Posted on 11/28/2001 2:48:37 PM PST by Caleb1411
As a first step, partial birth abortion needs to be outlawed (as a practical matter, that would mean to me outlawing third trimester abortions.) That would mean that in order to save the mother's life, or in the case of a dire threat to her long-term health, sometimes birth would have to be induced at quite a young gestational age; some babies won't make it, and there will be a lot more million dollar preemies. I suspect that the biggest foes of such a measure would be insurance companies-- but we are a rich country, and if necessary our taxes could pick up the cost-- at any rate, I think most Americans would agree that it's the right thing to do.
Second, I think the pro-life people need to agree to a statute that explicitly guarantees the legality of in vitro fertilization, regardless of future abortion legislation (of course, at a later date such a statue could be repealed.) But, I think such a measure would greatly reassure people who worry that somehow a fetus could become a "legal person", with all the ramifications of that. In fact, it might be good to clarify in the statue that the fetus was not a "legal person." I think such a concession is the absolutely required in order to pave the way for future legislation restricting abortion.
Beyond that, I can't see how anyone can be both opposed to abortion and opposed to sex education in the schools. Of course, the ideal would be that parents would provide their own children with all of the information they could possibly need, but as a practical matter, that simply doesn't happen. The best way to do sex education, though, is for the pro-choice and pro-life groups, regardless of religious beliefs, to get together and design such programs together. (Although abstinence is certainly the best choice for young people, we have to recognize that not all kids will make that choice-- but a bad decision to have sex doesn't have to result in more tough choices.) Such programs should provide true, scientific information, as well as present the range of beliefs of the designers. Telling kids what to believe never works anyway-- the best way is to tell them what you believe and why. Hopefully, any kid who is confused will go home and ask their parents what they believe. Modern birth control really does work, and it is virtually bulletproof when both a barrier and a hormonal method are used simultaneously.
Finally, girls and boys need to be helped to understand one another better, and presented with a common message on sexual responsibility. For example, in the bad old days my parents told my brother "don't get anyone pregnant" and they told me "only married people have sex." Neither of us was given any useful factual information, so the assymetric moral message was exacerbated by almost complete ignorance. Moreover, although most adults will recognize the truth of the statement "Women use sex to get love, while men use love to get sex", no teenage girl will ever willingly see that boys and girls don't think alike. They need to be helped to understand the differences. These sorts of discussions should happen at home, in churches, in girl and boy scout troops, in other youth organizations, and as a part of sex education in the schools.
That would be a good start. I'm raising two teenage daughters, so I think about these sorts of issues a lot-- how to help them to grow up into healthy, responsible adults, and to avoid ever having to deal with an unplanned pregnancy.
I find your reference to cells through which your fecal matter pass thru to be somehow akin to the cells of an incubating baby instructive as to the respect for which you have regarding this serious issue....unfortunately.
That IS strange.
I have two prolife bumper stickers on my vehicle, one of which was vandalized by someone who didn't like the message. It read: It's a baby, not a choice. Now I wonder why anyone would do violence to a bumper sticker?
The stats on women who've died from poorly performed or illegal abortions are all over the board from less than 100 per year to tens of thousands according to NOW or NARLA. The question of whether or not all these roughly 100 million or more aborted babies have died is not a question at all. They are indeed dead. A sad fact that we all will have to account for someday as a nation.
Sex education is perhaps a noble idea but from what I've witnessed of public education and cultural issues...I fear your good intentions will be warped by minority activism and will end up teaching our kids more of the wrong thing. I also have two teenage daughters (almost ...12 and 13) and in Sudbury MA, they have already been taught about sexual preference sensitivity. I fear I don't trust our public schools in this matter. It's best left to the parents.
You are correct about birth control....it does indeed work and pity that more folks who don't wish for children and continue to copulate unabated don't use it religiously.
Thanks for the time you took and the genial tone of your reply....we do have some common ground. There are others on this thread that exhibit a callousnes towards pregnancy in general that is disturbing.
Actually we're not. The fertilized ovum is undeniably alive. It's genetic code is undeniably human. Therefore it is human life. But is it a human life? I don't think so.
"I find your reference to cells through which your fecal matter pass thru to be somehow akin to the cells of an incubating baby instructive as to the respect for which you have regarding this serious issue....unfortunately."
Yes, it is a serious objection to the idea of "potential" sentience or personhood -- although I myself made no reference to feces. I was thinking more of the stomach actually.
Evil lurks on all sides of any arguement.
That is one of the most sensible and realistic things I have seen from a Pro-lifer.
That was a very well thought out and stated position. I am in 100% agreement with every word. I have already saved and filed it in my "good stuff" folder.
Thank You!
Menlo Park (or maybe it was Palo Alto -- it was right on the border, I think) eventually passed some kind of law that prevented this guy from using signs as big as he wanted. I don't know the pretext of the law, and I'm not sure if it was ever challenged in court or not. But I wouldn't be surprised if somebody attempts to write a law, claiming that these trucks are a menace because they might cause someone to become so upset at their graphic nature that they might cause an accident.
Thank you for that. That's my gripe with most radical pro-lifers - that they will not admit to any compromise being acceptable to them.
I also believe that a fertilized egg, while it may have potential to be a "life," it does not have a "soul" per se and the sin involved in terminating it is no greater than that of killing an animal. Obviously there is a lot of room to differ as to when "life" begins, most arguments boiling down to religion and whether or not a fetus has a "soul" and at what time the "soul" enters the body. Is it before brain waves start (late first trimester)? Personally, I feel that prior to having brain waves, the embryo is not the same as a living person.
Most pro-choice folk I know are very queasy with the partial birth abortion question, would love to see it outlawed, but are seriously fearful about the "slippery slope" argument, especially when faced with pro-lifers so radical they want RU-486, IUDs, and The Pill (possible abortifacient in very small percentage of cases) banned.
If more in the pro-life movement were serious about actually wanting to reduce the number of abortions by making compromises, I think they'd be more successful.
Humans managed to figure things out for themselves for millennia before PP got involved. Micromanaging the sexual education of millions of American children sounds about as workable as Social Security, just about as efficient, and just about as effective. Nothing like big government to help the young. (/sarcasm)
Just a question--if the government can't even teach kids to read and do elementary math, what makes anyone think that they can do anything about illicit pregnancies? I think that taboos worked much better -- at least taboos were basic, taught from the earliest years, reinforced at home, schools, and in churches, and affected the behavior of young people until they were close to being on their own...
Just speculating here, of course, and only assuming that the reader thinks abortion is a BAD thing, which is by no means certain.
I also know that the such conflict and guilt over sexual desire is almost exclusively a feature of the Judeo-Christian cultures. You hardly ever see in other cultures that have not been infected.
Another thing to consider is that at the time of the origins of the Judeo/Christian taboos, people got married at a very young age thus really never faced the issues of having to surpress their teenage sexual desires.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.