Man, the reality is y'all really need to find and get to know Jesus. That is the bottom line.
You talking about Jesus Diaz? He's not at this agency... He was at the St. Chris RTC.
Yeah... that poor kid is a fucking mess... it's horrible to watch him at 16 years old... in a wheelchair with an IQ of about 50... and a feeding tube.... so so so sad.... And he realizes that while some kids have families that come visit them... he's one who has no one. I hated to hear him crying every morning... part of why i left working at the RTC and switched over to group homes. Just too sad.
EXCELLENT point!! Anyone can go around thinking about how babies are cute and everyone should want to have every one that is ever conceived and how they're so righteous for fighting "on behalf of the unborn," but no one wants to acknowledge that these fetuses will grow into human beings who are more than just their toy dolls or their pet cause that can send them to bed at night feeling secure in their spot in Heaven. Some babies, if born, have horrible, sad existences. Ones that other compassionate people wish they could have saved them from.
Makes me think of the 3-year-old boy here in my town who was recently smothered to death by his mother - who just couldn't deal - and buried in the sand under the swingset at the public park where she killed him.
So I keep on reading this thread and only see the female perspective. So let a man give this a shot.(this is her fiance') First the problem does not lie in cost or any burden to do solely with money. The fact is that we got a lot of so called "Men" who are actually little boys who are not stepping up to take care of their responsibilties. We argue numbers all day, and keep finding new ones to add to debate. Common sense tells me that IF YOU CANT AFFORD A BABY OR DONT WANT A BABY. Then A. keep your pants on. B. Dont let every smooth talking jerk that comes your way get in bed with you, and do it the right way. WAIT UNTILL YOUR MARRIED!!!!! PROBLEM SOLVED!!!! So todays lesson is I will not allow myself to get pregnant unless I know I am going to be able to support my baby. Regardless of how its done. You know it takes two male/female to get pregnant. Why do we assume that the problem can only be fixed untill the pregnancy takes place? When it can be avoided completly.
I am a conservative and I can understand this. Liberal minded persons alike should also be able to use common sense and understand that we can avoid the issue completly by just not getting pregnant.
Ya know, here's another thing: I agree with the fact that abortions can be reduced by recuding the unintended pregnancy rate. (Although I find it odd that so many people who claim to want to reduce the unintended preganncy rate stand in the way of efforts to reduce it, but that's not my point right now.) My point is that, while this is all well and good, it is still a very simplistic view of the situation. Unintended and/or unwanted pregnancies will always exist to some extent. And telling a woman who's ALREADY pregnant that she should've kept her legs shut, she should've waited until she was married (I still don't see how this solves the problem), she shouldn't have gotten pregnant, or "Haha! Told you so!" is not productive or helpful in any way.
I'm really disguested with this thread and the comments I keep reading.
Abortion is NOT TAKING RESPONSIBILITY!! <--- This is grotesque and monsterous!! Abortion is giving up and giving in to what our society says. News flash: babies are not trash to be discarded because of whatever the circumstances are.
Man, the reality is y'all really need to find and get to know Jesus. That is the bottom line.
Blessings, Kristina
Just out of curiosity, are there any prolife people who aren't religious? (maybe even on this board?)
While I'm more on the "not a fan of killing fetus/babies/whatever-name-fits-your-agenda" side of things, it does frustrate me that it seems that 99% of prolife people are "jesus" people.
1) I haven't been to church except for weddings in a long while...I'm anti-abortion.
2) Dismissing people as "jesus" people is pretty pathetic. Now the small % of crazy pro-lifers...you can call them whatever you want.
and you bet, babies aren't trash....thus why many of us believe in supporting choice, so that babies don't become trash.
Exactly. It's just another way of respecting life.
A very different way of respecting life.
It is prioritizing life that is born and has developed awareness (or, an actual person, as some might argue) over life that is not born and has (in most cases) not developed awareness.
Seems to me like a lot of people have more respect for a life that's not born than one that is, which, if you ask me, is fucked up.
It is prioritizing life that is born and has developed awareness (or, an actual person, as some might argue) over life that is not born and has (in most cases) not developed awareness.
Seems to me like a lot of people have more respect for a life that's not born than one that is, which, if you ask me, is fucked up.
Not "fucked up". In your "priotization" you are willing to kill the unborn. In mine, I'm not willing to say that's ok. Neither is "fucked up" depending on the reasons for believing that.
depends which circles you mix with eh? if i am amongst a group of like-minded individuals, not very different.....tho mixed with another group, may be. given that abortion is legal in this country, i am actually going to think it really isn't so "different." again, it all depends on which angle you look thru the prism as to what you see.
depends which circles you mix with eh? if i am amongst a group of like-minded individuals, not very different.....tho mixed with another group, may be. given that abortion is legal in this country, i am actually going to think it really isn't so "different." again, it all depends on which angle you look thru the prism as to what you see.
It is prioritizing life that is born and has developed awareness (or, an actual person, as some might argue) over life that is not born and has (in most cases) not developed awareness.
Seems to me like a lot of people have more respect for a life that's not born than one that is, which, if you ask me, is fucked up.
Not "fucked up". In your "priotization" you are willing to kill the unborn. In mine, I'm not willing to say that's ok. Neither is "fucked up" depending on the reasons for believing that.
I wasn't talking about you particularly. And please remember the context. D2D said we don't want babies to become trash, and I was agreeing. You can accuse me of being willing to kill the unborn all you want, but then I can say you would prefer that the same baby just wait until it's born to be killed. That was my whole point - and it is fucked up. Some people just never want to acknowledge the context/relativity/alternative/reality of some situations.
I wasn't talking about you particularly. And please remember the context. D2D said we don't want babies to become trash, and I was agreeing. You can accuse me of being willing to kill the unborn all you want, but then I can say you would prefer that the same baby just wait until it's born to be killed. That was my whole point - and it is fucked up. Some people just never want to acknowledge the context/relativity/alternative/reality of some situations.
I htink what I said came out wrong, I was typing and erased and re-typed several times, I wasn't trying to be harsh saying you want to kill the unborn. I was just saying that both perspectives are valid, dependending on the argument behind them. I can except someone that is pro-choice because they believe that human life begins at a later point.
But for clarification, you certainly can not say that I want the baby to be killed after it's born. That's no where in my argument at all.
I'm really disguested with this thread and the comments I keep reading.
Abortion is NOT TAKING RESPONSIBILITY!! <--- This is grotesque and monsterous!! Abortion is giving up and giving in to what our society says. News flash: babies are not trash to be discarded because of whatever the circumstances are.
Man, the reality is y'all really need to find and get to know Jesus. That is the bottom line.
Blessings, Kristina
Just out of curiosity, are there any prolife people who aren't religious? (maybe even on this board?)
While I'm more on the "not a fan of killing fetus/babies/whatever-name-fits-your-agenda" side of things, it does frustrate me that it seems that 99% of prolife people are "jesus" people.
1) I haven't been to church except for weddings in a long while...I'm anti-abortion.
2) Dismissing people as "jesus" people is pretty pathetic. Now the small % of crazy pro-lifers...you can call them whatever you want.
I'm not dismissing their p.o.v. But I do find it strange that you usually don't see people saying you "need to find and get to know Muhammad" in an abortion topic. Nor that you "need to find and get to know Budda" on an abortion topic. The prolife side also seems synonymous with devout Christians. Maybe that's just my perception.
ADD 5,200 to the post count you see, thank you.
*NYC 9/28/96 *NYC 9/29/96 *NJ 9/8/98 (front row "may i play drums with you")
*MSG 9/10/98 (backstage) *MSG 9/11/98 (backstage)
*Jones Beach 8/23/00 *Jones Beach 8/24/00 *Jones Beach 8/25/00
*Mansfield 8/29/00 *Mansfield 8/30/00 *Nassau 4/30/03 *Nissan VA 7/1/03
*Borgata 10/1/05 *Camden 5/27/06 *Camden 5/28/06 *DC 5/30/06
*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
I wasn't talking about you particularly. And please remember the context. D2D said we don't want babies to become trash, and I was agreeing. You can accuse me of being willing to kill the unborn all you want, but then I can say you would prefer that the same baby just wait until it's born to be killed. That was my whole point - and it is fucked up. Some people just never want to acknowledge the context/relativity/alternative/reality of some situations.
I htink what I said came out wrong, I was typing and erased and re-typed several times, I wasn't trying to be harsh saying you want to kill the unborn. I was just saying that both perspectives are valid, dependending on the argument behind them. I can except someone that is pro-choice because they believe that human life begins at a later point.
But for clarification, you certainly can not say that I want the baby to be killed after it's born. That's no where in my argument at all.
Well the conversation seemed to me to be about babies who are treated badly and/or killed because they were born to mothers who didn't want or couldn't handle them, and dream was suggesting (she can correct me if I'm wrong) that it would be best for those babies to be aborted before they're born than thrown in the trash after they're born. That's the context in which I made my statement... that those who say they should be born at all cost aren't considering the cost to the child itself after it's born (or something like that).
On a related note (context)..... I just read that 220,000 children wordwide lose their mothers every year because of deaths due to unsafe/illegal abortions.
*The complete text of this selection is available in our print edition.*
IT BEGAN with a hiccup as one cell tried to transfer its data to another. It began long before I, your mother, was born. A gene mutation, carried invisibly by women and passed to sons, snakes through our family tree. It is a fragment of history we can trace, a tiny bundle of stories floating in our blood.
In males the primary symptoms of this genetic condition — hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, or HED — are sparse hair, peg- or cone-shaped teeth, and the inability to sweat. At every moment, a normal human body engages in a struggle against death from overheating, releasing at least a quart of perspiration a day and up to several gallons in extreme conditions. But a body without sweat glands flies on faith.
The secondary traits of HED include certain distinctive facial features, such as dark circles around the eyes and a saddle-nose deformity: a deep depression in the bridge of the nose. Sufferers have trouble breathing, so they have trouble sleeping, and in turn they have trouble staying awake. Because of their hollow-eyed appearance and sallow skin, they look ill even when they feel fine. On the other hand, they often are ill. An immunodeficiency associated with the disorder may lead to a lifetime of respiratory infections. The older a man with this disorder gets, the less his body may respond to medication, and the worse he may feel. Despite the fact that HED is said not to limit life expectancy, I have learned that the pain a sufferer feels may make him wish to die.
AS I TELL you this, you are nothing but a phantom, a presence, a spirit. Though you have not yet taken up a place in my womb, one day you could. We might find ourselves thus: you, a fetus with a genetic defect; your father and I, parents with an impossible decision to make — whether to bring you into the world. Right now we don’t know if you will ever be conceived and, should you be, at what stage we might choose to end your possible life. Already you have taught us some of the most important lessons we will ever learn. If you were born, you would teach us still more. But should we have a child to improve our character? To steady our moral compass?
Baby boys with HED look like little old men, with chubby jowls and gummy grins. “My little dandelion boy,” my mother cooed to my infant brother, brushing her fingertips over his wisps of white-blond hair. When I was ten years old and people were startled by my brother’s looks, I’d tell them, “I would love to have a baby like him someday.” My mother explained to me that I possibly could. Since then tests have confirmed it: Half of my eggs carry the gene mutation. One in four of my pregnancies will produce a healthy girl. One in four will produce a healthy boy. One in four will produce a healthy girl who is a carrier, like me. And one in four will produce a boy with HED.
My baby brother was wonderful indeed. Still is. Smart, funny, tall, smooth skinned, and strong, he does wild impressions at holiday meals, swoops the cat up from his great height and snuggles her, not caring if everyone in the world sees him. My brother is loving, creative, complex, and pained.
I have heard other women whose siblings have HED say, as I once did, “I would be proud to have a son like my brother.” But now I want to ask them, Is this really about you? Is this really about how much you would love the boy? Have you tried to imagine the pain he might suffer? Sometimes people don’t believe me when I insist that I am not afraid to raise a boy with HED. “This is not about my life,” I tell them. “It’s about his.” But when I am honest with myself, I find that there is no clear line between the two. My child’s good fortune will nourish me. My child’s pain will break my heart.
How can I imagine your life, its possible suffering and its possible joy, and then make a decision about whether that life is worth living? How can I even guess?
I ONCE STOOD at my grandfather Earl’s grave. He died when I was a baby and is buried beside his mother in Kimball, Nebraska, where sprinklers leap over the cemetery’s green grass in summer. Beyond the lawn are the rocky, dry wheat fields where he grew up. He was lucky to have survived his childhood. At forty-nine he died poor and alone, his organs exhausted by infection and decades of drug abuse — chemicals he’d wielded against his pain, like a fly swatter waved at a dragon. He was in the midst of mapping out a plan to save the world. He still believed his lost wife would return to him, his estranged children would be awed by his inventions, and the medical community would greet him with prizes and fame.
Because I never knew your great-grandfather, his life is just a story to me. But I trust his stark tale and the warning it gives. I allow him to represent my worst fears. I tell myself that he would be happy to know that I do this.
WHAT MAKES a life go wrong? Not just our genes, certainly, but also the ways people react to our genes. It is not a big nose or crooked teeth or an acne-prone forehead that makes a child shy and full of self-loathing and determined to prove himself. People give those genetic traits meaning by judging them good or bad, beautiful or ugly, strong or weak. I know my future children will be judged regardless of their health. Still, I feel compelled to shield them from any harm I can.
I would consider preventing your birth in part because of the reactions others will have when they see you. In the future that I fear, these reactions will become a kind of reality for you. If someone tells you that you are sick, you will feel sick. If they tell you that you are weak, you will feel weak. If they tell you that you are ugly, you will search desperately for ways to look handsome.
I will tell you that I love you, and you will know that I mean it. I will never tell you that I feel guilty, but you will know that, too, by the way I dote and worry too much about what you eat and how much sleep you get and what the children say to you at the bus stop. (Have they called you “cancer boy”? Have they said that you look dead?) I will come early to pick you up from school and stand in the gym doorway and watch the other boys: Do they pass the ball to you? And I will listen to the tone of the girls’ voices as they chatter around the drinking fountain where you go to wet your T-shirt and cool off. In summer I will supply you with spray bottles and fans. In winter I will buy you balms for your dry lips and make you button your coat. You will feel crushed by my protection.
One day I will tell you, as if I happened to think of it just then, that you could use my makeup on the shadows beneath your eyes if you want. That you could use my pencils to draw in eyebrows if you feel like it. I will get angry when you don’t put Bag Balm and Eucerin, those thick healing creams, on the patches of eczema on your skin. I will be angry if you scratch until you bleed at night. I might yell when you don’t use saline in your nose, even though it makes you sneeze and cough. I will believe that you are making the others not like you. You will tell me that other children, children without HED, have sinus and skin problems too. You will say that children don’t often judge you. You will try to convince me of this, but I will not hear it, because I will be too immersed in my project of undoing damage.
This is how a life goes wrong.
I NEVER understood my great-grandmother Josephine’s guilt about Earl, her eighth child, her baby boy, the one she kept pulling sadly under her wing. What choice did she have? She couldn’t have known that Earl would be born with a birth defect. There she was with her husband on the dry farm, their boys growing up and leaving. Only daughters remained. Getting older, Josephine and her husband needed sons, and this too-hot boy was all she could manage in the end. No one blamed her — except, perhaps, her husband, whose back was breaking. But little Earl must have known, before he knew many things, that his mother felt guilty about something.
Earl grew up to be a chemist and a medical professional, and he knew, by the time it mattered, that he had a genetic disorder that his children could inherit. Still, he didn’t know that he could pass the mutation only to his daughters, who would almost certainly be carriers with no symptoms. Earl must have felt so lucky when his baby-doll girl arrived, followed by his two sweaty, yelping boys. He must have felt anointed. But his pain and addiction pulled his focus from his children. And his wife was too practical for tenderness. Along with the mutant gene, my mother inherited something else from her father: a sense of injustice about her unhappy childhood.
By the time my mother married, she knew there was a risk that any boys she gave birth to would have HED. She might have adopted, but the thought never crossed her mind. Having babies would be my mother’s deliverance. To recover from her suffocating childhood, she would make a family of her own. She would flood her offspring with attention, as if to prove it could be done.
My mother’s guilt over Luke, like Josephine’s over Earl, has always seemed unwarranted to me. Both women needed children in order to survive. Neither had a choice: no test had been devised. It wasn’t until years after Luke’s birth that scientists discovered the location on the human genome of the HED mutation. Thrilled, my mother called me in my college dorm room to tell me there was now a test for the disorder: Women could know whether they had gotten the gene from their mothers. Mothers-to-be could discover whether their male fetuses, and even embryos, carried the defect for HED.
What would my mother have done if she’d had such a choice? During her courtship with my father, she’d followed him into Catholicism, and its clear-cut rules suited her. She might have listened to Church doctrine and said no to abortion. Or, confronted with the possibility of giving birth to a boy who would be like her father, she might have gone straight to a clinic. She wonders now. It is a question she cannot answer. She is, of course, happy that Luke is in the world. That is another thing entirely. The question is not about what is. It is about what might have been.
Women hear all the time that they must break their family’s destructive cycles. I look back at the cycle of guilt in the carrier-mothers before me and wonder: Could I be different?
“I wouldn’t want to pass this on,” my grandfather Earl told the best man at his wedding. He was hesitant to make babies with his new wife, not aware that a daughter — my mother — was already growing in his bride’s womb. “It gives you pause,” he said, stepping toward the altar.
Fifty years later I hesitated to ask my brother to participate in a blood test, to let scientists examine his genes alongside mine. “I don’t want you to think there’s something wrong with you,” I told him.
He shook his head and held up his hand. “I wouldn’t want your kids to have it.”
Because of the test, I am the first woman in my family to have this choice. If I have you, a son with this disorder, it could mean only that I wished it. And I do not.
I'm not dismissing their p.o.v. But I do find it strange that you usually don't see people saying you "need to find and get to know Muhammad" in an abortion topic. Nor that you "need to find and get to know Budda" on an abortion topic. The prolife side also seems synonymous with devout Christians. Maybe that's just my perception.
not being a devout christian i can only guess as to the reasons, but i do believe we 1. are still predominantly a christian country 2. devout christians seem to be the most vocal against abortion, thus you hear their voices most 3. when discussing abortions, first focused on facts/science...then realize it comes down to personal perspective....so then end with 'you need to find jesus'......
I wasn't talking about you particularly. And please remember the context. D2D said we don't want babies to become trash, and I was agreeing. You can accuse me of being willing to kill the unborn all you want, but then I can say you would prefer that the same baby just wait until it's born to be killed. That was my whole point - and it is fucked up. Some people just never want to acknowledge the context/relativity/alternative/reality of some situations.
I htink what I said came out wrong, I was typing and erased and re-typed several times, I wasn't trying to be harsh saying you want to kill the unborn. I was just saying that both perspectives are valid, dependending on the argument behind them. I can except someone that is pro-choice because they believe that human life begins at a later point.
But for clarification, you certainly can not say that I want the baby to be killed after it's born. That's no where in my argument at all.
Well the conversation seemed to me to be about babies who are treated badly and/or killed because they were born to mothers who didn't want or couldn't handle them, and dream was suggesting (she can correct me if I'm wrong) that it would be best for those babies to be aborted before they're born than thrown in the trash after they're born. That's the context in which I made my statement... that those who say they should be born at all cost aren't considering the cost to the child itself after it's born (or something like that).
actually, to be clear...i was addressing a post that specifically said 'babies are not trash'.....and so i was working within that context, of BABIES, and agreeing, they are not. basically, pointing to the fact that a blastocyst/embryo/fetus is NOT a 'baby'....and i get tired of people referring as such. of course, it makes for a more sensational/emotional arguement, but the fact remains...not a baby. then, sure....going with the idea that i do NOt want to see a woman go thru a pregnancy she does not want, give birth to a baby, and then see said baby abused, tossed away as trash, etc.
what i think is *best* is for women to make the choice that is best for them, whatever that may be.
On a related note (context)..... I just read that 220,000 children wordwide lose their mothers every year because of deaths due to unsafe/illegal abortions.
[....and i get tired of people referring as such. of course, it makes for a more sensational/emotional arguement, but the fact remains...not a baby. then, sure.
And I get tired of people referring to what will most undoubtably be born a baby as something else to make them feel better abotu their choice. It's not growing to become an apple.
On a related note (context)..... I just read that 220,000 children wordwide lose their mothers every year because of deaths due to unsafe/illegal abortions.
That is terrible...as is this...
"Number of abortions per year: Approximately 42 Million"
Does anyone have a better number from a potentially better source? Most of the ones I found were anti-abortion websites and I know some sensationilze the subject matter...I'd just like the facts.
One thing I can't understand is that if physician assisted abortion is allowed, why isn't physician assisted suicide?
Well, I don't think they are the same...but, strangely enough, I am ok with physician assisted suicide.
I think that if abortion is to help a mother from suffering (either physically or financially), then why isn't physician assisted suicide allowed for terminal people, or for people in perpetual severe pain? It only leads someone to risky suicide attempts that may leave them worse off.
Seems like P.A.S. should be even less controversial. It doesn't involve a third party (for those who choose to believe that a baby/fetus/whatever-name-fits-your-agenda is a third party).
ADD 5,200 to the post count you see, thank you.
*NYC 9/28/96 *NYC 9/29/96 *NJ 9/8/98 (front row "may i play drums with you")
*MSG 9/10/98 (backstage) *MSG 9/11/98 (backstage)
*Jones Beach 8/23/00 *Jones Beach 8/24/00 *Jones Beach 8/25/00
*Mansfield 8/29/00 *Mansfield 8/30/00 *Nassau 4/30/03 *Nissan VA 7/1/03
*Borgata 10/1/05 *Camden 5/27/06 *Camden 5/28/06 *DC 5/30/06
*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
On a related note (context)..... I just read that 220,000 children wordwide lose their mothers every year because of deaths due to unsafe/illegal abortions.
That is terrible...as is this...
"Number of abortions per year: Approximately 42 Million"
Does anyone have a better number from a potentially better source? Most of the ones I found were anti-abortion websites and I know some sensationilze the subject matter...I'd just like the facts.
[....and i get tired of people referring as such. of course, it makes for a more sensational/emotional arguement, but the fact remains...not a baby. then, sure.
And I get tired of people referring to what will most undoubtably be born a baby as something else to make them feel better abotu their choice. It's not growing to become an apple.
point is, if it ceases, it never will be....and thus, it never was (a baby, to be clear). a blastocyst is a blastocyst....an embryo is forever an embryo, a fetus forever a fetus, if it doesn't get born and becomes a living, breathing, thinking and feeling baby. it's NOT a baby, so no one is killing a baby. i don't need anything to 'make me feel better' about what i believe and support.
One thing I can't understand is that if physician assisted abortion is allowed, why isn't physician assisted suicide?
Well, I don't think they are the same...but, strangely enough, I am ok with physician assisted suicide.
I think that if abortion is to help a mother from suffering (either physically or financially), then why isn't physician assisted suicide allowed for terminal people, or for people in perpetual severe pain? It only leads someone to risky suicide attempts that may leave them worse off.
Seems like P.A.S. should be even less controversial. It doesn't involve a third party (for those who choose to believe that a baby/fetus/whatever-name-fits-your-agenda is a third party).
agreed!
and hell, quite honestly, i think assisted suicide should be legal, period. perhaps not for *everyone*...but when i - hopefully - grow good and old, and if i may simply wish to cease to live, i think i should be able to do so, successfully...thus, get some help to do so if i desire. again, my life, my choice.
ever see the flick children of men?
the rationale behind it, quite different....but in it the government gave out suicide kits to all citizens. i believe in space missions astronuats were also given such things, 'just in case'.....or perhaps that is all bunk, idk. either way, i'd like one of those when i get good and old.
[....and i get tired of people referring as such. of course, it makes for a more sensational/emotional arguement, but the fact remains...not a baby. then, sure.
And I get tired of people referring to what will most undoubtably be born a baby as something else to make them feel better abotu their choice. It's not growing to become an apple.
point is, if it ceases, it never will be....and thus, it never was. a blastocyst is a blastocyst....an embryo is forever an embryo, a fetus forever a fetus, if it doesn't get born and becomes a living, breathing, thinking and feeling baby. it's NOT a baby, so no one is killing a baby. i don't need anything to 'make me feel better' about what i believe and support.
again, it all depends on your perspective.
Just to confirm (since I don't have a medical manual handy, and I can't find it easily on google), a "fetus" is not a "baby" even 1 hour before they are born, correct? And thus, inducing an abortion at that time does not abort a baby - so even at that late of a date, since the name is not a "baby", no harm no foul? Do I have it right?
ADD 5,200 to the post count you see, thank you.
*NYC 9/28/96 *NYC 9/29/96 *NJ 9/8/98 (front row "may i play drums with you")
*MSG 9/10/98 (backstage) *MSG 9/11/98 (backstage)
*Jones Beach 8/23/00 *Jones Beach 8/24/00 *Jones Beach 8/25/00
*Mansfield 8/29/00 *Mansfield 8/30/00 *Nassau 4/30/03 *Nissan VA 7/1/03
*Borgata 10/1/05 *Camden 5/27/06 *Camden 5/28/06 *DC 5/30/06
*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
And I get tired of people referring to what will most undoubtably be born a baby as something else to make them feel better abotu their choice. It's not growing to become an apple.
point is, if it ceases, it never will be....and thus, it never was. a blastocyst is a blastocyst....an embryo is forever an embryo, a fetus forever a fetus, if it doesn't get born and becomes a living, breathing, thinking and feeling baby. it's NOT a baby, so no one is killing a baby. i don't need anything to 'make me feel better' about what i believe and support.
again, it all depends on your perspective.
Just to confirm (since I don't have a medical manual handy, and I can't find it easily on google), a "fetus" is not a "baby" even 1 hour before they are born, correct? And thus, inducing an abortion at that time does not abort a baby - so even at that late of a date, since the name is not a "baby", no harm no foul? Do I have it right?
i knew someone would go there.
and yes, you are right...of course not. imo, once a fetus has sensory perception, there should be no right to abortion except in absolute extreme circumstances.....as in, medical necessity for the health of the mother. and even there, absolutely tragic, b/c we all know this fetus can feel pain, and what a difficult decision....but i still would put the life of the mother before the fetus.
i should know better, and be much more specific in my words.
'technically' though.... it would still be a fetus. but NO where did i state that one can kill a fetus at ANY time. i merely stated the fact that a fetus is a fetus and not a baby. obviously, right at birth....even an hoiur before...in the birthing process. if you want me to pinpoint that magical, exact moment that a fetus becomes a baby, i cannot. however, for all practical purposes....especially given that 89% of abortions occur before this time....i am mostly referring to fetuses at 12 weeks gestation or less. definitely NOT a baby.
On a related note (context)..... I just read that 220,000 children wordwide lose their mothers every year because of deaths due to unsafe/illegal abortions.
That is terrible...as is this...
"Number of abortions per year: Approximately 42 Million"
Does anyone have a better number from a potentially better source? Most of the ones I found were anti-abortion websites and I know some sensationilze the subject matter...I'd just like the facts.
Yes, that's accurate as of the most recent data (2003). It's down from 46 million in 1995.
Perhaps they're both terrible. I'm just trying to give some context. People can say abortion should be illegal because it's terrible to "kill unborn babies", but they need to also consider what happens to the born children when abortion is illegal. Is that what they want - orphaned children? They'll say that's not what they want & they're just trying to protect the unborn babies. But then those of us who are pro-choice should point out that we are trying to protect the born children. Therey's no one side that's evil or immoral. It sickens me when people think their "pro-life" stance has no consequence except to get them into Heaven.
Comments
EXCELLENT point!! Anyone can go around thinking about how babies are cute and everyone should want to have every one that is ever conceived and how they're so righteous for fighting "on behalf of the unborn," but no one wants to acknowledge that these fetuses will grow into human beings who are more than just their toy dolls or their pet cause that can send them to bed at night feeling secure in their spot in Heaven. Some babies, if born, have horrible, sad existences. Ones that other compassionate people wish they could have saved them from.
Makes me think of the 3-year-old boy here in my town who was recently smothered to death by his mother - who just couldn't deal - and buried in the sand under the swingset at the public park where she killed him.
Ya know, here's another thing: I agree with the fact that abortions can be reduced by recuding the unintended pregnancy rate. (Although I find it odd that so many people who claim to want to reduce the unintended preganncy rate stand in the way of efforts to reduce it, but that's not my point right now.) My point is that, while this is all well and good, it is still a very simplistic view of the situation. Unintended and/or unwanted pregnancies will always exist to some extent. And telling a woman who's ALREADY pregnant that she should've kept her legs shut, she should've waited until she was married (I still don't see how this solves the problem), she shouldn't have gotten pregnant, or "Haha! Told you so!" is not productive or helpful in any way.
Exactly. It's just another way of respecting life.
1) I haven't been to church except for weddings in a long while...I'm anti-abortion.
2) Dismissing people as "jesus" people is pretty pathetic. Now the small % of crazy pro-lifers...you can call them whatever you want.
A very different way of respecting life.
as ever, that is entirely dependent on your personal perspective...;)
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
It is prioritizing life that is born and has developed awareness (or, an actual person, as some might argue) over life that is not born and has (in most cases) not developed awareness.
Seems to me like a lot of people have more respect for a life that's not born than one that is, which, if you ask me, is fucked up.
A very different personal perspective.
Not "fucked up". In your "priotization" you are willing to kill the unborn. In mine, I'm not willing to say that's ok. Neither is "fucked up" depending on the reasons for believing that.
depends which circles you mix with eh? if i am amongst a group of like-minded individuals, not very different.....tho mixed with another group, may be. given that abortion is legal in this country, i am actually going to think it really isn't so "different." again, it all depends on which angle you look thru the prism as to what you see.
we could do this all day...;)
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
A very different day.
I wasn't talking about you particularly. And please remember the context. D2D said we don't want babies to become trash, and I was agreeing. You can accuse me of being willing to kill the unborn all you want, but then I can say you would prefer that the same baby just wait until it's born to be killed. That was my whole point - and it is fucked up. Some people just never want to acknowledge the context/relativity/alternative/reality of some situations.
I htink what I said came out wrong, I was typing and erased and re-typed several times, I wasn't trying to be harsh saying you want to kill the unborn. I was just saying that both perspectives are valid, dependending on the argument behind them. I can except someone that is pro-choice because they believe that human life begins at a later point.
But for clarification, you certainly can not say that I want the baby to be killed after it's born. That's no where in my argument at all.
I'm not dismissing their p.o.v. But I do find it strange that you usually don't see people saying you "need to find and get to know Muhammad" in an abortion topic. Nor that you "need to find and get to know Budda" on an abortion topic. The prolife side also seems synonymous with devout Christians. Maybe that's just my perception.
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*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
Well the conversation seemed to me to be about babies who are treated badly and/or killed because they were born to mothers who didn't want or couldn't handle them, and dream was suggesting (she can correct me if I'm wrong) that it would be best for those babies to be aborted before they're born than thrown in the trash after they're born. That's the context in which I made my statement... that those who say they should be born at all cost aren't considering the cost to the child itself after it's born (or something like that).
Stories For An Unborn Son
by Bonnie J. Rough
*The complete text of this selection is available in our print edition.*
IT BEGAN with a hiccup as one cell tried to transfer its data to another. It began long before I, your mother, was born. A gene mutation, carried invisibly by women and passed to sons, snakes through our family tree. It is a fragment of history we can trace, a tiny bundle of stories floating in our blood.
In males the primary symptoms of this genetic condition — hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, or HED — are sparse hair, peg- or cone-shaped teeth, and the inability to sweat. At every moment, a normal human body engages in a struggle against death from overheating, releasing at least a quart of perspiration a day and up to several gallons in extreme conditions. But a body without sweat glands flies on faith.
The secondary traits of HED include certain distinctive facial features, such as dark circles around the eyes and a saddle-nose deformity: a deep depression in the bridge of the nose. Sufferers have trouble breathing, so they have trouble sleeping, and in turn they have trouble staying awake. Because of their hollow-eyed appearance and sallow skin, they look ill even when they feel fine. On the other hand, they often are ill. An immunodeficiency associated with the disorder may lead to a lifetime of respiratory infections. The older a man with this disorder gets, the less his body may respond to medication, and the worse he may feel. Despite the fact that HED is said not to limit life expectancy, I have learned that the pain a sufferer feels may make him wish to die.
AS I TELL you this, you are nothing but a phantom, a presence, a spirit. Though you have not yet taken up a place in my womb, one day you could. We might find ourselves thus: you, a fetus with a genetic defect; your father and I, parents with an impossible decision to make — whether to bring you into the world. Right now we don’t know if you will ever be conceived and, should you be, at what stage we might choose to end your possible life. Already you have taught us some of the most important lessons we will ever learn. If you were born, you would teach us still more. But should we have a child to improve our character? To steady our moral compass?
Baby boys with HED look like little old men, with chubby jowls and gummy grins. “My little dandelion boy,” my mother cooed to my infant brother, brushing her fingertips over his wisps of white-blond hair. When I was ten years old and people were startled by my brother’s looks, I’d tell them, “I would love to have a baby like him someday.” My mother explained to me that I possibly could. Since then tests have confirmed it: Half of my eggs carry the gene mutation. One in four of my pregnancies will produce a healthy girl. One in four will produce a healthy boy. One in four will produce a healthy girl who is a carrier, like me. And one in four will produce a boy with HED.
My baby brother was wonderful indeed. Still is. Smart, funny, tall, smooth skinned, and strong, he does wild impressions at holiday meals, swoops the cat up from his great height and snuggles her, not caring if everyone in the world sees him. My brother is loving, creative, complex, and pained.
I have heard other women whose siblings have HED say, as I once did, “I would be proud to have a son like my brother.” But now I want to ask them, Is this really about you? Is this really about how much you would love the boy? Have you tried to imagine the pain he might suffer? Sometimes people don’t believe me when I insist that I am not afraid to raise a boy with HED. “This is not about my life,” I tell them. “It’s about his.” But when I am honest with myself, I find that there is no clear line between the two. My child’s good fortune will nourish me. My child’s pain will break my heart.
How can I imagine your life, its possible suffering and its possible joy, and then make a decision about whether that life is worth living? How can I even guess?
I ONCE STOOD at my grandfather Earl’s grave. He died when I was a baby and is buried beside his mother in Kimball, Nebraska, where sprinklers leap over the cemetery’s green grass in summer. Beyond the lawn are the rocky, dry wheat fields where he grew up. He was lucky to have survived his childhood. At forty-nine he died poor and alone, his organs exhausted by infection and decades of drug abuse — chemicals he’d wielded against his pain, like a fly swatter waved at a dragon. He was in the midst of mapping out a plan to save the world. He still believed his lost wife would return to him, his estranged children would be awed by his inventions, and the medical community would greet him with prizes and fame.
Because I never knew your great-grandfather, his life is just a story to me. But I trust his stark tale and the warning it gives. I allow him to represent my worst fears. I tell myself that he would be happy to know that I do this.
WHAT MAKES a life go wrong? Not just our genes, certainly, but also the ways people react to our genes. It is not a big nose or crooked teeth or an acne-prone forehead that makes a child shy and full of self-loathing and determined to prove himself. People give those genetic traits meaning by judging them good or bad, beautiful or ugly, strong or weak. I know my future children will be judged regardless of their health. Still, I feel compelled to shield them from any harm I can.
I would consider preventing your birth in part because of the reactions others will have when they see you. In the future that I fear, these reactions will become a kind of reality for you. If someone tells you that you are sick, you will feel sick. If they tell you that you are weak, you will feel weak. If they tell you that you are ugly, you will search desperately for ways to look handsome.
I will tell you that I love you, and you will know that I mean it. I will never tell you that I feel guilty, but you will know that, too, by the way I dote and worry too much about what you eat and how much sleep you get and what the children say to you at the bus stop. (Have they called you “cancer boy”? Have they said that you look dead?) I will come early to pick you up from school and stand in the gym doorway and watch the other boys: Do they pass the ball to you? And I will listen to the tone of the girls’ voices as they chatter around the drinking fountain where you go to wet your T-shirt and cool off. In summer I will supply you with spray bottles and fans. In winter I will buy you balms for your dry lips and make you button your coat. You will feel crushed by my protection.
One day I will tell you, as if I happened to think of it just then, that you could use my makeup on the shadows beneath your eyes if you want. That you could use my pencils to draw in eyebrows if you feel like it. I will get angry when you don’t put Bag Balm and Eucerin, those thick healing creams, on the patches of eczema on your skin. I will be angry if you scratch until you bleed at night. I might yell when you don’t use saline in your nose, even though it makes you sneeze and cough. I will believe that you are making the others not like you. You will tell me that other children, children without HED, have sinus and skin problems too. You will say that children don’t often judge you. You will try to convince me of this, but I will not hear it, because I will be too immersed in my project of undoing damage.
This is how a life goes wrong.
I NEVER understood my great-grandmother Josephine’s guilt about Earl, her eighth child, her baby boy, the one she kept pulling sadly under her wing. What choice did she have? She couldn’t have known that Earl would be born with a birth defect. There she was with her husband on the dry farm, their boys growing up and leaving. Only daughters remained. Getting older, Josephine and her husband needed sons, and this too-hot boy was all she could manage in the end. No one blamed her — except, perhaps, her husband, whose back was breaking. But little Earl must have known, before he knew many things, that his mother felt guilty about something.
Earl grew up to be a chemist and a medical professional, and he knew, by the time it mattered, that he had a genetic disorder that his children could inherit. Still, he didn’t know that he could pass the mutation only to his daughters, who would almost certainly be carriers with no symptoms. Earl must have felt so lucky when his baby-doll girl arrived, followed by his two sweaty, yelping boys. He must have felt anointed. But his pain and addiction pulled his focus from his children. And his wife was too practical for tenderness. Along with the mutant gene, my mother inherited something else from her father: a sense of injustice about her unhappy childhood.
By the time my mother married, she knew there was a risk that any boys she gave birth to would have HED. She might have adopted, but the thought never crossed her mind. Having babies would be my mother’s deliverance. To recover from her suffocating childhood, she would make a family of her own. She would flood her offspring with attention, as if to prove it could be done.
My mother’s guilt over Luke, like Josephine’s over Earl, has always seemed unwarranted to me. Both women needed children in order to survive. Neither had a choice: no test had been devised. It wasn’t until years after Luke’s birth that scientists discovered the location on the human genome of the HED mutation. Thrilled, my mother called me in my college dorm room to tell me there was now a test for the disorder: Women could know whether they had gotten the gene from their mothers. Mothers-to-be could discover whether their male fetuses, and even embryos, carried the defect for HED.
What would my mother have done if she’d had such a choice? During her courtship with my father, she’d followed him into Catholicism, and its clear-cut rules suited her. She might have listened to Church doctrine and said no to abortion. Or, confronted with the possibility of giving birth to a boy who would be like her father, she might have gone straight to a clinic. She wonders now. It is a question she cannot answer. She is, of course, happy that Luke is in the world. That is another thing entirely. The question is not about what is. It is about what might have been.
Women hear all the time that they must break their family’s destructive cycles. I look back at the cycle of guilt in the carrier-mothers before me and wonder: Could I be different?
“I wouldn’t want to pass this on,” my grandfather Earl told the best man at his wedding. He was hesitant to make babies with his new wife, not aware that a daughter — my mother — was already growing in his bride’s womb. “It gives you pause,” he said, stepping toward the altar.
Fifty years later I hesitated to ask my brother to participate in a blood test, to let scientists examine his genes alongside mine. “I don’t want you to think there’s something wrong with you,” I told him.
He shook his head and held up his hand. “I wouldn’t want your kids to have it.”
Because of the test, I am the first woman in my family to have this choice. If I have you, a son with this disorder, it could mean only that I wished it. And I do not.
not being a devout christian i can only guess as to the reasons, but i do believe we 1. are still predominantly a christian country 2. devout christians seem to be the most vocal against abortion, thus you hear their voices most 3. when discussing abortions, first focused on facts/science...then realize it comes down to personal perspective....so then end with 'you need to find jesus'......
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
actually, to be clear...i was addressing a post that specifically said 'babies are not trash'.....and so i was working within that context, of BABIES, and agreeing, they are not. basically, pointing to the fact that a blastocyst/embryo/fetus is NOT a 'baby'....and i get tired of people referring as such. of course, it makes for a more sensational/emotional arguement, but the fact remains...not a baby. then, sure....going with the idea that i do NOt want to see a woman go thru a pregnancy she does not want, give birth to a baby, and then see said baby abused, tossed away as trash, etc.
what i think is *best* is for women to make the choice that is best for them, whatever that may be.
and this...
is simply horrific.
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
And I get tired of people referring to what will most undoubtably be born a baby as something else to make them feel better abotu their choice. It's not growing to become an apple.
That is terrible...as is this...
"Number of abortions per year: Approximately 42 Million"
Does anyone have a better number from a potentially better source? Most of the ones I found were anti-abortion websites and I know some sensationilze the subject matter...I'd just like the facts.
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*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
Well, I don't think they are the same...but, strangely enough, I am ok with physician assisted suicide.
I think that if abortion is to help a mother from suffering (either physically or financially), then why isn't physician assisted suicide allowed for terminal people, or for people in perpetual severe pain? It only leads someone to risky suicide attempts that may leave them worse off.
Seems like P.A.S. should be even less controversial. It doesn't involve a third party (for those who choose to believe that a baby/fetus/whatever-name-fits-your-agenda is a third party).
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*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
Didn't have time to read much of it but this may help. I googled "abortion" "statistic" ".gov".
http://www.cdc.gov/ReproductiveHealth/D ... ortion.htm
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*Mansfield 8/29/00 *Mansfield 8/30/00 *Nassau 4/30/03 *Nissan VA 7/1/03
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*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
point is, if it ceases, it never will be....and thus, it never was (a baby, to be clear). a blastocyst is a blastocyst....an embryo is forever an embryo, a fetus forever a fetus, if it doesn't get born and becomes a living, breathing, thinking and feeling baby. it's NOT a baby, so no one is killing a baby. i don't need anything to 'make me feel better' about what i believe and support.
again, it all depends on your perspective.
*edited for clarity of thought.
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
agreed!
and hell, quite honestly, i think assisted suicide should be legal, period. perhaps not for *everyone*...but when i - hopefully - grow good and old, and if i may simply wish to cease to live, i think i should be able to do so, successfully...thus, get some help to do so if i desire. again, my life, my choice.
ever see the flick children of men?
the rationale behind it, quite different....but in it the government gave out suicide kits to all citizens. i believe in space missions astronuats were also given such things, 'just in case'.....or perhaps that is all bunk, idk. either way, i'd like one of those when i get good and old.
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
Just to confirm (since I don't have a medical manual handy, and I can't find it easily on google), a "fetus" is not a "baby" even 1 hour before they are born, correct? And thus, inducing an abortion at that time does not abort a baby - so even at that late of a date, since the name is not a "baby", no harm no foul? Do I have it right?
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*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
i knew someone would go there.
and yes, you are right...of course not. imo, once a fetus has sensory perception, there should be no right to abortion except in absolute extreme circumstances.....as in, medical necessity for the health of the mother. and even there, absolutely tragic, b/c we all know this fetus can feel pain, and what a difficult decision....but i still would put the life of the mother before the fetus.
i should know better, and be much more specific in my words.
'technically' though.... it would still be a fetus. but NO where did i state that one can kill a fetus at ANY time. i merely stated the fact that a fetus is a fetus and not a baby. obviously, right at birth....even an hoiur before...in the birthing process. if you want me to pinpoint that magical, exact moment that a fetus becomes a baby, i cannot. however, for all practical purposes....especially given that 89% of abortions occur before this time....i am mostly referring to fetuses at 12 weeks gestation or less. definitely NOT a baby.
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
Yes, that's accurate as of the most recent data (2003). It's down from 46 million in 1995.
Perhaps they're both terrible. I'm just trying to give some context. People can say abortion should be illegal because it's terrible to "kill unborn babies", but they need to also consider what happens to the born children when abortion is illegal. Is that what they want - orphaned children? They'll say that's not what they want & they're just trying to protect the unborn babies. But then those of us who are pro-choice should point out that we are trying to protect the born children. Therey's no one side that's evil or immoral. It sickens me when people think their "pro-life" stance has no consequence except to get them into Heaven.