I was part of a group that handed out a pro-life publication Tuesday and Wednesday, and I wanted to comment on something written on a flyer that I had put up. The flyer stated, “what about the baby’s choice?” I noticed an hour later that someone had crossed “baby” out and put above it “fetus/US citizenship.” I find it sad that people use the scientific term fetus to cover up the fact that there’s a living human within the womb. At 21 days the “fetus” has a beating heart, and muscles, arms, legs, eyes, are ears are all beginning to form. Scientifically it is not logical to claim that the baby inside of the womb isn’t alive or it doesn’t feel pain. I have a 14-month-old boy; when my wife was 9 weeks pregnant, we were able to see our son and hear his heartbeat and I still have a photo of the ultrasound on my fridge. Finally, the argument that you have a right to life because you are a U.S. citizen doesn’t make any sense. What about African-Americans 150 years ago? Our Supreme Court said they didn’t have the right to their freedom, and do you think that was okay? I certainly don’t! Our right to life and liberty isn’t determined by the state but by an inalienable right given by our Creator. Every person, especially the most vulnerable and innocent among us, should have the right to life and liberty.
Andrew McDowell
CLAS ‘05
Wow, most pointless opinion ever. Don’t even try to compare abortion with slavery.
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Slavery- the black man is not a person and is the possession of his master.
Abortion- the fetus is not a person and is the possession of his mother. What’s not to compare? OH, wait.. the idea that the master did not give birth to the slave? That is moot in light of the scientific proof that this is a new little human. IT is disgraceful what we do to the unborn and yet have a hissy fit over Michael Vick and dogs. A person’s a person, no matter how small.
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I think you are missing the point of what the defacer wrote. I assume that they were not trying to make a comment comparing abortions to slavery but rather abortions to the immigration issue. This comparison is especially apt because many Republicans who are pro-life are also anti-immigration (and sometimes aggressively anti-immigration. Why is it not ok to kill an unborn fetus but it is ok to shoot bullets at a Guatemalan running across the U.S. border trying to make a better life for him/herself?
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People miss the point that the unborn are people too. That’s the huge argument being presented right now as the Senate debates this scary health care bill. From the moment of conception, you are a human being. Imagine yourself, when you were in your mom, you were helpless. Whatever your mom put into her body, it then went straight into how you developed. Abortion is horrible because it’s just an easy way out from a ‘mistake’ that may have been made. Just like most of us in this fallen world want to take the ‘easy way out’. We are so afraid of actual work these days. And people wonder why our generation is so fallen.
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Whoa Kimmy. That last sentence was so conservative you could’ve pulled it from 1954. Moral attitudes shift. Change is a good thing.
Would you say that the abolition of slavery is bad? How about civil rights? Hate crime legislation? Apartheid? Institutionalized Religion? Institutionalized pederasty?
Think about other elements of your argument before it spews out onto the page.
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One more thing…
One reason that the pro-life movement doesn’t get more support from the mainstream is that they classify every abortion as rectifying a “mistake.” Not everyone who gets an abortion does so to correct a mistake. Often there are other considerations involved (e.g. the health of the mother). Using the tone that I believe you’re using when you say mistake alienates the mob because everyone makes mistakes.
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Giving right to a fetus has a number of philosophical and pragmatic faults:
1) Rights are given to sentient beings- the more sentient the more rights. We give higher status to the great apes and dolphins, less rights to worms. There is little evidence that a fetus during the first 12 weeks post conception has a nervous system that is much more developed than a worm.
2) Rights are not given for genetics. The billions of cells that we lose from our bodies each day are human by DNA, but are not self-sustaining organisms, much like a fetus. These cells are not granted rights.
3) Rights are not granted for potential. Any US-born person over the age of 35 has the potential to become president, yet we don’t grant every US-born person over the age of 35 the rights carried by the President.
4) If it is wrong to prevent something from reaching its potential, then we are doing wrong by not allowing every egg and every sperm in all humans to reach their potential as a new human being and in reality we should all be having as much sex as possible to do what is morally right by helping eggs and sperm become humans.
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Dr. Suess, thank you for noticing the oh so very obvious – noticing the direct logical link and total ignorance of science that irrevocably connects the two largest denials of human rights in this country’s history: slavery and abortion. Roe/Wade was and is just the supreme court regenerating the Dred Scot decision all over again. Lets just shrug our shoulders and pretend that the victims – be they unwhite or unborn – are not human, so just do with them what you please since they are mere property in the same way a farmer owns cattle. Indeed, you were right many years ago when you uttered the extremist, anti choice scientific fact that “a person is a person, no matter how small.” As for Vick and his dogs, ever notice that dog and cat abortions are unthinkable and almost never happen regardless of how hopeless the circumstances? We reserve the special treat of being killed before birth specifically for own own species. Even a baby killer can’t get their arms around being a puppy or kitten killer, now can they? A society in denial.
Jonah, you have a right to your religious bigotry and hatreds, and can trash whatever religion you like as you have a right to your own opinion. But no amount of brainwashing from a corrupt media will change the fact that the Pope forbade slavery – and Catholics taking part in the slave trade – in 1839, and that religious people were at the forefront of the abolishonist movement in the 1850′s as well as the civil rights movement in the 1950′s. The American Catholic bishops were also in the capitol building in 1965 warning senators planning a filibuster of the Voting Rights Act that they would pay the price next election – just like they are now. Crime rates in the USA went thru the roof in the late 60′s and early 70′s – and have never come back down to where they were in 1954. NYC had 56 murders in 1954! You can’t rewrite history, much as you would like to to dream up new supposed facts to support your cruel modern political agenda.
If you think human rights for infants are no longer “mainstream,” I suggest you take a quick peak at the last gallup poll or, more importantly, the election results here and in New Jersey a few weeks ago. Then you can ponder why it is that only 2 pro abortion national candidates have ever garnered more than 50% of the vote since 1973 – Carter with about 50% and Obama with about 53% – amidst a number pro life landslides. Obama might have staked out a more centrist position on abortion, but he didn’t. Too late now. But there is no left or right, red or blue with regard to human RIGHTS anyway.
As for mistakes, there are indeed the red herrings that DO appear now and again when the decision tragically comes down to the life of either the mother or her child. ALL current US legislation makes exceptions for these, such as ectopic pregnancy. Note that the Plan B pills given away to boys and girls alike at the Teen Center cause ectopic pregnancy (not that they tell anyone), so the tragedy may be induced by the dishonesty or irresponsibility of someone else also.
But we all know the 99% plus of pregnancies result from free will, call it a mistake or whatever you want. Everyone at UVA knows how babies are made. In my case, the extreme coercion of my UVA girlfriend at the time by several women around her – illegal in Virginia, btw – had as much to do with spring break plans as anything else. I defy you to find any mother who says she made a mistake by NOT getting an abortion. The ones who did who now think it was a mistake you could count with the stars in the sky. Of all your talk of considerations, you will not being giving any consideration to the victims. The dead infants, the mothers living with a horrible memory, or the children born later to them preterm with any number of needless developmental disabilities.
As always in history, the victims must be declared as subhuman, and the aftermaths suppressed or ignored. The connection to slavery is very well documented, and here in the state of Buck vs. Bell and where UVA was the center of eugenics thought – it should surprise no one that things have come full circle and returned home.
But abolishonists have not gone away. We’ve just reorganized to fight the fight for human rights anew. Right here. Right now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLnNi_qb7nY
http://uvalies.org/sanger.html
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Good job, Andrew. God values life, and we should too. If one does not believe in God or care to please Him, then any debate about abortion is futile. Interesting points above.
1. Maybe I missed something, but since when was pederasty (sexual relations between two males, esp. when one of them is a minor) institutionalized, or widely accepted as “good”?
2. True, not all abortions are to “fix mistakes”…there are about 3-5% that occur because of health to the mother, and I have sympathy on the women who feel that is their only choice. (Source: Allen Guttmacher Institute, AKA Planned Parenthood)
3. We are not talking about fetuses as lesser animals, but as younger people; and not just a “right” to vote, run for president, or hold a bake sale on your front lawn, but to be protected from another who is trying to kill you. Do you believe that a person who cannot physically survive without an oxygen machine should not have this protection? What about someone who cannot function in society because of lack of mental ability?
4. Good job pointing out that when we let eggs and sperm go to waste, it wastes the potential human life. I have a feeling this isn’t your personal conviction, but it is mine.
And lest you think I hold these opinions because I am uneducated, I’d like to let you know my UVA Master’s degree is rolled up somewhere underneath a pile of diapers.
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When are you Christians going to realize that you will never win the abortion fight unless you lose the argument that it’s your “God’s will” that commands your opposition to abortion. The numbers simply don’t add up. Most of the world is not Christian, so you will never get enough support for any major movement unless you appeal to universal truths for all of humanity. Christians are becoming more and more a minority so I suggest you start collaborating with those that agree with you for rational reasons rather than relying on the dictates of a dying faith. You’d find many more sympathetic ears if you didn’t force your allies to convert to your religion while they are trying to define their own reasons for opposing abortion without the need to invoke a god.
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The rhetorical argument stating ““what about the baby’s choice?” is just flat out stupid. We have absolutely no idea what the baby’s choice would have been. Maybe he/she/it would have said, “naw abort me, i don’t particularly want to be born as a crack baby who will grow up in poverty and be in poverty the rest of my life.” This type of argument seeks to attack our emotions, while completely neglecting both the logical and the obvious.
Second of all, I like to call fetuses “future babies” or “future lives”. I think this is a good middle ground that recognizes their form of existence while not equating them to living beings.
Third, do not compare abortion to slavery, especially using a “human life is sacred” argument. If you conservatives cared about human life, you wouldn’t have supported the murder and assassination of nearly 1 million Iraqis. Iraqis who were loved and cherished by other people in this world, who did nothing to America, and who tried to defend their home. Remember, nobody can really love a “future baby”, except the carrying mother (or Jesus if you’re the religious type), whose decision it was to abort. Most people living in the world, on the other hand, are loved by somebody. This is the major difference between a human and a “future human”.
Lastly, I don’t consider myself pro-choice or pro-life, but rather I am somewhere in the middle (not sure exactly why this “middle” area doesn’t get more credence). I, in essence, believe some people should be able to have abortions and some shouldn’t. I don’t particularly want a society where 13 and 14 year old girls are having babies. Abortions should be acceptable in these instances. It should be acceptable for the 35 year old mother who already has 5 kids and can’t afford another. It shouldn’t be acceptable for college aged white girls (being white is an influencing factor as white babies are the most desirable in terms of adoption) who come from rich families to have abortions. My point is that circumstance matters, and if someone has the means (or their family has the means) to take care of baby, then they shouldn’t be allowed an abortion.
I personally don’t think the problem with abortion is exemplified by poor people or teenage girls. Rather, I think the problem with abortion lies with white rich girls who abuse their sexuality. I wish that instead of saying that all abortions are wrong, pro-life people would go after the most unnecessary abortions – which, in my view, come from rich, white girls (often hypocritical, conservative girls in fact). Go after the rich people that abuse their sexuality (and end a future life because of it), not the 13 year old girl who was molested by her demented step father.
Lastly, I would like to warn any conservative girls against ranting and raving about their pro-life beliefs. The last 2 conservative girls I heard ranting against abortion, ended up getting pregnant within a month, and hypocritically having an abortion. Talk about jinxing yourself. Therefore, if you’re active girls, don’t talk about abortion. Things change when shit hits the fan. It’s always easier to tell others what to do (have that baby!), then to do it yourself.
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Kates,
Pederasty was institutionalized and considered good by none other than the fathers of democracy in ancient Greece. I guess your UVA Master’s degree wasn’t in Classics.
Also, if you value life I don’t see how you are living. Have you found a way to eat without killing anything? Even carrots are living things that, according to your opening line, your God values. Why do you feel you can dismiss His wishes when it comes to a carrot and not when it comes to a fetus? Seems a bit hypocritical and relativistic to me.
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People need to stop using rhetorical questions as a form of argument on here. It’s one of the least effective, most flawed, and least logical ways to argue a point. In addition, rhetorical questions eliminate nuanced arguments (and nuanced arguments are essential for a thoughtful discussion.
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Folks, it is now taking a few hours to the next day for my posts to display, as there is a censor at the Cav Daily that reads them and then decides if they will display. “Your comment is awaiting moderation” enabled them to have my comments buried in a busy thread like this one. They will be told to delete them altogether soon – as they have before – and will do so as they’ve done before.
Urban Hunter, apes and dolphins are killed by humans every day for meat. Your desperate attempt to compare a child in utero to a worm is the best your side can do to try and twist scientific facts around – so thanks for showing us your weird science. From conception – NOT birth – YOU had 23 pairs of chromosomes (46 total) making up your HUMAN genome – 23 from your father and 23 from your mother. YOUR DNA was and is 100% human and 100% unique and in no way ever comparable with that of a worm or an ape or a dolphin. Those are the genetic FACTS.
As for being sentient, your anti human life theories thus allow for the killing of anyone in a coma, or even unconscious for that matter. Seniors having a bad day with awareness are thus half as human and twice as killable that day also. Not surprising. As for potential and the president:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyfmtUjNJEk&feature=related
The strangest of your comments you saved for last – comparing a sperm or egg cell to a developing child. Both sperm and egg are specifically designed to live about 5 days given the right environment. When YOUR parent’s sperm and egg met, your life began and you were designed to last about 100 years. Sperm and egg each have only the DNA of their maker, while YOU had entirely unique DNA at conception. Does this look like a haircut to you?
VJ, since you don’t know anything about world religion statistics, let me just remind you that religion, including Christianity, is on the increase globally. Elective abortion is still illegal in the vast majority of countries worldwide. But your point is a valid one non the less. Not one word on our website mentions religion. We approach the subject strictly from a human rights perspective, and as a continuation of the UVA eugenics program morphing into it’s current steroids and abortion sales program (both very lucrative for UVA since their inception in 1989).
Adherents to any religion and no religion cannot escape from the simple facts. Nor, we all can notice, will they answer the simplest of questions:
When did you become male/female?
Would YOU have chosen to be aborted?
Would there be another YOU if you had been?
Would the world be a better place?
When did you get your DNA?
When did you get your eye and hair color?
Can a grown woman really spontaneously grow a penis and a prostate as part of her body?
Can she really have two different blood types and two different double helixes of DNA at the same time?
How many cases of children being born preterm and facing a lifetime of needless cerebral palsy is abortion worth?
What of their rights?
Rob, I can tell you firsthand that a father can love a child before it is born. I was one. And I know hundreds of others. Your comments about “crack babies” on the one hand and “conservative white girls” on takes nothing away whatsoever from the humanity of their children. Human rights are not conservative nor liberal. I agree with you regarding how common abortion is at UVA, much as I hate to, though. It’s as much a UVA tradition now as anything else. Please, if you indeed know two women who are post abortive and looking back thinking they are hypocrites, be kind to them and encourage them to get some help at one of the links on our facebook group. I’ve dealt with a dozen and counting myself as best I can.
The UVA embrace and promotion of abortion in house (rare for a university medical center) was not random or due to the winds of happenstance. It was and is a very coordinated plan and the result of a historical precedent of UVA eugenics theory and the profits therefrom. The regime was laid down exactly on the Planned Parenthood model. But just like Planned Parenthood, they have some defectors – and thus some problems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA43T5ogsD4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaTywSDmls
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Rockime,
1. I think in an effort to make my comment brief, I misrepresented the truth. Let me clarify: God values INNOCENT HUMAN life. He has commanded us to “take dominion over the earth” (i.e. eat the plants and animals and not abuse them). So, I don’t believe nourishing myself is relativistic or hypocritical. There are also times when God requires death as a punishment for taking another human life.
2. Also, you are correct in your assumption that I did not major in classics. Perhaps we should base our moral code upon the great Ancient Greeks. I do remember that touching scene in 300 where the Spartan tosses the infant off a cliff because of a deformity. They obviously did not have abortion clinics funded by the government.
Rob,
1. I would suggest “you liberals” not rely on generalizations. I don’t believe the Iraq war is/was in any way justified, and I feel sorry for those who have lost loved ones because of it.
2. I don’t know if your warning was meant for me (and Kimmy), and I don’t really need to defend myself, but I feel like it anyway… I will try with God’s help to practice what I preach. I have two children already, one of whom I didn’t think I was ready for, and after I have my tenth, I will pray to God for more. (And by the way, VJ, we will be practicing our dying faith along the way.)
3. I think rhetorical questions can offer analogies to further the discussion or bring about further clarification (see above note to Rockime).
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Wow Sean Cannan,
I find it funny that because I said the problem with abortion is with white, rich girls, you took that to mean the problem is with UVa girls. Neither of the two girls I was talking about went to UVa, and I only know one girl at UVa who even had an abortion (multiple though). And Kates, no I was not warning you, I was making a general comment to prove a point.
I think both sides of this argument (I don’t consider myself the “other” side btw) should just agree that the total number of abortions needs to be lessened. It is startling how often a first abortion will lead to a second and third. I think our society needs to work on that.
Also Mr. Cannan, you need to acknowledge that not all abortions are the same. White, rich college girl vs. molested 13 year old in middle America. If you believe that all abortions are equally inhumane, then the argument is pointless and we won’t get anywhere. Will you concede that some abortions are more unnecessary and tragic than others?
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A point by point response to Sean Cannan:
When did you become male/female?- In utero, like my pet dog. Humanity is not defined by the presence or absence of genitals.
Would YOU have chosen to be aborted?- Yes, if I would have killed my mother (who I love)in the process of being born or if I would have spent my life unloved and/ or abused because I was not wanted. There are some fates worse than death.
Would there be another YOU if you had been?- Tough to say, that is an unanswerable question much like, “What would the world be like today if Hitler was aborted?”. This is an impossible question to answer. Things could be better, things could be worse. We can’t tell.
Would the world be a better place?- Perhaps, see the answer above.
When did you get your DNA?- Mother and father… what is the point, did I miss it?
When did you get your eye and hair color?- In utero, just like my pet dog. Humanity is not defined by eye and hair color (unless you are a previously mentioned psychopathic German leader of the 1930s).
Can a grown woman really spontaneously grow a penis and a prostate as part of her body? Uhh, once again, did I miss the point? Are humans defined by when and where their genitals develop? I am seeing a theme (obsession?) here…
Can she really have two different blood types and two different double helixes of DNA at the same time? Yes, please refer to chimerism. It is unexpectedly common in humans and many other living creatures.
How many cases of children being born preterm and facing a lifetime of needless cerebral palsy is abortion worth?- Huh? Did you mean to ask this question. The answer seems obviously pro-abortion. Choosing between a lifetime of suffering or a quick abortion before my nervous system can feel much of anything… I would certainly choose to be aborted.
What of their rights? I think that is what is being debated here with no clear answer. Lots of people say no rights, lots of people say rights of a full human. I don’t see how your questions further this debate.
Rockime
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Sean Cannan,
I don’t know where you found your numbers on the growth of Christianity, but here is a reference from a Christian organization that also concludes that the percentage of Christians in the world has been falling for quite some time:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm
This is not the only source of this data. Go take a look around. This site is pretty good at divulging their data sources. The world is a much larger place that the USA. If you travel the world outside of the Christian network you will get a much better feeling for what is happening with the rest of the inhabitants of this shrinking world.
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Sean,
The reason your comments are being moderated is because you are starting to flirt dangerously with ad hominem arguments. The next time that you make any sort of comment about my spirituality, the gloves are coming off. That’s one thing that you are not allowed to touch in this arena.
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VJ, I’m afraid you’re mistaken about the growth of Christianity world-wide. There are over 2.2 billions Christians on the earth with a current growth rate of 1.38% – it clearly isn’t a dying a faith and if you travel to South America, Africa, or Asia there is a massive increase of Christians especially in Africa. In 1900 in Africa there were only a small percentage of Christians but that has grown to nearly 35% of the population today and by 2025 it is expected to be above 50% of the population. Asia and South America have similar stories.
It is true that in Europe Christianity is at an all-time low and has been dropping for most of the 20th century.
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Rockime, thanks for taking the time to answer a few of my questions. None of the other anonymous cowards here had the guts to do so. But, alas, most of your answers are scientifically incorrect.
You got your unique human DNA, eye color, hair color, blood type and gender at CONCEPTION. Not a day or a week or a month or 5 months later. Thus, this is the only logical and scientific point to say where YOU began. I suggest you don’t go to any people who have experienced a lack of love from others and/or abuse and tell them they might as well off themselves. Being unwanted by one or two people at one point in your life does not make anyone’s human rights vanish. My aunt died in childbirth along with her SON, so I don’t need any lessons about that. NONE of these laws require that a woman die to give birth – so that is a cop out on your part.
You are also wrong about whether or not there would be another YOU if YOU had been aborted. The FACT is that there would never have been. No human DNA’s stands have ever been replicated naturally. It is impossible. We are all individuals. Identical twins are created just a few days after conception (the exact time the morning after pills go to work to kill them), but have entirely unique DNA and countless other differences. Chimerism indeed happens very, very rarely at the EMBRYONIC stage of life – NOT in a grown woman. The point, that you tried to avoid, was that it is impossible for a grown woman, or anyone, to call her child part of her body. A uterus is a place mother and child share for a time.
You also dodged the preterm birth and cerebral palsy question. See the left column here if indeed you were confused about the medical reality:
http://uvalies.org/birthdefects.html
SO, how many is it worth? The answer is definitely not zero, so give us all here a number.
How many is it worth?
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Sean Cannan,
I will start by saying that I am a Doctor. Nothing more because I fear for my safety, as evidenced by multiple homicides committed by those that pretend to be the protectors of life. There is a reason many of the people in these posts remain anonymous, they fear physical aggression from thugs that wish to impose their beliefs on others through the use of guns.
Secondly, I did not answer your questions the way you wished me to because they were vague and poorly constructed. You need to work on your communication skills. Please state them more clearly and I will try to address them to the best of my understanding. Your inability to form a question should not be construed as a dodge. This is your shortcoming that you must overcome if you wish to convince an audience you have the better argument.
Thirdly, your concept of how science works is sadly lacking. A single study does not set the paradigm. Science is a long and ever evolving process and broadly accepted “facts” become stronger and stronger precise facts (note no quotes) with the more studies that support the fact. Things that are called facts are not inscribed on stone tablets. If new evidence arises that brings a fact into question then the fact needs to be reexamined to an extent that all of the previous data that established the fact must be counterweighed and overwhelmed by the new contrarian evidence. The website you linked was very poorly referenced (PubMed is not a reference nor is Oxford Journals) and does not demonstrate the number of publications that say exactly the opposite. Is it more or less? How can we fairly weigh the data if only one side is presented. This is poor science. I can’t tell anything from your link. Before you start using the word “fact” when referring to scientific data you should get some training in the scientific method. UVA has a number of esteemed programs you should consider applying for. It would help your arguments immensely.
Fourthly, no laws require a woman to die to to give child birth? Thank goodness that is true! Unfortunately, as you can see in previous posts, many those that oppose abortion oppose ALL abortions even when all evidence suggests that the mother will die from the process. I am glad you agree that none of “these laws” (what laws are you talking about?) currently are law because killing a mother along with a fetus is a no win situation.
Fifth, I find it odd that you define a human genetically. Have you heard of the tissue culture cell line HeLa? It is frequently used in modern biological studies. It is a cervical cancer cell that was donated by a woman that was killed by it(Helen Lane = HeLa) back in the 1950s. It has all of her genes, yet has been growing in culture flasks for the last 60 years. Is that Helen Lane I have in my freezer? Most definitely no. Her personality is not there. She cannot interact with others. There is no love shared. If I were a Christian, I would say that there is no soul in that tissue culture flask. Thus, I can’t understand why you obsess with DNA. I would also make the argument that a fetus also is nothing more than genetic material that does not yet have a personality, cannot love another, and thus does not have a soul. Evidence does not support the full integration of the fetal nervous system until relatively late in development. If you disagree I suggest you lobby for more research to aid in determining whether this is true or not. If you have the guts to risk the possibility the research may not support your stance.
Finally, for now, I still don’t understand your final lines. How much is what worth? I don’t even understand what you are talking about. Please clarify. You can’t assume that the rest of the networld understands what is going on in your head without putting it into text. Pull all of those scattered thoughts together, synthesize them, and clearly pose the question and maybe someone will respond intelligently. If you can’t pose the question clearly I would say you haven’t thought it through well enough.
Rockime
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And, please cite your sources of data regarding Christianity’s standing in relation to non-Christians. I and many others don’t think Wikipedia is a reliable source of unbiased information. Often the most adamant “win” the control of information on Wikipedia. I did my best to find sources that would be less biased against or for Christianity’s cause, including secular and nondenominational sources. The majority indicate that Christians as a percentage of the world population (this is an important point, NOT total raw numbers of Christians which is estimated at around 1.3% growth) has decreased over the last century. Even if the number of Christians is increasing, if the non-Christians are growing at a greater rate this means that Christianity is decreasing relatively and if the trend continues over a long period this progression will greatly undermine Christianity’s influence on world affairs.
Perhaps if we knew your sources it would make it easier t judge your numbers.
Straight up, I suspect that we will never agree because it is such a politically loaded question. Every group likes to portray themselves as the ascendant wave of the future. I’ve stated my interpretation of the evidence I’ve collected in the literature and with my travels.
Here are a couple of my online sources:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3835
VJ
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it has always been in the best interests of conservative ideology to restrict the rights of women and minority groups. forcing women to carry out unwanted pregnancies is a way of reinforcing this patrimonial relationship.
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Rockime,
I will start by saying that if you are indeed a doctor, then you need to have your license revoked if your knowledge of medical science and human development is so lacking and/or corrupted. You have never been in any danger from anyone in my or any pro life group. I’ve never heard anyone so much as whisper anything more radical than writing chalk on a wall rather than a sidewalk, or maybe putting a flier up where fliers don’t belong. It is the content of your opinion that you do not want to attach you name to, because deep down you know what it is all about. I’m guessing you devoured the saturation coverage of George Tiller’s murder in Kansas, but have no idea who James Pouillon is. He was murdered while holding this pro life sign in Michigan months after the Tiller shooting. Here’s you’re ironic pic of the day:
http://www.abc.es/20090912/internacional-estados-unidos/matan-activista-vida-puertas-200909121939.html
Someone calling themselves a doctor – people normally involved in SAVING lives – that instead choose to cash in on being one of the very few that beheads and dismembers innocent and defenseless infants in utero are at least tied for being among the worst thugs and bullies on earth. Not much that little girl or boy can do to stop you any more than they could in a crib, could they? Those trying to protect everyone from such a “person” and defend the human rights of the “unwanted” are not the creepy or the dangerous ones. Killers are scary. Those trying to save innocents from being killed embrace a culture of life that applies to everyone. We have a long list of predecessors – abolishonists, civil rights leaders, and so on – that came before us.
Would you feel less secure in your opposition to human rights if abortions were performed with guns instead of cutting and ripping instruments?
My questions were very clear and can be understood by a 9th. grader. This is not a complicated issue, medically speaking. You answered them in 3 ways:
1) incompletely,
2) incorrectly,
3) dodged the question altogether and pretended you did not understand it.
You were given a link to multiple studies that have proven a very causal and common sense link to what happens to future pregnancies due to the compromised cervix and damaged uterus that abortions leave behind. Conclusions therefrom were included, and a very clear question was asked as to how many future children with cerebral palsy is abortion worth. 4 links and a 5th. quote. You understand the question, you just don’t want to talk about it. Indeed, you want to suppress all the science that you would very much like to keep people in the dark about.
You need to learn medicine better – or at least accept reality and accept that science is not going to change or be hidden simply to support your political ideology. Human biology does not conform to human politics. THIS is abortion:
http://abortionno.org/
Watch the whole thing. This is what you support.
You seemed ready to dismiss any or all of the science relayed on our website, but you could not make even one stab at telling any of us here which of our assertions were wrong. If there is a wealth of evidence out there saying that anything we stated is totally incorrect, you can’t seem to find that holy grail, can you? There is only one point that is presented as an ongoing debate – The Abortion/Breast Cancer link – and we honestly described it as such and noted that there is dissent among doctors.
For the record, we don’t lack support and help from doctors for our point of views. I got two emails a few weeks ago myself from leaders of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons thanking me for my “valiant efforts” in defense of human rights. This group has not given up the ghost on medical ethics like the AMA has, and includes pro life OB/GYN Ron Paul as one among their thousands of members. Your smug assumption that pro life is only for those outside the medical establishment is pure fantasy. You may want to check out Physicians for Life online, or look up the good folks at AAPLOG if indeed you have deluded yourself into thinking this. If you were right, abortion clinics probably would not be having such a tough time getting people to actually do the dirty, bloody work of elective abortion no matter what the compensation. If you work at UVA Hospital, I already know for certain you’ve got some big time opposition amongst some of your colleagues.
I may make a few spelling or grammar errors, but this is not wide enough a gap in communication for you to pretend that you don’t understand. And I don’t think I need to be taking any lessons from a person who wows us with sentence structure like “Fourthly, no laws require a woman to die to to give child birth?”
Your reference to cell lines, be they HeLa or the fetal cells still in vaccines from babies aborted decades ago, is really no different than the silliness of comparing a haircut to an abortion. I am not obsessed with DNA or genital development for that matter, I simply know the basics of human development that you are trying to confuse. Conception is the one and only scientific and logical place where YOU came into being. There has been and never will be another like you. And neither you nor any woman can spontaneously grow a second DNA, blood type, heart, etc. as part of the their own body.
Having a personality and ability to love another has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone’s right to life. If that were the case, we could just behead newborns in a crib and everyone in a coma while we’re at it and think nothing of it. Consider for a moment how much time and effort (and money) that goes into keeping someone in a coma alive for decades. Your argument falls apart.
Ever notice that there is hardly ever such a thing as a dog or cat abortion? Even baby killers can’t get their arms around being puppy or kitten killers..
Here are your grades, “doctor:”
When did you become male/female?
C. (you were correct by saying “in utero,” but the question was “when” – not “where”)
Would YOU have chosen to be aborted?
A. You answered this one by saying yes, but I don’t believe you.
Would there be another YOU if you had been?
F. It’s not “tough to say” at all. The most similar identical twins ever conceived still had different DNA and were different people physically and emotionally. There would never have been another YOU. But, given your views, twins do not exist anyway – as they come into being in the first week or two of life when your beloved morning after pills are going to work, right?
Would the world be a better place?
A. I have to take your word for that one, given your current cruelty and opposition to human rights.
When did you get your DNA?
F. Once again you ignore what the question word “when” means – because you don’t want to answer the question.
When did you get your eye and hair color?
C. Still dodging the fact that these were determined at conception.
Can a grown woman really spontaneously grow a penis and a prostate as part of her body?
F. Totally dodged another question.
Can she really have two different blood types and two different double helixes of DNA at the same time?
C. Chimerism does indeed exist, but it happens during the embryonic phase of life (the one you want to pretend isn’t there), and it does NOT happen spontaneously to any woman of child bearing age.
How many cases of children being born preterm and facing a lifetime of needless cerebral palsy is abortion worth?
F. Totally dodged the question. Countless children are needlessly living lives with birth defects such as cerebral palsy thanks only to their mother’s previous elective abortions to their older brother(s) or sister(s).
What of their rights?
F. Dodged like above.
So it looks as if Dr. Mengele 2009 has a very low D overall. The test was really easy, but the respondent simply didn’t want to respond to half of them, and pretended to read “WHERE” when the the word written “WHEN.” There’s a reason for that, of course. Medical science regarding this subject needs to be suppressed. All they can do is hope you don’t notice, and that nobody talks or thinks about it while they do what they do behind closed doors to totally healthy and growing young infants.
Rockime, I don’t feel any need right now to revamp my style. Pro life is on a big winning streak lately. Did you happen to catch the election results a few weeks back? How about the Stupak Amendment to the health care bill? Democrats for Life roared and rained on your little party, didn’t they?
You know the governor can tell a state funded school and it’s hospital what to do, right? I for one am not looking back on the last year’s worth of activism and wondering what progress we’ve made. It abounds. Innauguration Day is January 16.
Sean.
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Continuation on the Sean Cannan thread, though I doubt if there is anyone besides Sean and I that are reading anymore.
Where to begin…
I am surprised you so blatantly make threats to my livelihood with statements like, “You know the governor can tell a state funded school and it’s hospital what to do, right?” Get a grip on yourself. This is a topic that has been debated for years and you are I are not going to solve it here. What is clear is that you are just a few steps away from the thugs that you dodged (your word not mine) mentioning in the opening of your post. You obviously have no hesitation using intimidation via threats to others’ wellbeing to win your arguments. And you wonder why people are afraid to use their real names? You are not so different from the following examples of hypocritical homicidal thugs that you tried to avoid recognizing who also use intimidation as a tool to win arguments under the banner of protecting life (please note the respected sources):
Eric Rudolph- killed 2, wounded 110
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/13/eric.rudolph/index.html
James Kopp- premeditated murder, no remorse
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/nyregion/13abort.html
Peter Knight- killed security guard, failed to kill his other 41 targets
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s730342.htm
Scott Roeder- assassinated his victim in church and, like Sean Cannan, dehumanized his adversaries by referring to them as Mengele (please refer to Sean Cannan’s post)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/us/02tiller.html
You are on a very slippery slope Sean. I hope your loved ones are wise and keep an eye on you for the good of all.
Back to the issue…
One obvious and basic disagreement demonstrated on this discussion board that makes most of your reply irrelevant to those that disagree with you is your belief that a fetus is a person. I brought up the HeLa cell-line to demonstrate that human rights are not granted based on DNA. Thus your argument about conception defining humanity makes no sense.
Likewise, as I mentioned in my previous post, you appear to be using scientific defenses without understanding how science works. You state, “There has been and never will be another like you.” This may or may not be true, but if you understood the scientific method you would realize that this is a non-falsifiable statement and you would not have made it. It is impossible for you to access all of history and all of the future to test whether your statement is true. If you cannot apply scientific method to your consideration of scientific topics I seriously doubt the validity of your conclusions.
Regarding your statement; in reality, I would say it is conceivable that someone in the future could have the exact same DNA as me through cloning techniques that can be envisioned today. I would never claim that this person was me because DNA does not define a person. Across our culture, whether it is in cartoons, movies, or science fiction novels, it is never the body that a person defines as themselves, it is their sentience; that which they call “I”. When a consciousness is transferred to another vessel, the consciousness defines that person.
You state that, “Having a personality and ability to love another has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone’s right to life. If that were the case, we could just behead newborns in a crib and everyone in a coma while we’re at it and think nothing of it.” To this I reply: have you ever seen a newborn? They have plenty of personality. Regarding the comatose, they have previously demonstrated that they have personality and have presumably entered loving relationships that won them rights during their time of lucidity. Just because they are in an uncoconscious state does not mean they are stripped of rights. Following your logic would mean that the sleeping would have no rights either.
I still don’t understand your point about what the possible effects an abortion has on subsequent pregnancies. Fully informed adult women are the best people to make judgments about their own health. If they don’t intend to have children after an abortion your point is moot. That is for them to decide, not you. Smoking causes birth defects. Drinking alcohol causes birth defects. Having babies after the age of 40 causes birth defects. Add up all the babies born with birth defects from just these three things and they will far outstrip the number of babies that have birth defects from previous abortions. If you are really concerned about preventing the birth of babies with birth defects, such as cerebral palsy, you wouldn’t be picking out illegalizing abortion as the most effective means of preventing birth defects. You clearly have other agendas. This point has minimal impact on the abortion debate.
P.S. I checked out the movie. My uncle’s hip replacement grossed me out a lot more. I think we should outlaw videotaping hip surgery! ; )
Rockime
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Not to worry, Dr. Cowardly Creator of Birth Defects, this thread will live on once I get it linked and/or posted on our website. You have provided us all with a stark example of just how far gone medical ethics are in some people. Your reference to a small handful of murders is just another attempt to distract attention away from the 3500 you and yours perpetrate every DAY in the US alone. I could on and on about human rights activists who have been killed by the anti life lot, but I’m not going to play that game with you. The killings you want people to concentrate on get much more media saturation, of course. But the numbers are the other way around even if you don’t count the dismembered infants. It’s not even close. Killers kill. It’s, well, what they do after all.
http://abortionviolence.com/
If indeed your livelihood depends on violating Geneva, the UDHR, Helsinki, and is in gross violation of the Nuremberg Protocols, then I will take great pleasure in playing whatever role I can in bringing that livelihood to an end just as I would that of a concentration camp doctor or a slave owner. You’ll never escape from the stark reality of the connection, much as you want people to just look the other way. Governor elect McDonnell gets inaugurated on January 16th. Unlike governors past, he will be fully aware of what UVA has been up to regarding these issues. Better get your last few beheadings in while you still can.
If I point out some very obvious things about you and what you are defending, you can run and cry to mommy about being afraid all you want. If one simply looks at the real statistics, I am in far more danger than you. But you are a coward and won’t even dare attach your own name to what you think is such a wonderful and necessary thing – and I am not. Maybe, just maybe, you should admit to yourself that you are not really afraid of getting harmed yourself – but rather it is the fundamental, hopeless inhumanity of what you do as a physician (if indeed you even are one) that makes you run and hide. Just a thought.
I am an abolishonist who has no problem attaching his name to a human rights campaign. All you can do is hide and cower in a corner and hope nobody really notices or pays attention. I’d rather be me.
On to your silly anti-science and dislogic trying to explain infanticide.
If indeed DNA does not define one unique human individual from another, than of course you are going to be for releasing every inmate ever convicted using DNA evidence, right? Your ridiculous statement above that suggests that DNA can be naturally replicated (not artificially cloned in a petri dish) and that you don’t know if there are people out there who have the exact same DNA as a result of natural conception and birth shows us all how far from medical science you really are. I’m not surprised, and pro abortion is by definition a lobby that has to suppress as much science as they can. Given this medieval, eugenics laden idea of science that you have – then of course you are also for wiping all laws off the books that make it a double assault or double homicide to attack a pregnant woman – right? With your horrible grades so far at answering the simplest of questions, perhaps I’m wasting my time here. But it’s fun for me anyway to stack up your dodged and/or incorrectly answered questions anyway.
Your unscientific and unfounded argument that a fetus is not a person is really no different than saying that Dred Scot was not a human either. You and yours are just the modern version of people who think they can simply remove the humanity of an entire segment of humanity so as to profit from their exploitation and/or destruction. It’s been happening for thousands of years. People like you are nothing new. You were a fetus once also. And there never was nor ever will be a fetus just like you. You’re alive to have an opinion now precisely because nobody conspired to kill you in utero. Indeed, it was probably illegal to do so at the time. Lucky you, huh?
It was your idiotic notion, not mine, that lucidity and having someone love you suddenly makes you human suddenly as if by some disney magic. I have been around plenty of newborns and can change diapers like a bad ass, but even a 3 year old can look at what is left of an aborted child dismembered on a counter and tell that that is death – not life. Beheadings kill people. Someone in a coma did not “earn” their humanity because they were loved beforehand. That you would even invoke for/from others as a beginning of human life is merely an indication of how desperate you are to find some arbitrary beginning of your imagination that ignores the fundamental science of human biology and development. You are the one really grasping at straws here now. This is so easy.. If your cruel world view had any validity at all, thalidomide would still be on the shelves and pregnant women would be drinking and smoking (and taking their daily pills) to their hearts content. If there’s nobody in there, there’s nobody to harm! Who are we to tell her how to affect “her body,” right?
Your last paragraph is priceless. Once again, you implicitly admit that one of my main points is absolutely correct – that abortions have already caused countless cases of preterm birth and thus countless cases of cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities for future children 100% needlessly. But, as is your habit, your response is simply to shrug your shoulders and say that lots of other things cause birth defects also. PRICELESS!
How the hell can you sit there and talk about “fully informed adult women” when you know full well that they are NOT fully informed about this, and NOT always even close to being adults. The University of Virginia abortion program was designed in secret to cater to UVA students, many of whom arrive on campus at the age of 17. And you know you can exploit their fears and pocket some money by giving them a supposedly easy way out of a crisis. That is why you keep many of the horrifying facts about abortion as quiet as the program itself. It’s about making money and promoting a political agenda. It has nothing to do with science or honesty or the health of ANYONE.
Every woman over 40 asking a doctor about getting pregnant at that age is going to be fully informed. Every pregnant woman picking up a bottle of beer or a pack of cigarettes is going to be fully warned. BUT, women taking the steroids you sell them like candy are going to get lawyerspeak jargon from the drug makers in fine print at best. And if you can find one word that is honest and straightforward about “fully” informing women that abortion causes birth defects to future children in this laughable document, then show us where exactly that is:
http://www.virginia.edu/uvaprint/HSC/pdf/040360.pdf
Only in your very, very cruel world could someone calling themselves a doctor call a pregnancy a “diagnosis/condition” and continuation of this rather natural, healthy, and miraculous process a “related risk” to the “proposed procedure.”
Dr. Mengele performed abortions at Auschwitz, and was arrested for killing both mother and child during one in Buenos Aires much later in life. You can bitch about it all you want, or perhaps you think you can rewrite history as well as the science of human development. Defending his favorite, money making procedure here is 2009 does not in any way differentiate you from him. Indeed, it makes him – by way of the procedure he helped spread and advance throughout his life – one of your mentors. So it comes as no surprise to me that you are not bothered a bit by live video of a child being killed.
http://uvalies.org/mengele.html
“It will be necessary to open special institutions for abortions and doctors must be able to help out there in case there is any question of this being a breach of their professional ethics.”
Adolf Hitler, 1942.
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