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Caligastia
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Suppose a mother no longer wants her 5 year old child. Is she allowed to simply do away with her? The kids in the womb are already here. We have an obligation to provide for them, as we would any other children. |
To me you don't count as a person until you're born.
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shawnmmcc
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Bush is a radical, as is shown by his judicial agenda. If he had been interested in being a conservative President, and had mentioned Rehnquist (arguable, but at least open to doubt) and Kennedy (quite probably the only strict conservative constitutionalist on the Supreme Court) as his kind of Supreme Court justices, I'd respect him.
Promoting Thomas (a mental midget for the court) and Scalia, who is one of the most radical activist judges of our time, though on the right, as his type of justice frightened me enough to pull the Gore lever (I didn't like most Americans vote FOR somebody, just against the choices I was stuck with - and yes, I vote in primaries :P ).
The problem with the entire birth control debate is that if those children have children, then the taxpayers end up on the hook. Or do you support creating the next generation of f****d up kids with no intervention. My wife did intake assessments for a seven county mental health private/public hybrid agency (really weird, with the worst of both worlds). You can pay when the kid is young, or you can pay $30000 a year to incarcerate them when they are older. Which is cheaper?
Any anti-abortion type who has adopted a special-needs child, or has done volunteer work, I will listen to. I've done the latter, and it's what started me on the path from being anti-abortion to pro-choice. At least Ben is consistant, and I respect him even as we agree to disagree. Most people don't have the courage of their convictions. Why aren't the anti-abortion demonstraters spending that much time, or more, working with teens and helping them see abstinence as an alernative, or working to support special needs children. I repeat, I respect those that do, but they are a minority. Make it voluntary, and keep the government out of my private life.
And that leads to my on-topic post. Many Americans are social libetarians. Look at how many want to decriminalize pot. However, political pandering disenfranchises them, and many opt out rather than vote against someone while voting for a different candidate they also loathe. The points already made out our two-party system are germane. At times I wish we were a parliamentary democracy, instead of a Republic.
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shawnmmcc
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Ben, you hit the one place libetarianism comes into conflict with the anti-abortion movement. Except that if you look at the members of that movement, including their leadership in the Catholic and Baptist congregations, they do not limit themselves to just the issue on abortion, and that unfortunately means that I take up the required opposite stance. How many leaders of the anti-abortion movement are against passing "morality" laws, including ones affecting consenting sex, substance use (vs. abuse), etc. ? I err on the side of freedom, so I will continue to be pro-choice.
Your first statement:quote:
Would they listen when they believe they have a cheap and easy alternative that does not require them to change their habits and behavior? |
shows an appalling lack of knowledge about kids coming from messed up families. Have you done much work with them, Ben? For my wife it has been a career, she has specialized in problem adolescents.
They often come from homes with no books, only a TV running continuously in the background. Their only role models come from mass media, advertising, and peers in the same situation (my wife added that) are the primary influences on their behavior. If they are fortunate enough to have a social worker assigned to them, she/he is overworked and underpaid (between 20,000 and 35,000 in most areas of the US, major metro areas can pay slightly more, but the cost of living goes up astronomically, and remember they have a Masters for this crappy pay). If they are fortunate it's just because their parents have minimal time working multiple low-wage jobs to just make ends meet. The less fortunate have parents, if you can give them such a title, who don't give a crap about them, and the kids know it.
Yes, Ben, I don't know what you have in Canada, but get involved with Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Your presence in such a program can get that teenager to listen when it's "cheaper/easier." Just tellling them, when the entire system they are immersed in sends them a different message, is very difficult. If the anti-abortion groups worked as hard in programs like this, in the last twenty years I'll bet they could have cut the teenage abortion rate/unwanted pregnancies in half. But instead of the instant gratification of the protest, they would spend years on 2-3 kids, and possibly lose one. It's a tough road to take, which is why I respect anyone who does it. By the way, you didn't mention your youth involvement/credentials Ben? Don't tell me about involvement with kids in the local Church, I'm talking working with the at-risk kids.
I just had my wife proof-read my post, to make sure I didn't miss anything. She just made another point. Ben, getting at-risk adolscents to change their beharior will never be "...cheap and easy." In fact, she states it will be neither cheap nor easy. Go do some volunteer work with the adolescents, for multiple hours a week, and then run your mouth about "...cheap and easy." Otherwise, don't post about someplace you've never been. If you came from an abusive family, with uncaring parents, no books, and atteneded a run-down school with minimal on-site support services, and now do ministries with at risk kids, I'll apologive. Until then...
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:33
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The utter unspeakable repulsiveness of abortion cannot be overstated. Meaningful societal change is important. Very important. I don't oppose birth control, or the spread of information about it. But abortion is a completely depraved institution, a failure of democracy, damn near a crime against humanity, and it needs to end. NOW. Compared to the wanton denial of basic rights to an entire subclass of human beings on the arbitrary grounds of age, teen pregnancy is hardly a problem at all.
And the answer to those societal problems might start with destroying the societal problems rather than trying to immunize against them. I'm not talking about censorship, I'm talking about an attempt to make certain things as distasteful as they ought to be. Stop picketing the abortion clinics and start picketing showings of the next halfwit movie from the producers of "The Fast and the Furious." Throw eggs at those #$%! gangsta rappers, while we're at it. And somebody shoot James Patterson before he writes another book about Alex Cross and his detailed investigations and gets another lurid movie made out of it.
Sorry, got a little worked up. Anyway, if popular culture is a big part of the problem, why do people oppose fixing the culture and encourage kids to just try and ignore the things getting pumped into their brains 24/7? How is that any less dumb or naive then promoting abstinence only?
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debeest
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quote:
Originally posted by DanS
Re Michael Moore, polls would indicate that he has a very small constituency. |
The poll consisting of who chooses to buy his $25 book suggests that he has a pretty substantial constituency. Wasn't his last book the #1 bestseller of the year? Close, if not #1.
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debeest
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
If you want to get away from funding PP clones, you are going to have to apply the word abstinence. PP will bill itself as promoting, 'safe' sex, but they don't really have an interest in lowering the abortion rate. |
My friends who work at Planned Parenthood, and my wife who is training to perform abortions for them, would vehemently disagree. They would love to reduce the number of abortions they perform, believe it or not. Abortions represent a failure of their primary goals.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:33
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shawnmcc:
quote:
against passing "morality" laws, including ones affecting consenting sex, substance use (vs. abuse), etc. ? I err on the side of freedom, so I will continue to be pro-choice.
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Sorry. I would rather not be free, if it means we must continue to sacrifice our children in order to have this transient freedom. If it is a morality law to protect unborn children, then I fully support such a restriction.
This restriction has nothing to do with the other issues you throw into the mix, with substance abuse and consented sex. The issue of abortion should not be conflated with these sideshows designed to camouflage the issue.
quote:
They often come from homes with no books, only a TV... only role models come from mass media, advertising, and peers in the same situation...parents have minimal time working multiple low-wage jobs...or who don't give a crap about them, and the kids know it.
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And how many of these problems will be solved by abortion? Will abortion make these parents better, will it feed these children and take care of them?
quote:
If the anti-abortion groups worked as hard in programs like this, ...I'll bet they could have cut the teenage abortion rate/unwanted pregnancies in half.
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Yes, but we would still be killing babies, and what is worse, we have done nothing to change the situation, other than to apply a band-aid to the problem. We do not need abortion, we need to get rid of abortion, before we can really deal with these other social problems.
quote:
But instead of the instant gratification of the protest,
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30 years does not seem instant gratification to me. It has been a long slog.
quote:
By the way, you didn't mention your youth involvement/credentials Ben? Don't tell me about involvement with kids in the local Church, I'm talking working with the at-risk kids.
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Irrelevant to the issue. I could boast of my accomplishments, but right now, they mean squat to what has actually been accomplished in either Canada or the US.
I agree, there are prolife organisations, in the form of crisis pregnancy centres designed to help women with their pregnancies, yet so many people will not go to them? Why? So long as women see abortion as the easy way out, they are not going to take the help available to help them through their pregnancy.
quote:
In fact, she states it will be neither cheap nor easy. Go do some volunteer work with the adolescents, for multiple hours a week, and then run your mouth about "...cheap and easy."
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Shawn, please re-read my post. I do not mean to say that what you do is cheap and easy. What I do say is that many young women see abortion as the cheap and easy way out.
Last edited by Ben Kenobi on 20-01-2004 at 05:43
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debeest
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
What's so special about birth? |
What's so special about conception? Why not pick some point when the fetus might be viable outside the womb? How about "quickening" -- I think lots of people historically have considered that the beginning of life.
Heck, if it's our responsibility to give life to as many people as possible, why not require everyone to procreate as much as possible? Oh, wait, that's pretty much what the Catholic stance on contraception does.
Heck, why not require polygamy, so as to make sure that no one is left out of the procreating frenzy? Oh, wait, the Mormons allow that.
We can either draw a line nowhere, which almost noone would agree with, or we can draw a line arbitrarily somewhere. My arbitrary line might not be drawn in the same place as your arbitrary line. I have my own beliefs about abortion, but it ticks me off when anyone acts as if there's some sort of empirical, objective way to decide when a person begins to exist.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:33
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quote:
What's so special about conception? Why not pick some point when the fetus might be viable outside the womb? How about "quickening" -- I think lots of people historically have considered that the beginning of life.
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We have advanced beyond the medieval period where the only tools we had to detect pregnancy could only find quickening. Even then, they did not consider quickening to be the beginning of life, but merely, when they could confirm that human life has begun. This leaves the door open for technological improvements, to give people much better information about reproduction, and fetal development.
This is what is so special about conception, because this is the earliest point, where we can detect a new human life forming, with a genetic code distinct from the parents.
quote:
Heck, if it's our responsibility to give life to as many people as possible, why not require everyone to procreate as much as possible? Oh, wait, that's pretty much what the Catholic stance on contraception does.
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Contraception and abortion are seperate issues. We do not have a responsibility to give life to as many people as possible, but to protect human life where it has already arisen.
quote:
when anyone acts as if there's some sort of empirical, objective way to decide when a person begins to exist.
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Then refute the argument that personhood begins at conception. Flailing will not assist your case.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:33
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quote:
It has more intelligence and 'character' than a foetus.
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IMHO, the chimpanzee has more intelligence and character than most Australians.
Try again. 
quote:
It will have formed relationships with groups of people, be loved, can show affection, and demonstrate limited intelligence. Does it have more persona than an embryo?
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Why does being loved have anything to do with personhood? Just because someone does not love you, does not mean that they can kill you.
Same with relationships. Do you consider a hermit not to be a person?
Showing affection? Again, the hermit example.
Finally, limited intelligence is arbitrary, because you have not specifically defined limited intelligence.
But here's the key, even if the unborn child currently lacks these abilities, so does a person in a coma. Therefore, the important thing is not whether someone is currently able to perform these tasks, but whether they have the intrinsic capacity to do these things. Leave an unborn child alone, and they will soon be able to do all of these things. Everything the child needs to grow and develop, beyond food and shelter, comes at conception.
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19-01-2004 23:58
) do you know that have painted fingerails? Well here's a shocker... fingernail polish remover is primarily acetone 
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