TheMastersSon Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 (edited) My favorite bottom line on the abortion rights issue is what a poll taken maybe 15 or so years ago indicated. According to the poll and entirely predictably, 80% of respondants who self-identified as conservative said they favored laws restricting or eliminating abortion rights for women in some or all cases. But later in that same poll another question was asked, the following is either exact or a close approximation: "If your own daughter had an unwanted pregnancy, would you want our government to interfere with her abortion decision?", and I kid you not, 85% of these same self-identified conservatives said no. So I'm not sure what to make of it, other than to chock it up to stupidity and a whole lot of right-wingers who apparently have never thought their position on abortion rights all the way through. They wish to restrict and ban abortion but only for everybody else's families. In my book, recognition of any constitutional rights for any subgroup of cells within a woman's own body is not only ridiculous but an inherent violation of her own right to control her own body or any portion thereof. And the day our pope or Mike Pence can bear the pains and costs and other sacrifices of pregnancy and labor is the day they'll have the right to force these pains on someone or anyone else. It's why, aside from almost a half century of personal experience with friends and family, I consider one's position on abortion rights to be one of the best and most accurate indicators not of morality but of basic intelligence. The same is true btw for same-sex marriage recognition, i.e. if you're against it, don't do it. And if you're against other people doing it, pass a law against it if the public will exists to do so. And if the will doesn't exist to do so, please go home and mind your own marriages. It's a much more noble, infinitely more possible and rewarding effort. Edited January 3, 2018 by TheMastersSon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyquest32 Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 (edited) In ancient Rome fathers had the absolute right of life or death over there child they could leave it to overexpose to die. It was punishable by death for anyone to save this child. At third term abortion where the child is no longer necessary dependent on the mothers body for life, you have a distinct living human being. Now Un-Mothers given that same right to kill the kid for whatever her personal reasons, verbal thumbs up or down, the child dies, her choice. Is based on a legal technicality, ''Alive, finished, yet not removed yet''. Or is it another question? Is it because I made you I have the right to destroy you? By that logic when considering a third term child that could live and be given away to another mother...by that logic they might as well make it legal for women to kill there adult children. Or...maybe its a technicality like I said before? Say a crazy overenthusiastic nurse for example, can pull the kid out quick enough? Is the kids safe because the law says hes alive when he hits the air? I mean in this hypothetical example? Never mind the movement if hes hypothetically almost there? No comment except one: what an interesting set of morels some of humanity seems to have. Maybe things have not changed that much after all since the old days. Edited January 3, 2018 by skyquest32 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMastersSon Posted January 3, 2018 Author Share Posted January 3, 2018 (edited) At third term abortion where the child is no longer necessary dependent on the mothers body for life, you have a distinct living human being.Human male sperm are also both human and living. It's specifically how Islamic courts justify forced amputations of hands for convicted masturbators. Because if human fetuses are human, certainly human sperm are human too. The specific and traditional objection behind this stupidity is to ANY outside interference with human reproduction, whether it's birth control pills, abortion, condoms, even masturbation etc. The problem is that, constitutionally and logically, only one final rights holder is possible per body, and as long as this is true (e.g. fetuses can't vote, or exercise free speech rights etc), the existing and established right of a woman to control her body trumps any and all claimed rights of any portion of her body, even her fetus. Whether a fetus has reached viability outside the mother's body isn't relevant to its location INSIDE the mother's body. How many times does it need to be said? If Mike Pence and our popes wish to outlaw abortion, please call me when they get pregnant or when they have the right to impose pregnancy on anyone. Because again according to polls, 85% of conservatives say they want abortion made illegal but not for their own daughters. Edited January 3, 2018 by TheMastersSon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fkemman11 Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 It's not something I think any state or government body should have any say over. It is a personal moral dilemma that has no impact on society at large one way or the other and should not be a legal one. But, when has that ever stopped lawyers or politicians from trying to outlaw it? This country's and maybe the World's citizens need more support for this and similar issues- not laws making them a crime and punishable. Those days of finding dead pregnant women with clothing hangers still in them with blood all over the floor should remain buried in the past....forever. However, I can understand pro-lifer's viewpoint on this issue. They believe that all life is "special" and deserves the right to live- among other rights. When is it a human deserving of rights? is the question that resurfaces again and again. When or is it murder? The poll conducted illustrates very clearly a "double" standard by those opposed to pro-choice. They would condemn others for practicing their rights as a mother and citizen, but, somehow think that they themselves are above or immune to such a law. Yes- they are hypocritical fools. The other 15% who said they would include their own daughters in any such law to make it illegal...are liars. I do agree that all life should be considered "special". But as I said, I do not feel it is my right or anyone else's to force a pregnant woman to carry to term. The states should instead be offering alternatives to abortion- such as adoption and perhaps some kind of compensation for carrying to term. There are many couples here and abroad that cannot have children of their own due to whatever reason and seek a child through adoption agencies. Another option would be to make the unwanted child a ward of the state- giving them certain rights and freedoms with the understanding that they would be beholden to the state and serve for a number of years in the armed forces. This could help with declining numbers of applicants for the respective military branches. In fact, as wards of the state, these children could be trained as our nations elite soldiers to call upon in times of war or crises. This might sound somewhat crazy to some, but, it is still a reasonable alternative to NEVER being born. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harbringe Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 It comes down to the "my body my choice" argument. If you ask who died (something dies in an abortion) was it your body , the answer is no it wasn't and did that body have a choice and again the answer is no it didn't. The truth of the matter is those who are pro choice are treating the life within as property and in many cases are making the same rationalizations as was applied to the keeping of slaves. Even animal rights activists have no leg to stand on if they are pro choice. One of the practices in animal husbandry is to force abortion on say a cow and butcher the calf and animal rights activists will scream about the cruelty of it , yet are perfectly fine with killing a human baby. It doesn't make sense , its ethically and morally inconsistent. And thats the problem with the pro choice argument , they have many ethically and morally inconsistent stances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMastersSon Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 (edited) Well I'd be the first to admit inconsistency on both sides of this issue. But you still haven't explained why 4 out of 5 conservatives favor laws against abortion, yet also do not wish our government to interfere with what's undoubtedly either the or one of the most personal decisions a woman ever makes in her entire life. The point is, very close to nobody is "pro-abortion". It's all in how the question is asked, again at least according to polls. The real question imo is how to best and most effectively minimize the number of abortions that are required and performed, and this is a very different question than whether the PROCEDURE of abortion, which is a perfectly valid and sometimes required medical treatment to save the lives or health of some women, should be outlawed or restricted. The latter approach accomplishes nothing except to impose government where it's neither wanted -- EVEN BY CONSERVATIVES -- nor has any chance of being effective, since no woman in her right mind bases her decision of whether to continue her own pregnancy on current state or federal law, which changes like the wind. So my advice to you if you believe government has any business inside womens' uteruses is to buy stock in coat hanger companies. It's pure knee-jerk stupidity to believe government can make this decision for any woman, let alone all women. Most reprehensible imo are those who favor no-exception laws against abortion, since anything from rape or incent to a fallopian tube problem can easily doom any woman to certain death if she carries a pregnancy to term. The degree of moral outrage possible with the abortion issue is directly proportional to one's ignorance or misunderstanding of another concept called predestination. I'll do my best to avoid specific religious beliefs and stick to non-partisan theology, but a concept believed by many denominations is that our Creator already knows the eventual fate of all living beings. Even fetuses. Even human sperm. Even people, including gay people etc. It's why in my view, everything from abortion and masturbation to homosexuality and even things like euthenasia etc aren't really the objective moral evils they're claimed to be by many or most religious groups. Our Creator already and perfectly knows all of our fates and in my cosmology no woman would ever be forced to carry a pregnancy and give birth against her will, and no person would ever have his or her suffering from a terminal illness artificially prolonged simply because state law requires it etc etc. None of the above is meant to claim laws against homicide and murder are pointless, they are a practical necessity in any society. But their purpose is to protect the lives and rights of citizens, which again, until a fetus can hold a birth certificate in its own hands, it is not. I'll also wait to hear why 85% of conservatives who say they favor laws against abortion also say they'd prefer our government not be involved in the pregnancies of their own daughters. Can you understand that women (in fact all of us) either have a moral problem with abortion or we don't, and this is entirely regardless of the legal status of abortion? It's no different imo than the same-sex marriage issue, the only people it should and does matter to are gay people, regardless of the protestations of straight people. In other words, if person A is gay, what person B thinks about it, or even what people B, C, D, E and F think about it, has absolutely no bearing on or relevance to person A's gayness. Thus in absence of criminal laws against homosexuality, I don't understand even the theoretical point of the "defense of marriage" campaign. One cannot defend anything by intentionally denying it to 30 million law-abiding Americans, and our 14th Amendment thankfully doesn't allow for established second-class citizens. So it's simply institutionalized gay bashing, exactly the same way abortion laws are legalized misogyny. The primary purpose of both is to satiate knee-jerk reactionary stupidity and organized religious groups who have a vested interest masqueraded as moral outrage in legally forcing women to continue pregnancies against their will. I know it's OT to the abortion issue but the vested interests of these groups in eliminating and preventing gay rights are far greater, e.g. just the loss of estate inheritances from retired gay clergy alone will cost them a veritable fortune. At least some and eventually most of these estates will now be left to legal spouses and families instead of the organizations etc. Also our organized religious groups especially the RCC have been the world's primary social refuge for gay men for the last 1600 years and probably longer. Every gay right recognized anywhere is one less reason for gay men to enter the clergy. Ironically, equal civil rights for gay people will finally solve their own very longstanding problem with clergies having disproportionate numbers of gay people, again especially the RCC. Clergies will be properly limited to those seeking God instead of refuge from the expectations of and rejection by family and society. Edited January 5, 2018 by TheMastersSon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeyYou Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Government should just stay out of peoples personal lives. Legislating 'morality' has never worked, as everyone has a different idea of what is 'moral'. At one time, sex with someone of the same sex was illegal, as was sex in any other position than 'missionary'...... Government overreach at it's worst. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMastersSon Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 Today's moral outrage toward abortion is tomorrow's moral outrage about masturbation and any other form of sex that wastes the sacred baby batter. Logically it's both or neither, and again this is specifically how government micromanagement of peoples' sex and family lives is legally justified in so-called Islamic Republics and other totalitarian countries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGMage2 Posted January 5, 2018 Share Posted January 5, 2018 My favorite bottom line on the abortion rights issue is what a poll taken maybe 15 or so years ago indicated. -snipI don't see how you can have a meaningful discussion based on the results of a poll that came out maybe 15 years ago. All you've got here is hearsay. If you can't validate the existence of this poll then there is nothing to discuss - not arguing, just saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMastersSon Posted January 5, 2018 Author Share Posted January 5, 2018 (edited) RGMage2, these poll results are not only unsurprising, they're consistent across most issues. Ask any group of self-identified conservative Republicans whether they'd prefer our government to interfere with moreless anything (not just abortion, by any means), the same 80+% will say no. It doesn't take any guts to say you favor laws against abortion, it's infinitely tougher to look your own daughter in the eye and tell her she's stuck with an unwanted pregnancy. Correct? Edited January 5, 2018 by TheMastersSon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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