse: Again, a woman capable of giving birth points to a healthy reproductive system in all probability. I can sense your smugness as you typed 'public health organization' within the quotes; indeed you folks have become bold in your application of Orwellian newspeak.
You are correct… and I apologize… I DID become smug over your invalid simile. My bad.
He knows what he's doing here.
More simply, what I am saying that there are those who will never be 'convinced', because they already know what the truth is. They don't care. They'll do what they want.
It shouldn't matter if these self-proclaimed "keepers of the flame" understand (or pretend to not understand). Ultimately, we are simply going to have to ignore them, do what is right, whether they get it or not. We owe them no explanation.
I wrote a letter to my Senator about this, and the answer I got (if I remember correctly) came down to what was essentially creative bookkeeping.
They jsut claim that the money they get from the government is indeed earmarked for "health services", and that the other funds they get from other places (private) are used for political purposes.
WRONG!
These restrictons on free speech were demanded BY the abortion industry (and their democratic spokesmen and national media lackeys) and by liberals - the same ones that in the 60's were taking over government offices and campuses under "free speech" riots - Reno's Justice Dept merely went along for the publicity, and for their campaign money. The liberals who quote "the right of free speech" are only interested in ME funding THEIR "speech" - they demand that the governemnt restricts MY right to free speech: The liberals (the people who abortion industry funds!) demand that conservatives be shut up during political campaigns (McCain/Feingold); that we cannot demonstrate in public nor on public property, that we cannot protest when our religious symbols are buried in manure, that our tax dollars are required to go to an organization that uses that money to fund democrats.
Or do you want to pretend that her Justice Dept was actually interested in following any legitimate part of the law?
How can one say that PP is all about 'controlling' sexuality, when in fact is is the right wing extremists who, in my view, want to stick their noses in the bedrooms?
What is wrong with 'planning' one's life? The right loves to use the phrase 'personal responsiblity', and I see using contraception as a perfect expression of personal responsibility.
We all have to plan our lives, do we not? We get educations, we manage our finances, we set goals and work toward them...why should childbearing be any different? Note that I am referring to contraception, not abortion.
On the one hand the extreme right chastised those who just have children willy-nilly, and yet on the other hand is quick to condemn anyone who takes control of their body/fertility. What's up with that?
As for nature having control over a woman's body and not the woman, please. You manage your weight, don't you? You manage your alcohol intake, cholesterol, blood pressure, etc., so why is reproduction any different? Because, at the end of the day, extreme groups desperately want to control citizen's sexual practices.
BTW PP, whilst founded by Sanger, who was an advocate of eugenics, does not espouse anything resembling that incredibly sick and unfortunate philosophy. I received health care as a young adult from PP, when I was poor and had no health insurance, and they were the ones who found dysplasia (precancer) and gave me the appropriate treatment for that. If it weren't for them I could have gotten cervical cancer and died in my 20s.
Like Disneyland models life -- making it clean, safe and plastic, so to does PP model sex -- making sex "clean", "safe" and plastic.
And just as Disneyland isn't real, and real people don't live there, so too is the sexual life advocated by PP unreal, and results in great confusions -- busted people, divorces, libertine sexuality resulting in just the kind of cervical problems you had. For really, even PP can't make sex pure, "clean" and "safe". Sex defies and ever will defy such shallowness.
Sex, human sexuality, requires and will ever require all the moral and emotional strengths one and one's culture has to "control" -- convenient short-cuts and brief dalliances are not within it -- although thoughout history people have tried. Latex will never hold in its demons, or permit the "safe" full enjoyment of its sublime pleasures.
Morality was never about limiting enjoyment of life, of sex. True morality is and was ever about maximizing its full pleasures.
What is the root of zealotry? Many times it is that of sure, yet subconscious, knowledge and dread fear that a culture is denying one great pleasure.
If you love sex, go find a right-wing zealot and enjoy! Get married, have children, have a life!
Abortionists kill 2 out of every 5 black babies, a rate three times that of whites. Planned Parenthood has never stood for anything but weeding out the poor and minorities.
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