ABORTION MAP OF THE UNITED STATES - 2004

CHRISTIAN PATRIOTS FOR LIFE ^ | 1-20-04 | Kevin Jeanfreau

[ConservativeGadfly]

Explain something to me, CP, cause I guess I'm just a dumb blonde......

Why is it that feminists don't want to empower women? Seems to me that if the feminist movement wanted to inject a little sanity into their movement, they would patiently explain to women the following:

If you don't want to get pregnant, then just say no. If you haven't been exposed, you won't have the problem. Guess what? He's not more likely to call you, respect you, marry you or even be decent to you because you choose to bed down with him and label it "equality."

In my humble opinion, life begins when the woman says "yes" or "no" -- everything after that is a consequence phase, from STD to pregnancy.

Women have been sold a complete bill of goods in this country. The winners in this charade? Men who want sex without consequences, responsibility or obligation. The losers? Women who keep believing these lies and the babies whose blood is shed for their foolishness.

It disgusts me.

[tpaine]

Three minutes after the lab tech combines egg & sperm, that combination has a constitutionally protected right to life? -- Get real, -- You are hyping the issue.

My rights to life, liberty & property did not begin until they were capable of being separated from my mothers rights, at viablity. That's the dilemma of abortion.
At the early stages, any woman has an absolute constitutional right to refuse to be pregnant, as I understand it. As viabiliy becomes more certain, the state can step in and reasonably regulate abortion, under its 'compelling interest' police powers.

You are saying that at some point ("viability", whatever that means, and which is nevertheless repudiated by Bolton) of your existence that you did not have certain inalienable rights, among which would have been the primary and ultimate inalienable right to your own life.

You got it. 'I" did not exist yet, as an individual.

Your propositions raise some obvious questions. First, what does "inalienable" mean anyway, if it's something can be taken away from you at some point of your existence? Or is it that first you don't have them and then suddenly at some unkown point you do have them?

Thats it. We don't exactly know. Thus the dilemma.

If that is the case, what is their source? Where do these inalienable rights come from? Don't you have intrinsic inalienable rights simply by virtue of your humanity? Or alternatively, do you think it is just by some operation of law?

Yep, at some point you become human & aquire rights separable from your mothers, just as I wrote above.

Second, if your mother had some absolute or inalienable right to refuse to be pregnant (ignoring for the moment the use of the vague term, "pregnant") why should her her proported right to "not be pregnant" with you trump your own "right to life"?

Because 'I' don't exist as a separate being yet.

Third, because parents used to be and sometimes still are considered in the law as being responsible for the care and nurture of their offspring, why should female parents only have the inalienble right to kill their children?

The women are pregnant, the men are not.

Why should men not have the inalienable right to kill their children, too? What is fair and equitable, for example, about a woman being able to kill her male offspring, but a male not being allowed to kill his female offspring?

Bizarre question.

You refuse to admit that early term abortion is a moral dilemma, one the state has no power to control.

Of course I refuse to admit that unless a new human being threatens someone else's life, there is no right that trumps that individual's right to life. Absent such a case there is no moral dilemma because an individual's life is prior to his mother's "right not to be pregnant". Once he exists, she already is, so to speak. Parents have the moral (and legal, at or least until Roe and Bolton turned the law on its head) obligation to provide for the care and nurture of their children.

They still do.

If states have no power to control this how then did the states control this prior to 1/22/1973?

States do have the power, and some were abusing that power prior to '73, violating the rights of women. At the early stages of pregnancy, any woman has an absolute constitutional right to abort, as I understand it. As viabiliy becomes more certain, the state can step in and reasonably regulate abortion, under its 'compelling interest' police powers.

[cpforlife.org]

We both know the real dumb ones are they that buy the modern feminist lie of a woman's right to choose to have her unborn baby killed.

Susan B. Anthony was a genuine feminist and she was 100% Pro-Life. A great Pro-Life group has named themselves after her.

For those who are interested-- http://www.sba-list.org/

[cpforlife.org]

Sadness After Abortion

by Fr. William Saunders

1/30/04



Recently I read an article about the effects of abortion, which included "post abortion syndrome." Could you please explain what that is?


Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS) falls under the category of "post-traumatic stress disorder." The American Psychiatric Association (APA) defines a post-traumatic stress disorder as occurring when "the person has experienced an event that is outside the range of usual human experience that would be markedly distressing to almost anyone." Clearly, abortion, the direct killing of an innocent human life, fits this definition. Consequently, the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — Revised (1987) specifically included abortion as a psycho-social stressor.

The reasons why abortion causes such traumatic stress include the following: First, abortion and infanticide are "abominable crimes" (Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, no. 51). To kill an innocent, unborn child is the epitome of evil. Such an evil action will have a severely detrimental impact upon the spiritual and psychological health of the woman who is responsible.

Second, the abortion procedure is brutal, invasive and barbaric. If anyone has a doubt about the brutality and barbarism of abortion, please watch, A Matter of Choice, The Silent Scream or The Eclipse of Reason. Moreover, the procedure violates the woman’s body that has been prepared physiologically to nurture a growing child and bring that child to birth. Given both the first and second reasons, abortion produces feelings of self-devaluation, guilt, shame and isolation.

Third, deep down inside, a person, whether male or female, knows abortion is wrong and that a baby is being killed. Yet, a person will try to rationalize the action or to suppress feelings about it. Eventually, the impact of abortion will erupt in the person’s life with devastating effects.

Fourth, abortion restricts communication. Generally a woman does not want to talk about her abortion; rather, the abortion remains a dark secret she must bear by herself. She also does not want to recall the events surrounding the abortion or the procedure itself; such recall is unpleasant and hurtful. This lack of communication augments accompanying feelings of depression, grief, avoidance and denial. For example, people will talk with great ease about appendectomies, knee surgery or even cosmetic surgery; no one freely talks about having an abortion.

Fifth, the act of abortion impacts negatively upon relationships with others. The woman will reject the man who may have pressured her to have the abortion or consented to it. She will withdraw from others fearing their judgment for such a terrible act. She is left in isolation. These last three causes — the rationalization and suppression of feelings, lack of communication, and isolation — converge to prevent healing.

These causes of PAS are clearly interrelated. Some specific symptoms of post-abortion syndrome include "bouts of crying, depression, guilt, inability to forgive oneself, intense grief/sadness, anger/rage, emotional numbness, sexual problems or promiscuity, eating disorders, lowered self-esteem, drug and alcohol abuse, nightmares and sleep disturbances, suicidal urges, difficulty with relationships, anxiety and panic attacks, and flashbacks."

A survey of women who had undergone an abortion procedure found that 31 percent experienced suicidal feelings; 50 percent experience emotional and psychological disturbances lasting months; 28 percent attempted suicide; 60 percent commented that the decision to have an abortion made their lives worse; and 94 percent regretted the decision to have an abortion. (Abortion: How Much Do You Know? and Abortion: Your Risks, both published by The American Life League.) These symptoms may not arise immediately after the abortion, but months or even years afterward. Without question, such evidence attests to the devastating impact of abortion upon the mother.

PAS manifests itself especially when certain circumstances are present at the time of the abortion, including the following: a maternal orientation, prior children, prior abortions, religious affiliation and beliefs, a lack of relationship support, force or coercion, second trimester abortion, genetic vs. elective abortion, pro-abortion ambivalence, prior emotional problems, low self-esteem, lack of family support, adolescent vs. adult. (Cf. Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change, I, 1).

While PAS is treated through psychiatric and psychological counseling, spiritual healing is also needed. Only with God’s grace available through prayer, the sacrament of penance, and the holy Eucharist will a woman, wounded from the grievous sin of abortion, find forgiveness and peace. Our Holy Father Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae noted: "The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourself over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you His forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone’s right to life" (no. 99).


Fr. Saunders is pastor of Our Lady of Hope Parish in Potomac Falls and a professor of catechetics and theology at Notre Dame Graduate School in Alexandria. If you enjoy reading Fr. Saunders' work, his new book entitled Straight Answers (400 pages) is available at the Pauline Book and Media Center of Arlington, Virginia (703/549-3806).

[tpaine]

Our common law defines criminal acts. Our constitution protects us from overzealous interpretations of what is 'crime'.. The state must follow our constitution in the writing of law. They cannot decree that early term abortion is murder, any more than decree 'assault' guns are prohibited.. Maybe you should direct us to the specific portion of the Constitution which actually forbids the individual states to enact a law prohibiting abortion.

Fiat prohibitions [decrees] are forbidden by the provisions of the 14th, primarily. - Such rights need not be specifically enumerated of course, as seen by reading the 9th & 10th.

Actually, that's incorrect because it is the subpreme court in whatever variation sits the benches at the time that determine what is lawful, what is 'constitutional.

Not true.. The court is bound, just as we all are.

But the nine black-robed oligarchs can establish law by fiat, and have, with such as with the Dred Scott decision ... and Roe and Doe and Bolton and Planned Parenthood v Casey, and Lawrence v Texas and Stenberg v Carhardt, , none of which decisions can be defended via the Constitution but are touted as 'the law of the land' because nine black robed individuals passed a judgment derived from their preferences rather than the Constitution.

All of them were/are 'defended' by peer agreement. Unconstitutional decisions, such as upholding booze prohibition, are trumped by jurys & overthrown by amendment or legislative action.

This process is now happening with gun control & drug prohibition.. -- It takes time.

[celmak]

--- Have you not heard or read Doe v Bolton? That decision took care of what ever Roe v Wade did not, everything past the second trimester up to when the BABY's body is sticking out but not the head so they can still call it an inviable tissue mass and stick with needle nose pliers and suction out it's brain.

[tpaine]

Apparently states can't get the political clout to overrule such measures.
- Feel free to have at it.

Get a local prosecutor, an indictment for murder, and find a jury to convict the abortionist and put em in jail.. -- Shazam, no more late term abortion, in your local area..

[Diamond]

me: You are saying that at some point ("viability", whatever that means, and which is nevertheless repudiated by Bolton) of your existence that you did not have certain inalienable rights, among which would have been the primary and ultimate inalienable right to your own life.

You: You got it. 'I" did not exist yet, as an individual.

Here! This is the crux of the issue!

tpaine, I think, or at least I hope we can agree that everything that begins to exist must have a cause. It is evident that you are a contingent being. Since you are a contingent being there must be a cause of your existence. In your case, the proximate cause of your physical existence is the union of your father's and mother's gametes. If that event had not occurred in space-time history you would have never existed, and we would not be having this conversation, because every moment of your life up until now is the result of the physical continuum of the cause and effect of all the events that have led to the present moment of your existence. Thus, because your physical life today is the result of all the occurrences that preceded this moment, then that moment in history is the beginning of your existence. It is not three months later or whatever in the heck a "trimester" is, or your birth as Bolton decrees, or any other thing the USSC dreams up or copies.

Therefore it is elemental and incontrovertible that since you, tpaine, are a contingent being (and btw, a completely unique being who has never existed before and will never exist again in the history of the world) the proposition that you did not yet exist for some period of time after you were conceived and were in fact a life-in-being is ontologically as well as scientifically absurd and irrational.

Cordially,

[tpaine]

Yep, at some point you become human & aquire rights separable from your mothers, just as I wrote above.

Second, if your mother had some absolute or inalienable right to refuse to be pregnant (ignoring for the moment the use of the vague term, "pregnant") why should her her proported right to "not be pregnant" with you trump your own "right to life"?

Because 'I' don't exist as a separate individual being yet.

--- the proposition that you did not yet exist for some period of time after you were conceived and were in fact a life-in-being is ontologically as well as scientifically absurd and irrational.

The existance of life-in-the-process-of-being is not the issue, but my existence as a separate individual certainly is the issue in early term abortion.
Constitutionally, you lose. The womans rights win.

[Diamond]

The existance of life-in-the-process-of-being is not the issue, but my existence as a separate individual

Scientifically and ontologically, there is no difference between the two, which is the whole point of my previous post. But if there is some rational critique of any of the logical steps of the analysis in that post, please feel free to enlighten me.

Cordially,

[tpaine]

The existance of life-in-the-process-of-being is not the issue, but my existence as a separate individual certainly is the issue in early term abortion.
Constitutionally, you lose. The womans rights win.

Scientifically and ontologically, there is no difference between the two, which is the whole point of my previous post.

So you inanely claim. Abortion is a constitutional issue because you want it prosecuted as murder.

But if there is some rational critique of any of the logical steps of the analysis in that post, please feel free to enlighten me.

You analysis is beside the point. Feel free to use it to persuade women not to have abortions. It is not an argument that persuades anyone to criminalize them as murder.

[Diamond]

You said that, "my existence as a separate individual certainly is the issue in early term abortion."

Accepting that as the issue, then I proceeded to substantively refute the specific proposition that you did not exist yet, as an individual, at some point in time after your conception. I'm curious as to exactly how and why ontological and scientific truths concerning the beginning of your existence are inane and besides the point when it is you yourself who stated that your existence as a separate individual is the issue.

Cordially,

[tpaine]

Three minutes after the lab tech combines egg & sperm, that combination has a constitutionally protected right to life? -- Get real, -- You are hyping the issue. My rights to life, liberty & property did not begin until they were capable of being separated from my mothers rights, at viablity. That's the dilemma of abortion.

At the early stages, any woman has an absolute constitutional right to refuse to be pregnant, as I understand it. As viabiliy becomes more certain, the state can step in and reasonably regulate abortion, under its 'compelling interest' police powers.

You are saying that at some point ("viability", whatever that means, and which is nevertheless repudiated by Bolton) of your existence that you did not have certain inalienable rights, among which would have been the primary and ultimate inalienable right to your own life.

You got it. 'I" did not exist yet, as an individual.
Which is why I just said that, "my existence as a separate individual certainly is the issue in early term abortion." - Try to keep up.

Accepting that as the issue, then I proceeded to substantively refute the specific proposition that you did not exist yet, as an individual, at some point in time after your conception. I'm curious as to exactly how and why ontological and scientific truths concerning the beginning of your existence are inane and besides the point when it is you yourself who stated that your existence as a separate individual is the issue.

Read much? You are confusing yourself with your own method of debate..
You attempt to pick out a flaw in my reasoning by refuting parts of what I write, -- out of context.

It isn't working. Give it up.

[MHGinTN]

"Because 'I' don't exist as a separate individual being yet." You don't realize how wrong you are because you have CHOSEN to dehumanize the human individual prior to birth ... the in vitro fertilization clinic is in the business of implanting human beings into human female uteri ... the beings are conceived in the lab and come into existence as actual human organisms before being connected to the mother. But I might just as well have driven a wooden post in the ground for you to argue with ...

[tpaine]

Three minutes after the lab tech combines egg & sperm, that combination has a constitutionally protected right to life? -- Get real, -- You are hyping the issue. My rights to life, liberty & property did not begin until they were capable of being separated from my mothers rights, at viablity. That's the dilemma of abortion.

You don't realize how wrong you are because you have CHOSEN to dehumanize the human individual prior to birth .

Get lucid. I've "dehumanized" nothing. I'm arguing for womens constitutional rights.

.. the in vitro fertilization clinic is in the business of implanting human beings into human female uteri ... the beings are conceived in the lab and come into existence as actual human organisms before being connected to the mother.

Yep, and according to you, a lab tech's mistake can be a form of murder.. Absurd.

But I might just as well have driven a wooden post in the ground for you to argue with ...

Whatever.

[MHGinTN]

An embryo is perfectly viable for the environment in which it is found alive, else the in vitro lab folks would have no living organisms to implant. It is clear that you respect life only on your arbitrary terms. So be it noted.

[MHGinTN]

You've CHOSEN to dehumanize the preborn. Killing another alive, albeit dependent, alive individual human being is not a Constitutional right. Sorry to rain on your self-aggrandizing parade, but you frankly have no argument if you're to base it solely on your arbitrary assignment of rights. Nice try though ... if you were only as logical as you believe yourself to be.

[MHGinTN]

You juvenile attempt to raise a strawman (I haven't used the term murder on this entire thread, least of all toward in vitro techs, son) is also duly noted by those reading this thread. Weak, very weak ...

[tpaine]

I used the term murder.
Efforts to Criminalize abortion as murder started the whole R v W mess.

'Murder' is one of the core issues, kiddo.

[cpforlife.org]

Abortion is the Choice of Satan, the father of lies and a MURDERER from the beginning.