Posted on 07/01/2005 7:14:03 AM PDT by SueRae
zzen, are you aware the owner of this forum lives in California? Are you aware your comment can be taken as a personal attack. Please reconsider your post.
Goldwaterist Planned Barrenhoodism is no longer (assuming that it ever was) acceptable as "conservatism." You apparently missed the struggle between the Reagan forces and the Goldwater forces in the late 1970s. Reagan's won and the Ford/Goldwater/Rockefeller cult of baby slaughter was routed in the GOP.
Maybe so-called libertarianism will uphold eugenics and Sangerism but conservatism will not. Genuine libertarianism won't either but that is largely irrelevant given the impotence of libertarianism.
Weighing in the balance of justice a temporary nine-month inconvenience OTOH against each and every earthly right of an innocent unborn child OTO, including most importantly its very right to live, the child's rights ought to prevail. That would seem yet more obvious to anyone possessed of even a shred of basic morality.
When you claim to have no problem with the overturn of Roe vs. Wade so long as the overturn is accomplished by a mechanism not found in our law (national plebiscite), you are being dishonest, disingenuous or willfully refusing to recognize legal reality. That does not wash any more than the endless bleating by pro-aborts of how terribly troubled they are by abortion, how "personally opposed but" we are to consider them to be (according to their self-serving self-definition) as they mount their barricades in defense of continued mass murder by SCOTUS decree.
Also, when the practice of baby-killing is even allowed much less enshrined as a pseudo-constitutional "right" by our SCOTUS run temporarily amok, the babies killed must remain dead in the earthly sense. Perhaps you missed that or chose to ignore it for obvious reasons pertaining to any drama purporting to morally justify the slaughter of the innocent because of their parent(s)' wish and that of a willing abortionist to murder them. At least paid mob hit men, unlike abortionists and their clientele, seem to confine their attentions to those who are of age. They pick on people their own size. By way of contrast to the likes of PP, NARAL, NOW, and the abortionists, mob hit men are moral giants. Relatively speaking, don't you know?
Perhaps you will take some time from regurgitating the Planned Barrenhood talking points and tell us just where in the US Constitution one may find an explicit "right" to kill innocent unborn chldren. The claim in Roe that there is or even could be such a "right" is stolen pseudoconstitutional goods. You know it and so does everyone else with three brain cells to rub together. The reason for the upcoming leftist fury in favor of babykilling and, according to one of your leading allies, Chuckie Schumer, "gay" "marriage", is the very fact that such personally self-indulgent perversions as abortion and homosexuality are not "rights' at all but stolen goods imposed on society by unelected lifetime judges. So please spare us the hypocrisy of: Oh, I could accept the overturn of Roe if only we the people could vote on it. SCOTUS has stood in the way of any democratically enacted restrictions whatsoever for over three decades, as you well know. You are defending SCOTUS edicts as though they were actual law. If your position lives by SCOTUS, then it will die by SCOTUS. That will empower states and elected representatives for the first time in over three decades to put the babykillers out of business.
The constitution is what the framers said it was, including the framers of each subsequent amendment. It is not "what the judges say it is" in the infamous formulation of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. As a practical matter, we may have to utilize Holmes formulation by naming judges with copies of the constitution, reading lessons and a commitment to do what the constitution tells them to do. That will protect innocent human life in utero under the real standard of what the constitution says AND the phony standard of what the judges themselves say. Don't whine when it happens. Think of it as a dose of your own medicine.
When, not if, civilized human beings have legally prohibited abortion and anything amounting to "gay" "marriage", by whatever means necessary, you can learn to live with the restoration of our laws or find a new country to grouse in as you see fit. I see absolutely no reason whatsoever for anyone to care a whit about the "feelings" or dishonest and/or disingenuous arguments of those determined to continue the slaughter.
I've been reading this dialog with fascination. Dianna, this is the second or third time you've used the government-forcing-women-to-remain-pregnant line. Many on your side use this, but no one ever seems to ask the question: if she's not prepared to raise a child, why is she pregnant in the first place? Pregancy is not something that "just happens".
Now I recognize the milieu in which we live presupposes extramarital affairs. Abortion has made this easy, and the bitter roots of ubiquitous elective abortion have gone far beyond the issue itself in shaping culture. Removing those roots will cause somewhat of a seismic shift, but a necessary one to save our culture from ultimate destruction - first the unborn, then the disabled, and finally the family. The question is, are we strong enough as a people? Are we even still able to look beyond ourselves, our pleasure, our entertainment, to the future? Pop culture routinely belittles caricatures of the very thought that gave us this republic. I for one believe that republic is worth preserving, with that lofty ideal in our Pledge of Allegience, "With liberty and justice for all."
Late 70's? I was approximately 10 years old. I guess I missed all that.
When you claim to have no problem with the overturn of Roe vs. Wade so long as the overturn is accomplished by a mechanism not found in our law (national plebiscite), you are being dishonest, disingenuous or willfully refusing to recognize legal reality.
OBVIOUSLY, Roe can ONLY be overturned by the Supreme Court. In your zeal to find nasty things to call me, I think you aren't taking as much time to understand my posts as you need to. I never stated that "we the people" should overturn the law. Only that once Roe is overturned and the issue given to the states that I would prefer the people having a direct vote.
Perhaps you will take some time from regurgitating the Planned Barrenhood talking points and tell us just where in the US Constitution one may find an explicit "right" to kill innocent unborn chldren.
Ok, now you are just making things up based upon what YOU THINK I must believe. There is no Constitutional right to abortion. It is clear and obvious that this is what I believe, why else would I support the overturn of Roe V Wade?
As you make things up out of thin air, I refuse to entertain further discussion with you.
If abortion is outlawed altogether, then women who become pregnant will be forced by the government to remain pregnant. It is a true statement, and it is the entire issue that bothers me in this whole discussion.
I am fully willing to conceed that people are irresponsible, act foolishly, make bad decisions and mistakes. We are, after all, human.
My problem with the law, as I have said repeatedly, is that in outlawing abortion, the government is insising that a woman remain pregnant. I cannot think of any current law in which by demanding that I do not do X, that therefore, I MUST do Y. Do you understand my problem (even if you do not agree)?
Our society suffers from a number of problems, from abortion to single parenthood, divorce, drugs, etc. I don't wish the government to demand that women HAVE abortions instead of being single parents, or demand that people stay married, etc. I do not believe it is the place of government to micromanage the culture.
I want you to consider this: When the light at the intersection turns red, the government forces you to wait for a couple of minutes. Likewise, the government forces you not to rob banks, or at least provides some pretty strong disincentives. At any rate, the anti-choice line is specious at best, since we are all anti-choice on many, many matters.
The problem you and many like you have, it would seem, can be traced to the fact that abortion has been legal for some amount of time now. It's become accepted by some. Certainly, the Emancipation Proclaimation brought some uncomfortable changes (aside from the dreadful concommitants of war) to those who depended upon the subversion of one group of people to another - in this case, a particular racial group. If one were a secessionist she would apply the same line of reasoning ("It's convenient"; "Government ought not force its views"; etc.) to the ownership of black slaves. Abortion has become an accepted part of society, and has made it easy and possible for people to become pregnant.
Your argument - to wit, in outlawing abortion the government is insisting that a woman remain pregnant - is highly suspect. Ultimately it is useful only in cases of rape, which account for a tiny percentage of abortions performed. The reason: the government does not force someone to become pregnant in the first place, and the government in enforcing abortion law is merely protecting another human being, just as the government protects you and I from foreign enemies abroad, and from criminals here at home.
It has attained this acceptable status through ignorance - one party is strong and has a voice, the other side has no voice and is easy and convenient to kill. Abortion - slavery's contemporary and much more violent analog - allows the victim to be hidden. Many of us who care deeply about these people with no voice of their own can almost feel the pain of them being ripped apart, sans anesthesia. I look at our own little one-month-old baby, and cringe to think of him being torn apart in this way.
About your personal beliefs I know only what little you've shared on this public forum, but would with humility point you to these words of Jesus:
25:35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
25:37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
25:38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
25:39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
And here is one from Proverbs, highly appropriate for this topic:
24:11 If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain;
24:12 If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?
In that latter spirit I want everybody in my state and indeed in this nation to see what an abortion looks like. Every person, upon seeing such, must make a choice. The signs I've used are not signs held outside of abortion clinics by protestors but rather in mundane, unexpected places. I have seen reactions that bespeak a breathtaking ignorance, and by that, the ongoing carnage notwithstanding, I am encouraged.
Waiting for a couple of minutes at a red light doesn't have nearly the impact on anyone's life as does being pregnant. Furthermore, the consequences of not waiting at red lights are immediate and obvious to most people. But the analogy does work. If I choose to drive then these are the rules I must follow.
I really would have preferred the case never being brought to the level of federal involvement. I agree with local people determining social rules.
Yes, in abortion a separate, innocent human being is involved. Unfortunately, that human being is entirely housed within and dependent upon an individual woman. The choices allowed to us by nature are to be pregnant or not. Every other relationship we engage in can be terminated. Our government does not involve itself in whether our reasons for terminating are sufficient and does not decide that we must maintain relationships we don't wish to be involved in. Although stable marriages are to society's benefit, most of us don't want the government intimately involved in our marriages.
Given human nature as it is, the demand that one remain pregnant makes it more likely than not that the woman will choose keeping the child over adoption. As counterintuitive as it may sound, many women find it quite a lot easier to get rid of a baby at 6 weeks gestation over giving it away at birth. We are programmed to bond, after all. In some instances, then, the prohibition of abortion becomes, in a sense, a mandate to motherhood and all that that entails. Women WOULD still have a choice. Many would choose adoption. But it isn't a, "do you prefer carrots or green beans?" kind of choice it's a very weighted choice. A lot of women might rise to the challenge.
So, for me, it comes down to personal autonomy vs government force. Because the issues on each side are so weighty (personal freedom versus anothers right to be alive and government making that choice), I prefer to let the people speak and determine their own mores for their communities.
I don't think the issue is so much that abortion has been legal so long that we're used to it. The issue is that we have so much freedom to determine our destiny, be it choosing our job, lifestyle, marital status, relationships with friends and family; that it seems intrusive to me to have the government deciding the issue for us. For "we the people" to decide to place limits on ourselves is a different matter.
Wrong.
What is illegal does not, ipso facto, become "unpreventable."
Your "logic" would also posit thus: "When the speed limit is 55, then drivers will be forced by the Government to drive 55."
More important, however, is the question which you wish to avoid: "Should positive law enshrine certain principles of natural law?"
(We shall assume for the sake of the argument that induced abortion is contrary to the natural law.)
The answer to the question is Yes. Resoundingly, YES.
This also applies to fudgepacking, adultery, and pornography, whether "child" or not.
Whether you like it or not, the Positivists in the Supreme Court have proceeded logically from Roe to Kelo; in Kelo, all they had to do was re-define certain words.
One can characterize Kelo as a manifestation of a lack of integrity, which lack of integrity springs from the willful contravention of natural law.
It's all very well and good that you think "abortion" is a States'-rights issue--but you are wrong on that premise, as well, for the same reasons.
Worse, your 'forces a woman....' argument is really just childish foot-stomping, even if you are attempting to project that argument as one made by a third person.
Absolutely not. Who is forcing people to fool around and become pregnant in the first place? Teens, and all others have the option to remain chaste. Pregnancy is a logical consequence of actions she chose (except in rape cases, as mentioned earlier). In fact, criminalizing abortion would help make people think about the gravity of the sexual act, its beauty and sacred character.
Yes, in abortion a separate, innocent human being is involved. Unfortunately, that human being is entirely housed within and dependent upon an individual woman. The choices allowed to us by nature are to be pregnant or not. Every other relationship we engage in can be terminated. Our government does not involve itself in whether our reasons for terminating are sufficient and does not decide that we must maintain relationships we don't wish to be involved in. Although stable marriages are to society's benefit, most of us don't want the government intimately involved in our marriages.
Essentially we have the following: Since we can terminate other relationships, we ought to be legally sanctioned to terminate the parent-child relationship. Because the child is little and growing inside (my wife), the only way to eliminate him is to remove him, killing him in the process. The mere whims of the mother in choosing relationships supercede the very LIFE of the unborn. Just as the mere whims of "massa" were so infinately more important than the fundamental right to FREEDOM of his slaves. In both cases, might makes right. In both cases, one person is forcing their worldview on another.
You've given a very good reason for the government to protect the unborn: they are weak and vulnerable, unable to defend themselves.
(On a side note, it is interesting that sentiments in the South, with its legacy of segregation and oppression of colored people, are more inclined to defend the unborn. The South has already had its momemnt of oppression. There is a similar phenomena between Germany and the Netherlands, with the former having quite restrictive abortion laws, doubtless more keenly sensitive to the atricities six decades ago.) I don't think the issue is so much that abortion has been legal so long that we're used to it. The issue is that we have so much freedom to determine our destiny, be it choosing our job, lifestyle, marital status, relationships with friends and family; that it seems intrusive to me to have the government deciding the issue for us. For "we the people" to decide to place limits on ourselves is a different matter.
Abortion is incredibly intrusive. It involves softening of the cervix, dilation, and a number of very sharp, very hard instruments. In early trimesters the baby tries desperately to swim away from the aspirator tip, only to be sucked out, piece by piece. check this out. It is an act of unspeakable cruelty. "Whatsover you do to the least of these you do unto me."
I absolutely agree. No, I don't support gay marriage. I dislike changing the definitions of words. Two adult people, however, ought to be free to engage in contracts. For example, I think two gay people should be able to legally designate one another as next of kin. Things like that.
Not consistent, perhaps, but my opinion nevertheless.
I do not believe that sodomy between consenting adults should be illegal. I don't believe in outlawing pornography either. Adultery....hmmm, not sure about that one. Off the top of my head, I prefer huge penalties in the divorce settlement for that.
Personally, I believe that some of the pro-life movement is much more about punishing and humiliating "those sleazy little whores" than worrying about babies.
Some people would change their behavior, and some people would not. They can work it out with God themselves as far as I am concerned.
I am leaving for vacation in a few hours so I will be unable to reply for at least a few days. Thanks for the civil discussion. I appreciate it.
Have a safe trip.
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