Constructive gadfly
Published on January 28, 2006 By stevendedalus In Politics

Most of us considerably left of center do not think of ourselves as pro-abortion. Rather, it is up to the woman, and perhaps the man implicated, who must under trying circumstance make the weighty decision to abort. Contrary to the conservative perception, liberals do not encourage abortion, but simply that it is out of the jurisdiction of politics even though some may indeed think of it as a questionable murderous process resting with the individual conscience of the decision-maker[s]. Many liberals do feel that it is rightfully a religious matter for the devoted who should seek  religious counsel. Liberals do not publicly frown on those who for whatever reason make the momentous choice.

Copyright © 2006 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: January 28, 2006.

http://stevendedalus.joeuser.com


Comments (Page 3)
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on Jan 30, 2006
If I shot you smack in the head right now, would you thank me before you died for sparing you from having to make any more choices in our crazy world?
Simply tongue-in cheek in response to "a baby's choice." I do not see a fetus as having any choice


EXACTLY my point. They get to have no choice.
on Jan 30, 2006
They get to have no choice.
Touché but the "they" from your perspective is baby fully designated as such at conception.

Summons the word "defenseless" to mind.


Tell that to the millions of single mothers who admittedly should know better not to the wisp of a girl in the ghetto.
on Jan 30, 2006
"Tell that to the millions of single mothers who admittedly should know better not to the wisp of a girl in the ghetto."


Why? I wonder which has had more to do with creating the number of unwanted kids in the ghetto, the inability to find abortion possibilities, or a welfare system that for 20 years rewarded that wisp of a girl for having more kids than she can feed? Oddly, after 30 years in Roe v Wade Land, those wisps are still cranking them out and the average person who gets an abortion is more concerned with what mommy and daddy will think about getting pregnant or how it will cut into their free time...

'Touché but the "they" from your perspective is baby fully designated as such at conception."


And who gets to decide that? I am surprised that somehow you are able to deem your perspective on when life begins as "truth". That's what this really all comes down to. One group of people in America, through the courts, have shoved their definition of life down the throats of the others using the exuse of rights.

Think for a moment and you'd see how if our ideals were only slightly more skewed we could EASILY state that infants could be killed, since their minds haven't developed sufficiently to be "sentient" or whatever. They've done it in other nations. What makes your ideals superior to someone who wouldn't have a problem euthanizing handicapped babies?

The problem isn't philosophically when, what trimester, etc; it is the funamental idea that you can expunge a life you created for the sake of ecomomy or convenience. In a nation where people wait in line to adopt newborns, we allow people to kill kill them as long as they don't wait until they really look like newborns.

That invisible line between killable fetus and pre-baby is esoteric hogwash. It is just there to make it palatable for people who can't deal with the reality of what they are allowing. In reality the same values could be applied to newborns, we just don't have the stomach for it. Give it a couple of hundred years devaluing life and we probably will.
on Jan 30, 2006
"Abortion Is Not Murder". The majority of people in this country believe that, and it's legal.
---davad70

Man, THIS is a broooooad statement if EVER there was one. I'd like to see proof---irrefutable proof, mind you---that the "majority" believe that. It's not exactly like it was ever on a ballot, you know.

Dammit, I'm running late; so much more to say! More about this to you at a later time.
on Jan 30, 2006
Man, THIS is a broooooad statement if EVER there was one. I'd like to see proof---irrefutable proof, mind you---that the "majority" believe that. It's not exactly like it was ever on a ballot, you know.


Keep in mind that I didn't say an overwhelming majority...simply a majority.

on Jan 30, 2006
Oddly, after 30 years in Roe v Wade Land, those wisps are still cranking them out
As a prolifer you shouldn't have a problem with government incentives not to abort.

the average person who gets an abortion is more concerned with what mommy and daddy will think about getting pregnant or how it will cut into their free time...
Does this have a ring of class? It seems you are more concerned with the illegitmate birth than the "average" concern over what mommy and daddy will think about pregnancy.

It is just there to make it palatable for people who can't deal with the reality of what they are allowing. In reality the same values could be applied to newborns, we just don't have the stomach for it.


Unfortunately, too often we read of newborns found in dumpsters because the "mother" isn't equipped to face reality. Of course, it is a horrible shame but you've lost my point that the other side does not approve of abortion but rather faces the brute reality that there are many women who are incapable of dealing with it. That is not excusing them, just admitting to the wackiness of today's sickening human frailty.
on Jan 30, 2006
" As a prolifer you shouldn't have a problem with government incentives not to abort."


No, I just have a problem with the side that claimed to want to prevent unwanted children, yet who promoted having as many as possible. Granted the system is better than it was, but in my experience it isn't feeding the child doesn't seem to be the main worry of people who have abortions.

" Does this have a ring of class? It seems you are more concerned with the illegitmate birth than the "average" concern over what mommy and daddy will think about pregnancy."

Not me, but if you think that isn't the primary reason some people have abortions you aren't seeing the reality of it. Out of the three people I know that had them, two did it so their family wouldn't find out, and the third did it at the urging of the family that would have been too embarassed for the extended family and peers to find out. Granted, that's a flaw in their ideals, but dammit it turns my stomack to think that people of such shallow-mindedness have an industry of baby disposal to turn to...

"Unfortunately, too often we read of newborns found in dumpsters because the "mother" isn't equipped to face reality. Of course, it is a horrible shame but you've lost my point that the other side does not approve of abortion but rather faces the brute reality that there are many women who are incapable of dealing with it. That is not excusing them, just admitting to the wackiness of today's sickening human frailty."


But can't you see how all this propaganda about how childbearing is awful and unfair LEADS to these children being left in dumpsters? All these public service annoucements on TV about how your life will be over if you are a teen that gets pregnant, about how the children will suffer because they are unwanted, etc?

You don't think the overall good would be served by putting all the emphasis on terminating pregnancy would be better served by telling people that adoption is not only a valid option, but the best one? When I read all this devaluation of human life and feminist drivel about how women don't want to be baby machines, it reads like a brochure FOR leaving kids in dumpsters.

So you feel that mercy killing before birth is somehow better? Come on. That to me seems like the same Disney-esque frailty that we can deal with the dirty work as long as it doesn't SEEM dirty, or so long as someone else does it for us. It's all about killing babies, it's just more palatable to society to do it before they really look like babies.

On the contrary, two out of the three people I have known that have had abortions did it for that exact reason. The third was goaded BY the parent so that their family and friends wouldn't find out...
on Jan 31, 2006
"Pro Life" and "Pro Choice" are nothing but meaningless political buzzwords. Very few who claim to be "Pro Life" are against abortion in all cases, just as those who claim to be "Pro Choice" are rarely for a woman's right to all choices when it comes to abortion.

When you get right down to is, the argument is mostly over "abortion on demand"... which is still a political buzzword, but far closer to the point of each side, and far from meaningless.
on Jan 31, 2006
I'm a liberal, and I'm pro-abortion. The more, the merrier.
on Jan 31, 2006
I'm a liberal, and I'm pro-abortion. The more, the merrier.
on Jan 31, 2006
I'm a liberal, and I'm pro-abortion. The more, the merrier.
Hardly a liberal view but rather a view of a super race.

When you get right down to is, the argument is mostly over "abortion on demand"...
or adoption on demand, or surrogate mothers on demand.
on Jan 31, 2006
You don't think the overall good would be served by putting all the emphasis on terminating pregnancy would be better served by telling people that adoption is not only a valid option, but the best one?
Now, that is Pro abortion. "Choice" does not automatically end in abortion unless the pressures are insurmountable.
on Jan 31, 2006
or adoption on demand, or surrogate mothers on demand.


Yes, or these, which come with their own set of "pro" and "con" activists. ;~D
on Jan 31, 2006
" Now, that is Pro abortion. "Choice" does not automatically end in abortion unless the pressures are insurmountable."


When was the last time you heard uttered a single word about adoption by any "pro-choice" talking head? Can you see how all the "it's just a choice" talk falls flat when you don't see anything coming from anyone pro-choice about the benefits of adoption?

You see it here. When people list reasons for abortion, they list not being ready, not being able to afford a child, yadda yadda. It isn't a matter of equal time, you hear *nothing* about any other options beyond raising the child or aborting it from the pro-"choice" side.

If people who favor abortion as a viable option are really about choices, why does that seem to be the only choice they ever expound upon?

Frankly I think there is more to it. I don't think choosing "The Population Council" through the Feminist Majority Foundation was a random choice when the Clintons decided to weigh in on their pet project to bring abortion drugs to America. They didn't form something like "The Reproductive Health Council." It wasn't about "choice". It was about eliminating what they consider to be the core of societies ills by promoting abortion among the lower classes.

I think social eugenics is alive and well in the minds of those with the megalomaniacal idea they are shaping the future. If Billary is interested in other choices beyond abortion, I am unaware of it, nor do I hear of anything else from all the other people who feign concern for children.
on Jan 31, 2006
You libs have had it your way for fifty years. Now it's our turn. Quit your bitching and learn to share.

In the 60s and 70s, we faced an overwhelmingly liberal court that gave us the very arguments we fight over now. Without them, God would still be welcome in schools; kids might have some respect and values. Heavens to Murgatroyd! We can't have that!
Now we face more conservatives on the court that, just maybe, might let things belonging in the realm of the Legislators stay within the realm of the Legislators, rather than creating laws from the Bench. What can possibly be wrong with that?
Not enough people want what the liberals want, that's what. So one thing they don't want is for those things to be put up to a vote. It's easier to just put it before a sympathetic court to decide.
Sorry folks, the feast just might be over.
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