How can you come to any other conclusion? Contraceptives aren't completely reliable and sometimes fail. I know one woman who had three kids, each one the result of a different contraceptive failing. Yet you would say that was her fault because she chose to have sex (and she was married by the way). Well if that's the case, the only way to be sure to not get pregnant when you don't want to be is to enforce the idea that sex is for procreation only. Or are you saying it's ok to get an abortion if you tried not to get pregnant but did anyway?
Sounds like this woman had some very bad luck. Timing is everything! It really isn't that easy to become pregnant. Out of a 30 day cycle, about 10 of those days are the ones you have to be careful on (if you have a regular cycle), so she needs to learn about her body cycle and be aware of her fertile days. Chances are, if she were to learn and use the ovulation/mucus method she would learn when her body is approaching fertility and then use alternate methods of pleasure (if desired) since she is that unsuccessful with virtually every method out there.
But the main purpose of procreation is to "be fruitful and multiply". God in his infinite wisdom made it a pleasurable experience. If it were like getting a wisdom tooth pulled, I'm sure we would not be having this problem.
Like many things in life, when you have sex you are taking a chance.
In my opinion, making love is much more fulfilling.
A chance in becoming pregnant, a chance in catching a fatal disease, etc.
But, with every privlege comes responsibility.
If the privlege of sex results in the responsibility of pregnancy, see it thru... it's only a few months... and do the right, moral, and humanly decent thing and take care of your health and give birth. Love and keep the baby, or love the life enough to responsibly place it with a good adoptive family.
Here are some American churches and religious groups that support abortion rights:
American Baptist Churches-USA, American Ethical Union, American Friends (Quaker) Service Committee, American Jewish Congress, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Episcopal Church; Lutheran Women's Caucus, Moravian Church in America-Northern Province, Presbyterian Church (USA), Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, United Synagogue of America, Women's Caucus Church of the Brethren, YWCA, Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, Catholics for Free Choice, Evangelicals for Choice.
Here are some American churches and religious groups that support abortion rights: Â Â
I went through the list you provided. First of all you should be careful saying that they support abortion rights or read that to mean they support abortion. Some flat out and out approve of abortion, however, many of those are caucases within a denomonataion and don't of course represent that denomintaion as a whole. Some I would question if they are a denomination or an organization. Either way, they are in in the minortiy by a large margin and you know that don't you. But I am willing to be open minded I looked at the list. Again notice that some call for peaceful resistance to abortion or leave it to the individual so it is niether an endorsement or denuncification of abortion. Again if you can honestly tell me that this represents a majority you are farther gone than I thought.
American Baptist Churches, USA General Board, 1988 As American Baptists, members of a covenant community of believers in Jesus Christ, we acknowledge life as a sacred and gracious gift of God. We affirm that God is the Creator of all life, that human beings are created in the image of God, and that Christ is Lord of life. Recognizing this gift of life, we find ourselves struggling with the painful and difficult issue of abortion. Genuine diversity of opinion threatens the unity of our fellowship, but the nature of covenant demands mutual love and respect. Together we must seek the mind of Christ. Â Â
As American Baptists we oppose abortion
as a means of avoiding responsibility for conception,
.as a primary means of birth control, without regard for the far-reaching consequences of the act.
We denounce irresponsible sexual behavior and acts of sexual violence that contribute to the large number of abortions each year.
We grieve with all who struggle with the difficult circumstances that lead them to consider abortion. Recognizing that each person is ultimately responsible to God, we encourage women and men in these circumstances to seek spiritual counsel as they prayerfully and conscientiously consider their decision.
We condemn violence and harassment directed against abortion clinics, their staff and clients, as well as sanctions and discrimination against medical professionals whose consciences prevent them from being involved in abortions.
We also recognize that we are divided as to the proper witness of the church to the state regarding abortion. Many of our membership seek legal safeguards to protect unborn life. Many others advocate for and support family planning legislation, including legalized abortion as being in the best interest of women in particular and society in general. Again, we have many points of view between these two positions. Consequently, we acknowledge the freedom of each individual to advocate for a public policy on abortion that reflects his or her beliefs.
Notice the first line which is we oppose abortion and look at the last paragraph.
we acknowledge the freedom of each individual to advocate for a public policy on abortion that reflects his or her beliefs.
ie; democracy Dennis, They oppose abortion but want policy to be based on those beliefs. There is NOTHING in there showing they are in favor of abortion.
Episcopal Church General Convention, 1994 Oppose any legislative, executive or judicial action limiting decision-making on or access to abortion Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That this 71st General Convention of the Episcopal Church reaffirms resolution C-047 from 69th General Convention, which states:
All human life is sacred from its inception until death. The church takes seriously its obligation to help form the consciences of its members concerning this sacredness. Human life, therefore, should be initiated only advisedly and in full accord with this understanding of the power to conceive and give birth, which is bestowed by God.
It is the responsibility of our congregation to assist their members in becoming informed concerning the spiritual and physiological aspects of sex and sexuality.
The Book of Common Prayer affirms that "the birth of a child is a joyous and solemn occasion in the life of a family. It is also an occasion for rejoicing in the Christian community" (p.440). As Christians we affirm responsible family planning.
We regard abortion as having a tragic dimension, calling for concern and compassion of all the Christian community.
While we acknowledge that in this country it is the legal right of every woman to have a medically safe abortion, as Christians we believe strongly that if this right is exercised, it should be used only in extreme situations. We emphatically oppose abortion as a means of birth control, family planning, sex selection, or any reason of mere convenience.
In those cases where an abortion is being considered, members of this church are urged to seek the dictates of their conscience in prayer, to seek the advice and counsel of members of the Christian community and where appropriate, the sacramental life of the Church.
Whenever members of this church are consulted with regard to a problem pregnancy, they are to explore, with grave seriousness, with the person or persons seeking advice and counsel, as alternatives to abortion, other positive courses of action, including, but not limited to, the following possibilities: the parents raising the child; another family member raising the child; making the child available for adoption.
It does go on to say they affirm the rights granted by the supreme court but it's hardly an endorsement of abortion. More to follow
Actually Dennis I read through the rest of them and instead of burdening people with long posts they can read the link you provided and decide themselves. Either way these small off shoots / caucuses are still in the minority by a large margin and you know that. They also mostly oppose abortion but affirm the right to. Some are simply caucases and not representative of that denomination. So I don't want to split hairs. Either way they are in the minority but if you think God is thrilled with it or finds it acceptable so be it, beliefs are very personal things.
Now if you'd like to have a debate without accusing the person of being a racist, bigot etc. unless you have evidence of such. Than I suggest you hold your tongue. If you want to adress people specifiaclly great, if not oh well it's just more to page through.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is an umbrella group for faith-based organizations unified around a central purpose:
"Religious Coalition members are religiously and theologically diverse but unified in the commitment to preserve reproductive choice as an element of religious liberty. Religious Coalition members hold in high respect the value of potential human life, while remaining committed to women as responsible, moral decision-makers. The coalition encourages decisions concerning a problem pregnancy to be made in consultation with families, clergy, and doctors. The Religious Coalition opposes any attempt to enact into secular law restrictions on reproductive choice based on one particular theological definition of when a fetus becomes a human being."
As for your contention that they represent a tiny and inconsequential religious minority, several of the coalition participants have big churches and large congregations in my town, and undoubtedly in yours as well.
"While anti-abortion leaders spend millions of dollars and direct others to spend hundreds of thousand of hours saving embryos, 40,000, already-born children die each and every day for lack of food, care, and basic medical assistance." -- Men For Choice
"If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child." -- Eisenstadt v. Baird, 1972
"In July of 1986 my daughter, Lucy, was born with an underdeveloped brain. She was a beautiful little girl – at least to me and my husband – but her disabilities were severe.
"By the time she was two weeks old we knew that she would never walk, talk, feed herself, or even understand the concept of mother and father. It’s impossible to describe the effect that her five-and-a-half-month life had on us; suffice it to say that she was the purest experience of love and pain that we will ever have, that she changed us forever, and that we will never cease to mourn her death, even though we know that for her it was a triumphant passing...
"...no one can tell us why Lucy was born the way she was. There was nothing genetically or chromosomally wrong with her. Her condition, we have been told over and over again, was a fluke. Consequently, no one can promise us that it won’t happen again...
"Stories like mine are not about rights; they are about need – need, because I had to stand by helplessly while my six-pound daughter arched rigid in seizure that no medication could control; need, because she died fighting for breath in my arms. Precisely because I loved her so, shouldn’t I have the right to think twice before bringing another such child into the world? The irony is that if so terrible a decision comes for me, I honestly can’t say what choice I will make. But I do know that no one else should have the right to make it for me." --Actress Beth Armstrong
As for your contention that they represent a tiny and inconsequential religious minority, several of the coalition participants have big churches and large congregations in my town, and undoubtedly in yours as well.
Of course they do I wouldn't call anyones beliefs inconsequential, only that they are in the minority of religious faiths.
Don't forget the milk, sausage and aluminum foil for the catapault. The milk is just because you need some, not for the catapault, I looked in your fridge and noticed you were low. What is in that blue tupperware next to the letttuce though ?
Ms. Armstrong is absolutely correct in emphasizing the "need" that underlies so many abortion decisions, even as there are undoubtedly some that are based on just a facile wish to be rid of a burden.
The circumstance that made her entertain the possibility of terminating a future pregnancy is rooted in a prior birth-defect tragedy about which nothing could have been done. I certainly hope that nobody here would be so insensitive as to disparage her outlook, for we can't begin to fully appreciate what impact her experience had on her heart and soul just by reading about it -- even though that's deeply affecting in itself.
But what about countless women who "convert" from their religious teachings to abort because they are driven to do so by things like sexism, manifested in several ways, or the socio-economic injustices associated with racism and classism?
I'm speaking of discriminatory inequities that impact upon especially poor, single females in ways that make the prospect of bringing a child (or yet another child) into lives that are so devoid of decent jobs or viable advancement opportunities...as to instantly, desperately make the thought of abortion spring to mind when a period is missed.
It would take the virtual abolition of poverty and the second-class citizenship that's the legacy of longstanding and definitely ongoing class oppression and racism for these powerful impetuses for abortion to cease being felt.
Can capitalism, in its increasingly corrupt and greedy monopoly stage, even begin to seriously entertain bringing about such necessary reforms?
Or will it take an entirely different socio-politico-economic system rooted in justice for all rather than spreading impoverishment and hardship for the many as growing exploitation brings mammoth profit to the powerful few?
In an untold number of cases, it's male libidinous insistence that causes the pregnancies that women or young girls then seek to end via abortions.
Or what of the pregnant teenager who's afraid to tell her parents about her condition, due to her father's harshly conservative, chauvanistic beliefs? Her mother would be little help, as she's cowed by her husband's overbearing ways.
Such girls might attempt crude self-abortions and kill themselves, for fear that reporting laws for minors would reveal their status to Dad, who'd explode with rage. As a matter fact, that's actually already happened.
But does sexism stand a logical likelihood of being eliminated under our present order? No.
So it looks like we'll be saddled with intensely compelling abortion impetuses for a very long time.
The women and girls driven to terminate their pregnancies -- by failures that are actually more societal than personal in nature -- need to go somewhere.
Will it be a professionally-staffed, sterile female healthcare clinic operating under legal protection...or some dank room in an undesirable part of town where a seedy individual plays doctor in surroundings that may be rife with bacteria?
With both parties present made outlaws by a governmental abortion ban.
I've had enough of the abortion topic for tonight. You still haven't answered my toughest question. What is in the blue tupperware next to the lettuce ?
Here are some American churches and religious groups that support abortion rights:
Sorry but, as soon as I saw the American Baptists (The first item on the list) I knew this was intellectually dishonest. There's no way in hell the Baptists support abortion rights. I saw Luv2Fly had some rebutal. I'm not going to bother.
To personally oppose abortion in toto or in some circumstances does not necessarily translate into wishing to ban the abortion option for those who think otherwise.
Therein lies the difference between being a dictatorial zealot and someone respectful of individual diversity and liberty.
To learn more about the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, check out their website.
Perhaps if we published the pictures, addresses and telephone numbers of the rapid anti-abortionists - thereby subjecting them to their own tatics? What? Don't think it will work? You may be right but I am sure that they would be the first to scream for help if their kids were subject to bomb threats and having their parents targetted by someone with a high powered rifle - all of which have happened. I object to those who use imflammatory language not accepting responsibility for the effects of their words upon their more unbalanced cohorts.
After that, there will be people publishing pictures and addresses, of people publishing pictures and address, of people publishing pictures and addresses.
And then there will be people publishing pictures and addresses, of people publishing pictures and address, of people publishing pictures and addresses, of people publishing pictures and addresses.
And then....
Don't you love abortion/anti-abortion activism????
To personally oppose abortion in toto or in some circumstances does not necessarily translate into wishing to ban the abortion option for those who think otherwise.
Therein lies the difference between being a dictatorial zealot and someone respectful of individual diversity and liberty.
No the difference is self deception and intellectual dishonesty not to mention moral corruption.
or haven't you been listening? Those who are 'pro-life at any price' want to ban abortion in toto, as you say, It is those who are pro-abortion who say merely that a woman MAY (not must, you will notice) have an abortion. Making a tough decision harder helps no one, and this 'publish them for all to see' ethic of the pro-life at any price people will only result in increased turmoil and suffering. Just hwat this world needs - more pain and suffering.
Well, if you really want to, though I doubt you'd find sufficient support for it. Most people see birth as a clear line to draw whereby one becomes an official member of society. There's nothing special about the two week mark.
As for me personally, I'd be inclined to oppose it. My belief is that the soul enters the body when it's born, at the first breath. Thus you'd be crossing the line between destroying a developing human body and killing an actual person.
I don't think Paula was seriously posing the question.
She was trying to further polarize the two sides of this issue. If that's actually possible. I guess when you're at polar opposites, the only movement you make is closer to each other.
A good article that adresses alot of what we face here.
>Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the forthcoming anthology Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada
Abortion. The word alone causes civil conversation to flee the room. This is largely because the pro-choice and pro-life positions are being defined by their extremes, by those who scream accusations in lieu of arguments.
More reasonable voices and concerns, on both sides of the fence, are given short shrift.
For example, pro-life extremists seem unwilling to draw distinctions between some abortions and others, such as those resulting from rape or incest with an underage child. They would make no exception in the recent real-life case of a woman who discovered in her fifth month that her baby would be born dead due to severe disabilities.
On the other hand, pro-choice extremists within feminism insist on holding inconsistent positions. The pregnant woman has an unquestionable right to abort, they claim. Yet if the biological father has no say whatsoever over the woman's choice, is it reasonable to impose legal obligations upon him for child support? Can absolute legal obligation adhere without some sort of corresponding legal rights?
The only hope for progress in the abortion dialogue lies in the great excluded middle, in the voices of average people who see something wrong with a young girl forced to bear the baby of a rapist.
Any commentary on abortion should include a statement of the writer's position. I represent what seems to be a growing "middle ground" in pro-choice opinion. Legally, I believe in the right of every human being to medically control everything under his or her own skin. Many things people have a legal right to do, however, seem clearly wrong to me: adultery, lying to friends, walking past someone who is bleeding on the street. Some forms of abortion fall into that category. Morally speaking, my doubts have become so extreme that I could not undergo the procedure past the first trimester and I would attempt to dissuade friends from doing so.
Partial-birth abortion has thrown many pro-choice advocates into moral mayhem. I find it impossible to view photos of late-term abortion — the fetus' contorted features, the tiny fully formed hands, the limbs ripped apart — without experiencing nausea. This reaction makes me ineffectual in advocating the absolute right to abortion. I stand by the principle, "a woman's body, a woman's right" but I don't always like myself for doing so.
It is difficult to remember how many times other feminists have urged me not to express moral reservations. "Abortion requires solidarity" is the general line of argument. Such voices do as much damage to the pro-choice position as the anti-abortion zealots who harass women as they enter clinics do to the pro-life one.
Fanatics on both sides are using reprehensible and deceitful tactics. An honest dialogue on abortion must start by re-setting the stage, by denouncing the approaches that block communication.
What are those approaches?
Many pro-choice advocates approve of using tax money to fund abortion. For example, starting in July, abortion training — formerly elective — will be required training for obstetrics and gynecology residents in New York City's 11 public hospitals. Those wishing to avoid the required training must provide religious or moral justification. The furor created by this use of tax money has been phrased as a battle over abortion when, in reality, it is about whether government should finance women's personal choices with the taxes of those who strenuously object. Government support of abortion must cease.
Pro-life extremists threaten the lives and safety of both those who provide and those who undergo the procedure. The murder of "abortion" doctors is in the news with the current trial of anti-abortion militant James Kopp, accused of murdering Dr. Barnett Slepian in New York and wanted for attacks on two doctors in Canada.
Recent concerns have been raised for the safety of the women involved. Anti-abortion zealots are photographing women as they enter clinics and, then, posting the photographs on the Internet. The women are identified as "baby killers." The pro-life movement must lead in denunciating this violence or no discussion can occur.
Pro-choice advocates should stop the attempt to silence those with doubts and cease their hypocrisy on issues surrounding abortion. Consider the National Organization for Women. NOW decries the anti-abortion stand as violence against women's reproductive rights. Yet it is mute (or much worse) on the greatest reproductive atrocity against women in the world — China's one-child policy.
Pro-life leaders should start being candid about how they plan to enforce a ban on abortion. For example, if they believe abortion is premeditated murder, then they seem logically constrained to impose first-degree murder penalties — including the death penalty, if applicable — upon women who abort and those who assist her. Are they willing to do this while remembering that murder has no statute of limitations?
Those who shove posters depicting an aborted fetus into the faces of pro-choice advocates have an equal responsibility to confront the consequences of their own policies. How, short of totalitarian government agencies, can they control what is in a woman's womb, and when?
I don't know if good will is possible on this highly charged and divisive issue. Both sides may find themselves able to work together on measures that improve the situation, for example, by making adoption far easier. What I do know is that the extremes cannot be allowed to dominate debate. The stakes in abortion are too high.
Not a bad article in general, though a few points to debate:
For example, pro-life extremists seem unwilling to draw distinctions between some abortions and others, such as those resulting from rape or incest with an underage child.
I'm curious why people always mention incest as a reason for abortion. If the incest took place against one person's will, then isn't it just the same as rape? Why make the distinction? And if it wasn't a rape, if it was consensual, what exactly is the moral stance that would say that abortion is ok, but others are not?
The pregnant woman has an unquestionable right to abort, they claim. Yet if the biological father has no say whatsoever over the woman's choice, is it reasonable to impose legal obligations upon him for child support? Can absolute legal obligation adhere without some sort of corresponding legal rights?
That is indeed a kind or moral sticky point. Though in some sense that policy seems to support the pro-life position. If a woman got pregnant, and the father was free to disavow any financial responsibility by saying he didn't want the kid, abortions would probably increase, at least somewhat.
Many things people have a legal right to do, however, seem clearly wrong to me: adultery, lying to friends, walking past someone who is bleeding on the street.
Some things, like the first two, are "legal" simply because trying to make them illegal would probably result in far more effort than it was worth. The last one I'm not sure actually is legal. But I would say abortion, to some degree falls into that same category of too hard to enforce. In the first trimester, you generally can't tell that a woman is pregnant, and thus you wouldn't know if she was pregnant and had an abortion. It's not like someone will find the body or file a missing person's report. About the only thing making abortion illegal would accomplish is eliminating the opportunity to get one in a relatively safe and sterile environment. Otherwise it would benefit society very little to have it outlawed. A society where no one sought abortions might be a better one, but a society where women are forced to get them in back alleys as it were is not. Just like Prohibition didn't really make society any better. A society where no one drank might be viewed as a better one (to some), but during Prohibition all we did was give rise to a whole new criminal element.
Morally speaking, my doubts have become so extreme that I could not undergo the procedure past the first trimester and I would attempt to dissuade friends from doing so.
Honestly, I would never encourage anyone to get an abortion. I do consider it to be not a "good idea", though I don't consider it murder. Nor would I try and force someone to bear a child based solely on what I myself believe.
Partial-birth abortion has thrown many pro-choice advocates into moral mayhem.
I've found it to be pretty difficult to find any accurate and unbiased abortion statistics on the internet, but it's my understanding that such abortions are very rare and only conducted when medically necessary. I'm sure they are difficult to watch, but I don't think such abortions are performed just because the mother didn't feel like having a kid.
The furor created by this use of tax money has been phrased as a battle over abortion when, in reality, it is about whether government should finance women's personal choices with the taxes of those who strenuously object.
That's not a very good argument. There are people who are opposed to war, but I don't think that means we shouldn't use government money to pay for one if needed. If we needed unanimous approval of all taxpayers before paying for anything with government money, we'd never get anything done. Now there may be other reasons for saying that the government shouldn't pay for it, but that's not one of them.
Should someone with an inter gender condition be aborted?
I recently saw a segment on the discovery channel in which they had several people who were born with both sets of sexual organs. After birth, the doctors advised the parents to pick a sex, or did some tests. The doctors then determined to cut off the penis of some and give hormones to help them become more female like.
These individuals suffered severely emotionally and it was a real eye opener into the liberties the medical profession take in such a circumstance.
In one case a couple was going to adopt a baby and was awaiting it's birth. Right after birth, it was discovered the baby was born with both organs. The doctor was insistent at first that the baby not be adopted, but later agreed. The same doctor continued with his adamant demand that the baby needed to have an operation to remove the one testicle the baby had. The parents said no they wanted the baby just the way he was born and no decision needed to be made immediately.
After a long time in the hospital, the baby was allowed to come home with the adoptive parents. The doctor insisted to the mom to let a biopsy be done on the testicle to see if it was malignant. The mother reluctantly agreed. The baby came out of the operation having had his testicle removed. The doctor (lyingly) said it was malignant. The mother stormed into his office to see the biopsy results which showed a perfectly normal testicle. (The doctor imposed his moral view and took the liberty on this child's body to remove his testicle.)
The boy is about 7 (?) or so, and can't quite keep up with the other kids and does not have the same muscle strength as boys should at his age. As is, he will not grow to be a big or muscular man. (He needs to be on testosterone or the female hormone for life, to make his body function normally).
The parents are suing for this child. The child looked up to his daddy and said "Daddy, am I gonna grow up to be a big strong man?" Dad said "Yes you are son".
It made me cry. That doctor had no right to ruin this child. Neither did the other doctors.
The grown inter gender people have strongly voiced their view that there is no hurry to decide. It is best to wait. One person who should have been a boy said she felt the most comfortable among lesbians and going to gay clubs where she "best" seemed to fit in.
What does this have to do with abortion?
Well, I think these people should not be aborted. Furthermore, no decisions should be made til many years later as the person develops and starts to feel like a boy or girl. Then they should be part of the solution and the process.
Another injustice that has had detrimental effects to so many individuals....
Every faith believes something somewhat different so using faith based morality in this topic is rather defeating. But usually birth is the great divide.
Is birth the great divide?
Doesn't the Bible say ...
Ecclesiastes 11:5 "Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother's womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything."
Kit, I find myself disagreeing with mostly everything you say, but hey, you can't be all that bad if you really got your husband a Harley. :)
Other Pro-Life Organizations We use the following well done websites quite often for research and for references to other great sites. We are not paid to list these sites, we simply recommend them because we have found them extremely useful. Views represented on these sites do not necessarily represent the views or policies of Human Life of Washington. Please feel free to email suggested sites to letters@humanlife.net.
"The most comprehensive listing of right to life resources on the internet". Includes information on abortion, adoption, euthanasia, legislation, other organizations, books, news, and pro-life infonet.
The actual text of Roe v. Wade, statements from R v W advocates, how they have historically misled people about abortion, illegal abortion myths, "safe abortion" myths, educational fact sheets, bibliography.
Everything from books to baby feet to bumper stickers: "Pro-life materials - over 500 items - readily available to prolifers everywhere. Welcome to the Heritage House '76 on line pro-life catalog. Our goal is to provide fresh, effective materials for your pro-life and pro-family work with prices, selection, and service that you can't beat anywhere!"
This amazing website gets over 7000 hits per day! "We are an officially approved association of Catholic Clergy who give special emphasis to the pro-life teachings of the Church. We offer ongoing assistance to the clergy in addressing the topics of abortion and euthanasia, and training and resources to the entire pro-life movement with a growing amount of material in Spanish." This site has religious and secular articles, video and audio clips, and a very impressive set of online pro-life resources.
Life Decisions International: Exposing Planned Parenthood's True Agenda http://www.fightpp.org
The $554 million budgeted PPFA promotes unrestricted abortion as a fundamental right — even for teens without the knowledge of parents. If you object to Planned Parenthood’s representatives going into your child’s school to provide instructions in the use of condoms or how to obtain easy abortions, there is something you can do. Life Decisions International (LDI) was formed to challenge the Planned Parenthood agenda and empower pro-lifers to defund the group. Since the corporate boycott began, more than 60 corporations have stopped donating to Planned Parenthood. Information on ordering their Boycott List is provided on their website.
Anyone who keeps up with the many pro-choice demonstrations in the United States cannot help but see on pro-choice placards and buttons a drawing of the infamous coat hanger. This symbol of the pro-choice movement represents the many women who were harmed or killed because they either performed illegal abortions on themselves (i.e., the surgery was performed with a "coat hanger") or went to unscrupulous physicians (or "back-alley butchers"). Hence, as the argument goes, if abortion is made illegal, then women will once again be harmed. Needless to say, this argument serves a powerful rhetorical purpose. Although the thought of finding a deceased young woman with a bloody coat hanger dangling between her legs is -- to say the least -- unpleasant, powerful and emotionally charged rhetoric does not a good argument make.
The chief reason this argument fails is because it commits the fallacy of begging the question. In fact, as we shall see, this fallacy seems to lurk behind a good percentage of the popular arguments for the pro-choice position. One begs the question when one assumes what one is trying to prove. Another way of putting it is to say that the arguer is reasoning in a circle. For example, if one concludes that the Boston Celtics are the best team because no team is as good, one is not giving any reasons for this belief other than the conclusion one is trying to prove, since to claim that a team is the best team is exactly the same as saying that no team is as good.
The question-begging nature of the coat-hanger argument is not difficult to discern: only by assuming that the unborn are not fully human does the argument work. If the unborn are not fully human, then the pro-choice advocate has a legitimate concern, just as one would have in overturning a law forbidding appendicitis operations if countless people were needlessly dying of both appendicitis and illegal operations. But if the unborn are fully human, this pro-choice argument is tantamount to saying that because people die or are harmed while killing other people, the state should make it safe for them to do so.
Even some pro-choice advocates, who argue for their position in other ways, admit that the coat hanger/back-alley argument is fallacious. For example, pro-choice philosopher Mary Anne Warren clearly recognizes that her position on abortion cannot rest on this argument without it first being demonstrated that the unborn entity is not fully human. She writes that "the fact that restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects does not, in itself, show that the restrictions are unjustified, since murder is wrong regardless of the consequences of prohibiting it..." [9]
Although it is doubtful whether statistics can establish a particular moral position, it should be pointed out that there has been considerable debate over both the actual number of illegal abortions and the number of women who died as a result of them prior to legalization. [10] Prior to Roe, pro-choicers were fond of saying that nearly a million women every year obtained illegal abortions performed with rusty coat hangers in back-alleys that resulted in thousands of fatalities. Given the gravity of the issue at hand, it would go beyond the duty of kindness to call such claims an exaggeration, because several well-attested facts establish that the pro-choice movement was simply lying.
First, Dr. Bernard Nathanson -- who was one of the original leaders of the American pro-abortion movement and co-founder of N.A.R.A.L. (National Abortion Rights Action League), and who has since become pro-life -- admits that he and others in the abortion rights movement intentionally fabricated the number of women who allegedly died as a result of illegal abortions.
How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In N.A.R.A.L. we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always "5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year." I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the "morality" of the revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics. The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason which had to be done was permissible. [11]
Second, Dr. Nathanson's observation is borne out in the best official statistical studies available. According to the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics, there were a mere 39 women who died from illegal abortions in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade. [12] Dr. Andre Hellegers, the late Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Georgetown University Hospital, pointed out that there has been a steady decrease of abortion-related deaths since 1942. That year there were 1,231 deaths. Due to improved medical care and the use of penicillin, this number fell to 133 by 1968. [13] The year before the first state-legalized abortion, 1966, there were about 120 abortion-related deaths. [14]
This is not to minimize the undeniable fact that such deaths were significant losses to the families and loved ones of those who died. But one must be willing to admit the equally undeniable fact that if the unborn are fully human, these abortion-related maternal deaths pale in comparison to the 1.5 million preborn humans who die (on the average) every year. And even if we grant that there were more abortion-related deaths than the low number confirmed, there is no doubt that the 5,000 to 10,000 deaths cited by the abortion rights movement is a gross exaggeration. [15]
Third, it is simply false to claim that there were nearly a million illegal abortions per year prior to legalization. There is no reliable statistical support for this claim. [16] In addition, a highly sophisticated recent study has concluded that "a reasonable estimate for the actual number of criminal abortions per year in the prelegalization era [prior to 1967] would be from a low of 39,000 (1950) to a high of 210,000 (1961) and a mean of 98,000 per year. [17]
Fourth, it is misleading to say that pre-Roe illegal abortions were performed by "back-alley butchers" with rusty coat hangers. While president of Planned Parenthood, Dr. Mary Calderone pointed out in a 1960 American Journal of Health article that Dr. Kinsey showed in 1958 that 84% to 87% of all illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians in good standing. Dr. Calderone herself concluded that "90% of all illegal abortions are presently done by physicians." [18] It seems that the vast majority of the alleged "back-alley butchers" eventually became the "reproductive health providers" of our present day.
Dr. Frank Beckwith is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Culture, and Law, and W. Howard Hoffman Scholar at Trinity Graduate School, Trinity International University (Deerfield, IL), California Campus. He holds a Ph.D. from Fordham University. Prior to coming to Trinity, Professor Beckwith held full-time faculty appointments at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas(1989-96) and Whittier College (1996-97). His many books include Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights. His articles and reviews have been published in numerous journals including Journal of Social Philosophy, Public Affairs Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, Focus on Law Studies, Simon Greenleaf of Law and Religion, and the Canadian Philosophical Review.
Notes:
[8] John Nolt and Dennis Rohatyn, Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Logic (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1988), 172. in The Problem of Abortion, 2nd ed., ed. Joel Feinberg (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1984), 103.
[10] See Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality (New York: Macmillan, 1970), 132-36; and Stephen Krason, Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), 301-10.
[11] Bernard Nathanson, M.D., Aborting America (New York: Doubleday, 1979), 193.
[12] From the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics Center for Disease Control, as cited in Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Wilke, Abortion: Questions and Answers, rev. ed. (Cincinnati: Hayes Publishing, 1988), 101-2.
[13] From Dr. Hellegers's testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Constitutional Amendments, April 25, 1 1974; cited in John Jefferson Davis, Abortion and the Christian (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1984), 75.
[14] From the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics Center for Disease Control, as cited in Wilke, 101-2.
[15] See Davis, 75.
[16] See note 10; Callahan, 132-36; Krason, 301-10.
[17] Barbara J. Syska, Thomas W. Hilgers, M.D., and Dennis O'Hare, "An Objective Model for Estimating Criminal Abortions and Its Implications for Public Policy," in New Perspectives on Human Abortion, ed. Thomas Hilgers, M.D., Dennis J. Horan, and David Mall (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1981), 78.
[18] Mary Calderone, "Illegal Abortion as a Public Health Problem," in American Journal of Health 50 (July 1960):949.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: The government stopped collecting these statistics in 1987 due to the lack of accurate reporting of deaths as a result of legal abortions. Sources: National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 1994. Hyattsville, Maryland: Public Health Service, 1995.
Abortion Surveillance 1985, Center for Disease Control, Table #18.
Induced Abortion: World Review 1983, by Christopher Tietze, The Population Council, p 103
If you all do your homework, we should have plenty to discuss over the next few days.
I could have said this myself... "No words I could say can speak to the injustice of abortion in our society - to the way it has denied human rights, abrogated the right to life, and devalued women in our society. Therefore, let me close with words from the late Mother Theresa:
"America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts--a child--as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters. And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign." (Mother Theresa -- "Notable and Quotable," Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94, p. A14)
Words from one of the most respected, loving, and unselfish woman in all of history, IMO, of course.
"I was once pro choice and the thing that changed my mind was, I read my husband's biology books, medical books, and what I learned... At the moment of conception, a life starts. And this life has it's own unique set of DNA, which contains a blueprint for the whole genetic makeup. The sex is determined. We know there's a life because it's growing and changing"
Thanks Kathy Ireland, Now I have another reason to like you!
AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN ARE FOR REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM
CHOICE is the essence of freedom. It's what we African- Americans have struggled for all these years. The right to choose where we would sit on a bus. The right to vote. The right for each of us to select our own paths, to dream and reach for our dreams. The right to choose how we would or would not live our lives. This freedom--to choose and to exercise our choices--is what we've fought and died for. Brought here in chains, worked like mules, bred like beasts, whipped one day, sold the next--for 244 years we were held in bondage. Somebody said that we were less than human and not fit for freedom. Somebody said we were like children and could not be trusted to think for ourselves.
Somebody owned our flesh, and decided if and when and with whom and how our bodies were to be used. Somebody said that Black women could be raped, held in concubinage, forced to bear children year in and year out, but often not raise them. Oh yes, we have known how painful it is to be without choice in this land. Those of us who remember the bad old days when Jim Crow ruled and segregation was the way of things, know the hardships and indignities we faced. We were free, but few or none were our choices. Somebody said where we could live and couldn't, where we could work, what schools we could go to, where we could eat, how we could travel. Somebody prevented us from voting. Somebody said we could be paid less than other workers. Somebody burned crosses, harassed and terrorized us in order to keep us down.
ONCE again somebody is trying to say that we can't handle the freedom of choice. Only this time they're saying African- American women can't think for themselves, and therefore can't be allowed to make serious decisions. Somebody's saying that we should not have the freedom to take charge of our personal lives and protect our health, that we only have limited rights over our bodies.
Somebody's once again forcing women to acts of desperation, because somebody's saying that if women have unintended pregnancies, it's too bad, but they must pay the price. Somebody's saying that we must have babies whether we choose to or not. Doesn't matter what we say, doesn't matter how we feel. Some say that abortion under any circumstance is wrong, others that rape and incest and danger to the life of the woman are the only exceptions. Doesn't matter that nobody's saying who decides if it was rape or incest; if a woman's word is good enough; if she must go into court and prove it. Doesn't matter that she may not be able to take care of a baby; that the problem also affects girls barely out of adolescence; that our children are having children. Doesn't matter if you're poor and pregnant--go on welfare, or walk away. What does matter is that we know abortions will still be done, legal or not.
We know the consequences when women are forced to make choices without protection-the coat hangers and knitting needles that punctured the wombs of women forced to seek back-alley abortions on kitchen tables at the hands of butchers. The women who died screaming in agony, awash in their own blood. The women who were made sterile. All the women who endured the pain of make shift surgery with no anesthetics, risked fatal infection.
We understand why African-American women risked their lives then, and why they seek safe legal abortion now. It's been a matter of survival. Hunger and homelessness. Inadequate housing and income to properly provide for themselves and their children. Family instability. Rape. Incest. Abuse. Too young, too old, too sick, too tired. Emotional, physical, mental, economic, social-the reasons for not carrying a pregnancy to term are endless and varied, personal, urgent, and private. And for all these pressing reasons, African-American women once again will be among the first forced to risk their lives if abortion is made illegal.
There have always been those who have stood in the way of our exercising our rights, who tried to restrict our choices. There probably always will be. But we who have been oppressed should not be swayed in our opposition to tyranny, of any kind, especially attempts to take away our reproductive freedom. You may believe abortion is wrong. We respect your belief and we will do all in our power to protect that choice for you. You may decide that abortion is not an option you would choose. Reproductive freedom guarantees your right not to. All that we ask is that no one deny another human being the right to make her own choice. That no one condemn her to exercising her choices in ways that endanger her health, her life. And that no one prevent others from creating safe, affordable, legal conditions to accommodate women, whatever the choices the make. Reproductive freedom gives each of us the right to make our own choices, and guarantees us a safe, legal affordable support system. It's the right to choose.
WE ARE still an embattled people beset with life-and-death issues. Black America is under siege. Drugs, the scourge of our community, are wiping out one, two, three generations. We are killing ourselves and each other. Rape and other unspeakable acts of violence are becoming sickeningly commonplace. Babies linger on death's door, at risk at birth: born addicted to crack and cocaine; born underweight and undernourished; born AIDS-infected. An ever-growing number of our children are being abandoned, being mentally, physically, spiritually abused. Homelessness, hunger, unemployment run rife. Poverty grows. Our people cry out in desperation, anger, and need.
Meanwhile those somebodies who claim they're "pro-life" aren't moved to help the living. They're not out there fighting to break the stranglehold of drugs and violence in our communities, trying to save our children, or moving to provide infant and maternal nutrition and health programs. Eradicating our poverty isn't on their agenda. No-- somebody's too busy picketing, vandalizing and sometimes bombing family planning clinics, harassing women, and denying funds to poor women seeking abortions.
So when somebody denouncing abortions claims that they're "pro-life," remind them of an old saying that our grandmothers often used: "It's not important what people say, it's what they do." And remember who we are, remember our history, our continuing struggle for freedom. Remember to tell them that WE REMEMBER!
--Signed by dozens of America's leading African-American women
Claim: "Dred Scott and Roe vs Wade aren't comparable"
Answer: Yes, they are comparable in that the Supreme Court was wrong to deny inalianable rights in both cases. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 upheld slavery as legal. It decreed that black people are the private property of the slave owners. This was a grave error of the Supreme Court, denying African Americans one of their most fundamental human rights - the right to liberty. In Roe vs Wade, the Supreme Court erred again by denying a whole class of human beings (preborn babies) the most fundamental right - THE RIGHT TO LIFE.
Claim: "Poor women need public funds (your tax money) to pay for abortion so they will not be discriminated against."
Answer: The rich can readily afford cocaine and prostitites. Should taxpayers also be forced to buy these for the poor? The bottom line is that abortion is the worst form of child abuse. It kills a baby and wounds the mother for life. If the poor cannot afford abortions, they and their children are blessed not to become a victim of this bloody holocaust.
Did you know Planned Parenthood locates many of its abortion contraception offices in minority areas, where they abort a huge number of minority babies? And have you seen the evidence that Margaret Sanger, the wealthy founder of Planned Parenthood was a eugenicist and a white supremacist?
Says the Rev. Johnny Hunter, a black pastor, "Margaret Sanger implemented the "Negro Project" in 1939 to eliminate those she called "human weeds.'"
For more details, go to http://www.all.organd click on "Site Index." Then, in the "Search Our Site" window, type the name, Margaret Sanger. This will pull up dozens of her racist quotes about minorities.
Planned Parenthood will tell you that birth control reduces abortion- but the facts say otherwise. Birth control fails miserably. Even the pro-birth control Alan Guttmacher institute web site reports that "58% of women having abortions in 1995 had used a contraceptive method during the month they bacame pregnant."
Planned P.. touts its sex ed programs, but these programs don't help kids, they hurt them. PP's own research has shown its sex ed programs caused a 50 % higher rate of sexual activity amont teens. (1)
And did you know PP runs America's largest chain of abortion centers? (HMMMM) That's right, PP sells abortions - a profitable backup when birth control fails. Every year, PP's abortions account for around 10% of the total U.S. toll of aborted babies. In its 1997-1998 annual report, PP admits to executing 165,174 abortions in 1997. (2)
PP also deceptively promotes itself as "privately funded." yet in 1997 alone, PP recieved $165 million of the U.S. public's tax money. (3)
(1) Louis Harris and Assoc., American Teens Speak: Sex, Myths, TV and Birth Control. New York: Planned Parenthood Federation of America. 1986 p. 19.
Planned Parenthood is one of the biggest scams America has going today.
* Also, you will notice the amount of Abortion Clinics in college towns is numerous compared to the amount of similiarly populated towns with no college students to rob and ruin for life.
Allison Wonderland 6/5/02 9:10am
Sounds like this woman had some very bad luck. Timing is everything! It really isn't that easy to become pregnant. Out of a 30 day cycle, about 10 of those days are the ones you have to be careful on (if you have a regular cycle), so she needs to learn about her body cycle and be aware of her fertile days. Chances are, if she were to learn and use the ovulation/mucus method she would learn when her body is approaching fertility and then use alternate methods of pleasure (if desired) since she is that unsuccessful with virtually every method out there.
But the main purpose of procreation is to "be fruitful and multiply". God in his infinite wisdom made it a pleasurable experience. If it were like getting a wisdom tooth pulled, I'm sure we would not be having this problem.
Like many things in life, when you have sex you are taking a chance.
In my opinion, making love is much more fulfilling.
A chance in becoming pregnant, a chance in catching a fatal disease, etc.
But, with every privlege comes responsibility.
If the privlege of sex results in the responsibility of pregnancy, see it thru... it's only a few months... and do the right, moral, and humanly decent thing and take care of your health and give birth. Love and keep the baby, or love the life enough to responsibly place it with a good adoptive family.
Don't stop a beating heart!!!!
That woman needs to learn how to read directions.
Here are some American churches and religious groups that support
abortion rights:
American Baptist Churches-USA, American Ethical Union, American Friends (Quaker) Service Committee, American Jewish Congress, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Episcopal Church; Lutheran Women's Caucus, Moravian Church in America-Northern Province, Presbyterian Church (USA), Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, United Synagogue of America, Women's Caucus Church of the Brethren, YWCA, Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, Catholics for Free Choice, Evangelicals for Choice.
http://www.rcrc.org/religion/weaffirm/affirm.html
And here's a sample of abortion-right affirmations by U.S. faith-based groups.
they apparently don't have a lot of faith.
Dennis,
I went through the list you provided. First of all you should be careful saying that they support abortion rights or read that to mean they support abortion. Some flat out and out approve of abortion, however, many of those are caucases within a denomonataion and don't of course represent that denomintaion as a whole. Some I would question if they are a denomination or an organization. Either way, they are in in the minortiy by a large margin and you know that don't you. But I am willing to be open minded I looked at the list. Again notice that some call for peaceful resistance to abortion or leave it to the individual so it is niether an endorsement or denuncification of abortion. Again if you can honestly tell me that this represents a majority you are farther gone than I thought.
Notice the first line which is we oppose abortion and look at the last paragraph.
ie; democracy Dennis, They oppose abortion but want policy to be based on those beliefs. There is NOTHING in there showing they are in favor of abortion.
More on next.
More from the list you provided.
Episcopal Church
General Convention, 1994
Oppose any legislative, executive or judicial action limiting decision-making on or access to abortion
Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That this 71st General Convention of the Episcopal Church reaffirms resolution C-047 from 69th General Convention, which states:
All human life is sacred from its inception until death. The church takes seriously its obligation to help form the consciences of its members concerning this sacredness. Human life, therefore, should be initiated only advisedly and in full accord with this understanding of the power to conceive and give birth, which is bestowed by God.
It is the responsibility of our congregation to assist their members in becoming informed concerning the spiritual and physiological aspects of sex and sexuality.
The Book of Common Prayer affirms that "the birth of a child is a joyous and solemn occasion in the life of a family. It is also an occasion for rejoicing in the Christian community" (p.440). As Christians we affirm responsible family planning.
We regard abortion as having a tragic dimension, calling for concern and compassion of all the Christian community.
While we acknowledge that in this country it is the legal right of every woman to have a medically safe abortion, as Christians we believe strongly that if this right is exercised, it should be used only in extreme situations. We emphatically oppose abortion as a means of birth control, family planning, sex selection, or any reason of mere convenience.
In those cases where an abortion is being considered, members of this church are urged to seek the dictates of their conscience in prayer, to seek the advice and counsel of members of the Christian community and where appropriate, the sacramental life of the Church.
Whenever members of this church are consulted with regard to a problem pregnancy, they are to explore, with grave seriousness, with the person or persons seeking advice and counsel, as alternatives to abortion, other positive courses of action, including, but not limited to, the following possibilities: the parents raising the child; another family member raising the child; making the child available for adoption.
It does go on to say they affirm the rights granted by the supreme court but it's hardly an endorsement of abortion. More to follow
Actually Dennis I read through the rest of them and instead of burdening people with long posts they can read the link you provided and decide themselves. Either way these small off shoots / caucuses are still in the minority by a large margin and you know that. They also mostly oppose abortion but affirm the right to. Some are simply caucases and not representative of that denomination. So I don't want to split hairs. Either way they are in the minority but if you think God is thrilled with it or finds it acceptable so be it, beliefs are very personal things.
Now if you'd like to have a debate without accusing the person of being a racist, bigot etc. unless you have evidence of such. Than I suggest you hold your tongue. If you want to adress people specifiaclly great, if not oh well it's just more to page through.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is an umbrella group for faith-based organizations unified around a central purpose:
"Religious Coalition members are religiously and theologically diverse but unified in the commitment to preserve reproductive choice as an element of religious liberty. Religious Coalition members hold in high respect the value of potential human life, while remaining committed to women as responsible, moral decision-makers. The coalition encourages decisions concerning a problem pregnancy to be made in consultation with families, clergy, and doctors. The Religious Coalition opposes any attempt to enact into secular law restrictions on reproductive choice based on one particular theological definition of when a fetus becomes a human being."
As for your contention that they represent a tiny and inconsequential religious minority, several of the coalition participants have big churches and large congregations in my town, and undoubtedly in yours as well.
"By the time she was two weeks old we knew that she would never walk, talk, feed herself, or even understand the concept of mother and father. It’s impossible to describe the effect that her five-and-a-half-month life had on us; suffice it to say that she was the purest experience of love and pain that we will ever have, that she changed us forever, and that we will never cease to mourn her death, even though we know that for her it was a triumphant passing...
"...no one can tell us why Lucy was born the way she was. There was nothing genetically or chromosomally wrong with her. Her condition, we have been told over and over again, was a fluke. Consequently, no one can promise us that it won’t happen again...
"Stories like mine are not about rights; they are about need – need, because I had to stand by helplessly while my six-pound daughter arched rigid in seizure that no medication could control; need, because she died fighting for breath in my arms. Precisely because I loved her so, shouldn’t I have the right to think twice before bringing another such child into the world? The irony is that if so terrible a decision comes for me, I honestly can’t say what choice I will make. But I do know that no one else should have the right to make it for me." --Actress Beth Armstrong
Dennis,
Of course they do I wouldn't call anyones beliefs inconsequential, only that they are in the minority of religious faiths.
I've gotta run an errand, but I'll be back shortly.
Don't forget the milk, sausage and aluminum foil for the catapault. The milk is just because you need some, not for the catapault, I looked in your fridge and noticed you were low. What is in that blue tupperware next to the letttuce though ?
you two are too funny :)
I'm back.
I had to blast some silver-painted rutabagas across the highway over by Menards.
I tell ya, man.
Human beings are a race of rubber-neckers.
Where were we? Oh, yeah...
Ms. Armstrong is absolutely correct in emphasizing the "need" that underlies so many abortion decisions, even as there are undoubtedly some that are based on just a facile wish to be rid of a burden.
The circumstance that made her entertain the possibility of terminating a future pregnancy is rooted in a prior birth-defect tragedy about which nothing could have been done. I certainly hope that nobody here would be so insensitive as to disparage her outlook, for we can't begin to fully appreciate what impact her experience had on her heart and soul just by reading about it -- even though that's deeply affecting in itself.
But what about countless women who "convert" from their religious teachings to abort because they are driven to do so by things like sexism, manifested in several ways, or the socio-economic injustices associated with racism and classism?
I'm speaking of discriminatory inequities that impact upon especially poor, single females in ways that make the prospect of bringing a child (or yet another child) into lives that are so devoid of decent jobs or viable advancement opportunities...as to instantly, desperately make the thought of abortion spring to mind when a period is missed.
It would take the virtual abolition of poverty and the second-class citizenship that's the legacy of longstanding and definitely ongoing class oppression and racism for these powerful impetuses for abortion to cease being felt.
Can capitalism, in its increasingly corrupt and greedy monopoly stage, even begin to seriously entertain bringing about such necessary reforms?
Or will it take an entirely different socio-politico-economic system rooted in justice for all rather than spreading impoverishment and hardship for the many as growing exploitation brings mammoth profit to the powerful few?
And what about sexism?
In an untold number of cases, it's male libidinous insistence that causes the pregnancies that women or young girls then seek to end via abortions.
Or what of the pregnant teenager who's afraid to tell her parents about her condition, due to
her father's harshly conservative, chauvanistic beliefs? Her mother would be little help, as she's cowed by her husband's overbearing ways.
Such girls might attempt crude self-abortions and kill themselves, for fear that reporting laws for minors would reveal their status to Dad, who'd explode with rage. As a matter fact, that's actually already happened.
But does sexism stand a logical likelihood of being eliminated under our present order? No.
So it looks like we'll be saddled with intensely compelling abortion impetuses for a very long time.
The women and girls driven to terminate their pregnancies -- by failures that are actually more societal than personal in nature -- need to go somewhere.
Will it be a professionally-staffed, sterile female healthcare clinic operating under
legal protection...or some dank room in an undesirable part of town where a seedy individual plays doctor in surroundings that may be rife with bacteria?
With both parties present made outlaws by a governmental abortion ban.
Dennis,
I've had enough of the abortion topic for tonight. You still haven't answered my toughest question. What is in the blue tupperware next to the lettuce ?
You must've been next door by mistake.
I'm morally opposed to Tupperware.
Do you know how many Tuppers are killed just to make one standard-sized bowl?
Lots.
It's truly gruesome.
Dennis Rahkonen 6/5/02 2:48pm
Here are some American churches and religious groups that support abortion rights:
Sorry but, as soon as I saw the American Baptists (The first item on the list) I knew this was intellectually dishonest. There's no way in hell the Baptists support abortion rights. I saw Luv2Fly had some rebutal. I'm not going to bother.
http://www.rcrc.org
To personally oppose abortion in toto or in some circumstances does not necessarily translate into wishing to ban the abortion option for those who think otherwise.
Therein lies the difference between being a dictatorial zealot and
someone respectful of individual diversity and liberty.
To learn more about the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, check out their website.
Perhaps if we published the pictures, addresses and telephone numbers of the rapid anti-abortionists - thereby subjecting them to their own tatics? What? Don't think it will work? You may be right but I am sure that they would be the first to scream for help if their kids were subject to bomb threats and having their parents targetted by someone with a high powered rifle - all of which have happened. I object to those who use imflammatory language not accepting responsibility for the effects of their words upon their more unbalanced cohorts.
Oh, it will happen if it's not already.
You can always trust people to fight dirty tactic with dirty tactic and then justify it.
"He did it first!"
After that, there will be people publishing pictures and addresses, of people publishing pictures and address, of people publishing pictures and addresses.
And then there will be people publishing pictures and addresses, of people publishing pictures and address, of people publishing pictures and addresses, of people publishing pictures and addresses.
And then....
Don't you love abortion/anti-abortion activism????
To personally oppose abortion in toto or in some circumstances does not necessarily translate into wishing to ban the abortion option for those who think otherwise.
Therein lies the difference between being a dictatorial zealot and
someone respectful of individual diversity and liberty.
No the difference is self deception and intellectual dishonesty not to mention moral corruption.
or haven't you been listening? Those who are 'pro-life at any price'
want to ban abortion in toto, as you say, It is those who are pro-abortion who say merely that a woman MAY (not must, you will notice) have an abortion. Making a tough decision harder helps no one, and this 'publish them for all to see' ethic of the pro-life at any price
people will only result in increased turmoil and suffering. Just hwat this world needs - more pain and suffering.
Ok, for everyone who supports the right to abortion, lets make it up until 2 weeks after the birth of the baby.
How do you feel about that?
Every parent has up until 2 weeks after birth to abort the babies life.
Well, if you really want to, though I doubt you'd find sufficient support for it. Most people see birth as a clear line to draw whereby one becomes an official member of society. There's nothing special about the two week mark.
As for me personally, I'd be inclined to oppose it. My belief is that the soul enters the body when it's born, at the first breath. Thus you'd be crossing the line between destroying a developing human body and killing an actual person.
I don't think Paula was seriously posing the question.
She was trying to further polarize the two sides of this issue. If that's actually possible. I guess when you're at polar opposites, the only movement you make is closer to each other.
And we can't have that now, can we?
A good article that adresses alot of what we face here.
>Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the forthcoming anthology Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada
Abortion. The word alone causes civil conversation to flee the room. This is largely because the pro-choice and pro-life positions are being defined by their extremes, by those who scream accusations in lieu of arguments.
More reasonable voices and concerns, on both sides of the fence, are given short shrift.
For example, pro-life extremists seem unwilling to draw distinctions between some abortions and others, such as those resulting from rape or incest with an underage child. They would make no exception in the recent real-life case of a woman who discovered in her fifth month that her baby would be born dead due to severe disabilities.
On the other hand, pro-choice extremists within feminism insist on holding inconsistent positions. The pregnant woman has an unquestionable right to abort, they claim. Yet if the biological father has no say whatsoever over the woman's choice, is it reasonable to impose legal obligations upon him for child support? Can absolute legal obligation adhere without some sort of corresponding legal rights?
The only hope for progress in the abortion dialogue lies in the great excluded middle, in the voices of average people who see something wrong with a young girl forced to bear the baby of a rapist.
Any commentary on abortion should include a statement of the writer's position. I represent what seems to be a growing "middle ground" in pro-choice opinion. Legally, I believe in the right of every human being to medically control everything under his or her own skin. Many things people have a legal right to do, however, seem clearly wrong to me: adultery, lying to friends, walking past someone who is bleeding on the street. Some forms of abortion fall into that category. Morally speaking, my doubts have become so extreme that I could not undergo the procedure past the first trimester and I would attempt to dissuade friends from doing so.
Partial-birth abortion has thrown many pro-choice advocates into moral mayhem. I find it impossible to view photos of late-term abortion — the fetus' contorted features, the tiny fully formed hands, the limbs ripped apart — without experiencing nausea. This reaction makes me ineffectual in advocating the absolute right to abortion. I stand by the principle, "a woman's body, a woman's right" but I don't always like myself for doing so.
It is difficult to remember how many times other feminists have urged me not to express moral reservations. "Abortion requires solidarity" is the general line of argument. Such voices do as much damage to the pro-choice position as the anti-abortion zealots who harass women as they enter clinics do to the pro-life one.
Fanatics on both sides are using reprehensible and deceitful tactics. An honest dialogue on abortion must start by re-setting the stage, by denouncing the approaches that block communication.
What are those approaches?
Many pro-choice advocates approve of using tax money to fund abortion. For example, starting in July, abortion training — formerly elective — will be required training for obstetrics and gynecology residents in New York City's 11 public hospitals. Those wishing to avoid the required training must provide religious or moral justification. The furor created by this use of tax money has been phrased as a battle over abortion when, in reality, it is about whether government should finance women's personal choices with the taxes of those who strenuously object. Government support of abortion must cease.
Pro-life extremists threaten the lives and safety of both those who provide and those who undergo the procedure. The murder of "abortion" doctors is in the news with the current trial of anti-abortion militant James Kopp, accused of murdering Dr. Barnett Slepian in New York and wanted for attacks on two doctors in Canada.
Recent concerns have been raised for the safety of the women involved. Anti-abortion zealots are photographing women as they enter clinics and, then, posting the photographs on the Internet. The women are identified as "baby killers." The pro-life movement must lead in denunciating this violence or no discussion can occur.
Pro-choice advocates should stop the attempt to silence those with doubts and cease their hypocrisy on issues surrounding abortion. Consider the National Organization for Women. NOW decries the anti-abortion stand as violence against women's reproductive rights. Yet it is mute (or much worse) on the greatest reproductive atrocity against women in the world — China's one-child policy.
Pro-life leaders should start being candid about how they plan to enforce a ban on abortion. For example, if they believe abortion is premeditated murder, then they seem logically constrained to impose first-degree murder penalties — including the death penalty, if applicable — upon women who abort and those who assist her. Are they willing to do this while remembering that murder has no statute of limitations?
Those who shove posters depicting an aborted fetus into the faces of pro-choice advocates have an equal responsibility to confront the consequences of their own policies. How, short of totalitarian government agencies, can they control what is in a woman's womb, and when?
I don't know if good will is possible on this highly charged and divisive issue. Both sides may find themselves able to work together on measures that improve the situation, for example, by making adoption far easier. What I do know is that the extremes cannot be allowed to dominate debate. The stakes in abortion are too high.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,54959,00.html
I see Kit has taken out her intellectually dishonest and morally corrupt hand book.
No, kit ripping unborn children limb from limb on a whim creates suffering everyday.
Whooo, Hoooo!
Go, jethro!!!
Give us some more!
Not a bad article in general, though a few points to debate:
For example, pro-life extremists seem unwilling to draw distinctions between some abortions and others, such as those resulting from rape or incest with an underage child.
I'm curious why people always mention incest as a reason for abortion. If the incest took place against one person's will, then isn't it just the same as rape? Why make the distinction? And if it wasn't a rape, if it was consensual, what exactly is the moral stance that would say that abortion is ok, but others are not?
The pregnant woman has an unquestionable right to abort, they claim. Yet if the biological father has no say whatsoever over the woman's choice, is it reasonable to impose legal obligations upon him for child support? Can absolute legal obligation adhere without some sort of corresponding legal rights?
That is indeed a kind or moral sticky point. Though in some sense that policy seems to support the pro-life position. If a woman got pregnant, and the father was free to disavow any financial responsibility by saying he didn't want the kid, abortions would probably increase, at least somewhat.
Many things people have a legal right to do, however, seem clearly wrong to me: adultery, lying to friends, walking past someone who is bleeding on the street.
Some things, like the first two, are "legal" simply because trying to make them illegal would probably result in far more effort than it was worth. The last one I'm not sure actually is legal. But I would say abortion, to some degree falls into that same category of too hard to enforce. In the first trimester, you generally can't tell that a woman is pregnant, and thus you wouldn't know if she was pregnant and had an abortion. It's not like someone will find the body or file a missing person's report. About the only thing making abortion illegal would accomplish is eliminating the opportunity to get one in a relatively safe and sterile environment. Otherwise it would benefit society very little to have it outlawed. A society where no one sought abortions might be a better one, but a society where women are forced to get them in back alleys as it were is not. Just like Prohibition didn't really make society any better. A society where no one drank might be viewed as a better one (to some), but during Prohibition all we did was give rise to a whole new criminal element.
Morally speaking, my doubts have become so extreme that I could not undergo the procedure past the first trimester and I would attempt to dissuade friends from doing so.
Honestly, I would never encourage anyone to get an abortion. I do consider it to be not a "good idea", though I don't consider it murder. Nor would I try and force someone to bear a child based solely on what I myself believe.
Partial-birth abortion has thrown many pro-choice advocates into moral mayhem.
I've found it to be pretty difficult to find any accurate and unbiased abortion statistics on the internet, but it's my understanding that such abortions are very rare and only conducted when medically necessary. I'm sure they are difficult to watch, but I don't think such abortions are performed just because the mother didn't feel like having a kid.
The furor created by this use of tax money has been phrased as a battle over abortion when, in reality, it is about whether government should finance women's personal choices with the taxes of those who strenuously object.
That's not a very good argument. There are people who are opposed to war, but I don't think that means we shouldn't use government money to pay for one if needed. If we needed unanimous approval of all taxpayers before paying for anything with government money, we'd never get anything done. Now there may be other reasons for saying that the government shouldn't pay for it, but that's not one of them.
Should someone with an inter gender condition be aborted?
I recently saw a segment on the discovery channel in which they had several people who were born with both sets of sexual organs. After birth, the doctors advised the parents to pick a sex, or did some tests. The doctors then determined to cut off the penis of some and give hormones to help them become more female like.
These individuals suffered severely emotionally and it was a real eye opener into the liberties the medical profession take in such a circumstance.
In one case a couple was going to adopt a baby and was awaiting it's birth. Right after birth, it was discovered the baby was born with both organs. The doctor was insistent at first that the baby not be adopted, but later agreed. The same doctor continued with his adamant demand that the baby needed to have an operation to remove the one testicle the baby had. The parents said no they wanted the baby just the way he was born and no decision needed to be made immediately.
After a long time in the hospital, the baby was allowed to come home with the adoptive parents. The doctor insisted to the mom to let a biopsy be done on the testicle to see if it was malignant. The mother reluctantly agreed. The baby came out of the operation having had his testicle removed. The doctor (lyingly) said it was malignant. The mother stormed into his office to see the biopsy results which showed a perfectly normal testicle. (The doctor imposed his moral view and took the liberty on this child's body to remove his testicle.)
The boy is about 7 (?) or so, and can't quite keep up with the other kids and does not have the same muscle strength as boys should at his age. As is, he will not grow to be a big or muscular man. (He needs to be on testosterone or the female hormone for life, to make his body function normally).
The parents are suing for this child. The child looked up to his daddy and said "Daddy, am I gonna grow up to be a big strong man?" Dad said "Yes you are son".
It made me cry. That doctor had no right to ruin this child. Neither did the other doctors.
The grown inter gender people have strongly voiced their view that there is no hurry to decide. It is best to wait. One person who should have been a boy said she felt the most comfortable among lesbians and going to gay clubs where she "best" seemed to fit in.
What does this have to do with abortion?
Well, I think these people should not be aborted. Furthermore, no decisions should be made til many years later as the person develops and starts to feel like a boy or girl. Then they should be part of the solution and the process.
Another injustice that has had detrimental effects to so many individuals....
Kit Zupan 6/10/02 6:51pm
Is birth the great divide?
Doesn't the Bible say ...
Ecclesiastes 11:5 "Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother's womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything."
Kit, I find myself disagreeing with mostly everything you say, but hey, you can't be all that bad if you really got your husband a Harley. :)
http://www.nrlc.org/
http://www.humanlife.net/otherorganizations.html
Other Pro-Life Organizations
We use the following well done websites quite often for research and for references to other great sites. We are not paid to list these sites, we simply recommend them because we have found them extremely useful. Views represented on these sites do not necessarily represent the views or policies of Human Life of Washington. Please feel free to email suggested sites to letters@humanlife.net.
The Ultimate Pro-Life Resource List - by Women and Children First
http://www.prolifeinfo.org/
"The most comprehensive listing of right to life resources on the internet". Includes information on abortion, adoption, euthanasia, legislation, other organizations, books, news, and pro-life infonet.
Roe v Wade - by Women and Children First
http://www.roevwade.org
The actual text of Roe v. Wade, statements from R v W advocates, how they have historically misled people about abortion, illegal abortion myths, "safe abortion" myths, educational fact sheets, bibliography.
Pregnancy Centers Online
http://www.pregnancycenters.org
Pregnancy help, talk to someone, fetal development, abortion risks, after abortion, centers.
Heritage House 2000
http://www.heritagehouse76.com
Everything from books to baby feet to bumper stickers: "Pro-life materials - over 500 items - readily available to prolifers everywhere. Welcome to the Heritage House '76 on line pro-life catalog. Our goal is to provide fresh, effective materials for your pro-life and pro-family work with prices, selection, and service that you can't beat anywhere!"
Priests for Life
http://www.priestsforlife.org
This amazing website gets over 7000 hits per day! "We are an officially approved association of Catholic Clergy who give special emphasis to the pro-life teachings of the Church. We offer ongoing assistance to the clergy in addressing the topics of abortion and euthanasia, and training and resources to the entire pro-life movement with a growing amount of material in Spanish." This site has religious and secular articles, video and audio clips, and a very impressive set of online pro-life resources.
Life Decisions International: Exposing Planned Parenthood's True Agenda
http://www.fightpp.org
The $554 million budgeted PPFA promotes unrestricted abortion as a fundamental right — even for teens without the knowledge of parents. If you object to Planned Parenthood’s representatives going into your child’s school to provide instructions in the use of condoms or how to obtain easy abortions, there is something you can do. Life Decisions International (LDI) was formed to challenge the Planned Parenthood agenda and empower pro-lifers to defund the group. Since the corporate boycott began, more than 60 corporations have stopped donating to Planned Parenthood. Information on ordering their Boycott List is provided on their website.
National Right to Life
http://www.nrlc.org
University Faculty for Life
http://www2.franuniv.edu/ufl/
A multidisciplinary association of scholars
American Collegians for Life
http://www.aclife.org
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http://www.roevwade.org/myths2.html
Anyone who keeps up with the many pro-choice demonstrations in the United States cannot help but see on pro-choice placards and buttons a drawing of the infamous coat hanger. This symbol of the pro-choice movement represents the many women who were harmed or killed because they either performed illegal abortions on themselves (i.e., the surgery was performed with a "coat hanger") or went to unscrupulous physicians (or "back-alley butchers"). Hence, as the argument goes, if abortion is made illegal, then women will once again be harmed. Needless to say, this argument serves a powerful rhetorical purpose. Although the thought of finding a deceased young woman with a bloody coat hanger dangling between her legs is -- to say the least -- unpleasant, powerful and emotionally charged rhetoric does not a good argument make.
The chief reason this argument fails is because it commits the fallacy of begging the question. In fact, as we shall see, this fallacy seems to lurk behind a good percentage of the popular arguments for the pro-choice position. One begs the question when one assumes what one is trying to prove. Another way of putting it is to say that the arguer is reasoning in a circle. For example, if one concludes that the Boston Celtics are the best team because no team is as good, one is not giving any reasons for this belief other than the conclusion one is trying to prove, since to claim that a team is the best team is exactly the same as saying that no team is as good.
The question-begging nature of the coat-hanger argument is not difficult to discern: only by assuming that the unborn are not fully human does the argument work. If the unborn are not fully human, then the pro-choice advocate has a legitimate concern, just as one would have in overturning a law forbidding appendicitis operations if countless people were needlessly dying of both appendicitis and illegal operations. But if the unborn are fully human, this pro-choice argument is tantamount to saying that because people die or are harmed while killing other people, the state should make it safe for them to do so.
Even some pro-choice advocates, who argue for their position in other ways, admit that the coat hanger/back-alley argument is fallacious. For example, pro-choice philosopher Mary Anne Warren clearly recognizes that her position on abortion cannot rest on this argument without it first being demonstrated that the unborn entity is not fully human. She writes that "the fact that restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects does not, in itself, show that the restrictions are unjustified, since murder is wrong regardless of the consequences of prohibiting it..." [9]
Although it is doubtful whether statistics can establish a particular moral position, it should be pointed out that there has been considerable debate over both the actual number of illegal abortions and the number of women who died as a result of them prior to legalization. [10] Prior to Roe, pro-choicers were fond of saying that nearly a million women every year obtained illegal abortions performed with rusty coat hangers in back-alleys that resulted in thousands of fatalities. Given the gravity of the issue at hand, it would go beyond the duty of kindness to call such claims an exaggeration, because several well-attested facts establish that the pro-choice movement was simply lying.
First, Dr. Bernard Nathanson -- who was one of the original leaders of the American pro-abortion movement and co-founder of N.A.R.A.L. (National Abortion Rights Action League), and who has since become pro-life -- admits that he and others in the abortion rights movement intentionally fabricated the number of women who allegedly died as a result of illegal abortions.
How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In N.A.R.A.L. we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always "5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year." I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the "morality" of the revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics. The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason which had to be done was permissible. [11]
Second, Dr. Nathanson's observation is borne out in the best official statistical studies available. According to the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics, there were a mere 39 women who died from illegal abortions in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade. [12] Dr. Andre Hellegers, the late Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Georgetown University Hospital, pointed out that there has been a steady decrease of abortion-related deaths since 1942. That year there were 1,231 deaths. Due to improved medical care and the use of penicillin, this number fell to 133 by 1968. [13] The year before the first state-legalized abortion, 1966, there were about 120 abortion-related deaths. [14]
This is not to minimize the undeniable fact that such deaths were significant losses to the families and loved ones of those who died. But one must be willing to admit the equally undeniable fact that if the unborn are fully human, these abortion-related maternal deaths pale in comparison to the 1.5 million preborn humans who die (on the average) every year. And even if we grant that there were more abortion-related deaths than the low number confirmed, there is no doubt that the 5,000 to 10,000 deaths cited by the abortion rights movement is a gross exaggeration. [15]
Third, it is simply false to claim that there were nearly a million illegal abortions per year prior to legalization. There is no reliable statistical support for this claim. [16] In addition, a highly sophisticated recent study has concluded that "a reasonable estimate for the actual number of criminal abortions per year in the prelegalization era [prior to 1967] would be from a low of 39,000 (1950) to a high of 210,000 (1961) and a mean of 98,000 per year. [17]
Fourth, it is misleading to say that pre-Roe illegal abortions were performed by "back-alley butchers" with rusty coat hangers. While president of Planned Parenthood, Dr. Mary Calderone pointed out in a 1960 American Journal of Health article that Dr. Kinsey showed in 1958 that 84% to 87% of all illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians in good standing. Dr. Calderone herself concluded that "90% of all illegal abortions are presently done by physicians." [18] It seems that the vast majority of the alleged "back-alley butchers" eventually became the "reproductive health providers" of our present day.
Dr. Frank Beckwith is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Culture, and Law, and W. Howard Hoffman Scholar at Trinity Graduate School, Trinity International University (Deerfield, IL), California Campus. He holds a Ph.D. from Fordham University.
Prior to coming to Trinity, Professor Beckwith held full-time faculty appointments at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas(1989-96) and Whittier College (1996-97). His many books include Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights. His articles and reviews have been published in numerous journals including Journal of Social Philosophy, Public Affairs Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, Focus on Law Studies, Simon Greenleaf of Law and Religion, and the Canadian Philosophical Review.
Notes:
[8] John Nolt and Dennis Rohatyn, Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Logic (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1988), 172. in The Problem of Abortion, 2nd ed., ed. Joel Feinberg (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1984), 103.
[10] See Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality (New York: Macmillan, 1970), 132-36; and Stephen Krason, Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), 301-10.
[11] Bernard Nathanson, M.D., Aborting America (New York: Doubleday, 1979), 193.
[12] From the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics Center for Disease Control, as cited in Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Wilke, Abortion: Questions and Answers, rev. ed. (Cincinnati: Hayes Publishing, 1988), 101-2.
[13] From Dr. Hellegers's testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Constitutional Amendments, April 25, 1 1974; cited in John Jefferson Davis, Abortion and the Christian (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1984), 75.
[14] From the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics Center for Disease Control, as cited in Wilke, 101-2.
[15] See Davis, 75.
[16] See note 10; Callahan, 132-36; Krason, 301-10.
[17] Barbara J. Syska, Thomas W. Hilgers, M.D., and Dennis O'Hare, "An Objective Model for Estimating Criminal Abortions and Its Implications for Public Policy," in New Perspectives on Human Abortion, ed. Thomas Hilgers, M.D., Dennis J. Horan, and David Mall (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1981), 78.
[18] Mary Calderone, "Illegal Abortion as a Public Health Problem," in American Journal of Health 50 (July 1960):949.
Deaths from Legal Abortions
Maternal deaths
Year Deaths from
Legal Abortions
1958-62 5
1963-67 4
1968-69 4
1970 36
1971 54
1972 24
1973 25
1974 26
1975 29
1976 11
1977 21
1978 9
1979 18
1980 9
1981 7
1982-84 34
1985-87 26
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: The government stopped collecting these statistics in 1987 due to the lack of accurate reporting of deaths as a result of legal abortions.
Sources: National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 1994. Hyattsville, Maryland: Public Health Service, 1995.
Abortion Surveillance 1985, Center for Disease Control, Table #18.
Induced Abortion: World Review 1983, by Christopher Tietze, The Population Council, p 103
Bye for tonight.
If you all do your homework, we should have plenty to discuss over the next few days.
I could have said this myself... "No words I could say can speak to the injustice of abortion in our society - to the way it has denied human rights, abrogated the right to life, and devalued women in our society. Therefore, let me close with words from the late Mother Theresa:
"America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts--a child--as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters.
And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign." (Mother Theresa -- "Notable and Quotable," Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94, p. A14)
Words from one of the most respected, loving, and unselfish woman in all of history, IMO, of course.
SYL!
Take care all ;)
"I was once pro choice and the thing that changed my mind was, I read my husband's biology books, medical books, and what I learned... At the moment of conception, a life starts. And this life has it's own unique set of DNA, which contains a blueprint for the whole genetic makeup. The sex is determined. We know there's a life because it's growing and changing"
Thanks Kathy Ireland, Now I have another reason to like you!
WE REMEMBER!
AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN ARE FOR REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM
CHOICE is the essence of freedom. It's what we African- Americans have struggled for all these years. The right to choose where we would sit on a bus. The right to vote. The right for each of us to select our own paths, to dream and reach for our dreams. The right to choose how we would or would not live our lives. This freedom--to choose and to exercise our choices--is what we've fought and died for. Brought here in chains, worked like mules, bred like beasts, whipped one day, sold the next--for 244 years we were held in bondage. Somebody said that we were less than human and not fit for freedom. Somebody said we were like children and could not be trusted to think for ourselves.
Somebody owned our flesh, and decided if and when and with whom and how our bodies were to be used. Somebody said that Black women could be raped, held in concubinage, forced to bear children year in and year out, but often not raise them. Oh yes, we have known how painful it is to be without choice in this land. Those of us who remember the bad old days when Jim Crow ruled and segregation was the way of things, know the hardships and indignities we faced. We were free, but few or none were our choices. Somebody said where we could live and couldn't, where we could work, what schools we could go to, where we could eat, how we could travel. Somebody prevented us from voting. Somebody said we could be paid less than other workers. Somebody burned crosses, harassed and terrorized us in order to keep us down.
(Continued)
ONCE again somebody is trying to say that we can't handle the freedom of choice. Only this time they're saying African- American women can't think for themselves, and therefore can't be allowed to make serious decisions. Somebody's saying that we should not have the freedom to take charge of our personal lives and protect our health, that we only have limited rights over our bodies.
Somebody's once again forcing women to acts of desperation, because somebody's saying that if women have unintended pregnancies, it's too bad, but they must pay the price. Somebody's saying that we must have babies whether we choose to or not. Doesn't matter what we say, doesn't matter how we feel. Some say that abortion under any circumstance is wrong, others that rape and incest and danger to the life of the woman are the only exceptions. Doesn't matter that nobody's saying who decides if it was rape or incest; if a woman's word is good enough; if she must go into court and prove it. Doesn't matter that she may not be able to take care of a baby; that the problem also affects girls barely out of adolescence; that our children are having children. Doesn't matter if you're poor and pregnant--go on welfare, or walk away. What does matter is that we know abortions will still be done, legal or not.
We know the consequences when women are forced to make choices without protection-the coat hangers and knitting needles that punctured the wombs of women forced to seek back-alley abortions on kitchen tables at the hands of butchers. The women who died screaming in agony, awash in their own blood. The women who were made sterile. All the women who endured the pain of make shift surgery with no anesthetics, risked fatal infection.
We understand why African-American women risked their lives then, and why they seek safe legal abortion now. It's been a matter of survival. Hunger and homelessness. Inadequate housing and income to properly provide for themselves and their children. Family instability. Rape. Incest. Abuse. Too young, too old, too sick, too tired. Emotional, physical, mental, economic, social-the reasons for not carrying a pregnancy to term are endless and varied, personal, urgent, and private. And for all these pressing reasons, African-American women once again will be among the first forced to risk their lives if abortion is made illegal.
There have always been those who have stood in the way of our exercising our rights, who tried to restrict our choices. There probably always will be. But we who have been oppressed should not be swayed in our opposition to tyranny, of any kind, especially attempts to take away our reproductive freedom. You may believe abortion is wrong. We respect your belief and we will do all in our power to protect that choice for you. You may decide that abortion is not an option you would choose. Reproductive freedom guarantees your right not to. All that we ask is that no one deny another human being the right to make her own choice. That no one condemn her to exercising her choices in ways that endanger her health, her life. And that no one prevent others from creating safe, affordable, legal conditions to accommodate women, whatever the choices the make. Reproductive freedom gives each of us the right to make our own choices, and guarantees us a safe, legal affordable support system. It's the right to choose.
(Conclusion)
WE ARE still an embattled people beset with life-and-death issues. Black America is under siege. Drugs, the scourge of our community, are wiping out one, two, three generations. We are killing ourselves and each other. Rape and other unspeakable acts of violence are becoming sickeningly commonplace. Babies linger on death's door, at risk at birth: born addicted to crack and cocaine; born underweight and undernourished; born AIDS-infected. An ever-growing number of our children are being abandoned, being mentally, physically, spiritually abused. Homelessness, hunger, unemployment run rife. Poverty grows. Our people cry out in desperation, anger, and need.
Meanwhile those somebodies who claim they're "pro-life" aren't moved to help the living. They're not out there fighting to break the stranglehold of drugs and violence in our communities, trying to save our children, or moving to provide infant and maternal nutrition and health programs. Eradicating our poverty isn't on their agenda. No-- somebody's too busy picketing, vandalizing and sometimes bombing family planning clinics, harassing women, and denying funds to poor women seeking abortions.
So when somebody denouncing abortions claims that they're "pro-life," remind them of an old saying that our grandmothers often used: "It's not important what people say, it's what they do." And remember who we are, remember our history, our continuing struggle for freedom. Remember to tell them that WE REMEMBER!
--Signed by dozens of America's leading African-American women
Dennis,
Why is sex neccessary, but raising the child produced by that sex not?
Somebody owned our flesh, and decided if and when and with whom and how our bodies were to be used.
Slaves wrote that piece?
Claim:
"Dred Scott and Roe vs Wade aren't comparable"
Answer:
Yes, they are comparable in that the Supreme Court was wrong to deny inalianable rights in both cases. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 upheld slavery as legal. It decreed that black people are the private property of the slave owners. This was a grave error of the Supreme Court, denying African Americans one of their most fundamental human rights - the right to liberty.
In Roe vs Wade, the Supreme Court erred again by denying a whole class of human beings (preborn babies) the most fundamental right - THE RIGHT TO LIFE.
Claim: "Poor women need public funds (your tax money) to pay for abortion so they will not be discriminated against."
Answer: The rich can readily afford cocaine and prostitites. Should taxpayers also be forced to buy these for the poor?
The bottom line is that abortion is the worst form of child abuse. It kills a baby and wounds the mother for life. If the poor cannot afford abortions, they and their children are blessed not to become a victim of this bloody holocaust.
Did you know Planned Parenthood locates many of its abortion contraception offices in minority areas, where they abort a huge number of minority babies? And have you seen the evidence that Margaret Sanger, the wealthy founder of Planned Parenthood was a eugenicist and a white supremacist?
Says the Rev. Johnny Hunter, a black pastor, "Margaret Sanger implemented the "Negro Project" in 1939 to eliminate those she called "human weeds.'"
For more details, go to http://www.all.organd click on "Site Index." Then, in the "Search Our Site" window, type the name, Margaret Sanger. This will pull up dozens of her racist quotes about minorities.
Planned Parenthood will tell you that birth control reduces abortion- but the facts say otherwise. Birth control fails miserably. Even the pro-birth control Alan Guttmacher institute web site reports that "58% of women having abortions in 1995 had used a contraceptive method during the month they bacame pregnant."
Planned P.. touts its sex ed programs, but these programs don't help kids, they hurt them. PP's own research has shown its sex ed programs caused a 50 % higher rate of sexual activity amont teens. (1)
And did you know PP runs America's largest chain of abortion centers? (HMMMM) That's right, PP sells abortions - a profitable backup when birth control fails. Every year, PP's abortions account for around 10% of the total U.S. toll of aborted babies. In its 1997-1998 annual report, PP admits to executing 165,174 abortions in 1997. (2)
PP also deceptively promotes itself as "privately funded." yet in 1997 alone, PP recieved $165 million of the U.S. public's tax money. (3)
(1) Louis Harris and Assoc., American Teens Speak: Sex, Myths, TV and Birth Control. New York: Planned Parenthood Federation of America. 1986 p. 19.
(2) Planned Parenthood Federation of America's 1997-1998 Annual Report
(3) Ibid
Planned Parenthood is one of the biggest scams America has going today.
Abortion sucks!