ç i p h é r wrote:Just to point out, you're creating some false associations here (common European misconceptions perhaps):
1. Religion does not belong to the Republican Party. There are plenty of religious Democrats as well. Obama is one, for example.
2. Being pro-life doesn't mean you're religious. It simply means that you believe life begins at conception. It's about deciding when rights should be awarded to children, not about imposing religious views on others. You only need to be a father or mother to understand the pro-life position, I think.
1. From what I can tell, the in the US, you pretty much have to be publically christian to do anything political, especially running for president. That is a big problem in itself imo.
2. I have no idea how being a mother or father has anything to do with this. This is about giving other people the freedom to make choices about their own bodies. Why should you be allowed to impose your view that a tiny bloody lump of bio-matter is a child onto people who definitely are not ready to care for a kid once it actually evolves into one ?
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." -- Richard Dawkins
Rusty wrote:Problem is, this isn't really a rationally defensible position. Stating the life begins at conception requires a definition of "life" that is extraordinarily peculiar, and that creates a whole host of inevitably unresolvable difficulties. Of course, there's not necessarily a link between being anti-choice and overly religious, but as the 'life and conception' position is rationally insecure, it relies upon the faith of religion to justify it.
I would think that, given that the definition of life is regularly extended to include beings that once fit the criteria for life and beings that will eventually fir the criteria for life (most notably because the capacity for reproduction is one of those criteria, and sterility/childhood aren't typically pointed to with the accusation of "they're not alive!" -- sometimes called "not useful" or not "socially fit," but not often "not alive") we wouldn't have much of a debate on whether or not an unborn child is life.
I think the better question is whether or not it's life to be valued; few people cry when we spray herbicide on a dandelion, and few (albeit a larger group than before) cry when we slaughter cows for their delicious sides of meat. If we bring it to questions of "valuable life" v. "disposable life" and how we define those two categories, I don't think that faith/religion necessarily has to come into play. It can, sure. "God says they're valuable and that we can eat cows, and I believe him!" seems a common enough defense. Just not the only defense. (declaring there to be value in the potential an unborn child represents, specifically, is decidedly non-religious.)
What about:
1) The rape victim, who could never possibly look at that child without remembering the horrors that were done to her?
2) The homeless woman, who could not bear to give up a child she bore but it would be forced to live in squalor and disease, and probably die a painful death at a young age?
3) The woman with a heart condition who may die by the act of carrying a child?
4) The extremely large amount of young girls and boys who engage in sex as early as Jr. High. They would have to give up the rest of their lives to care for a child, further plumetting our already meager education levels and raising the poverty rates to all new heights.
And lets face it, getting rid of abortion is NOT going to be a detterant to teenage sex. I know i didnt even consider the possibility of a child when i started having sex at 14.
Ive gone through two abortions with partners in the past.
The first one, was with an 18 year old girl who was mentally unfit to be a mother, having extreme depression and regular attempts at suicide (and not the craving attention kind either, i had to figure it out from blood, cuts, and other signs.) I wanted her to keep it, but eventually we decided that she was not emotionally capable of taking care of a child, as she could barely take care of herself.
The second one, was with a 19 year old girl, who I again tried to talk into keeping it, but she decided to abort it because her conservative republican wealthy family would be ashamed of her, and she would never be able to have their respect. She ended up aborting the child without talking to me, after an Ultrasound that showed the child was 2 weeks older than we had been dating. Later on she found out that ultrasounds can be 2-3 weeks off, and says she would have kept it if it had for sure been mine.
The first one, while I still question it's morality, I see as the best decision for all parties involved including the child. The mother would likely have finally gone through with a suicide if she had been given that kind of responsibility. (She needs to see proffessional help, ive been trying to get her in therapy for years)
The second one, I am appalled by, I see it as a byproduct of the christian right and the pressure conservatives put on children. "Be exactly like this or you go to hell and we write you out of the will." The conservatives in this capacity are probably the largest factor contributing to teen debauchery.
"What else can be concluded that you first make thieves, and then punish them."
ç i p h é r wrote:
2. You only need to be a father or mother to understand the pro-life position, I think.
I think everyone can understand the position - being a parent doesn't add any new flashes of insight, and it certainly doesn't make you automatically anti-choice.
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Ultimately I am pro-choice. However, for the rape victim and homeless person, adoption is always an option. And for the teenagers, perhaps learning that their actions have consequences might not be such a bad thing.
AmarSldstill wrote:Ive gone through two abortions with partners in the past. [...]
What I got out of this is that you appear to be having a wee bit of unprotected sex there, including with a girl within weeks of her having unprotected sex with other guys, so obviously not a long term relationship there.
OMG! Heard of AIDS? Jesus. Talk about actions and consequences.
Current PCs:
NWN1: Soppi Widenbottle, High Priestess of Yondalla.
NWN2: Gruuhilda, Tree Hugging Half-Orc
I think everyone can understand the position - being a parent doesn't add any new flashes of insight,
I'm not a parent(thank god), but just so I can get where you are coming from in this statement, are you speaking as a parent?
Pro-Choice here for the most part, even though I think abortion should be a last resort, but even when I was religious, the church said that abortion was permitted in the case of rape or where it endangered the life of the mother, and I believe most mainstream churches allow the same.
The extremely large amount of young girls and boys who engage in sex as early as Jr. High. They would have to give up the rest of their lives to care for a child, further plumetting our already meager education levels and raising the poverty rates to all new heights.
Put on a condom or put up for adoption
) The homeless woman, who could not bear to give up a child she bore but it would be forced to live in squalor and disease, and probably die a painful death at a young age?
I don't think any sane woman would choose squalor and disease over even the somewhat troubled life in foster care or adoption can sometime cause. And also child services prolly wouldn't let her keep the kid for long.
NickD wrote:Ultimately I am pro-choice. However, for the rape victim and homeless person, adoption is always an option. And for the teenagers, perhaps learning that their actions have consequences might not be such a bad thing.
AmarSldstill wrote:Ive gone through two abortions with partners in the past. [...]
What I got out of this is that you appear to be having a wee bit of unprotected sex there, including with a girl within weeks of her having unprotected sex with other guys, so obviously not a long term relationship there.
OMG! Heard of AIDS? Jesus. Talk about actions and consequences.
Actually with the first one it was protected sex. Condoms and birth control aren't 100% effective.
Second one was my own damn fault, and I was comfortable with her cleanliness. She had been tested before her previous lover, and he was a virgin. So excepting the freak born-with-disease scenario, that wasnt an issue.
NickD wrote:And for the teenagers, perhaps learning that their actions have consequences might not be such a bad thing.
The "consequences" here are that they typically fail to get an education, stay poor or fall into poverty, and the kid is raised by parents who themselves are children, who want to drink and party all the time, and who for the most part do a lousy job raising their kids, who then grow up far more likely to be criminals, drug abusers, and pregnant teens themselves. As a matter of sociology.
In other words, it punishes the offspring, and society, not just the teens engaging in very predictable behavior. The better lesson would be to learn to use birth control before becoming sexually active, and thus avoid all those consequences.
Why must pro-life and pro-choice be mutually exclusive?
My religious views are not right-leaning or conservative. I am struggling to understand and live a Taoist philosophy and spiritually I feel that there is, perhaps something out there... or maybe not... but if there is, it is unknowable, unfathomable, and it certainly isn't going to damn me to some kind of hell because I didn't accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior who died on the cross to cover my sins.
However, I believe that life begins at conception. I don't know nothing about souls or what have you, but very technically speaking, that little clump of cells is living. And I think that any life created should have a chance to see what the world had in store for it. (Maybe the world had an abortion in store for it, though, who can say?).
But it certainly isn't my place to tell any person what they can or cannot do if they are in a situation that I can not possibly empathize with. While I would counsel seeing a child to term, if the decision was made to abort, I will hold your hand and tell you to keep your chin up as we walk into the clinic.
And hope that the Extreme Pro-Lifers don't kill me with their pipe bomb while I'm in there with you.
