Every time I read another article about the proposed legislation against women’s rights, I get a sick feeling in my stomach. Yesterday, I almost had a total meltdown out of frustration and sadness.
I’m sick of hearing the same illogical arguments from anti-choice people. I’m sick of hearing politicians try to force their religion down my throat by means of eliminating my reproductive rights. I’m sick and tired of it and I can’t take it any more with out saying something.
First, I’d like to point out that there are only two ways to categorize your thoughts about abortion. You are either “pro-choice” or “anti-choice.” There’s no such thing as pro-life. Give me a break – everyone is pro-life! However, based one your beliefs (wether they be personal or religious) we all have different opinions about when life begins. Considering that there are studies professing all sorts of facts about this topic – it remains a very personal decision based on what you choose to believe. Hence the term, “pro-choice” because it should be left up to the woman, her partner, and her doctor to make a decision that is best for them and their beliefs.
Second, if I hear one more person call Planned Parenthood the “nations largest abortion provider,” I’m gonna lose it. According to the Guttmacher Institute there were approximatly 1.3 million abortions performed throughout the USA in 2009. Planned Parenthood performed approximatly 300,000 abortion in 2009. Lets to the math together: 300,000 divided by 1.3 million = 0.2307. This means that Planned Parenthood is responsible for 23% of the abortions performed annually in the USA. HELLO?! Thats less than a quarter! This means that there are a lot of abortions happening in places other than Planned Parenthood. However, they can get away with calling them the “largest abortion provider” because, as an organization, they provide more abortions than any other single organization. Basically, these politicians are doing what they do best: manipulating the truth for their benefit. Do the math for yourself. Don’t believe their manipulative lies about the statistics.
What does planned parenthood do to make their money each year? Well, for starters, in 2009 they’ve provided cancer screening and prevention for over 1.8 million women, including pap tests, HPV vaccinations, breast exams, and colposcopy procedures. They’ve provided STI/STD testing and treatment for almost 4 million men and women. And they’ve made contraception services accessible for over 4 million men and women. Total, Planned Parenthood has made reproductive health care possible for over 11 million men and women, who may not have had this benefit otherwise because 75% of their clients have incomes at or below 150% of the federal poverty level. (Example: According to the Health and Human Services, the federal poverty level for a single woman is $10,830 a year. This changes based on number of people in the family.)
Third, someone said to me the other day, “I don’t want my tax dollars paying for your abortion.” Planned Parenthood receives NO federal funding for abortions services.NONE! From Huffington Post,
“Although, Planned Parenthood receives zero federal dollars for abortion services and uses all government funding for preventative care, conservative rhetoric continues to portray the organization as a taxpayer-funded abortion factory.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself! For those of you who still think your tax dollars are paying for abortions, I’d like to introduce you to the Hyde Amendment. “Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has excluded abortion from the comprehensive health care services provided to low-income people by the federal government through Medicaid.” The federal exception for funding for abortion exists in cases of rape, incest, or when a pregnant woman’s life is endangered by a physical disorder, illness or injury. As Kristen Schaal, sarcastically points out on the Jon Stewart show, federal funds paid for a mere 191 abortions in 2006, for cases of rape, incest or where the woman’s life was in danger. This works out to be two tenths of a penny (.2) per tax payer. (Any one who would like a refund come see me. I’ll even refund it with interest and make it an entire penny.)
Fourth, quit using the under cover videos and phone calls from Live Action as proof of anything that happens in Planned Parenthood. From Huff Post, “Despite the questionable legitimacy of the Live Action reports, conservative lawmakers continue to use them in their arguments for defunding Planned Parenthood.” They have proven that these videos were highly edited to distort the health workers statements. Again, manipulate the truth (did you expect anything less?). Quit using them as proof of anything.
Fifth, I seem to remember something about a separation of Church and State. Republicans and Tea Baggers are opposed to abortion for one specific reason: religion. The problem is, I don’t believe what you believe. I don’t believe in your god or your religion and last time I checked we live in a country where we have freedom of religion. Which, as a friend pointed out, also means freedom from religion. I would never tell anyone they were wrong for believing what they choose to about abortion based on their religion. Thats why it’s called PRO-CHOICE! Because it’s your choice. When having a discussion with someone the other day they said to me, “I am pro-life because I believe god knits each one of us in our mothers womb. Psalm 139: god knew us before he laid the foundation of this world. I will not keep that to myself.” I would never ever tell this man that he was wrong for believing that. That’s his religion of choice and if he is ever faced with an unwanted pregnancy, he will obviously choose not to end it. However – don’t you dare try to inflict your religious beliefs on me when it comes to my reproductive rights. He finished his letter by saying he would pray for me. Seriously dude, spare me. Please do not pray for me because I do not want your god or your religion anywhere near my uterus.
Seems to me that this new wave of anti-choice legislation is more about punishing and shaming women than it is about saving babies. Jon Stewart says,
“They want to cut everything from family care to prenatal care to child nutrition. It’s like the Republican Congress is saying, “You can’t prevent an unwanted child. You can’t get care if you do get pregnant, and you can’t get any help after the baby is born. But — for those two minutes when the skull is crowning your baby is the most precious thing on Earth.”
I’m hesitant to post these videos cause it’s sad to me that it’s so outrageous that it’s becoming a joke, but I think they’re worth watching. Check them out here and here. They are pretty funny and informative at the same time.
So, now, lets talk about the fucking hypocrisy that is happening here. They are de-funding Planned Parenthood as part of the budget-cuts, because they don’t want their tax dollars paying for abortions (which we’ve established already that they aren’t and haven’t since 1976 and that these are really a back door way to express their religious views). Cause where else could we get that money from? Well lets see – General Electric make 10.3 Billion dollars last year and paid (ready for this) NOTHING in taxes. And this is only one example of one company. And for everyone who says, “I don’t want my taxes paying to kill innocent babies.” I’ve got news for you – your taxes (and lots of them) pay to make bombs and fund our military which kills THOUSANDS of innocent people in the war. Moms and Dads, children and babies, even pregnant women. So again, that argument is null and void unless you plan on defunding our military too. OH – and lets talk about how much BIG money is involved in the health care industry. Planned Parenthood makes nothing compared to the big pharmaceutical companies, who may I remind you, pay very little taxes.
Here you have these CEO’s making millions of dollars each year and there are men and women who can’t afford have basic health care services at high-end doctors, who can use Planned Parenthood as an alternative for low-cost care that they can afford, but we are going to cut their funding and propose all this legislation to make it almost impossible for them to function, leaving these low-income men and mostly women with no affordable health care. Something is terribly wrong with this picture.
What pisses me off the most is that there are so many young women who either aren’t interested in these issues or don’t know anything about them. Well, it’s time to get involved! It’s time for every woman to realize that there are HUGE losses on the line right now. Your body is being legislated based on religious reasons, yet they aren’t allowed to say “uterus” on the house floor any more. Your reproductive rights are on the chopping block and you need to start standing up for them. Get involved. Learn about what’s going on and take a stand. Stop acting like it doesn’t effect you, because it does. I guarantee that someone you know has had an abortion and/or been a patient at a Planned Parenthood clinic.
So please, for all of us, if you love your body and you cherish it as your own, don’t let these politicians regulate it with their religious beliefs. Start speaking out and tell them to keep their god out of your uterus!
i am charli 
A woman finds out she’s pregnant and goes to see her doctor. She tells him she already has one child, and another would be inconvenient, and that she wants an abortion. Doctor takes some tests and finds out she is, indeed pregnant and inquires if she’d reconsider. When she says, no, she really only has room in her life for one child, he tells her that he has an alternative which wouldn’t involve any medical procedure on herself. The woman perks up and asks what? Doctor says we’ll simply kill your existing child. It solves the problem of having another mouth to feed, it solves the inconvenience thing, and so on. The woman looks at him in horror. Doctor, that’s murder, she says. To which he says, so is an abortion. The woman realizes what she’s doing and reconsiders.
For what it’s worth, you have a choice already. Whether abortion is legal or not. Your choice is to obey God…or not. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. We’d be happy, though, if you didn’t.
This is exactly what I was talking about! My choice has nothing to do with obeying YOUR god. Why can’t you see that?
So, since you agree that murder is acceptible, maybe I should be afraid of ever running into you, huh?
For what it’s worth, I would rather convert a heart permanently than constrain someone involuntarily. But it is my perrogative to vocally object.
To answer your question, I see it. And whether you believe it or not, you are making your choice for God or against God when you choose abortion. The choice of where to spend eternity. God will give you what you love, because he loves you that much. So you love yourself so much you’re willing to kill another of God’s innocent humans? OK. But when it comes time to meet him…and exactly, you will meet him…he will examine your life and determine where you spend eternity.
your glibness is insulting. There’s nothing more cowardly than Self-Righteousness, Let’s talk about a human beings right to make her own choices in her own life with her own body—Your God has nothing to do with a woman’s right to make her own decisions on what she does with HER body.
What an ignorant comment who’s God? Your God. Everybodys relationship with “God” is personal, so people should follow suit and mind their own business, especially when PERSONAL issues don’t concern you.
The scenario was glib, arrogant, self-righteous and ignorant. Think before you go making judgements, Acting out or speaking out in the name of GOD—I don’t think he needs your help. Leave that up to God and be kind and continue to spread LOVE, God can handle it!
There is no such right to make your own choices in your life, without God giving you said right. “God has nothing to do with a woman’s right…”? God has everything to do with your very ability to breathe. As below, though, God will give you what you love, even if it’s not Him. But if you don’t choose him, you choose against him.
I’m not judging anyone. I’m judging their actions. You don’t know what love is, how can you speak of love? Go look at a crucifix for an hour, see the sacrifice He made for you. Try imagining the torture he suffered for you. THAT’s love.
What an illuminating piece of crap opinion you have, especially considering you will never be pregnant. Most abortions aren’t for a happy married (and from your subtext I would gather white) lady who can afford to have another kid and is kind of on the fence about it. Most abortions are for poor, single mothers who already do have a couple mouths to feed. Poor, single mothers of color. So STFU until you have a uterus I won’t respect your religious postulation on this.
um, david – i think you forgot the choice of FREE WILL, granted to us by god.
From my point of view, what ever a woman wants going or out her body is up to her. Not her mate. Men are around for conception then far to many just leave at some point. The woman is left with the responsibilities that last decades if not a life time. A doctor may or may not have the woman’s best interest at heart. Religion or money could guide the care a patient gets. How many men would let polititians decide what medical care they receive? Oops! We are getting to that point right now.
I agree that it’s the woman’s body, especially in a case where she’s not married to the guy. From a human perspective I see that. But from a faith perspective, it’s God’s body, not ours to do what we want with. It’s also God’s creation that’s formed in the sexual act. This is why procreation should validly be done only in a marital relationship where the two people are actively engaged in each other’s lives.
So what if you don’t believe in God? Then none of this matters, and you just have to submit to secular law. And the stygma of not fitting in with society.
Are you saying if i were married it would no longer by my body?
The point that you are missing is that you and I completely disagree on the whole concept of “God” and “God’s creation.” And we happen to live in a country that was founded on freedom of religion. So how can you justify forcing your religious views on my body?
No, in marriage your body belongs to the marriage 100%.
Wrong is wrong, even if everyone in the world says it’s right. And right is right, even if everyone in the world says it’s wrong.
I’m not trying to force anything on you. I’m trying to show you the truth. It’s up to you to accept it or not.
No it’s YOUR truth and I choose not to accept any of it.
No such thing as ‘your’ truth and ‘my’ truth. Truth either is or it’s not. If it’s true for me, it’s true for you. You have a lot of time, hopefully, to see that.
Well thankfully you completely helped prove my point that all this legislation against women’s rights is fully and totally about religion not about budget cuts. Thanks for the help!
David, if a woman’s body belonged only to the marriage, than a husband beating his wife for not making him dinner properly wouldn’t be considered assault. As it stands, a US citizen can do whatever they want to their own body, regardless of marriage. This is not a theocracy.
According to you, God has a plan, right? He designed everything. Then obviously that means he planned all the abortions. Argument invalidated.
Secular law, last time I checked, allowed abortion. Y’know. Roe vs. Wade. Also, “stygma (sic) of not fitting into society”? Oh horror of horrors! Don’t threaten me with the status quo–it’s just sooo scary not thinking the way everybody else does!
Let me explain this in terms you’ll understand. A fetus is not an autonomous human. It is different from a child because it cannot move, breathe, or otherwise live on its own. A child can.
Please learn to distinguish from life that can sustain itself and life that leeches off others, thanks.
God does have a plan, but He gave you license to do whatever you want. God loves you so much that he lets you do whatever you want. He wants you to love him of your own free will, but he will give you what you love the most. If it’s not him, though, your ultimate choice is hell.
The God who made you without your cooperation will not save you without your cooperation.
It’s funny how those who have already escaped being aborted would wish that on a fellow human being, regardless of how helpless.
Oh, God, God, God….I could give God a hint or two on how to love the right way. I love my daughter very much, but if she tries to pull some s*** like murder then damn right I’m going to stop her, because apparently God loves her more than I do, that he’ll just let her do it. It’s so cute how the Christian parents who condone the beating their children with rods claim to follow the example of the most neglectful, permissive parent ever! By that logic, I’m a MUCH better parent than God will ever be. He even put his own son up on a cross for some half-assed pain in order to scam the rest of humanity into thinking it was the worst torture ever and cry their eyes out with guilt over it. Compared to the women in the Congo being raped with bricks, or prisoners of war past and present, Jesus had a bad weekend, nothing more. If it were on quantity of suffering, I should be worshipping some concentration camp survivor.
That’s such a BS argument. You’re not talking about freedom, you’re talking about license. It’s not about rights at all. It’s about right and wrong. And if it’s wrong, it should not be part of the budget. Can you honestly show me how it’s right to kill a person in the place where they should feel the safest ever? Have you seen an ultrasound of an 7 week old fetus, small but fully developed, squirming to get away from the suction device? So who is going to defend the most helpless in our society??
That doesn’t even make sense. How can you have a plan and give someone free will? What if aborting a baby doesn’t follow God’s plan? Then he’s not all-powerful. What if aborting a baby is part of the plan? Then you’re completely wrong.
“You have a choice! Love him or burn forever!” The sheer hypocrisy of that is laughable.
I’m sorry, but a fetus isn’t a sentient being. Do you believe children will be fully developed in your version of Heaven or Hell? Or will they be immortalized the way they are? Then we’re going to have clumps of dead cells floating around without knowing what they are. The thought is rather laughable.
David, I’m going to patiently explain something to you that you no doubt will not understand without thinking really, really hard. Pro-choice is not pro-abortion. Pro-choicers do not go around yelling at pregnant women that they should get abortions. However, they believe that all women deserve access to safe abortions in the event they need or desire one. It is not your business to tell other people what to do.
In countries where abortion is illegal, abortion rates do not go down. This means that women who wanted abortions had to self-abort–an extremely dangerous procedure. Women would limp to hospitals, mutilated and bleeding, and others would die. Google “back alley abortion” if you’re still incapable of understanding.
If you seek to limit access to healthcare, including abortion, you are essentially condemning women to death, which is probably the most un-Christian thing I can think of. Making abortion illegal will not make it go away. It only increases the chance of risk and mutilation.
Your simplistic way of thinking about right and wrong definitely showcases the quality of your morals. The use of the word “escaped” is misleading because not every pregnant woman is coerced or threatened with abortion.
For that matter, abortions are not even part of the federal budge except in cases of rape, incest, or risk to the mother’s life. The number of federally funded abortions was 191 in 2009. That translates to .2 pennies. Want a refund? Come find me, I’ll pay it back with interest–a fully penny! Also, 7-week-old fetus cannot feel pain and is not conscious. Seriously, check your facts before you go making yourself look ignorant on the Internet.
If you believe in an all-knowing, all-loving God, Lin, you will have to agree that God has a plan. He created the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them. He created man to know Him, love Him, and serve Him. But love is never real love if the other party doesn’t have freedom to accept or reject that love. That’s what free will is. God’s power comes in his capacity of just judge. Try to follow God’s plan, God judges you worthy of living with him forever. Don’t follow God’s plan, and God gives you what you want and deserve. Sorry you don’t like those choices, but that’s the way it is. The Creator of the Universe does have a say over how he will let you live in His Universe. His ball, his rules, so to speak. I never said anything about burn. I don’t claim to know what hell is, I just know I want to live in God’s presence for all eternity. Hell is the opposite.
Lin, a fetus is a person. I don’t know how you define ‘sentient being’. A being is a living organism. Sentient means thinking or feeling. A fetus does feel pain, and is a living organism, so I think you’re wrong.
Next you ask a deeply theological question. Our souls are ageless and timeless. The soul goes to heaven. Does that answer your question? We believe that after Christ returns our bodies will be reunited with our souls. How old will that body appear? Theologically, 33 years old.
Lin, I’m going to explain something to you: Being pro-choice means marginalizing the most innocent persons alive, those that deserve protection because they are so helpless. Do you really think that having abortion legal makes all abortions safe? Women die from legal abortions. Other women also die because they go to Mexico to take a pill for $20 even though they can get a legal abortion here. Then there’s the unregulated aspect of abortion clinics. That murder’s clinic in Philadelphia is just one extreme example. It was described as filthy. Then there’s the psychological long term effect on the abortive woman. That never goes away. At any rate, legalized abortion does not make it any more safe for women.
All that said, I do not advocate for outlawing abortion, for just some of those reasons. Whether to abort or not must come from the heart. Just because you make something illegal doesn’t stop it from happening, just look at how the civil rights movement didn’t stop whites from hating blacks (and vice versa). Laws don’t really stop people from doing anything, they just define ways to punish wrongdoing. On the other hand, what I am against is taxpayer funding for abortion. I think that, if you have sex and get pregnant, and don’t want the child, you should be the one to pay for it. Not me. And let’s face it, 99% of abortions are done because of just this reason. It’s belated birth control. That’s why PP does a sonogram-to determine how much to charge for the abortion. If we can limit tax payer funding to absolutely just rape cases or life/death situations, I’d have no problem, even though I’d still be against it.
You are dead wrong that abortion is not being funded by my tax dollars. Morals are simple, Lin, you either do something or don’t. If it’s wrong, it’s immoral, if it’s right, it’s moral. There’s only 10 rules to follow. How many of them do you follow. You should also know that there’s many ways to break those rules-1. Counsel: Giving advice or direction to the wrong-doer;
2. Command: Ordering or inducing another to do wrong;
3. Consent: approving of the wrong-doing, before or after its act;
4. Provocation: Inciting or urging one to do wrong;
5. Praise or flattery: Inciting or urging one to do wrong by praise;
6. Concealment: helping one to do wrong by offering to conceal the wrong;
7. Partnership: Sharing the fruits of another’s wrong-doing;
8. Silence: Not speaking out when we should, or not acting to prevent wrong-doing when obliged;
9. Defending evil: Attempting to justify the evil actions of others.
Regarding what a 7 week old fetus can feel, seeing is believing. Just ask Abby Johnson. It changed her from being a director of a Planned Parenthood Clinic and abortion counselor to a pro-life protestor who stands outside of that very clinic.
There’s a nifty little quote about what happens when you make assumptions. Ready for it? “When you assume, you make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me.'” I should think my religious views were quite obvious.
If God created the heavens and the earth, he also created evil. Because he created everything, right? You seriously can’t win this. If he knows what’s going to happen, then why does it matter what you choose? Why is he going to punish someone for what they choose when he knows what will happen and could have stopped it? According to Christians, God loves everybody; why would you knowingly condemn someone to Hell if you loved them?
By your definition, a tumor is also a person. A fetus does not gain consciousness and cannot feel pain until it is about 20 weeks old. Check your facts before you spread your ignorance around, please.
So we’re all going to be 33 in Heaven? Dude, that totally sucks. I thought Heaven meant you got whatever you wanted. Oh well, too bad. If Heaven is such a great place, then why are you so upset about sending a fetus there? “Marginalizing innocent people”? Marginalizing them by guaranteeing a spot in what, according to your fantasies, is the best place ever? Your ‘logic’ doesn’t even make sense.
Again, your total ignorance is laughable. 0.3% [that decimal, in case you didn’t know, makes it a reeeally small percent] of women die from legal abortions. Most of the time, that is because they did not follow medical safety procedures. I don’t even know where you’re getting the facts on going to Mexico; if a woman cannot afford abortion, then it’s quite obvious she couldn’t afford going to Mexico, unless her state had laws preventing her from getting an abortion. Please learn to think critically.
Post-abortion syndrome is not recognized by any medical organization. It is a myth. Until you can find a reputable source and prove me wrong, I must again admonish you to think and do research before making a fool of yourself.
Sorry, have you ever heard of the Hyde Amendment? That amendment prevents abortions from being federally funded except in the cases I just described. Your sheer ignorance is very, very tiresome. 99% of abortions are not done as birth control. 54% of women were already on birth control when they had abortions. 61% of women already had children when they got an abortion. 3/4ths of women who have abortions [75%, just in case your inability to reason influences your ability to do math] say they cannot afford a child. Funding is already limited to life/death, rape, and incest cases, so please stop trying to salvage your injured ego and accept the facts.
You have never gotten pregnant. You will never be pregnant. You are selfish, smug, and incredibly privileged if you believe you can tell other people what to do with their own bodies. I urge you to first understand the rules of rational discussion before you engage in a debate that only leaves you looking foolish.
@Lin
I can’t understand how ANYONE can debate the fact about federal funding. It’s not a matter of opinion its a LAW! Since 1976? Why do they not understand that? Unfortunately, like I told Rachel, there’s no debating with people who are so hung up on the religious side of it. But thankfully there are people like you and I that are here to fight for our rights! Thanks so much for the support!
For the record – I have had an abortion (at a Planned Parenthood). And I’m living a healthy happy life. I’m not saying there aren’t women who have some emotional doubt after the fact, but I also believe it has to do with the shame and guilt that the anti-choicers create about having an abortion.
Again – Thanks for the support! Don’t even stop being vocal about this issue. It needs to be said!
From the bottom up…
First, I’m not talking about what you should or shouldn’t do with your body. I’m telling you what’s right and what’s wrong. It is your decision, certainly, and I’m not taking your decision away from you. I’m warning you of the consequences of your decision.
Regarding the Hyde Amendment, it’s not worth the paper its written on. Why, if abortion is not to be federally funded, would they not write simply “No abortions will ever be federall funded.”? Also, Planned Parenthood gets how much money from the federal government? You cannot segregate that money from their general pool when most of their purpose is to provide abortions. Also, federal government provides money to states, and cannot control what happens with that money.
The government grossly underreports abortion eath stats.At John Hopkins, one of the most prestigious medical facilities in the world, more than 5% of women have a serious genital tract infection following an first trimester abortion, more than 18% for 2nd trimester abortions. Double that for abortion clinics. Pelvic abscesses, or uterine perforations and bowel perforations are not uncommon.
The 5000 to 10000 women who died annually from back alley abortions is also false. To find more tha 1000 maternal deaths from abortion per year, you have to go back to pre-Penecillin days.
By definition, a woman who seeks an abortion has made bad choices, so why is it such a stretch that she would not perform proper follow-up care?
Lastly, your concept of God or eternity is lacking. To God, everything is. It’s not ‘going to happen’ or ‘has happened’. It just is. So what happned 20 years ago (or add as many zeros as you want) or in the future just “is”. God didn’t create evil, he created free choice. The choice is either/or. You either live the way he wants, or you don’t. If you don’t, you live evilly. Evil is just the absence of God’s will. Can’t win? I don’t have to win here. I have to win after I die. As for “assuming”, you’re making quite a few. You want to have your cake and eat it too. With God, there is no gray, just black and white.
God knows what you’re going to do before you do it. And he will subvert your will to accomplish his. So even if you don’t cooperate with God, his will is accomplished. That’s all-powerful.
David, nice to see someone with faith and defending the truth, well said.
Using terms like “your God”, last time I checked this was a Christian Nation, check the currancy that you use each and every day “IN GOD WE TRUST” all over it.
It’s not considered “your God”…it’s “everyone’s God”. You should rephrase and say “not my God” and you should probably stop using the money that God provides for you, since you seem to not recognize him……although he would not agree with that. He loves you and he knows that you are searching for him.
I don’t see where anyone is “forcing religious views on your body”. Are you forcing your abortion views on us with this silly blog. I don’t think so, you are just sharing your view….there is no “forcing” of anything here on this post. Please!!
As for your posted “facts”, you should check out your source “The Huff Post” before pasting the information that they provide on the subject, they are making you look silly with inncorrect statistics. The fact that you would quote Jon Stewart…..almost makes me laugh. Jon Stewart?? An actor/comedian! A guy that wants his ratings to increase. I’ll bet you anything that he really cares more about women then himself, please!
Get ready to lose it!! What organization provides more than 23% of all abortions? Nobody, there is no other! That is why everyone knows that they are the largest provider of abortions….period! Your post even proves it, how do you twist and turn that one?
That is like saying Ford does not sell the most trucks in the World, although they do. But you would twist it and say “no they don’t, Ford has more dealerships than Chevy, more locations, and if you combine Chevy and Dodge and Toyota, well they sell more trucks”….come on now!! Call a spade a spade and be honest with yourself and everyone reading this blog.
Funny that you would mention “undercover videos from Live Action”. You do know that PPH fired all the people that were caught lying and covering up??? If these videos were considered “highly edited” like you mentioned, why would PPH fire these people? Hmmmmmmm.
Truth is truth, opinion is opinion…..the facts and research are on the “life” side. You are obviously entitled to your own opinion and belief…..but sharing information and twisting it to look like your opinion is right…..this should not be the way to relay your thoughts.
God Bless.
Fuck your God!
Hey, just to clarify something; the only reason “In God We Trust” is the motto is because it doesn’t refer to any specific god. It’s just as valid to say it’s Allah’s money, or Buddha’s money (which is to say, not valid at all).
TBH, the facts (and morals) are on the choice side; it sickens me to see that people who are usually so against the government interfering with people’s lives are so hell-bent on keeping women from making these choices on their own… It seems very hypocritical.
Have a nice day, and FSM bless you with his noodly appendages!
While I feel the need to make a comment about the comments I can’t really put what I’m thinking into words, so I’ll hold off on that.
I just wanted to say that I absolutey agree with what you’re saying and I’m so glad that you wrote this. I saw what you wrote on Feministing and I felt like seeing what you had to say. Just keep writing, sister!
Yeay! Thank you so much for the support! Unfortunately, it’s not worth debating with people that are so far into the religious aspects of it. I’m not trying to change their minds. I just want them to stay away from my body. I just had to say something cause I couldn’t take it any more. I love Femininsting and the web of communication they’ve provided for us! Thanks again, your support is so appreciated!!
To Lin:
Why the hate and insults towards David? Nice! Shows the kind of people we are dealing with in this society. “It’s my way, I’m right. If you don’t agree, well bleep you” right?
Do we not have a law in this Country about murder? Or are you allowed to go kill someone without consequences?
Let me guess…..laws don’t apply to you. Say what you want, abortion is murder. If you think otherwise, well, keep telling yourself that.
The “It’s my body and I’ll do what I want” thought process. You need to get over it. Nobody is trying to control your body.
Your facts are also wrong, please stop posting this type of false information. A young girl could be on here and you could really be setting her up for a life time of sadness.
Abortion rates do go down when it is illegal.
Brain development at 3 weeks!!!!
You should check your facts Lin.
The federal funding comment, where do you live?
Take the blinders off. Check your facts. Not facts published to keep money coming in, but facts that don’t have a hidden agenda.
Don’t you get that these false reports and facts that you are spreading about the #’s, they are lies. You can go out and find the truth, it’s out there, some just choose to ignore it. God forbid someone show them that they are wrong.
Millions of $$ to support abortions- Lights, tables, gas, power, equipment, rooms, the structure, etc, etc, etc. Come on people, look it up ….this is PPH’s own information that they share with the public.
You can take Religion right out of it.
There is right and there is wrong.
The facts are known about abortion, look into it.
A BEATING HEART STOPS!!!
Research shows that woman who have had an abortion suffer from higher rates of depression and suicide
Why would you need counseling after an abortion?
Becasue it hurts emotionally and phsically.
Did you know that when sperm penetrates the blood and tissue of the womans womb and plants itself inside, it immediatley creates it’s own set of DNA unique from the mother and father. It is it’s OWN SELF. It’s a phenomenon that the woman’s body does not attack this foriegn creation inside of her. Instead, it nurtures the life it carries. Thinks about this. You say above that it’s my uterus, my body, etc. Technically it’s not yours, it is a seperate being with its own DNA.
The beginning of life, that is what we and so many others are defending and talking about here, not your “rights”. Figure it out!!
The Hyde Amendment is a legislative provision barring the use of certain federal funds to pay for abortions.It is not a permanent law, it is a “rider” that, in various forms, has been routinely attached to annual appropriations bills since 1976. The Hyde Amendment applies only to funds allocated by the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services. It primarily affects Medicaid.
Many members of Congress, and the President, have suggested that the Hyde Amendment will prevent federal government funding of abortion under H.R. 3200. This claim is entirely erroneous. Under H.R. 3200, the new federal insurance program (the “public option”) will pay for elective abortion with federal government funds, and public funds will also directly subsidize private insurance plans that cover all abortions.
WHY IS THERE NEED FOR A LEGISLATIVE PROVISION FOR SOMETHING THAT (according to Lin and IAMcharli) DOES NOT HAPPEN?????
Since the Hyde Amendment applies only to funds appropriated through the annual HHS appropriations bill, the Hyde Amendment will not apply to any of the funds used to establish or operate either the “public option” or the premium-subsidy program created by H.R. 3200. Members of Congress who assert that the Hyde Amendment would prevent federal government funding of abortions under H.R. 3200 are misleading their constituents, in some cases perhaps inadvertently and in other cases perhaps by design.
“Mike Pence (R-Ind.) plans to file an amendment to the spending bill that would bar Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds.”
Why would this guy be doing this if no funding went to PPH????????
“Title X funds cannot be spent on abortions, but some clinics which receive money through the program, like Planned Parenthood, do offer the procedure.” The argument is that federal funds indirectly fund abortions by supporting clinic operations.
If you choose not to see that, you need to step up.
New York Times- “At stake is more than $75 million that Planned Parenthood receives to provide family planning assistance to low-income women, money that its opponents say only frees up funds for abortions.”
With a total budget of some $1.1 billion, more than a third of which comes from the federal, state and local governments, Planned Parenthood offers family planning, H.I.V. counseling, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, cancer screening and other services as well as abortions, mainly to low-income women.”
Let me hear Iamcharli & Lin say it one more time..
“no $$ coming from the Gov’t” Please people!!
Everyone knows PPH gets federal $$, if you are going to debate that fact…..tell me now…so I know that I am dealing with kids here.
PPH performs abortions, we all agree on that (300,000).
So, PPH gets tax payers money and PPH performs abortions. Hmmmmmmm. Oh wait, someone told me that when the $$ comes in, it does not go towards the abortions. But wait, it did help pay for the electricity, it did help pay for the room that the abortion was performed in.
I think we may be dealing with simple ignorance with these two people posting on this blog, or they are very immature. Hopefully they will grow into the truth one day.
Last time I checked, our Founding Fathers specifically put forth the divide between religion and state, most likely because of people like you who are willing to go around shoveling ignorance and illogical standpoints. Thomas Jefferson, the illustrious writer of the Declaration of Independence, despised Christianity. It is laughable that you cite research and facts and yet are so deluded.
It is obvious, David and Tina, that you do not understand the concept of a rational debate.
Let me state this again. If everything is, then we cannot choose. If someone were to get an abortion, God knew she was always going to get an abortion and could not change her mind; therefore he is not all-powerful. It does not get any simpler than that; if you truly cannot understand, then your mind has been seriously warped by ignorance.
It is tiresome to reply to someone who is so misinformed. Here are my cited facts.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
^ This is where I get my statistics.
Click to access PP_Services.pdf
^ As you can see, abortion constitutes 3% of the services provided by Planned Parenthood. I’m not sure how deluded you have to be to understand that none of these abortions are federally funded, but it is quite obvious that you are incapable of holding a rational discussion.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20025597-10391704.html
^ Study cited showing post-abortion syndrome is a complete myth.
http://www.nrlc.org/ahc/HydeAmendmentText.html
^ This is the text of the Hyde Amendment, which clearly states that no federal funding is to be used for abortion save for the cases I described earlier. I am sorry that you are too close-minded to even understand the bill itself.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-10/l-oif101007.php
Paragraph 8 clearly states that abortion rates do not go down when restrictive laws are in place.
http://www.elroy.net/ehr/abortionanswers.html
^ Here is a list of arguments against your so-called pro-life rhetoric.
Please educate yourself. These studies are corroborated all across the Internet; the facts are plain and do not support anything you say. Stupidity is a plague on society, and I truly feel sorry for the ones you encounter who must be exposed to your uninformed drivel.
Also, in response to your comment about $75 million: the US has spent $3 trillion on the Iraq war. This is tiny. This is 0.025% of the $3 trillion we have spent. If you put this in a pie graph, the $75 million wouldn’t even show up against our current US budget. If you are so concerned about killing innocents, why are you not raising an outcry about the innocent civilians who are being killed right now?
$75 million pays for three hours of the Iraq war. I would rather see the $75 million go to treating people with cervical cancer, STDs, illnesses, and providing other forms of healthcare–which, again, just in case you’re not able to understand for the umpteenth time, does not fund abortion at all–than kill people for a few hours.
If you consider yourself a Christian, you are sorely mistaken. You are nothing but a hypocrite if you condone the killing of others over taking care of the poor and sick.
And David, in regards to your comment about black and white–if you exist in this life and seek only to help yourself at the expense of others, you are a sorely twisted and hateful being.
Regardless of how much of the budget is spent on abortion, it is WRONG. There are arguments to make regarding the war, but those people do have choices to live where they live. We’re talking about the most innocent. Humanity is fallen. If I die, I have my sins to account for. That child you’ve sucked into a plastic garbage bag had nobody, even his/her mother, protecting him/her. Cervical cancer, STDs and contraception are not health care related-they’re lifestyle related, primarily.
Again you’re assuming. WINK (we know what that means, nudge, nudge). You don’t know what I condone. You only know that I abhor abortion, and all those things that contribute to it. And I live my life to protect the innocent human beings who have no one else to do it, sadly, not even the one who brought life to being. I think it’s hateful to say yes to murder, as you so obviously do. But it’s your death…By the way, have you thanked your own mother lately? For bringing you into the world? For being so unselfish? Have you thanked her for not murdering you?
This is a typical response from someone that can’t support an opinion with facts.
Now we are talking about the Iraq war?? LOL
Lin, the way you respond to posts, ughhhh! Help me please! ha-ha
Let’s see here…..we are now talking about the entire US budget, the war, and you are saying that I condone killing. This is much too much. Funny but sad at the same time.
Throwing out all these topics. The same thing I do when I’m wrong about something. Hmmm, sorry for whatever difficulties you are struggling with.
Are you OK? There are places to go for help but I also see a need for God in your life. He is waiting with open arms, if you ever choose to accept him.
No pressure, not forcing anything on you. Just a fact! He is. :o)
David: “people do have choices to live where they live”
You do realize there are children in those parts? That it is a war-ravaged country? That people live in abject poverty over there? How are they going to get out? They don’t have money to pay someone to drive them or fly them out. And even if they were to leave, what would they do? How would they know they would get a job? The sheer stupidity of that statement is absolutely disgusting.
Lifestyle-related? Planned Parenthood also treats men, you know. They treat erectile dysfunction, which I’m sure you’d be interested to know. How is erectile dysfunction lifestyle-related? For that matter, how is cervical cancer lifestyle-related?
If my mother could have lived a better life by aborting me, I would let her do it in a heartbeat. My mother has sacrificed so much in order to bring me into the world and to take care of me. She didn’t need to. She wasn’t forced to. She had the chance to abort me. I love my mother enough to say that if she wanted to abort me and would have lived a better life because of it, I wouldn’t have hesitated to heartily agree with her decision. I am not as selfish as you, concerned and preoccupied with my own desires. I am not advocating abortion, for the second time. I am advocating choice.
Tina: Facts? I provided links to studies that supported my evidence and you talk about facts? Here, let me define facts for you, taken straight from the dictionary–or do you not understand English enough to even comprehend a definition? “Fact: a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true.”
I was responding to David’s assertion that he did not want his tax dollars to go to murder; however, his tax dollars do, in that they go to war. Or is that too hard of a connection to make for you?
I find it really funny how you say I’m throwing out facts because I know I’m wrong, even though you haven’t refuted one of my arguments. I think the victor is quite clear.
Lin,
Yes, there are children, yes, the general population is impoverished, and yes, without US Aid to Iraq, more would be in the same boat. More Iraqis were killed under Saddam Hussein than all of the US War.
Regarding PP “treating” men, too, I don’t know, since I found God, I have never had a problem with that. Because I totally love my wife and give her 100% of me. As for lifestyle choices, yes it is lifestyle choices. Sex is not a requirement for you or me to live. We get to decide who we have sex with. God told us the right way to do it. Most people get it wrong and choose to do otherwise. It is a choice. From eHealthMD “We don’t know exactly what causes cervical cancer, but certain risk factors are believed to have an effect. Medical history and lifestyle – especially sexual habits – play a role in a woman’s chances of developing cervical cancer.”
Lin, about your mother…you had no choice in the matter. It was totally her gift to you. You need to thank her for being unselfish. By advocating choice you are advocating abortion. You can’t have t both ways. I like how unselfish you are…giving other people rights over other people. You don’t have that right.
Regarding facts, having reported something seen eye witness constitutes a fact. Seeing a 7 week old human try to avoid the pain of being sucked into a tube is fact. Fact: War is not murder. War is not always wrong. Violently invading another country with the purpose of annexing that land is wrong. By the way, not one of your arguments takes the fact of an abortion and shows how it’s beneficial to society in general. You say “But we spend money here, and there. What we spend on abortion is just a little bit.” Show me how abortion benefits society. I can certainly show you how it denegrates women.
Lin, I love you. Can I just say that? Keep fighting for what you know is right! 🙂
OK, is this what you need to hear, you win? Ok, you win!
You are the victor! LOL
I did not realize an innocent life was a game about winning and losing to you.
I now see that I am dealing with a child here.
I just read online that a monkey grew wings and flew from one tree to another, wow! That must be something. It has to be true. I read it online. It has to be true and I’m going to go tell everyone about this. It must be true and I’ll share it, because it was on a website and someone took the time to post it. It must be true! And I know it is true because a man that works with monkey’s wrote the article that I just read, so it must be true.
Yes, I now have a fact to share with everyone.
LOL-
Please, clue into this world kid.
There is a difference between fact and fiction. I see why you are confused…how do you know what website to believe? It’s easy to jump on the band wagon of some website creator or blog author or online poster, even some clown that has an opinion section.
You need to research for yourself, that way you don’t come across as having zero to support your opinion. It’s OK to share and speak and talk all about your opinion, but don’t back it up with another person’s opinion.
Hunt and search for the facts, the truth…..the truth is out there, you just have to look harder.
1 question to answer…no BS here. Don’t bring up religion or rights or Gov’t. Don’t post some stupid link for me to click on.
Does abortion stop a beating heart?
This is a simple “yes” or “no” answer.
Does abortion stop a beating heart?
Thank you in advance for your answer.
And if I could add something to Tina H.’s request. PLEASE do not use the movie “Silent Scream” as your “evidence.” Yes, it was made in the 1970’s which means it’s probably right up your alley. However, that movie is not scientific fact and has been proven multiple times as a non-credible source.
Thank you.
David: Oh, so just because your life is going well, you don’t need to worry about others! You have no sense of empathy or humanity.
Sex is not a requirement? I assume you can read, right? Read this book, Drive, by a Rockefeller University professor. http://runews.rockefeller.edu/index.php?page=engine&id=352
Exactly. Nobody knows what causes it, so how can they be expected to live a certain lifestyle? There are women who have only ever had one partner who get cervical cancer. There is no positive correlation. You are flabberghastingly blind to the principles of science.
My mother had access to abortion. She didn’t want to take that procedure. I am not advocating abortion; abortion is going to happen either way. Again, the fact that I have to repeat myself only further proves how moronic you are being. I like how arrogant you are, telling a woman what to do with her body. I love how you think that your prejudiced morals allow you to feel superior to others.
A fetus “trying to avoid pain” is your inference. Not fact. It’s laughable how you can’t even understand a simple definition. Scientifically, a fetus can only feel pain at 20 weeks. Again, your logic is severely flawed and cannot constitute an argument.
“War is not murder”? Are you serious? War kills people. Innocent people. In cold blood for no reason. Your response has probably been the most disgusting thing I’ve seen all day. Putting the word “fact” before a severely misguided opinion does not make it true. Please return to elementary school, get a better science teacher, and have her explain to you what a fact is, because you need someone to hold you hand since you can’t even comprehend the dictionary.
Abortion is quite beneficial to society. A woman is not tied down with a baby, not overworked or forced to take care of someone else, and runs less risk of driving herself into debt because she is not paying for another person.
Here’s a link on how legalizing abortion was linked to lower crime rates: http://www.freakonomics.com/2007/09/13/more-video-on-abortioncrime-a-collage-of-evidence/
I would like to note, David, you have yet to provide any shred of evidence that backs up your statement. In a debate, the one who does not have evidence does not prove anything. All you’re doing is blasting hot air.
Tina: Winning? This makes a difference in the quality of the life of a woman. You care so much about a baby when it’s born, yet what have you done to end child hunger? What have you done to raise awareness about orphans? Have you ever adopted? You seem like someone too irrational and irresponsible for a child, but I could be wrong.
I have cited facts from trusted organizations and research institutes. You have cited nothing. Your opinions hold no value on the conversation. It is obvious that you are extremely inexperienced in holding a debate and wish to make up for your stupidity and lack of skill by childish mocking. It is fairly obvious who is the child here.
I did not showcase opinions. I showcased facts. I’m going to assume that you didn’t actually read the articles I cited; said articles have percentages and calculations. They did not offer opinions. They did not offer suggestions. They merely consolidated data. Oh, sorry, I’m probably using words that are too big for you. They count up numbers, y’see, and put them in big calculators! The calculators don’t tell you what to do. Does that makes sense now?
You do realize that people who are certifiably brain dead [this means the doctor in the white coat says he isn’t living, just in case you don’t understand what that means] still have heartbeats. Does removing someone off a life-support machine kill them? No, they were already dead. Because I have provided a counterexample to your question, stopping a heartbeat does not mean killing someone. I hope I explained this in terms that are simple enough for you to understand, but I don’t have much hope, seeing the asinine quality of your comments.
Let me lay it out for you. You are embarrassing yourself on the Internet. I have linked you to countless articles that back up what I am saying. If you are too idiotic to understand that you are wrong, then that is not my concern. I am actually quite satisfied with the way this debate is turning out–it showcases just how illogical pro-lifers can be. I thank you for playing the village idiot in this conversation, so that others who stumble across this website may have their eyes opened. 🙂
Was that a “yes” or a “no” to the question? Is anyone brave enough to just answer?
So, this post is fact? Not opinion? This person is talking fact here?
http://www.elroy.net/ehr/abortionanswers.html
The village idiot does not get it, ughh…please help me learn words. lol
I don’t need to debate any of the links or calculated #’s that you post. Why do you think that is? You are oh so smart, must be smart enough to figure it out. Come on, use that superior brain of yours.
Everything that I have posted and have claimed as truth is just that. You and everyone else would agree to that.
I used the original blog to get the data. You have never even tried to call out “false” on any of it, because you can’t. Instead, you use insults. Instead, you bring up child hunger and orphans or war. You also assume that you know what I would do and think in certain situations. But I guess you should know that, because you are so smart. Right?
You copy and paste links to what you call facts, coming from the same people that favor abortion. You must be smart enough to know that is not all truth. By the way, abortion is a big word! I wish you could explain more of these big words to me.
Oh, I see. You read an article that had some #’s that were calculated using a big calculator. So, that person that took all that information and published it…they must be experts and they must be telling the truth. Yeah, that is how this world operates. You must be smart enough to know when you are being fooled, right?
Before you start insulting people, look in a mirror.
Where does the anger and hatred come from?
Why the insults?
Why not an answer to the question?
Does abortion stop a heartbeat? It should be an easy one for you.
Oh wait, you would like to bring up life support situations that have nothing to do with abortion and what this original blog is talking about. I went back and tried to read it (although most of the wrods were too big for me) but I did not see anything in the blog about life support or war or hunger. Hmmmmm. Are you afraid of your own answer? I’ll ask one last time (and I assume you will not answer)
DOES ABORTION STOP A HEARTBEAT? Oh wait…you did write “Because I have provided a counterexample to your question, stopping a heartbeat does not mean killing someone”
Hmmm…..smarty. Maybe you have the problem reading and understanding words, not me. When did I ask “does stopping a heartbeat mean killing someone”?
Read is slower oh great one.
Does abortion stop a heartbeat? Does it stop a heartbeat? Abortion? Stop a heartbeat???????????
Yes, or no. Oh and in case your great mind does not remember the blog. It’s about abortion. The title is “My Uterus and I Have Something to Say” Not so much about a person that is brain dead on life support. (maybe that was another blog you were reading) I can only read one blog at a time because I am the village idiot.
Hmm I wonder what her uterus would have to say about the other topics you have brought up (war, hunger, orphans, life support, etc) Oh wait, the uterus would not care, this is a topic about abortion.
I have children, have not adopted, but would. I try and help the hungry children of this world, maybe my monthly donation is not much, a little at a time but I try. Your comment is very mean, but that is how ignorant people tend to get when they don’t have a leg to stand on.
This is exactly what is wrong with this Country.
Nice debate!
Yours in life,
The Village Idiot
You have no idea who you’re talking to, Lin. I do all sorts of charitable work, outside of my 60 hour a week job, and not including what I give to my Church. I help humanity. So do the soldiers in Iraq, and so does our country. The vast majority of the poverty in Iraq was created by the local government there.
Sex is not a requirement to live. Nuns and priests and religious brothers and sisters are perfect examples. It’s not a requirement as breathing is. Certainly there is an instinct to it, but humans are called to control themselves. We don’t kill without reason. (By the way, no, war is not murder. Innocent people are not killed in war ‘in cold blood’. God’s command is properly translated “Thou shalt not murder.”) Regarding cancer in general, one of the problems is that we don’t understand how we acquire it. So cervical cancer is in that boat. But they have linked it to ‘lifestyle choices’, just as they link lung cancer to smoking.
You have not provided facts either, Lin, but some person’s opinions or conclusions that you agree with. I don’t trust your sources, for just the same reason you think you don’t trust the Bible and what it says. Did you know you can pull statistics out of thin air, and that you can quote things out of context to state what you want them to state?
By the way, this has been an attempt to offer help to people who seem to need it, and to save those who have no voice. I can see you don’t want eternal life. At least those pre-born infants who are martyred for being when they aren’t wanted will be with their God in heaven. And your opinions are untrusted by those who mean anything to me. So they’re worth exactly what your arguments have been worth.
Really? So do I. Doesn’t make condoning war okay.
Sex is a biological drive and is usually a very important part of a relationship. Priests? Allow me to redirect you to the Wikipedia page that focuses on all the Catholic priest sex abuse that’s been going on.
If breathing makes somebody alive, then obviously a fetus is not considered alive, because it hasn’t breathed yet. Your argument doesn’t even make sense.
War kills people, right? Isn’t that murder? To your mind, what makes war okay and not abortion?
“Lifestyle choices” doesn’t mean everybody who gets cancer deserves it. Some people get lung cancer without ever having touched a cigarette. Are you saying they shouldn’t get treatment?
Excuse me. I have cited the Guttmacher Institute and Rockefeller University as research sources, as well as Planned Parenthood’s own data. You have not cited any. I linked you to one single article that argued a philosophical question. Your dismissal of evidence clearly points to your inability to distinguish reality from delusion.
I don’t believe in eternal life, David, so it’s kind of amusing to see the big bad Christian threaten me with Hell. If you think Heaven is such a great place, then why are you decrying abortion? Wouldn’t the mothers and doctors who do it go to Hell anyway? It’s no skin off your back.
You are obviously not here to debate. You are here to stroke your ego and blow off steam. You are not open to changing your mind because you are mentally incapable of having a rational argument. Please grow up and learn how to think.
I haven’t condoned any war. Stop thinking you know me and know what I believe. And thanks for admitting that sex is not an essential for you to live.
Ah, so you did take the bait. Again, you have no idea what you’re talking about, and this just proves it. Did you know that the number of incidents of priest abusing children in the last 60 years is less than that of the general population of people who work and are responsible for taking care of children? In the public school system, where it’s practically impossible to remove a teacher, when an accusation is made against a teacher by a student, the teacher is put in a different classroom. Sometimes in the same school. 95% of priests/religious are celibate, thus proving that sex is not necessary to live.
Breathing alone does not make someone alive. Is that your definition? But if you or I stop breathing, or are deprived of oxygen in some other way (fetuses get their oxygen some other way, and since they consume oxygen, they are alive) we die. If you don’t have sex, you don’t die.
War does kill people. But murder is not the same thing. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the difference. But you won’t, I’d bet. The target of an abortion is an innocent that’s unable to defend him/herself. I also think euthanasia is wrong, do you want to defend that, too? Regarding the war in Iraq in particular, the regime in power was murdering thousands, sometimes as sport, in fact, much of the time as entertainment. For no other reason than the President didn’t like them. People were oppressed by the regime. We freed the people from said oppression. That’s legitimate reason for war. So was freeing Europe from Nazi occupation.
Planned Parenthood does not supply treatment for cervical cancer. Funding them because they can refer you to a hospital does not justify funding Planned Parenthood.
Oh, the racist Guttmacher institute, there’s a reliable source. Guttmacher, who’s friend Margaret Sanger, espoused targeting blacks for extermination: “In 1939, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood announced the organization’s new “Negro Project” in response to requests from southern state public health officials—men not generally known at that time for their racial equanimity. “The mass of Negroes,” her project proposal asserted, particularly in the South, still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes, even more than among Whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit.” The proposal went on to say that “Public Health statistics merely hint at the primitive state of civilization in which most Negroes in the South live.”
You believe people who’s main goal is to keep the money coming in through more abortions. Tell me, if abortion is such a good thing, why is it said that the goal is to make it ‘safe, legal and rare’? And why is it that legalized abortions fail on ‘safe’ and ‘rare’?
Oh, hell is no threat, and I wouldn’t deign to suggest it. I’m just letting you know it’s there, whether you believe it or not. Not believing doesn’t make it any less real. Above, I showed you how you can commit sin by not doing anything. I am doing something. I won’t go to hell for you.
I don’t have an ego. I’m not open to changing my mind because I know for a fact that abortion is wrong. Again, above, I stated that I’m not here to debate legal/illegal. I’m here to talk right/wrong, which is a totally different argument.
You’re the one who needs to grow up and learn how to think. I’ll bet you haven’t even thanked your mother for not aborting you, have you?
Cool post. Well done!
This is a fabulous article. Thank you.
–Maria
You. Are. Awesome. I concur 100%
Charli~
A million hearts to you for this piece. Here is one to start: ❤
The so-called Christians that are antagonizing you here disgust me with their un-Christlike behavior and their self-righteousness. I cannot even begin.
Their truth is not the universal truth.
Their judgment of actions is still judgment.
And their God is not my God, because my God is one of infinite forgiveness and understanding. No situation is beyond His understanding.
My God is very disappoint in them.
(But I think He'd be very proud of you. <3)
My God is pro-choice.
This is a seriously good article. Thank you for writing it. TRUST WOMEN!!!
If it wasn’t for Planned Parenthood, I would not have been able to keep up on my yearly well woman exams when I didn’t have insurance. By cutting funding to Planned Parenthood, you take away a way for women, and men, to have wellness exams they couldn’t otherwise afford. If it wasn’t for Planned Parenthood, I would not have been able to afford birth control and would have possibly had an unwanted pregnancy. If it wasn’t for Planned Parenthood, my baby sister would not have been able to get to a doctor to determine she was pregnant or not at 17. If she had not found out when she did, she would not have gotten the very necessary prenatal care so that my niece would be born healthy, as she was. If it was not for Planned Parenthood, many of my friends growing up would not have had access to condoms and birth control and would have either contracted an STD or became pregnant while in high school.
For the “Christians” commenting about this being a Christian nation… This is NOT a Christian nation. “God” was not added to our money and pledge until the 50s when conservative Christians (and a major Christian/Protestant) revival took over the country. Many of the Founding Fathers of this country were Agnostic of similar. We were founded during the “Age of Reason” when rational thought became more common and religious ideology was pushed to the side and out of government as religion in government was seen as one of the many issues wrong with the European countries our Founding Fathers came from originally. Please, stop referring to this as a Christian nation. I’m a Christian and my skin crawls when I hear it. But then, I am well educated and do actual research away from my Bible.
Now that I bring up my own religious views, I do believe abortion is murder BUT I do not push this belief on others. As difficult as it is for some Christians to wrap their minds around, you’re not the only one who thinks that their way of believing is the only way. Therefore, it is imperative that we consider other’s beliefs and that not everyone believes the same as you. Yes, you believe that your way of believing is the only way, but so do people in other faiths…. Ok, that’s a lie, Judeo-Christian faiths are pretty much the only faith systems that insist that their beliefs are the only way to believe. Hindu, Buddhists, and Pagans all recognize that other people do not believe the same way they do and RESPECT that fact. How about we, as Christians, take on this same mindset?
Beautifully said! =)
So if I share my thoughts, ideas, beliefs, etc on a blog or in a e mail or in person with someone, to you this means that I am “forcing” something on you or “pushing” my belief on you?
What would you call it when you do the same (share your thoughts & opinions, post info, links, ideas, etc, etc)?
What do you call it when you speak your mind? Do you use the same terms “forcing” and “pushing”?
This is not a healthy debate, the real issue is getting pushed aside. I would never want to impose my convictions and beliefs on anyone. I would want that person to come to that conclusion on thier own. I harbor no ill-will towards anyone on this blog, nor do I want anything but a peaceful discussion about a very important topic that is abortion. I understand the love, grace and forgiveness that has been shown to me, I am by no means perfect, therefore I don’t judge or condemn anyone. Let me be clear, I condemn the act of abortion not the woman. Regardless of your stand on abortion, it should be disturbing to everyone that over 4,000 abortions are performed daily in the U.S. As a society/culture we should be alarmed! Abortion on demand is not the answer. 93% of abortions are for social reasons, FACT!
I’ll leave this blog with a few things for you to think about and to ask yourself.
Does abortion stop a heartbeat?
Is over 4,000 abortions a day OK with you?
Brain activity begins at 3 weeks, FACT!
I find it a bit awkward when people start using the “does it stop a beating heart?” argument. Unless you own absolutely no leather products and enjoy a vegetarian lifestyle (or don’t enjoy it but begrudgingly live it anyway), you’re certainly picky about where you care about beating hearts.
I’m also not quite sure how those fetuses who are not born could possibly have a problem with not being born if it in fact has not been born. It’s not for it or against it, as it never existed. So essentially, it’s cool with it. Being born into a household where you’re essentially not wanted and you may live in subpar conditions seems more cruel than never existing.
And as the last, I’d like to point out that you commenting on a blog (that, no offense to the undoubtedly sweet girl who writes it) probably won’t matter in the long run isn’t considered “forcing your views” on anyone else. Cutting funding and therefore cutting off health aid for those who require it based on your own religious views (Yes, your own. Not the entire country, as the last time I checked, this country was not “founded” on Christian ideals and in fact the phrase “One nation under God” wasn’t even added until 1956) IS in fact forcing your views upon someone. I’m just saying.
Poor, confused Tina. She obviously doesn’t know the difference between refuting philosophical arguments and fact. This website [http://www.elroy.net/ehr/abortionanswers.html] uses scientific data in order to refute certain assumptions. You have not used any such thing. Your opinions are absolutely worthless in the face of the evidence I have presented. If you don’t know how to properly argue an issue, please do yourself and everybody else a favor and back off. This is not a rational discussion, because you refuse to accept or even provide evidence. All you are doing is judging women and poisoning society with your misinformed opinions.
To say that you are not forcing your religious views on anyone is laughable. You are judging others and not listening to the other side’s arguments. Not once have you provided actual facts besides mindlessly repeating the words over and over again.
If scientific research and validation mean nothing to you, then it is fairly obvious you are not mentally capable of having this argument. That is the heart of the matter here.
The question, “Does abortion stop a heartbeat,” is not a moral question. The answer is yes. Why does that automatically make abortion wrong? Hunting stops a heartbeat. Heart attacks stop a heartbeat. War stops a heartbeat. All of which have absolutely nothing to do with moral connotations. Brain activity does not mean autonomy, does not mean the fetus can move on its own or even sustain itself, does not mean the fetus has stopped leeching off another woman’s organ system without her permission. Your logic is invalid because it has no reasoning behind it.
Tina, I urge you to do some actual thinking and possibly read up on the principles of logic. It is a sad thing when somebody has stopped thinking in favor of regurgitating rhetoric that does not benefit anybody. I am genuinely concerned over the state of mind you seem to be in; it sounds a lot like fanaticism. You reject facts cited by research universities; what will it take for you to accept them? The answer is nothing, despite their credibility–and this inability to change your mind despite evidence to the contrary seems to have severely curtailed your ability to reason.
For the religious folks: Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there is anywhere in the Bible that acknowledges fetuses as life (the Bible barely recognizes women or children as having any rights at all, because that was the culture of the times). In the Old Testament, it was even accepted by God to have slaves and treat women really badly. Causing a woman to miscarry meant that the husband or father had to be paid for the damages (loss of property). So it might be unrealistic to believe we know what’s on “God’s” mind, even if you’re a fundamentalist Christian. But I do understand that people (religious or not) have strong personal beliefs and feelings about abortion. And those emotions run high–they are not dictated by God, but by people, and I respect both sides of the debate. In the end, though, I think women deserve at least as much freedom now as men had in the old testament. 🙂
Your hypocrisy is exceedingly evident. War kills people. Yet you say it isn’t murder, and abortion is. Can you pick up on your logical fallacy?
I made no reference to numbers. The “numbers” have no relevance to the point I am arguing. You say priests don’t need sex; however, the fact that priests engage in sexual abuse disproves that idea. Being religious does not automatically disqualify you from being sexually active. Therefore, you cannot claim they do not “need” sex. Sex is a biological drive. Fetuses don’t breathe. You’re not helping yourself here.
You can’t even explain how war isn’t murder? I honestly think it’s because you can’t support it. If you say killing something is murder, then war is also murder. Again, your point is invalid. The President has been deposed, therefore your justification for the war is gone. Why are there still people dying?
Euthanasia is an entirely different point of interest. If the person is in excruciating pain and is going to die anyway, then it would be more merciful to help them go in peace instead of agony. The same principle is applied to animals.
Are you serious? If you didn’t know you had cervical cancer, it’s quite obvious you wouldn’t seek treatment. Funding Planned Parenthood helps save lives because people are aware of what they have. If you don’t know you’re sick, how can you be cured?
Simply because the Guttmacher Institute is a “friend” of Margaret Sanger does not immediately disqualify the quality of their research. You obviously don’t understand what research entails. Abraham Lincoln was also racist. Margaret Sanger is not the head of the Institute and therefore, it is in no way influenced by her. It is an impartial research institute that offers data and not suggestions or an agenda to follow. Please learn to distinguish between “fact” and “opinion.”
Again, abortion done in a legal, safe manner has a mortality rate of 0.3%. Planned Parenthood, again, does not get any funding from the government. It is not a market. Abortion is not something you sweep into your shopping cart in the supermarket. You’re an idiot if you believe it is a commodity to be bought, sold, and profited from.
You have no proof of Hell. The fact that you are threatening someone with a place that has never been proven to exist shows how poor your reasoning skills actually are. You’re telling someone they’re going to hell because of what they believe? How very Christian of you.
If you aren’t open to changing your mind, David dear, then you have proved that you are not mentally capable of having a discussion. A discussion is when one exchanges ideas, learns, and improves them. It is where ideas are refined. What you are doing is preaching in a very illogical and uninformed manner.
It’s amusing how you’re using my words because you can’t come up with a proper rejoinder of your own. It only furthers the image you’ve projected of yourself–an uncreative, close-minded person who still cannot comprehend the difference between reality and delusion.
If someone invades your home, and your daddy shoots them dead, is it murder? No. So all killing is not murder. Murder, defined is killing a person especially with malice aforethought. Murder is a deliberate act. Killing a bystander or non-combattant in a war zone is not a deliberate act. Abortion is a deliberate act.
A fetus is a person. Therefore abortion is murder.
Actually, the fact that some priests had sex does not mean that all priests (or humans for that matter) need sex to live. No, being religious does not. I am religious and sexually active. I don’t need sex, though. But the religious I’m speaking of means those consecrated formally to their faith. Nuns, brothers, monks, etc. Get it? Fetuses don’t breathe, but they do respire, which is a synonym (means that they indicate the same thing) for breathe. Respiration is necessary for life. Fetuses respire.
Euthanasia is the same thing. You’re removing the decision from the person who should be making it. Your idea of mercy is not the same as mine, obviously. Who are you to decide if it’s merciful to take my life? That’s my decision alone, thanks. Not you, not any government body, no one’s.
Funding Planned Parenthood kills more people than it saves lives. End of story.
Being the president of Planned Parenthood, and friend of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, and having a vested interest in keeping Planned Parenthood alive makes their statistics unreliable. Relying on the government to provide accurate statistics has proven unreliable when it’s in their best interests to fudge the statistics. As for her purpose for founding Planned Parenthood, it was to exterminate blacks. Whitewash it all you want. There it is.
Legal abortion is not safe abortion. In fact, legal abortion is just as unsafe as illegal abortion. According to one medical study, “An unfortunate aspect of this procedure is the vast number of complications.“ The immediate life threatening conditions are heavy bleeding and infection. A British medical journal reports the following.
1. l7% of the patients lost over 500 ml of blood and 9.5% needed transfusions.
2. 27% suffered infections and fever above 100.4(o), lasting more than 24 hours.
3. Cervical lacerations occurred in 4.2%.
4. Perforation of the uterus occurred in 1.2%.
J. Stallworth, et al, “Legal Abortion: A Critical Assessment of the Risks,” The Lancet (December 4, 1971), pp. 1245 & 1249.
The article concludes, “This emphasizes that the termination of pregnancy is neither as simple nor as safe as some advocates of abortion would have the public believe. Moreover, the incidence of such complications as infertility, recurrent miscarriages, premature labor, ruptured uterus or emotional manifestations cannot be assessed at this stage.“
•4% of women having legal abortions will suffer from a damaged cervix.
•5-10% will become sterile.
•Legalized abortion has resulted in:
a.) a 300% increase in first trimester miscarriages of later pregnancies.
b.) a 400% increase in second trimester miscarriages of later pregnancies.
c.) a 200% increase in premature births.
d.) a 700% increase in placenta previs.
e.) a 200% increase in tubal pregnancies.
I have more proof of hell than you do that legal abortion is safe. I’m not threatening anything. God’s promising, though. It is Christian to show someone their errors and try to help them out of them. It’s very closed minded to stick to your errors.
Actually, uncreative is what you are, Lin. Have a nice weekend.
If you think I’m not having a discussion with you, you’re stupid. That we’re disagreeing, there’s no doubt. But my stats are as good or better than your stats.
David’s last post said, “Your idea of mercy is not the same as mine, obviously. Who are you to decide if it’s merciful to take my life? That’s my decision alone, thanks. Not you, not any government body, no one’s.”
What a great concept! I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ve been saying from the beginning!
The difference is that you are, again, deciding to take the life of another person. And while that person may be helpless and dependent on your body for nourshment and function, that does not make you the final arbiter of the life of said person.
So my direct question to you is this: Do you think you have the right to kill another person?
Lin wrote this
“If my mother could have lived a better life by aborting me, I would let her do it in a heartbeat. My mother has sacrificed so much in order to bring me into the world and to take care of me. She didn’t need to. She wasn’t forced to. She had the chance to abort me. I love my mother enough to say that if she wanted to abort me and would have lived a better life because of it, I wouldn’t have hesitated to heartily agree with her decision. I am not as selfish as you, concerned and preoccupied with my own desires. I am not advocating abortion, for the second time. I am advocating choice.”
This is sad, some serious issues here.
Pray for this woman!
Liberals love to boast that they are not “religious”, which is what one would expect to hear from the state-sanctioned religion. Of course liberalism is a religion. It has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own high priests, its own saints, its own worldview, and its own explanation of the existance of the universe. In other words, liberalism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as “religion”.
Dr. Willke and Mrs. Willke are internationally renowned experts in the field of human sexuality and abortion. As authors, their ten books and extensive literature have been translated into 28 languages and are considered essential for providing factual, medical information around the world. Together, they have proved to be the greatest single resource of educational information on abortion and related issues in the world.
Read below.
The hallmarks of Post-Abortion Syndrome are repression and denial. It is well known that she suppresses the memory and guilt of that abortion. We know now that, for some at least, and for varying lengths of time, they’re quite successful in suppressing and denying the guilt and emotional upset resultant from an abortion. But this only lasts so long. We know that the suppressed emotional trauma of an abortion festers and eats away at the very core of that woman’s being. We know how it breaks through — flashbacks, anniversary reactions, sexual problems, nightmares, resort to alcohol and/or drugs, depression, etc. We know that many women, using this psychological defense mechanism, merely postpone to a later year these repressed problems, but that sooner or later the symptomatology breaks through. Sometimes it will be in a very disabling way, ultimately leading some even to suicide.
The answer is to stop the denial and repression, and admit to herself that she was a party to the killing of her own offspring. To do this, she must be in a supportive environment with sympathetic shoulders to lean on, confide in and pray with. She cannot handle this alone. We know today that the very best thing for her emotional health is to cease the repression and denial, admit the problem, cope with it, grieve over it, pray over it and work it through. That high school girl who is only beginning long years of repression and denial is not well served by continuing to hide this. Nor is the woman in church. We would do both a great favor to break open that shell, start her crying, because now she is in a supportive environment. Now most of the damage may not yet have been done, and she is open to healing.
Abortion Clinic Chain Operator Now Pro-Life and Speaking Out
Eric Harrah was part owner of one of the nation’s largest chains of abortion clinics. He recently converted to Christianity and walked away from the lucrative business of killing unborn children. Dr. Willke and Brad Mattes interviewed him regarding his involvement in the abortion industry.
Dr. W: I am curious about your function in the clinic. Were you basically a business manager, owner?
Eric: I was an owner. My first position was Director of Public Relations and then I became an owner and from there went around opening clinics – that was my biggest function with my different partners.
Brad: How did you select areas to open abortion clinics?
Eric: There were a lot of different factors that went into a decision to open a clinic. Basically, you looked in an area that didn’t have a clinic in it. You would get demographic numbers, from areas that had colleges or universities, with the amount of abortions that had taken place prior to that. If it had a high abortion rate, that would be a prime area.
Dr. W: How would you hire the abortionists?
Eric: Well, before you would even go to a town, you would usually have your doctors lined up. A lot of times, doctors would contact me. There was always some doctor somewhere in some town who was already doing abortions. Also, in larger demographic areas (metropolitan areas) it was easy to tap any number of residency programs.
Dr. W: These were residents who’d moonlight?
Eric: That was not all I hired, but that was a very nice pool to be able to select from, because they were interested. You take a resident, bring him into an abortion clinic and they work part-time, even just one day a week. They can make $75,000 a year, if not more, which is very beneficial to pay off their student loans.
Brad: How many states did you have clinics in?
Eric: About 11 or 12.
Brad: And how many abortions did your chain of abortion clinics do?
Eric: If I take all the numbers from the time I started in the abortion industry to the time I got out (10 years), we probably did about a quarter of a million total.
Brad: Were the abortions that were done in your clinics limited to first trimester abortions?
Eric: Oh, no. People in the abortion business don’t want to do first trimester abortions. That’s not where the money is. The money is in mid-second to early third trimester abortions.
Dr. W: But you can’t do those in every clinic – or do you?
Eric: No. Every place has different laws. In New Jersey, you can only go to 14 weeks in a clinic setting, but what you do is get approved and open up a surgi-center where you can get abortions done. Pennsylvania, which prides itself on having some of the strictest abortion laws, actually has some of the most lenient and is a mecca for late-term abortions. They go to 24 or 26 weeks – that’s in a clinic setting. Delaware is 22-24 weeks – that’s in an office setting.
Dr. W: Now these would be – what – D&E’s mostly?
Eric: D&E’s and D&X’s. I would never permit saline abortions to be done.
Brad: Did your staff ever delay women’s abortions so that they were kicked up into the more expensive category?
Eric: I personally never did myself. You have to understand that I became (I hope this doesn’t offend you, but I want to be totally honest) a lover with Dr. Steven Bringham, who I’m sure you’ve known or have heard of. And he was pretty infamous for that type of thing. He was also known for re-using syringes and all kinds of other things that I wouldn’t do.
Brad: And he continues to perform abortions?
Eric: Yes, he does. But he gets sentenced on Monday, so he might be in jail. I don’t know what his situation is going to be.
Brad: Did pro-life efforts ever stop one of your clinics from opening?
Eric: None of mine.
Brad: Would you have any advice for pro-lifers on what they might do to effectively stop a clinic now?
Eric: Oh, there are so many things they could do. You would have to do a whole separate newsletter on it. I go around speaking now to right-to-life groups clueing them in on what to do.
Brad: Are there effective ways the pro-life movement can stop abortion clinics from opening?
Eric: Oh, there are many peaceful, nonviolent ways that are totally legal that would not be part of the supposed, alleged RICO conspiracy by now. Yes, look into and act while your town does not have an abortion clinic in it. Enact laws preventing medical, surgical centers from being located within the city limits. Most towns don’t worry about this until it happens, and by the time it happens, it’s too late. You can pass very legitimate restrictions. There are laws they can pass about hazardous waste..
Brad: How did you get into the abortion area to begin with?
Eric: I was with some friends on our way to the beach, and we saw a right-to-life protest. I didn’t even know there was an abortion clinic in my hometown. At that time I considered myself to be pro-choice. I was very liberal, politically. We pulled into the clinic and asked if there was anything we could do to help. They said we could join NOW. I joined. I became secretary of my county chapter. A year later I became vice president of the Delaware state chapter, and a year-and-a-half after that, I became their first male ever elected president. I quit my affiliation with NOW years ago. I started to become very disturbed by a lot of their rhetoric, a lot of their hate, a lot of what I perceived to be their racism. You have groups such as NOW, the National Abortion Rights Action League and many other groups who do nothing but live off the blood of aborted children. Their interest in keeping abortion legal is not so much because they care about women’s rights – or that they are actually pro-choice. Their true interest in keeping abortion legal, in my opinion, is so they can keep their big, fancy offices in Washington, their nice clothing expenses and their personal expense accounts.
Brad: When you were involved in this industry, what was your annual income?
Eric: When I walked away from the clinics, I walked away from everything. I left my ownership and my money there. I wanted nothing else to do with it. The average doctor who does abortions one day a week at a clinic averages 25-40 abortions. He will walk away in his pocket with an average of $100,000-$125,000 a year. An average clinic that performs roughly around 8,000 abortions will gross approximately $1 million a year.
Dr. W: One doctor can do that? That’s full time, though.
Eric: No, it’s not. Not at all. Abortion clinics, Dr. Willke, are set up like cattle slaughtering centers. You get ‘em in and you get ‘em out. I would say, honestly, about 60%-70% of all abortions takes place on Saturdays.
Brad: How many women do they usually schedule in a day?
Eric: The maximum I’ve ever seen get done in a day is probably 50-60 women. Usually, that takes two abortionists, but I have seen doctors kick out 40-50 patients by themselves. First trimester cases – if you have a doctor who’s been doing it for a while and he knows what he’s doing – you can push through 6-7 an hour. And that goes back to the whole issue too of how little regulation there is. Even within PA, which prides itself on being the bastion for restrictive abortion laws, there really are no regulations. There’s nobody to monitor these facilities. There’s nobody who tracks the money that comes from the birth control companies that flood through the clinics – the paybacks. There’s nobody who tracks the insurance companies that give incentives to physicians for performing abortions, because insurance companies would rather pay for abortions than pay for a full labor and delivery.
Dr. W: You get those incentive payments?
Eric: Oh yeah, they flow like water. If you’re a participating member of an insurance company, they will give you incentives to perform an abortion. First trimester abortions are $250, and insurance companies such as…I’ve seen them pay over $2,000 for those abortions, because they would rather pay $2,000-$2,500 for a first trimester case than pay $7,000-$8,000 for prenatal, labor and delivery.
Brad: So do you, as the clinic owner, pocket that money?
Eric: Oh, definitely.
Brad: Let me ask you about your attitude and contact with the women.
Eric: I would make their appointments. I would sit and talk to them in the waiting room. I would go into the procedure rooms with them. When I first got started, I was very truly concerned about the women who were having abortions, but, as in most cases, there are two reasons why people get involved in the abortion industry. The first is money. The second is because they really feel that it’s helping women. But even those people who get involved because they think it’s helping women – at some point in time convert to the fact that it’s all about money. So you stop looking at women after a certain point in time as being people that you’re helping and you just start looking at them as dollar bills.
Brad: That’s what happened to you?
Eric: Definitely. I found myself, probably the last half of the time that I was involved in the abortion industry, very depressed about it, which led to a cocaine drug addiction, and toward the very end, I think I ended up hating them.
Brad: Why was that?
Eric: I think it was because of the depression and guilt that I felt, myself, and I was blaming them for it – for coming in and having this abortion – especially the woman that you would see time and time and time again. There was one patient who came in and had 16. Even the doctors who do the abortion become hateful toward the patients – they become mean, rough.
Brad: So the average woman didn’t get compassionate counseling when she went in there?
Eric: I would say she got counseling, but compassion – no.
Brad: What kind of counseling did she get? It’s my impression there hasn’t been much.
Eric: In my facilities, I always gave option counseling. Of course you make the abortion the most appealing. I told them about adoption and about foster care and about (when there was welfare) assistance. The typical way it would go is, “Well, you know you can place your baby out for adoption.” But then, in the second breath you would say, “That’s an option available to you, but you also have to realize that there’s going to be a baby of yours out here somewhere in the world you will never see again.. At least with abortion you know what’s happening. You can go on with your life.”
Brad: So were the options more for your benefit to ease your conscience than for the women?
Eric: I would say that it was more for my conscience because, to be honest with you, I really didn’t care.
Dr. W: And the longer you were in it, the less you cared?
Eric: Yes, exactly, Dr. Willke. The longer I was in it, the less I cared, so I really didn’t really care what my conscience said. My conscience was totally numb anyway. But what it did do was public relations-wise. You were able, when a reporter or TV crew came, to pull out a packet of information for the patients to read and they received it. So what can anybody say? Publicly it looked good – in reality it was another tool that was used to force a woman into abortion. It’s typical – I would give them an option and then shoot it down. The only option you didn’t shoot down, obviously, was abortion.
Eric: And then, again, Dr. Willke and Brad, if they came in for an abortion – if they were scared, hey, inject them with some Fentanyl. It costs you two bucks. Knock ‘em out. You guarantee them they’ll never feel a thing. They’d come in and say, “Oh, I’m scared to death…. I don’t want to have this memory for the rest of my life.” I’d say, “Sweetheart, there won’t be any memories. We can give you an anesthetic that will knock you out. It costs me two bucks, but I’m going to charge you a hundred bucks extra for it. I’m going to give you some birth control pills when you leave.” And then you have the drug companies who would come in and throw these lavish parties and dinners for the clinic staff to get the doctors to write prescriptions for them. The prescriptions were written not necessarily based on what medication was best for the patient. It was written on who gave the best party the week before. Did the rep bring in the best donuts – did the rep bring the best pizza? Did they give nice golf clubs this year?
Brad: Were there any direct financial incentives by drug companies?
Eric: Yes, there were.
Eric: And while there was legislation to curb that, it still goes on. You have to understand that drug reps worked on commission. Their income is generated by how many of their “scripts” are being refilled at local pharmacies.
Dr. W: Let me ask about picketing out front. Did you have that in front of some of your places? And what influence did that have?
Eric: It depended on what kind of picketing it was. I found that it did nothing but infuriate people and the woman who came in. What worked, and what I hated the most, were the sidewalk counselors who would stand there and give a brochure about the local CPC. Those were the most effective, because that’s when the girl would stop to have a conversation.
Dr. W: And some of those women never came in?
Eric: Yes.
Brad: You saw those dollar bills walking away.
Eric: You never minded it when the men were outside picketing, because that was good, especially if they were loud and obnoxious, telling women they were going to go to hell. That was productive because they would come in and say, “Who do they think they are telling me what to do?” Women were much more effective at it than men, definitely. We knew which one was going to be successful. What I found, in my personal experience, is that the women didn’t usually respond to younger women because they would typically look at them and say, “You’re my age – what do you know?” But who they did respond to was older women – middle-aged women and senior citizen women because I think, in their minds, those women had valuable advice.
Dr. W: Did you have escorts to help bring the women in?
Eric: Yes, at times, yes, we did.
Dr. W: And was that effective on your part?
Eric: It was effective when the picketers were rowdy. When the picketers were calm, it backfired on you because it was like you were trying to drag the women in.When the picketers are loud, women are looking for someone to get them into that clinic. So you would always hope, on Saturdays especially (that’s the biggest day for picketing), that the picketers would be rowdy and obnoxious.
Dr. W: Is there any particular piece of literature that you recall that you feared the most?
Eric: Yes, one by your group, actually, that I used to hate. It was the one that you did about fetal development.
Dr. W: “Did You Know?”
Eric: Yes, that was the one we hated the most. That really used to tick us off. And actually what we would do is (I shouldn’t tell you this, but), the right-to-lifers would get tired and they would put their stuff down on the sidewalk, and they’re talking and we’d go over and take all their literature and just run with it.
Brad: What about your lifestyle as an abortion clinic owner. Your chain was one of the largest in the nation, is that correct?
Eric: Yes, it was. The thing I enjoyed, as an abortionist, were the number of celebrities and politicians who treat you as though you were a hero. Whoopie Goldberg, Cybil Shepard, Morgan Fairchild…people who would come to pro-choice functions…politicians who would actually court you. I had VIP seating at five Supreme Court nomination hearings.
Brad: You enjoyed material possessions too, I would imagine.
Eric: Yes. The travel, the money was just there. It was a very, very comfortable living. And it was easy money.
Dr. W: We hear that the number of abortionists is declining, is aging, and that worries the industry.
Eric: The number of these abortionists, yes, is declining, but what is increasing now is what’s called “docs in a box”, doctors who hold licenses in anywhere from 5 to 20 states and spend their time flying from state to state just doing abortions. You also have what are called “mega-docs” who totally control a certain geographic area. Those are on the increase.. You should see the anti-trust laws that are being broken by abortion providers – the “carteling”, as we used to call it, where you would get together for a friendly lunch and decide what fee was going to be charged. The reason I was hated so much by the people in the abortion industry was that I was a cartel-breaker. If I went into a town where first trimester abortions started out at $275, I would go in and charge $200, because I knew that the clinic had been around for five or six years and already had a kind of debt. I was coming in and starting from scratch. The thing was to go in and force them to shut down. It’s a very cutthroat business, very backstabbing and very physically dangerous too.
Dr. W: You’ve known doctors doing abortions who were physically injured or lost their lives?
Eric: No, I never knew of anybody who lost their lives. I do know doctors who were physically threatened. Usually the way it happened is, if you were going to go into an area where they already were, and they didn’t want any competition, they were usually very friendly. They’d give you a call, telling you that your services were not needed. If you persisted, they’d persist a little bit heavier. But I’m not that stupid. It’s not worth my aggravation.
Brad: When you left the industry, you left everything behind?
Eric: Yes, I did. I didn’t see how I could call myself a Christian and be living off the fruits of the abortion business. That made no sense to me. And I prayed about it, and God told me to leave it all behind.
Dr. W: And what are you living off of now?
Eric: I go around and speak at churches. I did my first CPC benefit a few months ago – I have a couple more of those booked. I’m writing a book.
Brad: Tell us about your book.
Eric: The book I’m writing tells the story of my life in the abortion business. But it’s also a tell-all book about the abortion industry itself and it also gets into the areas of my life I was involved in, which was homosexuality and how prevalent homosexuality actually is in the abortion business. “The girls do carry on,” as we used to say.
Dr. W: Homosexual males or homosexual females?
Eric: Both, and I’ll tell you what – the lesbians are far worse than the males. Anytime you have a feminist health care center that does abortions, they’re often all lesbians. Within the abortion business itself, there’s this love/hate relationship between the feminists and the abortion doctors, because the majority of the doctors are men.
Dr. W: You’re doing something they want done…
Eric: But they hate you because you’re a man. Over the last couple of years groups such as NOW, NARAL and The Fund no longer control the abortion industry. They did for a while, but the feminists no longer control it. What you have now is a bigger struggle going on now between them and Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is hated by any doctor or [abortion] clinic that is independently owned and operated. Their [Planned Parenthood] bread and butter is the abortions that they do. They don’t do it because they care about women. That’s where the majority of their money comes from. Planned Parenthood is shrewd, though, because it’s easier for a politician to stand behind Planned Parenthood to support them than it is to stand behind some entrepreneurial businessman or woman who has an independent clinic. It’s more socially acceptable.
Dr. W: Yes, PP has an image of doing it legitimately.
Eric: Yes, but what PP also has within the business itself is their record of being racist, squashing competition and outright lying about competition to squash them. What PP wants is a monopoly in the abortion business.
Brad: Tell us about how you switched from pro-abortion to pro-life.
Eric: I grew up in the Church, so I knew that abortion was wrong. I’d say about the last five years I was having serious depression and guilt over my involvement, which led to my cocaine addiction. I saw myself doing things like, in the morning, getting up and watching the 700 Club, just trying to have some tie back to my Christian roots, I guess you could say. Finally, when I came to State College in Pennsylvania to open a clinic (which I didn’t want to come here), it was nice to have someone – a right-to-life group – who came to me and didn’t ridicule me or call me names but reached out to me.
Brad: Give us some detail of how they reached out to you.
Eric: Well, there was a big battle getting the clinic open here in State College. I was on the front page of the paper, I think, for forty-some odd days straight. It was the biggest news story, I think, ever to hit this town. There were protests, prayer marches and all kinds of things that the right-to-lifers did to shoot me down for opening, but I was able to overcome it. (There’s a whole bunch of other things that happened behind the scenes that people don’t know about, which included secret agreements and secret deals with officials and different things.) So the clinic finally opened and there were massive protests every day. I said to the people with my clinic: “Don’t be scared. Right-to-lifers are very fickle ( I still stand behind that). They will come out and they will picket us very heavily for the first month or so, and then the numbers will dwindle until eventually there’ll be hardly anybody here protesting.” And that came to pass, as it always had. But that day, they came and told me that there was a football team outside picketing, and I went outside with my bodyguards to see what was going on. There was just one gentleman standing there in a Penn State football sweatshirt who started talking to me.
Brad: But he reached out to you with love and not hate and that made the difference?
Eric: Exactly, yes.
Brad: Was it a lonely existence where you were at that time?
Eric: Oh, it was very lonely. I hated State College. I had spent the majority of my time shuttling between New York, Los Angeles, London and Paris. I grew up in small, podunk town and I vowed that I would get out of it, and I did. I thought that I had failed. I’m back where I started, even though I really wasn’t. I always tell the story when I go to speak that a homosexual’s worst nightmare is to be stuck in a town where there’s no Macy’s and no Starbuck’s. This town had neither. It was a very lonely existence, yes. Steven Bringham decided it was too hot to be here politically, so he stayed back in our homes in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Brad: You shared homes together then?
Eric: Yes, we did.
Brad: You made a radical change…
Eric: No, I didn’t make a radical change. God made a radical change in me. I did nothing. I did nothing but bend to the will of God, like I should have done a long time ago. I did nothing to change myself – God changed me – because if it was up to me, and left to my own devices, I can’t save myself and I can’t change my way of thinking. The old me wouldn’t have walked away from thousands upon thousands of dollars a week and millions of dollars in the bank – for what? To go out and get $400 to $1,000 to speak at a CPC banquet, when I was making a hundred times that a week? It’s not about me, it’s about God. And that’s what I want people to understand.
Dr. W: How do you view violence to stop abortions from being performed?
Eric: I do not accept, nor will I ever tolerate, anyone who label themselves a Christian or a pro-lifer who advocates violence, killing someone because they’re involved in the abortion business. That person is not pro-life.
Dr. W: I agree with you strongly.
Eric: Dr. Willke, the reason I agreed to do an interview with you is because, over the years, you have stayed consistent. You never advocated violence. Every piece of information I ever saw that you put out was truthful, it was honest and it was never hate-filled.
Brad: You recently came out of the abortion industry. Tell us about some of the new things pro-lifers should be concerned about.
Eric: The non-surgical, Methotrexate/Misoprostil abortions. That’s a whole other racket. By the time you count the two medications and the needle you need to give the injection, it’s going to cost you around $15. I was charging anywhere from $375 and others charged as much as $600. Now, here’s the big racket they do with it. They bring these women in and they know it’s only good up until about 7 or 8 weeks. A woman comes in at 9 or 10 weeks and they tell her about this wonderful non-surgical abortion. She’s so desperate not to have to have the surgery that she opts for the non-surgical procedure. They know it’s going to fail and then they tell her, “Now we’re going to give this to you, but if it fails, you’re going to have to pay us for a surgical abortion.”
Dr. W: And totally unregulated.
Eric: Dr. Willke, Abortion is totally unregulated! Anybody can open up an abortion clinic. Almost any doctor can work there, even anesthesiologists. A psychiatrist
can do an abortion because he or she has MD or DO after their name.
Brad: Did you have experiences in your clinics with chemical abortions?
Eric: Oh, yes. We were one of the first ones in the country to do it. And, actually, it got to the point where we’d say, “You come in, sweetheart. You don’t like needles? That’s okay, we’ll fix you up on Methotrexate in a glass of orange juice and it works in the exact same way.”
Dr. W: How about the RU 486? Were you in on any of those trials?
Eric: No, I was never in on any of those trials because I didn’t want to be because the FDA will regulate RU 486 very strictly.
Dr. W: You know there’s a certain battle fatigue out there in Right-to-Life offices.
Eric: I understand that people are tired, but they need to get re-energized. They need to know that their efforts have made a difference. Unfortunately, they don’t hear that enough.
Dr. W: The one thing that has really energized pro-lifers has been partial-birth abortion.
Eric: That has totally floored me! The American people also need to know, when they talk about abortion at 14, 15 or 16 weeks, you pull a baby apart to get it out. I have seen my fair share of D&X abortions done over the years. I started to see more abortions that were done on fetuses where the baby was born whole and was left there to die. With the advent of new medications to help in labor, there is not such a need to do the gruesome D&X abortions.
Brad: She essentially went into premature labor, is that what they did?
Eric: Exactly, yes. They would cause premature labor, she would be delivered and the fetus would be put aside to die.
Brad: How do you think pro-lifers have fared in the public forum?
Eric: You know what the most hated commercial that the right-to-lifers ever put out was? It was “Life, What a Beautiful Choice”. We hated that commercial. It even made me feel guilty, showing these beautiful babies.
Brad: Did you experience anything with Post-Abortion Syndrome?
Eric: Yes, it’s rampant – and, actually, I had Post-Abortion Syndrome. That’s why I became a cocaine addict. I hated putting babies in strainers and rinsing them off and putting them in zip-lock bags. I consider myself to be an abortion-survivor because I was on a fast track of dying because of it. Post-Abortion Syndrome is very prevalent – very, very prevalent.
Brad: So you saw it in women?
Eric: I saw it in women ten minutes after the abortion. I saw it in women a year after the abortion. They would call begging for help.
Brad: What was your response to them?
Eric: “You’ll get over it, sweetie. Your hormones are going crazy right now. As soon as your hormones calm down, you’ll be fine.” That was the standard line that was given.
Dr. W: And, of course, it didn’t mean a thing.
Eric: No, it didn’t. But, you know, it bought you some time with them. It was implanted in their minds that there was nothing wrong with them. It was their hormones.
Dr. W: And they went away?
Eric: They went away, but at some point in time, they would usually re-surface again. In my clinic we had protocols for what to do when people threatened suicide. They would call six months after the abortion. They couldn’t stand it anymore. They were going to kill themselves and you had to keep them on the line and then call a crisis mental center and get intervention.
Brad: So the abortion industry is aware of Post-Abortion Syndrome?
Eric: Yes, but they deny it.
Dr. W: How about effect on men?
Eric: What I did see was this little game that was played, where the men would come in with these girls and say, “Oh, honey, right now is not the right time to have the baby, but go ahead and have the abortion and we’ll have another baby and get married soon.” Then, as soon as the abortion was over with, he’d dump her. That happens constantly. And I would tell girls, “Don’t you even think for a minute that he’s going to be back when you’re back here for your checkup, because he’s going to be gone.” “No, Eric, it’s not like that. You don’t understand him like I do.” And then, a month later: “You were right, Eric. He left me.”
Dr. W: Sweet-talk her into it and then leave her there.
Eric: Exactly. Leave her there. I’ve seen guys drop girls off at the abortion clinic, pay for the abortion, sit around and wait until they hear the suction machines start – then they know it’s over and they’re gone. Won’t even take her home! I’ve seen that more than I can remember. I’ve seen all kinds of things.
Dr. W: Eric, we really do thank you for your time and your straightforward answers. I encourage you to keep writing your book. &127;
Life Issues Today with Dr. J.C. Willke
Define “Alive”
Alive means that this being is growing, developing, maturing, and replacing its own dying cells. It means not being dead.
Define “Human”
Human means one of the biological beings who be-longs to the species Homo Sapiens. Such beings are unique from all other beings in that they have 46 human chromosomes in every cell. Such beings do not belong to the rabbit family, the carrot family, etc.
Define “Person”
Person is defined in at least a dozen different ways, according to the field or discipline in which you define it. In theology it usually means when the soul is created.
Define human life?
This is the question that must first be considered, pondered, discussed, and finally, answered. It cannot be brushed aside or ignored. It must be faced and met honestly. Upon its answer hinges the entire abortion question, as all other considerations pale to insignificance when compared with it. In a sense, nothing else really matters. If what is growing within the mother is not human life, if it is just a piece of tissue — a glob of protoplasm — then it deserves little respect or consideration, and the primary concern should be the mother’s physical and mental health, her social well-being, and, at times, even her convenience.
“Is this human life?” The answer clearly is Yes. That answer is a medical and scientific one.
“IS IT REALLY A BABY OR ‘JUST A BLOB OF TISSUE’?”
Years ago scientists did not know. Now, however, with ultrasound and other methods, they can actually “see” the unborn baby inside of the mother’s womb. Doctors can now open the womb, do surgery on an unborn baby, and close up the womb for the pregnancy to continue normally. One now famous photo shows an unborn baby 21 weeks old reaching out of the womb and grabbing the finger of the surgeon. The surgery was completed and the baby was born healthy months later. There is now no question that it is a living, growing, feeling human being long before birth.
“IT’S YOUR CHOICE, YOUR BODY, YOUR LIFE”
With technology today, you can see for yourself that this is a perfectly formed human being. At this stage, even though you feel nothing, your baby is kicking, clenching his fists, curling and fanning his toes, and is generally very active and comfortable inside you.
“WILL MY BABY FEEL PAIN DURING ABORTION?”
In the past few years, medical research has shown that unborn babies can feel pain. Dr. H. M. Liley, the leading authority on the study of babies before birth, stated, “When doctors first began invading the sanctuary of the womb, they did not know that the unborn baby would react to pain in the same fashion as a child would. But they soon learned that he would.”
Many women in this country have suffered both physically and emotionally from their abortions. They will always regret their decisions. Below, two women share their experiences with you hoping you won’t make the same mistake they did.
“When I returned home I had very heavy bleeding and severe cramps for two days. I was so afraid something was wrong that I called Planned Parenthood who referred me for my abortion. They said I was OK without suggesting an exam. At my after-school job at a dime store, I went to the restroom. It was then I found my baby on my sanitary pad. He had arms and legs with tiny hands and feet. I could make out his little nose and a dark spot that I know was his eye. Even after 10 years, it’s still hard for me to think about it.”
Kathy Barlett, Waco, Tx
“Planned Parenthood suggested only an abortion. No other options were ever discussed. They never said the word ‘baby’ – only ‘fetus’. You can’t imagine my shock and horror when I saw my dismembered baby after my ‘nice and easy’ abortion. They deceived me. I’ve suffered severe emotional problems.”
Karen Sullivan-Ables Taylor, Az
If you still feel abortion is your only solution you need to know the answers to the following questions. Be sure to ask the clinic or hospital these questions. It’s your body, your life. You have the right to know.
1) Have other women sued your chosen abortion clinic because they have been injured by an abortion?
2) Can you be permanently damaged by abortion?
3) Were any of the risks outlined in this brochure mentioned to you when you asked the question above? If not, ask why.
4) Will you be asked to sign a paper releasing the doctor and clinic of all responsibility in case you suffer physical or emotional damage because of your abortion.
5) If you sign a release form and then have physical problems will the clinic or the doctor pay for medical costs to repair the damage?
Consider this murder??
At no time in your life does more growth and change occur than in the first nine months before birth. Here are the amazing milestones of that time in your life:
Day 1: Conception: Of the 200,000,000 sperm that try to penetrate the mother’s egg cell, only one succeeds.2 At that very moment, a new and unique individual is formed. All of the inherited features of this new person are already set – whether it’s a boy or girl, the color of the eyes, the color of the hair, the dimples of the cheeks and the cleft of the chin. He or she is smaller than a grain of sugar, but the instructions are present for all that this person will ever become.
The first cell soon divides in two. Each of these new cells divides again and again as they travel toward the womb in search of a protected place to grow.3
Day 6-14:The new individual at first attaches loosely to the wall of the womb, then burrows deeply and attaches securely to it over the next week. Sensitive pregnancy tests can now show positive, but this depends on the level of hormone produced by the new life. By the end of the second week, the mother’s menstrual period is suppressed by this hormone (hCG) which is produced by her child.4
Day 17:Blood vessels begin to form.4 Remarkably, the future sex cells that will give rise to sperm or eggs for a new generation begin to group together – only 17 days after this new life is alive itself.5
Day 18-20:The foundations of the brain, spinal cord, and nervous system are laid.6
Day 21:The heart begins to beat,7 unsurely at first, gaining strength day by day. The heart beats 70 times per minute at first, reaching a maximum of 170-190 at seven weeks, and slowing a bit to 160-180 at 9 weeks.8 A day later the eyes begin to develop. The earliest stages of the ears are now present.9
Day 26-27:The lungs now begin to form.10
Day 28-32:Two tiny arms make their appearance and budding legs follow two days later.11 The beginnings of the mouth take shape.12 The nose starts to develop.13 The thyroid gland begins to grow. Blood flows in the baby’s veins but stays separate from the mother’s blood. The tongue now begins to form. The face now makes its first appearance.14
Day 36:The baby’s eyes develop their first color in the retina (see photo above, right).15
Day 40:The baby makes her first reflex movements. Touching around the mouth with a fine bristle causes her to flex her neck.16
Day 41:The fingers begin to form, followed by the toes a few days later.17
Day 42:The baby develops nerve connections that will lead to a sense of smell. The brain is now divided into 3 parts – one to experience emotion and understand language, one for hearing and one for seeing. 18 Joints begin to form.19 Mother now misses second period.
Day 44:Buds of milk teeth appear. Facial muscles develop.20 Eyelids begin to form, protecting the developing eyes.21 Elbows take shape. Internal organs are present, but immature. 99% of muscles are present; each with its own nerve supply.22 Electrical activity is detectable in brain.23
Day 52:Spontaneous movement begins. The baby then develops a whole collection of moves over the next 4 weeks including hiccupping, frowning, squinting, furrowing the brow, pursing the lips, moving individual arms and legs, head turning, touching the face, breathing (without air), stretching, opening the mouth, yawning, and sucking.2
8 Weeks:The baby is now well-proportioned, and about the size of a thumb. Every organ is present. The liver is making blood, the kidneys function, and the heart beats steadily. The skull, elbows, and knees are forming. Of the 4500 structures in the adult body, 4000 are already present.25 The skeleton of the arms and legs and the spine begins to stiffen as bone cells are added.26
9 Weeks9 If prodded, the baby’s eyelids and hands close. Genitalia that were forming in the 7th week now become visible, indicating whether it’s a boy or girl. However, the doctor won’t be able to tell by ultrasound until the 12th to 20th week. Early muscular movements begin. The thyroid gland turns on.27
10 Weeks10 Fingerprints begin their 7 week long formation. The fingernails begin to develop. The eyelids now fuse together until month 7, protecting the delicate eyes.28 The number of connections between nerves and muscles has tripled since last week.29
11 Weeks11 The baby now “practices” breathing, since she will have to breathe air immediately after birth. The baby urinates. Her stomach muscles can now contract.30 Vocal chords and taste buds form.31 She can make complex facial expressions and even smile.32
12 Weeks12 Fine hair begins to grow on the upper lip and chin and eyebrows.33 The baby swallows and responds to skin stimulation.32
13 Weeks13 The face is prettier, and facial expressions may resemble the parents’. The baby is active, but mom doesn’t feel anything yet.
And it goes on…….murder????
For you so called Christian posters that brought up the bible…
View of Abortion
Since abortion was legalized in 1973, there have been over 40 million abortions in the U.S. alone. Abortion is legal, just as slavery was legal in the 1800’s. But, is it moral? What does the Bible say on the subject?
Nowhere in the Bible does it say “Thou shalt not abort your children.” Neither will you find specific words forbidding suicide, infanticide (killing newborn children) or same-sex marriages. Yet, the Bible clearly teaches us that these things are wrong. A small, but noisy group of people (who are very active on the Internet) wish to have you believe that the Bible condones abortion. Although it doesn’t take a Biblical scholar to conclude that the Bible forbids abortion, it may help you to see the facts laid out. Simply put, the Bible forbids killing innocent persons. If an unborn child is a person, abortion is prohibited by the Bible. Let’s look at the evidence:
The Bible condemns the shedding of innocent life.
Few people would argue this point. The Bible clearly prohibits taking the life of an innocent person. It follows that if the developing baby is a “qualified” member of the human race, all of these scriptures apply:
Genesis 9:6 – Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.
Exodus 20:13 – You shall not murder.
Deuteronomy 27:25a – Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to strike down an innocent person.
Proverbs 6:16-19 – There are six things which the LORD hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood…
See also Exodus 23:7 and Deuteronomy 19:11-12
A child is a “person” whether born or unborn.
The Bible consistently uses the same word for a “born” or “unborn” baby.1 This is because the divine Author of the Bible did not recognize a material difference between the two. In Scripture, there is not some special event when a “human being” becomes a “person”. Rather, he or she is a person from the beginning who goes through growth and development both inside and outside of the womb.
In the New Testament the Greek word “brephos” is used to describe the unborn, newborns and youth. In Luke 1:44, the word is used to mean unborn baby: “For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy.” Then, in Luke 2:12, it means a newborn: “So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger.” And in Luke 18:15, “brephos” refers to a young child: “And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them.”
In the Old Testament the Hebrew word “yeled” is used in the same way. In Exodus 21:22 it means an unborn child, “If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely…”. And yet, in other Old Testament usages, it means “youth” or even a teenager.
As late as the 16th century in our own culture, “child” was the word used for both the born and unborn baby. Late in the game, we have developed a new word, “fetus”, to describe a developing baby2 (even this word is defined in some dictionaries as an “unborn human being” 3 ). Today, we often reserve the word “child” for a person already born.
In the Bible, our worth as a human being or our “personhood” does not depend on how far along on life’s journey we have come. Instead, we are beings who are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). Each person is valuable because God created him or her that way. It doesn’t matter whether a person is still in his mother’s womb, a newborn, a toddler, an adolescent, or a senior citizen. Only quite recently has the concept of “personhood” surfaced. There are some in our society who want to find a developmental stage where they can justify that the fetus is only a collection of organs, not really a person. Carl Sagan put that fetal stage at perhaps 6 months, when the cerebral cortex is in place. Only then, he feels, should we confer “personhood” on a fetus.4 Such ideas are clearly subjective. It would seem that these discussions of personhood only arose from a need to justify the act of abortion. Certainly, they are not expressed in the Bible. Quite to the contrary, the Bible story shows that “personhood”, or reaching one’s full potential, comes from knowing God. A person develops and is preserved through his communion with a personal God who reveals Himself to us in love. The Bible consistently links our “personhood” to the time we are formed (conception), or even before in God’s “mind”.
According to the Bible, God knew you before you were born.
Psalm 139:13-16. For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.
Luke 1:15. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb.
Jeremiah. 1:5. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.
Before we are even formed in the womb, God knows us. He knows how each day of our lives on earth will unfold. His love and care go with us throughout life.
Early church leaders recognized the Bible’s prohibition of abortion.
One of the reasons that the Bible does not contain specific references to abortion is because the prohibition was completely covered in “Thou shall not murder”. Israelites well understood this to mean killing by sword, by strangulation, by poison, by abortion, and by all other means. Later, as the church began to spread to the Gentile cultures that did not share the Israelite traditions, specific prohibitions were written. Church leaders and others consistently forbade the practice of abortion based upon their understanding of the Bible. Below are examples:
“Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born” (Letter of Barnabas 19 from 74 AD).
“…And these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion” (The Apocalypse of Peter 25, 137 AD).
“You shall not procure abortion, nor destroy a newborn child” (Didache 2:1 from 150 AD).
“There are some women among you who by drinking special potions extinguish the life of the future human in their very bowels, thus committing murder before they even give birth.” (Mark Felix, Christian Lawyer, Octavius chap. 30 from 170 AD).
“The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion (see Ex. 21:22) Tertullian, 210 AD.
“Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does” (Tertullian, Apology 27 from 210 AD).
“Women also who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are murderesses.” (First Canonical Letter from 374 AD).
“The law, moreover enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing humankind.” (The Works of Josephus, Flavius Josephus Against Apion, Book II, 25).
“Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when, as often happens, they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder” (Jerome, Letters 22:13 from 396 AD).
How should Christians respond?
It is one thing when Godless, secular people try to dehumanize the unborn to support their view of abortion on demand. It is quite another matter when these same people attempt to distort scripture and church history to fit their agenda.
There is not a legitimate “pro-choice” position that can be derived from the Bible. To support this position, it would be necessary to use text out of context, ignore the Bible’s attitude toward the young and innocent, and be ignorant of the history and tradition of the church.
God calls each of us to defend the innocent. Christians should elect leaders who share the Biblical view of abortion, support groups working to make abortion unacceptable in our country, and donate their time and money to pregnancy care centers. Every Christian should know the facts and their Christian heritage, and be ready to defend what the Bible really does say about abortion. And we should pray that God will change the hearts of those promoting the genocide of our nation.
Here’s the thing Tina & David, and I’ve said this from the beginning: we hear your opinions, we hear your beliefs, and we hear your view points.
But we don’t agree with them. And our personal experiences have led us to our opinions about abortion, just as yours have. And that’s okay. Just as I would never tell you that you’re wrong. You don’t have the right to tell us that we are wrong.
I’ve read all the things you’ve quoted about the fetus feeling pain and the time when there’s a heartbeat and when it has brain function. BUT there are just as many studies that have proved the opposite. That’s part of the reason that this is such a controversial and personal subject.
What you’re not realizing is that you keep quoting the bible and pointing to the bible for reasons why abortion is wrong, but I don’t follow your bible so that means nothing to me.
We hear you, but we don’t agree with you. We live in a country where we have a basic right to have different opinions. And because of that, there’s no place in government for legislating my uterus.
The whole point is, believe what you want and let us believe what we want. No body has the right to force their beliefs on each other. You don’t have to like what I believe or do but our constitution guarantees my basic right of freedom from your religion, your god and your bible.
That’s what your missing.
Iamcharlie- Let me ask you this.
Why did you direct that at only me and David?
Are the other posters (like Lin)not doing the same thing???? Is it because you agree with her??
Think about that.
David and I have done the exact same thing that you and Lin have done. We posted our opinions, I copied stuff off the internet, as did you both.
Why would this message only be direct to David and I??
I would say the same thing to everyone who commented here. It just so happened that, for the most part, Lin and I had most of the same view points.
The whole point is that you have your beliefs and we have ours and that’s okay. We shouldn’t legislate each others body parts based on the others beliefs. Thats why its called pro-choice. But, right now, the government is trying to do that very thing. That’s why I wrote this in the first place.
What you’re missing, however, is the fact that right is right, no matter how many oppose it. And wrong is wrong, no matter how many agree with it. And while you may think that truth is relative to a person, there are universal truths that are unchanging.
One of these is that, when an egg is met by a sperm, a human life is conceived. When an human egg and a sperm meet, there is nothing else that can come of that meeting. It’s a human and it is living. There can be no dispute. Our Constitution and Declaration both say that life is a fundamental right of a human. Then there’s an amendment to said Constitution that says “Wait, we’ve changed our minds. A life in a womb does not deserve to live. It is less than 100% a person.” Well, sorry, that’s te same thing they said about slaves in America-that they were less than a person.
As for religion imposing its views on you, we do nothing of the kind. There is an inherent moral law that is born with each of us. Our legal system is based on that moral law. It so happens that the 10 Commandments echo that moral law. Religion proposes, it doesn’t impose. Other than the law written on your very being, wherever you believe it came from, religion, especially Christianity, does not impose itself on anyone. We suggest to people that it is the truth and encourage them to come to believe it and follow it more deeply. But force someone to submit, like Muslims do? Nope.
In short….
Lin- After you read my posts, I’ll be waiting for your smart ass stupid responses…..with a big smile on my face because you are clueless. Let’s hear you twist and turn the above posts. I would guess that you are a young, immature woman that finds talking about life and death amusing.
Your hatred for yourself shows all over your posts. Find a Church, it might save you from the misery you are currently living in, but it might not. No guarantee.
Stephanie- To compare a human heartbeat to leather and animals. Well, I’m not even dumb enough to come up with a response to something that a 6th grade student would be smart enough not to say.
Juliet- I will correct you, you are wrong. See above post.
Please grow up you three, you are probably all sitting in your dorm room together drinking beer and wondering what guy you will hook up with tonight. And if by accident you become pregnant, no big deal. You can run to Planned Parenthood and kill the child. Saved! Oh, and then maybe go do it all over again.
FYI, for those of you that have to take every single thing and twist it around and do whatever.
This is what I meant by “Christian Nation”
The largest religion in the US is Christianity, practiced by the majority of the population (76% in 2008 From those queried, roughly 51.3% of Americans are Protestants, 25% are Catholics, 1.7% are Mormons (the name commonly used to refer to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and 1.7% of various other Christian denominations.[16] Christianity was introduced during the period of European colonization.
Are you really so unintelligent as to assume that simply because one is in the majority, one is right?
Planned Parenthood-
Even those comfortable with Planned Parenthood’s abortion services should get alarmed about Planned Parenthoods’s tolerance for sexual exploitation of teenage girls. FACT: Video’s have captured Planned Parenthood staff counseling 14 year old girls with adult boyfriends on getting abortions while skirting parental notification and statutory rape laws. Planned Parentood’s philosophy that “there is no “normal” age to have sex” clouds its judgementin dicerning real abuse cases. FACT: Planned Parenthood failed to report the actual statutoryraoe of a 14 year old Ohio girl by her soccer coach, of a 15 year old Connecticut girl by a 41 year old man and of a 13 year old Arizona girl by her 23 year old foster brother- presumably because its staff beliebed the girls consented. FACT: A washington State police officer quoted a PP staffer as saying that “once the juvenile is pregnant the juvinile is emancipated”. However, this is a legal fiction promulgated by abortion rights advocates. Minors need a court order for emancipation, as this officer learned from the city attorney. The Alabama Health Department has put Planned Parenthood on probation after finding a pattern of failure to report the statutory rapes of its 13-15 year old abortion patients. Planned Parenthood likes to assume the victim rols of being persecuted because “We are a safe place where people can go and ask difficult questions about sex. We do this for teens and adults, gays and straights, and that really irrates some people who believe sex is only for procreation”. But in reality Planned Parenthood is facing these “withering attacks” because of its long history of covering up sexual exploitation of young teen girls. Those who believe 14 year old girls are mature enough to have sex with older men can support Planned Parenthood with donations. For those of us who object to Planned Parenthood giving our minor daughters birth control shots and abortions without our knowledge, we will continue to voice our opinion. This does not mean I am “forcing” it on you. And I understand that you do not agree. California reports 41 abortions per 1000 women.
Free services for you, might mean a lifetime of hell for someone else. But, enjoy your free services. Don’t think about anyone but yourself. Don’t think about the baby or the 13 year old scared little girl. Think about how you have painted the Planned Parenthood picture in your mind.
A common mistake for uneducated people, they tend to turn an opinion into fact. They just don’t know any better.
I would rather find another job and earn an extra income and pay for these “free services” that you mention. Or maybe cut back on some of the needless things I buy. All to help protect the innocent.
God Bless you David, your words (unlike mine at times) were well thought out and translated. Thank you for your passion.
Iamcharlie-
Thank you for that last post.
I see you at least don’t feel the need to be rude to the people that post on here.
I agree with you about the fact that we have our own beliefs.
I did not feel like you were trying to “force” yours on me and I don’t see how replying to stats and opinions would give anyone the thought “she is ‘forcing” her opinion or religion on me”.
Opinion is just that. It can be done without name calling and rudeness. (Lin)
I’m sure you would agree that it is OK to debate the posted facts, #’s, websites, links, etc- But don’t debate someone’s feelings about a topic.
I was just here to debate the posted facts. Lin gets a little personal, not very mature. And I regret how I responded at times, I am not perfect.
Have a nice day.
Hey, we all get heated when debating things we are super passionate about! Trust me I know how that goes! =)
David: The resource you posted was published in 1971. Since then, its evidence has been refuted. Please stop using outdated material. I repeat, no medical or scientific organization recognizes the physical or psychological damage of post-abortion syndrome.
Tina: Your smug rhetoric clearly shows how arrogant and unloving you actually are, regardless of whatever you profess about yourself. You are not a compassionate human being. You try to feel good about yourself by holding that you are morally superior. You have not cited facts (again), instead putting out opinions. You have no compassion for women. You have no compassion for the pregnant women who are alone, who do not have the funds or emotional stability to support a child, for any woman whose birth control doesn’t work, for any young adult who was raped, for anybody whose life is being threatened by a mere idea, a “potential person.” It is, quite frankly, disgusting to behold a woman who cannot understand the plight of others, shutting her ears to their experiences and preaching with her nose turned up.
The matter is this: nobody who is pro-choice is pro-abortion. We are not saying every mother should abort her fetus in every circumstance. We advocate the right to a safe, legal abortion, in case the woman desires it. The right to bodily autonomy is not trumped by right to life. If you were to die and needed a kidney, I still cannot be forced into giving you one. I would give one of my own free will, but it is never right to force someone to allow another to use her body to survive.
“The right to bodily autonomy is not trumped by right to life.”
This is a really profound idea. I have to admit that I completely agree. I feel like this really comes into play in cases of rape, failed birth control and especially, broken condoms.
Women are the only sex at risk for becoming pregnant, yet we are still sexual beings. Where men can have sex for pleasure without risk of their bodies becoming pregnant, women have to take plenty of precautions (condoms and contraception). So the statement “The right to bodily autonomy is not trumped by right to life” is especially important when women are raped or took all the precautions to avoid a pregnancy, yet still embrace their sexual urges.
This statement may be a good argument for easier access and affordability of effective contraception for women and girls. By giving them the proper tools to prevent pregnancy you give them more control of their right to bodily autonomy.
Access to abortion, and contraception does one thing for women which they have been fighting for for years. It makes women sex objects for men, which is what the feminist movement was originally about. The best way for a woman not to be a sex object is for her not to make herself sexually available for anyone. Of course, this is a personal decision of the woman. This is where the choice should be made, not after conception.
We have terms for women who make themselves available for sex this way…the old joke goes like this:
“Would you do it with me for a million dollars?”
“Sure”
“Well, would you do it with me for a nickle?”
“What do you think I am?”
“We established that by the first question, now we’re just dickering over the price.”
Your attitude about women is sick, ancient and draconian and incredibly destructive. That is what the feminist movement has been fighting against for decades. We are sexual beings who have every right to enjoy our sexual selves. We are not sex objects.
I suggest you find another blog to read.
I agree, you’re not sex objects. But access to birth control and abortion make you sex objects by their very definition. Because of access to birth control and abortion, there have been a rise in out of wedlock pregnancies and childbirths because people feel more willing to have sex. Free access to birth control and abortion leads to promiscuity, which is exactly the objectification of women. I’m sorry if you don’t realize it. Heck, even most feminists realize that the men’s magazine industry, which is also a result of the explosion of sex, objectifies women.
Waaait. Birth control and abortions, things that are meant to control and lessen pregnancy and childbirth, lead to an increase? That doesn’t even make sense. If you’re so upset about the objectification of women, why don’t you actually do something about it instead of blowing hot air all over an article about women’s rights?
Your condescending talk about the “objectification of women” pretty much exemplifies rampant sexism. You think women are so much lower than you, a male, that allowing them access to birth control and giving them greater sexual freedom is a bad thing? You believe women shouldn’t be trusted to make decisions and that you, someone who will never experience pregnancy, know better than someone who will? Take a long, hard look at yourself and educate yourself on matters before you start talking about sexism and trying to make it sound like you actually care about women.
Absolutely. Why do you think we’ve aborted 50,000,000 in the US in 35 years? Because people aren’t having sex? The way to not have women being sex objects is to take sex out of the picture. Stop thinking about everybody sexually. Treat people as people.
And your opinion of me is, typically, backward. I see my wife as an equal partner in my home, in fact, I defer to her on most issues. I look at a woman’s humanity first, which raises them from the position of an object.
For what it’s worth, I’m also against male contraception. What’s good for humanity is good for man and woman.
You have, as usual, no idea what I believe. Humans should leave life decisions to God. Humans are not to be trusted with life issues. Not women, not men. Leave it to a human, he will kill. Let the human defer to God, he will learn not to kill.
I look hard at myself every day, twice a day, examining my conscience. Have you ever examined yours? I confess my sins to my God and ask his pardon and forgiveness. Have you ever? Or do you just wallow in yours. Oh, yes! You don’t believe in sin.
You are the one who is sexist because you believe that sex should enter everything. I’m not sexist because I believe that marriage is the only proper venue for sex.
I’m done with you, Lin, go act like a bunny and spend your minimum wage paycheck at Planned Parenthood, if you want to. Just stop asking me to fund your abortions.
Hahaha. Allow me to point out your fallacies.
1. Embracing sexuality does not mean dehumanizing someone. I would argue it actually increases it–you are acknowledging another aspect of someone.
2. You still have not refuted the idea that abstinence-only education doesn’t work. Again, abstinence in general doesn’t work.
3. Having more children, spending more resources, and adding more neglected lives to the system is good for humanity? You’re a warped human being if you believe that, to be quite honest.
4. Gee. I bet the Catholic Church let God make decisions during the Crusades. I’m sure people left it to God when they enslaved people.
5. 0.02% of atheists are in prison. What does that tell you about “leaving it to God”?
6. Ohh, confessing your sins makes things right! Not action or introspection. You can go on a murdering campaign and confess it to God and it’s allll okay.
7. The Hyde Amendment prevents abortion from being funded except in cases of rape, incest, or risk of death towards the mother. You really can’t retain information worth a rat’s ass.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out! Have a good time wallowing in ignorance. 🙂
First of all, I dispute your idea that marriage is between a man and woman. Here’s a great statement from a former head of the NOM campaign retracting his ideas/actions that say marriage is solely between a man and woman: http://louisjmarinelli.com/politics/i-now-support-full-marriage-equality
I’m sorry, but I have a very hard time believing you are actually a dedicated partner in your marriage, especially considering how unwilling you are to listen to the other side. Financial contributions are just as important as the issue of birth control. I assume you can’t have children, since it seems so unimportant to you.
Haaa. First you say abortion is for those who have sex and don’t understand the natural cycle. Yet what about those who follow the natural cycle? If it’s so effective, why are you condemning those who seek abortions because it isn’t effective, as well? There’s bound to be a few women who are actually trying the rhythm method but get pregnant anyway; if you recommend they use this method as a way not to get pregnant, and they get pregnant, you still blame them?
54% of women were on birth control at the time. That’s half of the women who get abortions. 61% have one or more children. I think it’s safe to say the majority of abortions are not as “too-late birth control.”
I’m not 100% commited to my marriage. You’ve been saying this through this entire comment chain, so I know you’ll understand when I say, “You have no idea who you’re talking to.” Not only are my husband and I 100% committed to each other, we are 100% committed to the children that we will have some day. We are so committed that we are doing all we can to ensure that we don’t bring a child into this world before we are capable of taking care of it.
And you say “don’t have sex when your fertile” like that’s an easy thing to do. And no, not because we’re animals with no self control. It’s because I, like thousands of other women, don’t have a regular cycle! I literally cannot look at my calendar and say, “Okay, I’ll be ovulating between the 19 and 27th of each month” because my body isn’t built that way.
So, if the “rhythm method” works for you and your wife I say “good for you.” Just recognize that that method works for an extremely small part of the population.
http://www.abortionrisks.org/index.php?title=Psychological_Effects_of_Abortion
You can shout it all you want to, it doesn’t make it right.
Contraception makes women sex object? Exactly when are you living, David? In the century I live in, contraception helps single women to have fullfilling sex life. It also helps married women, such as myself, to remain child free until they are ready for children.
Using myself as an example. My husband and I just got married about 4 months ago. We are both working full time to make ends meet. We are also pursuing B.A. degrees. In no way are we ready, financially or emotionally, to have children. Does our decision for me to use contraception make me a sex object to him? The answer to that question is a resounding NO! My use of contraception allows us to enjoy all the benefits of marriage while still allowing both of us to be productive members of society.
Rachel,
It appears that you’re not totally a part of your marriage. I can see by your statement that you don’t belong 100% to your husband. By that, I would say your marriage is doomed to end in divorce. Why did you marry in the first place?
But if you really aren’t financially ready to have children, here’s a hint: Don’t have sex when your body is fertile.
She “doesn’t belong 100%”? Women aren’t property. Marriage isn’t about ownership. It’s about being in a committed bond with somebody. It’s about love and respect and growing together as people. It is not, in any circumstance, your right to give unwarranted and completely unnecessary “advice” about things you have no idea about.
Sex is usually an integral part of a relationship. Also, it’s rather hard to tell when someone is ovulating; it’s possible to get pregnant even if you’re on your period. The idea that if you don’t want to get pregnant, don’t have sex, is completely misguided and doesn’t work in practice. [Abstinence-only education doesn’t work. http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/04/23/idUSN23459576%5D Seriously, your ignorance is startling.
Lin, marriage, properly understood, puts a man and a woman 100% together. I wasn’t speaking of property, but each person is bound to the marriage bond. A man is bound to die for his wife, and a wife is bound to die for her husband. When you introduce contraception into a marriage, you are saying “I love you with all my heart. Except in this way.” It is true for other things as well, like when you keep secrets from him or her. It makes for someone not 100% involved in the marriage. You can tell when couples are totally involved in each other. It’s different from most marriages today. It’s beautiful to see couples together like that.
You’re right, it’s about love and respect, but I doubt that you know what love is, really. Love is not an emotion, it’s a decision. It’s SACRIFICE. 100% Total SACRIFICE. If it’s anything less than that, it’s going to fail.
Sex is an integral part of marriage, but it’s about 2% of marriage, which isn’t a large part. Just like it only takes a teaspoon of yeast to make a dough rise, it’s important and necessary, but only takes a small percentage. But you can abstain from having sex when the woman is fertile, and it can be just as effective as using a contraceptive, when done right. By the way, when abstinance is practiced, it works 100% of the time. That beats every form of birth control.
And what makes a marriage different from a romantic relationship besides an expensive ceremony and a piece of paper? Also, how does introducing contraception mean you don’t love somebody?
Love can manifest itself in actions, sure, but you have to genuinely care about the person. If you sacrifice everything, then what do you have left? I highly doubt you sacrifice everything in your relationship. Do you do everything in your power to make your wife happy? Do you forgo a night out with your friends or give up buying something so you can get her a present every single time?
For that matter, do you use condoms in your marriage? I’m preeetty sure you don’t, but I could be wrong. The rhythm method doesn’t work. One doesn’t always know when a marriage is fertile. Also, abstinence doesn’t work when one is raped. Nothing is foolproof, which is unfortunate for fools such as yourself.
Even your view of marriage is screwed up, which is common today, and once again, points to one really important reason why divorce is so common today. Marriage, properly understood, is a covenant between a man and a woman and God. Has nothing to do with a reception and a visit to the JOP. It’s also a vow between the two human beings that most humans are not willing to commit to, but they do it anyway. Obviously, you don’t understand. I hope you have many happy divorces!
Regarding my marriage, yes, yes, and yes. I don’t go out with friends, especially like nights on the town. I give up things I want in order for her to have things she wants. When you give your all to your spouse, you will find that they give back more to you. I quit smoking, and gave up most alcohol in order to love my wife more deeply. I bought a camera, and then returned it because the excuse to purchase it disappeared. Yes, I do my very best to give everything to my wife. More correctly, 100% of me is my contribution to the marriage, and she strives for 100% of herself. I don’t make financial decisions without her, and she doesn’t buy expensive things without asking me.
You’re right, the rhythm method doesn’t work very well. But when both parties get involved with knowing the woman’s cycle, a program called Natural Family Planning is as effective as birth control.
The instances of conception in cases of rape are few and far between. Once again, I will state that what I am against is abortion as ‘too late birth control’.
All right, David and Tina. Let me ask you a question.
If you were sitting in a hospital, waiting for a family member to get out of surgery, and somebody was wheeled in who needed a lung transplant an they pounced on you because you were the only match without your consent, put you under anesthetic, and you woke up without a lung a few hours later–do you think that is right?
That is essentially what pregnancy is–using someone’s organ system to support another life. If you advocate outlawing abortion, then you advocate using other people’s organs to sustain others’ lives without their consent. It’s seriously not that hard to understand.
“But she had sex, so she knew what she was getting into!” You went swimming and almost drowned, you shouldn’t be saved because you knew what you were getting into. You drove in a car, you shouldn’t be pulled out of the wreckage because you knew what you were getting into. To refer back to my scenario earlier–you were in a hospital waiting room, you knew what you were getting into. I mean, there are people dying unnecessarily all the time, why not just take your body parts to keep them alive? After all, it’s another life! Who gives a damn about your right to bodily autonomy?
Your uneducated rhetoric about “life” and “women” is sorely misguided and lacking in any sort of rationale. “Abortion is wrong!” “Why?” “It just is!” You have not provided any substantial information save for 40-year-old scientific material that has already been refuted and a large pile of ignorance.
To conclude, allow me to draw your attention back to your beloved Ten Commandments. “Do unto others as you would unto you.” If you would seize someone’s organ system without their consent to sustain your own life, then by all means, you deserve to have your organs seized without any say so you can save another life. I look forward to hearing your stories about the shock of waking up to find you’re missing a lung, a kidney, a chunk of your liver. I’d make some crack about your heart, but it appears you don’t actually have one.
Lin, if you’re pregnant, you consented to having sex in 95% of the cases. Your example doesn’t apply. Also, the pregnancy rate due to rape is less than the pregnancy rate due to failed birth control.
If you’re pro-abortion, which you are, calling a spade a spade, you’re the one who wouldn’t save the drowning man. Life is life, no matter where it is, inside the womb or in the swimming pool.
Why is abortion wrong? Because God said so. If you consider that misguided, I’m sorry for you. But our late Holy Father John Paul II said it best:
The eclipse of the sense of God and of man inevitably leads to a practical materialism, which breeds individualism, utilitarianism and hedonism. Here too we see the permanent validity of the words of the Apostle: “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct” (Rom 1:28). The values of being are replaced by those of having. The only goal which counts is the pursuit of one’s own material well-being. The so-called “quality of life” is interpreted primarily or exclusively as economic efficiency, inordinate consumerism, physical beauty and pleasure, to the neglect of the more profound dimensions-interpersonal, spiritual and religious-of existence.
Within this same cultural climate, the body is no longer perceived as a properly personal reality, a sign and place of relations with others, with God and with the world. It is reduced to pure materiality: it is simply a complex of organs, functions and energies to be used according to the sole criteria of pleasure and efficiency. Consequently, sexuality too is depersonalized and exploited: from being the sign, place and language of love, that is, of the gift of self and acceptance of another, in all the other’s richness as a person, it increasingly becomes the occasion and instrument for self-assertion and the selfish satisfaction of personal desires and instincts. Thus the original import of human sexuality is distorted and falsified, and the two meanings, unitive and procreative, inherent in the very nature of the conjugal act, are artificially separated: in this way the marriage union is betrayed and its fruitfulness is subjected to the caprice of the couple. Procreation then becomes the “enemy” to be avoided in sexual activity: if it is welcomed, this is only because it expresses a desire, or indeed the intention, to have a child “at all costs”, and not because it signifies the complete acceptance of the other and therefore an openness to the richness of life which the child represents.
“Do unto others as you would unto you” is not a commandment. It is the summation of the commandments. But go ahead: Kill your child as you would let your mother kill you.
Uh, David, you’re kind of forgetting the other side of the situation. What about the man? Why isn’t the man required by law to raise the child? After all, he consented to have sex as well. Why aren’t you, a man, advocating that all men step up to the plate and help women out? It’s their child too, right? Why are you so adamant about women when it’s not even your place to say anything about it?
Sorry, I’m atheist, so your “God” talk doesn’t apply to me. I respect your beliefs but I will not listen to someone who attempts to tell me what to do not through rational debate, but through preaching. I think I know more about the sanctity of life than you do; I understand the sanctity of a body and how it does not belong to the government but to oneself.
Having sex does not make somebody less of a person. Pack up your ignorance and get out of this conversation if you cannot understand what it means to be human.
Oh, sure, the man is required by law, if the woman can show his paternity. I believe all men should ‘step up to the plate and help women out’ by not having sex with them without being married to them. That shows committment, and obligates the man to do so.
So, your religion is atheism. What do you believe, Lin, what’s your flavor?
Having sex outside of marriage exactly makes a person less of a person.
Your hypocrisy is practically dripping off every word you write.
Sorry, but atheism isn’t a religion. I’m not sure what kind of idiot you have to be to think that “not believing something” counts as a “belief.”
How exactly does having sex outside a marriage make somebody less of a person? That’s got to be the least informed thing I’ve heard out of you all day–and I’ve heard a lot of ignorant twaddle from you, so this comes as a surprise.
Belief in nothing is still belief. You believe in the absence of God. That’s your religion. That everything happened by accident. Well, even atheists agree that in order to make a building or an automobile, it requires an architect. So something as complicated as the universe, by analogy, also must have an architect. It’s really uninformed to recognize that something as infinitely complicated as a human being had no architect, that it happened by accident. But there’s your religion, in a nutshell.
Why not show me how having sex makes you more of a person? Personally, I’m the same person whether I have/had sex or not. But if I’m out on the town looking to have sex with someone, the people I’m scouting certainly cease to be people, they become sex objects. I’m hetero, so that means women become objects. If I’m at dinner and having discussion with a woman about sports or politics or religion, she’s not a sex object to me. In today’s climate, where in your milieu everything seems to be sexually oriented, from television to movies, to advertising, to music, women objectify men, and men objectify women. Everyone is a target of sexual consideration.
Again. How does “not believing in something” count as a belief? I don’t believe in unicorns; am I a-unicornist? I don’t believe the world is flat; am I a-flatist?
Uh, dude. I never said having sex makes someone more of a person. I said having sex does not make anybody less of a person. Acquire some critical reading skills, please. Accepting and embracing the sexual nature of a person opens up a more rounded aspect of the other.
Not everybody who has abortions get pregnant because they’re “out on town.” Your point is irrelevant and also very, very inaccurate.
Belief that unicorns don’t exist. It’s just another way of stating your unbelief. You believe God doesn’t exist. A belief is a view of something. Are you trying to say you don’t have any beliefs? I didn’t think so.
Actually, embracing the sexual nature of another person before you learn of them as a person makes for a very flat view of that person, one that revolves around sexuality. That’s not to say it can’t grow, but sexuality without committment usually sucks the life out of relationships, as our divorce rate proves.
95% of abortions can be characterized as failed birth control, or an afterthought about the product of conception.
Bye Lin, have a great life on earth, because what comes after, if you keep these beliefs, will not be pleasant, whether you believe in them or not.
I also believe flying cats don’t exist. I also believe invisible pink unicorns don’t exist. If you think those things qualify as beliefs or define me, you are an imbecile.
Who said I was embracing the sexual nature of the person before getting to know them? I merely said accepting that they had a sexual aspect would lead to a fuller understanding of someone as a person. Accepting this aspect does not mean reducing someone’s worth or value. Accepting this aspect does not mean it becomes the most important part of them. You’re jumping to unfounded conclusions, but I’ve already grown to expect nothing less than the most rampantly idiotic things from you.
And what does birth control have to do with promiscuity? You’re really not making very much sense.
Ah yes, threaten me with something you believe to be true. Tell me, David, have you ever seen hell? Ever known it? How do you know it exists? How are you so sure Islam or Judaism or Hinduism is wrong? Your lack of critical thinking is quite worrying.
Lin, I’m not threatening you. I can’t do anything for you to help you get there. You do it to yourself. The threat exists whether you believe it or not. Not believing it is not a requirement for it’s existence.
Regarding birth control, it has EVERYTHING to do with promiscuity.
Regarding your belief that marriage is not exclusively between a man and a woman, tell me, can a man marry a cow, or a woman a pig? Really? So when did marriage between two men or two women (or four or seven) come into play? Do you even know the origin of marriage? Regardless of what you think marriage is, the Western idea of marriage is based in the Catholic Church, and is monogamous and heterosexual. All kinds of governments have allowed all kinds of marriage, but the basis for our country is (gasp) Christianity, regardless of what you believe. Certainly there are those who are trying to change it legally, but that will never change what marriage really is.
Regarding your beliefs about my marriage, I find that really funny considering how upside down your belief system is.
Your statistics prove my point about how effective birth control really is, and how, when done right, Natural Family Planning works better. Let’s just call abortion what it is…it’s what women do when after they put their heads in their hands and say “What did I do????” If you think humans aren’t capable of controling their instincts, why do we even bother with laws against murder, rape, speed on highways, alcohol consumption, drug use, laws against theft, etc.? Going fast, feeling good, having sex for your own self gratification, taking what you want, all of these are human instinct.
David, you’re going to Pastafarian hell. Everybody knows it’s the only hell out there. It has cold beer and STDs. Repent now and please, please reach out to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. His Noodliness knows all; he knows everything and sees everything and is greatly disappointed in your false belief.
Err, since when is another person an animal? A man marrying a man is still marrying a human, is he not? What lowers that person’s status in your eyes?
Hahaha. So if a woman uses birth control, she’s wrong. But if she uses the rhythm method [in an attempt to NOT get pregnant] and wants to terminate the pregnancy [which she DID NOT WANT in the first place], she’s still wrong. Your misogyny is disgusting. You as a person are absolutely vile.
Sex is an instinct that does not hurt anybody. And abortion, last time I checked, wasn’t a destructive “instinct”–it’s not even an instinct, so your argument is again, invalid. I don’t know what kind of people you’ve been in contact with–perhaps you’ve been counseling girls with this gigantic urge to stick a coat hanger in their uteri and abort babies, but I personally don’t see how it’s comparable to any of the things you just listed.
For that matter, none of the things you listed are “human instinct.” Alcohol consumption is not instinctive. Driving quickly is not instinctive. Sex is a biological drive. Take an elementary science class and learn what that word means.
Last one, I promise.
You said you didn’t agree that marriage was between a man and a woman. So I asked if it could be between a human and a horse, or a human and a goat. I want to know where your definition of marriage came from? You and I both know where mine came from. And what’s to stop someone from defining it as only between a man and 46 women, since we’re in the process of redefining everything under the sun.
I never said anything about the rhythm method. What makes NFP better is it’s natural, and that it is open to God’s will. So instead of doing selfishly “what I want, when I want”, you obey God’s will, and do it His way. If she didn’t want the pregnancy, why did she have sex? Sex is meant for procreation as well as pleasure. You’re not supposed to have one without the other. Ooooh, $10 word! Try defining it before you use it. I don’t hate women at all. You know nothing about me as a person.
Rape is sex, is it not? Does it hurt somebody? Abortion also hurts somebody. And it goes against human instinct. I counsel young women to save their sexuality for marriage, where it belongs. Then they can learn to give everything to the man and the marriage. And I applaud women who don’t fall for the lies of the abortion industry. They just prove that there are still sane people out there. I offer help to women who are open to having their baby and giving him/her to someone who wants it, if they don’t.
Making yourself feel good = human instinct.
Sex = biological drive = instinct.
Driving fast, getting high, having recreational sex and all that I listed are about making yourself feel good. You, learn what words mean. Maybe you should start from first grade. You obviously didn’t learn anything in your wasted education.
In the Bible, God led men from taking multiple wives to monogamy. Heterosexual monogamy. In all species, the purpose of mating is to create new members of the population. It’s the same in mankind. God gave us pleasure to go along with the creative aspect of sex.
My question for you is, if it’s ok for two men to get married, or two women, why not allow multiple different combinations? And while you’re at it, who’s to say that your definition is right? So if someone wants to marry his goat, it’s ok, right? By your way of thinking it is ok. If two men want to marry, it’s ok. If two women want to, it’s ok too. What’s not ok to you? WHY IS IT WRONG TO HAVE SEX WITH AN ANIMAL, LIN? Who says so???
You have no proof that a fetus under 20 weeks doesn’t feel pain. None that’s believeable. I have eyewitness testimony in court proving that human fetuses have neurologic feeling.
Regarding offering help to women who want to keep their babies but can’t afford it, yes, I do help. Every way possible. I was adopted, and so was my only other sibling. I help fund adoptions. I do my part, and I resent that money that I pay in taxes has to go to abortion, when there are plenty of people who cannot have children who would adopt-they’re forced to go to China or Bosnia because there’s few here that are available.
When people have accidents in driving, they have usually paid their insurance companies to take care of their mistakes. Government does not pay for it. When people realize they need to get straight, they usually use their own money to get straight. Getting straight is a positive outcome for everyone. Having an abortion is a negative outcome for at least half of the parties involved. Abortion is a selfish alternative by a selfish person who was too selfish to think of the consequences of having sex to make herself feel good, as if nobody else would be affected. A little sex never hurt anyone…except when someone conceives a child, at which point there is vast potential to hurt someone-the child.
It’s actually a moot point whether or not a fetus feels pain. I’ve seen evidence that suggests that it does, but whether it does or not, it’s certain that abortion causes death.
People do need to take responsibility for their actions.
Wow. What a bigot.
The difference, again, is that humans are the same species. Also, in your precious Bible, men took multiple wives. Are you saying that’s okay, too?
Who are you to tell other people about God’s will? If it were God’s will, why would people get abortions? Perhaps he wants you to. How do you know? Please stop twisting religion to fulfill your own uninformed means.
Abortion doesn’t hurt a fetus. It is not able to feel pain until about 20 weeks into the pregnancy. Good grief, why do I always have to repeat myself? Adoption is not an alternative to pregnancy; it is an alternative to birth.
You “offer some help to women”? What kind of help? Do you donate to women who choose to keep their baby? Have you adopted kids? Perhaps instead of smearing your hypocritical rhetoric all over the place, you could do something about it. You could try to help the lives of those who have already been born. But it’s obvious you don’t give a damn about fetuses after they’ve been emerged from the womb.
Heh. “You, learn what words mean.” I would advise you to learn how to use commas, too. All right, I’ll play. Driving fast is an instinct–does that mean nobody should get saved from accidents? Getting high is an instinct–does that mean people shouldn’t go to rehab? Consequences, right? People need to take responsibility for it! Your way of thinking is exceedingly rudimentary.
And what I recommend is, “If you don’t want to have a baby, don’t have sex when you’re fertile.” In all other things, follow God’s law and God’s plan for you. God will not give you a burden too heavy for you to bear.
One final thought on your beliefs…and my marriage, considering what you believe, it doesn’t surprise me that you don’t believe anything that’s true.
But nobody really knows when they’re fertile or not. So you’re basically telling women they can’t have sex. Are you that idiotic?
What’s true? There’s no proof, honestly. No scientific studies done. If you are so deluded as to believe in something that has never been proven to exist, like Hell, then you’re definitely a moron who, as shown here, can’t reason worth a dead cow carcass.
I quit. You obviously don’t have a brain. Your interpretations of what I have said are totally off the wall. I know my facts, and I trust God to show me the way. He has. Whether you believe in him or not, if he didn’t want you to breathe, you couldn’t. He loves you even though you reject him. But by rejecting him, you are already in hell.
What I’ve stated, even a 5 year old child can understand, but you, your intelligence is beneath that. I hope you can find work and survive. I wish you luck. I just hope you don’t have any offspring. It would be a shame for those children.
How contradictory. I cite facts and rebut your arguments and all you do is appeal to religious rhetoric that you can’t even explain. I am deeply saddened by your lack of logic and hope that you will decline to inflict it on others. The world is toxic enough already.
Because men and women are humans, and other species like goats aren’t. Are you too thick to understand this?
20 weeks is the current scientific agreement. I would link you to articles, but it’s obvious you don’t read them.
For the fourth time, David, your tax dollars don’t go to abortion. Hyde Amendment, Hyde Amendment, Hyde Amendment.
And no, rehab is sometimes government funded. Seriously, do your research.
Why do you think death is such a bad thing? If, as you say, they all go to Heaven, why are you so against sending them there?
Please, please, please grow a few brain cells, because all I’m doing right now is repeating myself and it’s rather tiring arguing with someone with the logical facilities of a two-year-old.
So, we agree that there are limitations on who or what can marry. Where did that come from? Who says? God says.
Ya know, to someone who’s unemployed, the unemployment rate is 100%. To someone who’s getting sucked into a D & C machine, you don’t give him the chance to express pain.
I never said we shouldn’t allow some abortions, Lin. Learn to read, girl. I said I shouldn’t be paying for your night of silly fun when you turn up pregnant. That’s what the vast majority of abortions are. I allow for some necessary abortions. In some cases, it’s necessary. But mostly, not.
If you’re tired of arguing, there’s a simple solution. Either develop some empathy for the situation of unborn children, or shut up and go play with your toys.
Well in that case not all abortions are not D&C abortions. Like many other women, mine was a medication abortion. They can only be done up to 8 weeks but you take a pill that induces a period.
I am rolling my eyes so hard right now. xD It doesn’t take a God to understand the difference between a human being and a goat. Of course, you’re probably idiotic enough that you need to be told, since you clearly can’t understand the difference between marrying another human being and marrying something of a different species.
“I said I shouldn’t be paying for your night of silly fun when you turn up pregnant.” Hyde Amendment, Hyde Amendment, Hyde Amendment. It does not allow abortions to be paid for except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother–which you stated previously was rare. Therefore, your point is again, irrelevant. It’s a testament to your idiocy that you can’t comprehend this when it is the sixth time I have had to explain this to you.
If you’re not able to understand how to debate, either learn to read or look laughably pathetic.
You can say “Hyde Amendment” all you want, but Federal Funding goes to Planned Parenthood, and Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the country. You can’t separate the funds, either.
I hope you don’t roll your eyes back inside your head, you’ll be surprised what you find there. My point was who says it’s wrong for a man to have sex with a goat? Who says it’s wrong for a man to have sex with a man? Same person! The one you think there is none of.
Charli, you’re just as bad. The point is, you’re killing a human being. Whether you know it or not, whether you admit it or not, whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not.
God help you. I hope you can see down the road what you’ve done. People who take birth control for extended periods have trouble conceiving when they want to. Children of abortive mothers instinctively know that something is missing in their life. A sibling. Go ahead, just don’t think you can piss down people’s necks and convince them it’s raining.
Federal funding goes to Planned Parenthood because it provides healthcare. 3% of its services are abortions. And that 3% doesn’t get funded. So again, irrelevant. Also, Planned Parenthood only provides 23% of the nation’s abortions. Seriously, you’re just barely treading water here.
Ahaha, you need to learn how to make good comebacks as well. If you’re so brainless as to not understand the difference between marrying a human being and marrying something of another species and need to be told, well, I’m not surprised.
Yes, and every time somebody goes through chemotherapy, they’re killing a human being. It has different DNA! It grows! Every time you pull a hair out of your head or scratch your skin, you’re killing human cells! Gasp!
Excuse me. I already have two siblings. You have yet to show one shred of humanity for anyone who is pregnant.
so 350 million dollars went to fund 305,000 abortions. Great. If you believe what you said, honestly, you’re severely misguided.
Missed the point on all topics.
Let me state it one more time…often siblings of aborted children ask their mother whether she had other children besides themselves. Emotional damage to abortive woman, abortive man, and future kids of abortive parents.
Beam me up Scottie, no intelligent life in this sector. Kirk, out.
First of all, dumbfuck, it was $75 million. $75 million pays for about three hours’ worth of the Iraqi war. It’s really not too big of a stretch for the US government.
That doesn’t even qualify as emotional damage. The child never knew his sister or brother. I have friends whose mothers miscarried; they really don’t care that much. And again, post-abortion syndrome is not recognized as a medical symptom. Get your facts straight before you try to debate someone who actually researches things.
Also, again [seventh time! damn, that’s a record for stupidity], the money did not go to fund abortions. Seriously. Get that through the inert lump of matter you call your brain.
OOOOHHHHHH, Lin, now your true self comes out.
The money that goes to Planned Parenthood is not segregated, nor is it regulated. Whether you like it or not, Federal money goes to pay for abortions.
And when did you become the arbiter of anything. My figures were acurate, year 2008. And my facts are acurate. I don’t care that you disagree. Truth is truth no matter who might disagree. Lies are lies no matter how many accept them.
Lin, if the Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funding for abortion, why did Bart Stupid Stupak hold out on the health care bill until the President signed off on his amendment? By the way, both are full of holes, and Planned Parenthood is great at obscuring the truth. Just watch some of the Live Action Videos.
Lin, if abortion is such a good thing, how come children, who can’t get a remedy for a headache from the school nurse without parental consent, can get an abortion without parental consent? How come a girl can go into a Planned Parenthood, tell the couselor about her abusive 25 year old boyfriend, and the facility does nothing criminal to the boyfriend? Why do abortion rights folks so violently oppose ultrasounds prior to the person making a decision to abort? How come a man can go into a Planned Parenthood clinic, ask about how he can protect the ‘sex workers’ who work for him, some of who he admits are under age, and not have police waiting for him outside the door when he leaves? Planned Parenthood protects criminals, child molesters and rapists. Good organization!
Back again? Was poor David upset that he was made to look ridiculous again? Awww, here, have a Band-Aid for that boo-boo.
True self? You’ve proven you’re not worthy of respect. It’s not too hard to comprehend the Hyde Amendment. Seriously. If you can’t comprehend it by now, then you’re just a petty, bitter, and rather unintelligent pro-lifer–then again, most of them are like that.
And no. Do you understand how the process of money works? Women have to pay for their own abortions. They don’t just waltz in and get it for free. That kind of implies Planned Parenthood doesn’t get paid for abortions. If you’re going to use idiotic reasoning like that, then every time you buy a pair of socks, it pays for an abortion, because it all goes to the same place!
Sorry, but my most recent figures [aka, 2010-2011] indicate $75 million. Your information is, again, irrelevant.
As far as Bart Stupak goes: http://americaswatchtower.com/2010/03/23/did-bart-stupak-sell-his-healthcare-reform-vote-for-airport-grants-in-michigan/
Also, said videos have been edited and fraudulent. Seriously, your information is laughably misguided.
First of all, getting medicine for a headache injects some, y’know, medicine into the system. An abortion isn’t medicine. If you’re under 18, you have to get parental consent. So your statement about a “child getting abortion” is just plain wrong.
Second of all, it’s called patient confidentiality. The clinic has no legal right to restrain or restrict the boyfriend. If you went into a drugstore and told the clerk, she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it either. Point irrelevant.
Third of all, the Planned Parenthood worker alerted her supervisor immediately after he left. Something the video must’ve missed. That, or you’re too thick to understand things.
Sorry, Lin, you’re not the judge about my worth, or my respectability.
However, “almost all of its services for pregnant women are abortions, according to its own fact sheet published [in March 2011]: It performed 332,278 abortions in 2009, while serving 7,021 prenatal clients and referring 977 parents to adoption services. Source:Carney, Timothy (2011-04-10) Democrats will yield on everything but abortion, Washington Examiner
Three Ways Taxpayers’ Money Is Being Used to Support Abortion:
1) Governement is funding selected surgical abortions via Medicaid (Title XIX)
2) Government is funding chemical abortions via both Medicaid (Title XIX) and via the Title X birth/population control and Planned Parenthood funding program
3) Government is funding Planned Parenthood, the largest perpetrators of child-murder-by-abortion in the United States (Planned Parenthood reports murdering over 200,000 unborn children annually by surgical abortion alone), through both Medicaid (Title XIX) and Title X, with over $50 million per year through each program, for a total of over $100 million per year, just through these two Planned Parenthood funding mechanisms
Regarding funding, you’re talking about apples and oranges. You’re talking specifically about PP dollars, I’m including the Title X Medicaid funding, which is $317 in the proposed bill. So now you can quit your silly bickering.
Prove that the videos have been edited by Live Action. The entire videos are available on their website, unedited.
“Getting medicine involves injecting something…” “Abortion is not medicine” Hogwash. Getting pregnant involves injecting x into a female, and removing said products of conception involves injecting a suction device into the uterus. Not a medical procedure? Then why do you have to go to medical school to be able to perform an abortion. And, if you have to get parental consent, how come there are laws stating you don’t have to have parental consent?
Secondly, patient confidentiality does not include the other party, only the girl, and only once she becomes a patient. At the front desk of the abortion facility, she is not a patient. And yet people criticize the Catholic Church for not exposing priviledged information received in confession when it involves possible criminal activity…
Third, in all cases, the report or firing of the worker was in response to the video being released.
Keep it up, Lin, you’re going to need more than a bandaid.
David – I have an offer for you! Send me your address and I will send you your penny back!! If you are that upset about your two tenths of a penny that paid for an abortion for a girl who was raped or who’s live was at risk then I’ll be more than happy to send you your penny back!
Actually – I’ll even send you back a penny for each year the Hyde Amendment has been in effect. Send me your address and I’ll send you the 35 cents that those women who had an abortion owe you!
I’m not joking about that either. The women who used that 35 cents were either raped (which is an incredibly violent life ruining act in itself) or they could have died from their pregnancy. So the 35 were well spent.
Even better, I’ll send you a whole dollar so you can live for the next 65 years knowing that you didn’t help pay to save a woman’s life or save her from having a child that was the product of rape.
Just let me know where you’d like the money sent.
That’s a very flawed statistic. All it talks about is “pregnant women.” Not the other men and women who use Planned Parenthood. Abortion comprises 3% of the services they provide. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-planned-parenthood-actually-does/2011/04/06/AFhBPa2C_blog.html
Government funding for abortions is quite limited due to the Hyde Amendment. [That’s what, the 8th, 9th time?] Only 1 in 5 women who are eligible for said funding [meaning, the pregnancy will put her life at risk] get it. The total amount you as a taxpayer pay for abortion was 0.2 of a penny.
Planned Parenthood doesn’t just do abortions. Get this through your head. In fact, it prevents many abortions due to birth control and education about contraception. Seriously, you’re not making sense here. You’re against abortions, but you’re also against birth control–which prevents abortions?
For the umpteenth time, Planned Parenthood does not get paid for abortions. It is absolutely pointless to argue this, because it is a fact.
You obviously don’t understand the difference between “medicine” and a “medical procedure.” Medicine involves chemical substances that may or may not tamper/negatively harm the subject, especially in the case of children. And since children [aka those under the age of 18] can’t get abortions without parental consent, your point is, again, irrelevant.
Wait, what? If you go into Planned Parenthood and stand at the desk, what are you there for? Shits and giggles? Planned Parenthood provides medical attention and care. Obviously they consider the people who go in there patients. Good grief, I’m not sure what level of stupidity you’re going to stoop to next.
The number of abortions performed is irrelevant, Lin. It’s that abortions are done at all, not how many.
Title X funds are used for abortions. Planned Parenthood funds are used for abortions. Title X funds are provided to Planned Parenthood. Hyde Amendment is worth zilch. If it was so carved in stone, why did Stupak sell his soul in the health care debate? Because it is so easy to get around the Hyde amendment. How about this? You say “Hyde Amendment”, I’ll say “Hogwash”.
So, you’re saying it’s not ok for a girl to ask for an Advil without parental consent, but it is ok for her to have a medical procedure done without parental consent. OK, here’s another one. A child under 18 can’t get a tatoo or a piercing without parental consent. But a child under 18 can procure an abortion without parental consent in more than half the country.
Unless you meet with a trained medical staff, it’s not covered under confidentiality. Licensed doctor or nurse. Receptionist or abortion counselor doesn’t count.
Charli, do you know how to read? I stated time and again that rape and medically dictated abortions aren’t in question with me. While some are against all abortions (I am, but not so radical). I have said over and over I’m talking about abortion for convenience sake, where the mother says the child doesn’t fit her plans.
“It’s that abortions are done at all, not how many.”
^ So you’re against abortions in general? Except…
“Once again, I will state that what I am against is abortion as ‘too late birth control’.”
^ So you’re against abortion as birth control, but what about other cases, such as risk to mother’s life or when the child wouldn’t have survived anyway?
“If we can limit tax payer funding to absolutely just rape cases or life/death situations, I’d have no problem, even though I’d still be against it.”
^ The Hyde Amendment does that. Also, you completely contradicted yourself in that sentence. You wouldn’t have a problem with it, yes? So why would you be against it?
“I think that, if you have sex and get pregnant, and don’t want the child, you should be the one to pay for it. Not me.”
^ Which they do.
So what are you saying here? Are you saying you’re against abortion? [“I stated time and again that rape and medically dictated abortions aren’t in question with me. While some are against all abortions (I am, but not so radical).”] Against paying for abortion? But you’re fine with paying for it in the case of rape. And that’s when you pay for it.
“Title X funds are used for abortions.”
^ Only in the case of rape, incest, or risk to the mother’s life.
“Planned Parenthood funds are used for abortions.”
^ No, they’re not. Do you even know what Planned Parenthood does? Or do you comprehend how small 3% is?
Your fallacies are numerous and poorly thought out.
Absolutely wrong, again, Lin.
Planned Parenthood, whether it uses money directly for abortions or not, is involved heavily in the abortion industry. Whatever money they get from government is not overseen. The clinics get the money, period. Certainly, they would say they don’t use it for abortion, but they would be, by and large, committing fraud. In legal circles, it would be called money laundering, which is taking illegal money and making it legal. I’ll bet you would criticize churches for taking money from gangsters, known money that was illegally gotten, right? What’s wrong with that? The Church can do lots of good with that money. The point is that the source of that money came from doing a lot of bad. You can never do evil in order to do ‘greater good’.
Do you comprehend how many people have been killed due to abortions in clinics in the US? 50,000,000, which doesn’t include those using the morning after pill, and those pills which make the uterus inhospitable to egg implantation. That’s 1/6 of the US population. That’s not rape, incest cases, Lin. That’s not ‘mother’s life in danger’, Lin. More than 1000 murders a day, Lin.
You, sir, are an idiot. By your logic, if I go to a drug store and buy a candy bar, obviously I’m helping to fund the gigantic black market for medications such as Adderall. Obviously. Because if I go to Planned Parenthood and get contraceptions that the government pays for, it’s totally funding abortions. Even though everybody who goes to get an abortion has to pay for it. Oh no, simply because they’re actually paying for it doesn’t stop the government from paying for it as well.
Also, churches don’t always do lots of good with that money. Most of the time, they just do it to build bigger facilities that nobody uses six days of the week. Let’s not even get into tax exemptions.
Also, again, fetuses aren’t people. My right to bodily autonomy is not trumped by your right to life. I can’t give you a kidney if I don’t want to, even if you’re going to die, because you have no right to my organ system. Same thing with a fetus.
I didn’t think it was possible for somebody to be this ignorant. Learn something new every day.
If “everybody who needs an abortion pays for it”, how does Planned Parenthood help the lower class? When you buy a coffee from Starbucks, which donates money to Planned Parenthood, you are supporting their cause, whether you realize it or not. So, by the same token, if you go into a store and buy a candy bar, and know that there is illegal activity going on in the same place, you are, indirectly, supporting that illegal activity. By the same token, all the money PP receives goes into a pot, and gets spent. So yes, Fed money funds abortion. Sorry, it’s the way it is.
You’re wrong, too about most of the money received by churches. We feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and so on and most churches get used 5 or 6 days a week for something. Did you know that 95% of the money the Catholic Church receives for charity goes to feed the poor and help the sick?
You say fetuses aren’t people, but you aren’t the final judge. Answer this: What defines a “person” to you? How would you describe it? By function?
We can and often do make a triple distinction among a human life, a human being and a human person. Each cell in our bodies has human life, and a single cell kept alive in a laboratory could be called “a human life” but certainly not “a human being” or “a human person.” “A human being” is a biologically whole individual of the species. Even a human being born with no brain is a human being, not an ape; but do you say it is not a person because it has no brain and cannot do anything distinctively human: think, know, choose, love, feel, desire, commit, relate, aspire, know itself, know God, know its past, know its future, know its environment, or communicate — all of which have, in various combinations, been offered as the marks of a person?
A fetus is a human life, a human being, a human person.
Can you do any of this without regarding to name-calling?
Then everything you do funds abortions. Everything you do funds drugs. By the same token, it also funds churches. That’s an elementary concept. Congratulations, you’ve figured out that money goes in a cycle! It doesn’t all just come from nowhere! The distinction I was making was about where one chooses to spend it, which, as always, you did not understand.
Planned Parenthood provides healthcare for the lower class. It provides PAP smears, breast cancer screenings, cervical cancer screenings, contraception, erectile dysfunction screening, HIV testing, and all sorts of other necessary medical care that has absolutely nothing to do with abortion. I’ve noticed that most people against Planned Parenthood don’t actually understand what it does. You seem to be one of those people who don’t understand what anything’s about.
Did you know that Roman Catholics spent $615 million on sex abuse cases in 2007 alone? That’s more than what they spent on abortion.
A person is somebody who can sustain themselves without having to use someone else’s organ system. Newborn children can breathe without needing their mother’s body. People with collapsed lungs can breathe with machines–again, not using someone’s body. In addition, fetuses are not fully conscious or aware of their surroundings, and never have been, so yeah, I would say that also defines a person.
If a human being was born without a brain, then obviously it’s not alive. Just in case you’ve never taken a biology class, the brain is essential for all the body’s functions. So no, it wouldn’t have been alive, because there was no brain to tell the heart to beat or the lungs to respire. Duh.
A fetus is a human “life,” but no human life has the right to infringe on someone else’s body without his or her consent. If you can’t comprehend the distinction, then it’s quite obvious you’re incapable of handling this discussion.
I can certainly know who contributes to Planned Parenthood and make it a point not to use their services. If I knew a doctor was performing abortions, I would not absolutely not use him or recommend him to anyone. Knowing where your money goes is important, and you can take steps to stop it, on a personal level.
What difference does it make how much the Catholic Church has spent on errors by individual priests? The money does not show the magnitude of the issue. In LA Diocese, an average of $10 million was spent per claimant for settlement. The point is, the individuals were wronged, and the church did something about it. At least the Church owns up to its issues, even if belatedly. Public school systems don’t. They just bury it and act like it doesn’t happen.
The good that Planned Parenthood might be considered to do (I don’t consider distributing contraceptives as ‘good’)does not outweigh the evil in 50,000,000 aboritons, 1/6 of the US population destroyed. You think the Nazi death camps were evil? This is probably worse.
So a fetus isn’t a person because it’s part of another person, that’s what you’re telling me. So if the fetus is only part of the person, a pregnant woman has four eyes, feet, and hands, and half of them have penises, right?
Either the fetus is a person, or not; and either we know what it is, or not. Thus there are four and only four possibilities:
that it is not a person and we know that, that it is a person and we know that, that it is a person but we do not know that, and that it is not a person and we do not know that.
Now what is abortion in each of these four cases?
In case (1), abortion is perfectly permissible. We do no wrong if we kill what is not a person and we know it is not a person. But no one has ever proved with certainty that a fetus is not a person. If there exists anywhere such a proof, please show it to me and I shall convert to pro-choice on the spot if I cannot refute it. If we do not have case (1) we have either (2) or (3) or (4). What is abortion in each of these cases? It is either murder, or manslaughter, or criminal negligence.
In case (2), where the fetus is a person and we know that, abortion is murder. For killing an innocent person knowing it is an innocent person is murder.
In case (3), abortion is manslaughter, for it is killing an innocent person not knowing and intending the full, deliberate extent of murder. It is like driving over a man-shaped overcoat in the street, which may be a drunk or may only be an old coat. It is like shooting at a sudden movement in a bush which may be your hunting companion or may be only a pheasant. It is like fumigating an apartment building with a highly toxic chemical not knowing whether everyone is safely evacuated. If the victim is a person, you have committed manslaughter. And if not?
Even in case (4), even if abortion kills what is not in fact a person, but the killer does not know for sure that it is not a person, we have criminal negligence, as in the above three cases if there happened to be no one in the coat, the bush, or the building, but the driver, the hunter, or the fumigator did not know that, and nevertheless drove, shot or fumigated. Such negligence is instinctively and universally condemned by all reasonable individuals and societies as personally immoral and socially criminal; and cases (2) and (3), murder and manslaughter, are of course condemned even more strongly. We do not argue politely over whether such behavior is right or wrong. We wholeheartedly condemn it, even when we do not know whether there is a person there, because the killer did not know that a person was not there. Why do we not do the same with abortion?
The answer to that question is not an easy one to admit. It is this: If we do not see the awfulness of abortion, that is not because the facts and arguments are unclear but because our own consciences are unclear. Mother Teresa says, “Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother.” Abortion is profoundly anti-women. Three quarters of its victims are women: half the babies and all the mothers.
If Mother Teresa is right, the second killing that abortion does is even worse than the first, if souls are more important than bodies. If abortion kills consciences, it kills souls. To the extent that conscience is killed, repentance is killed, and without repentance and faith we simply cannot be saved — unless Jesus was a liar or a fool when he told us that.
You still don’t understand what Planned Parenthood actually is, therefore your opinion is worthless.
Because the Catholic Church, contrary to your exalted opinion, is a church, and does not use the “majority” of its money for magnanimous purposes. [Magnanimous means good, because I know you can’t comprehend big words.] Planned Parenthood, as far as I’ve known, has never had a history of torture, oppression, or sex abuse. The Catholic Church doesn’t even like for you to use condoms.
You’ve completely missed the point again. Regardless of whether or not you believe a fetus is a person, the point is that no person is allowed to use someone else’s body to support itself without its consent. It’s called parasitism.
I have a question for you. If a Catholic woman [28% of women who obtain abortions are Catholic, by the way, and 37% are Protestant, source here: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html%5D refuses to get an abortion even though she will die in pregnancy, will she go to heaven? She’d go to hell either way–either kill herself or kill her fetus. And if you say she didn’t kill herself, then obviously the fetus did, so will the fetus go to hell as well?
Your morals are extremely simple-minded.
Your opinion of my opinion is what’s worthless.
THe Catholic Church, if you care, spends every dime it receives on ‘magnanamous’ purposes.
Planned Parenthood subjects 100% of those they provide abortions to to torture. Can you prove that the Catholic Church tortured anyone? Cite your sources, please. Same with “oppression”. I can’t wait to see this! While everyone in the Catholic Church -the pope on down, knows his humanity and knows he’s a sinner, and admits to his sins, those in the abortion industry don’t even have the conscience to know what their faults are.
So by you crowning yourself the final arbiter about what makes or does not make a person, you hereby grant yourself the arbiter about who can be murdered and who can’t. So it’s your opinion, not fact, on which it is based. I’ve proven how a fetus is a person who is endowed with the inalienable right to life, granted by the Constitution of the United States, actually by God through the Constitution. By taking God away from it, the state is the final arbiter, and therefore the state can take away rights and determine who deserves rights. So, then, why don’t we go back a hundred years or so and see what would happen to blacks and women when they weren’t given their complete rights. And while we’re at it, let’s just kill all the handicapped children while we’re at it. Pretty soon, by your standard, we can be Nazi Germany, all over again.
If the Catholic woman leaves the decision in the hands of God, she will go to heaven. Guaranteed.
The ethics of morality are simple. Living it can be complicated, but it all boils down to who you look to for guidance.
Your sheer ignorance has now devolved into a joke with my friends, I hope you’re aware. xD This is the best laugh I’ve gotten all day. The Catholic Church tortured a lot of people. Including Galileo. Anybody who actually understands history knows this.
Inquisition: http://books.google.com/books?id=ICsgW-2EX8AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inquisition&source=bll&ots=ahu0PSNmXe&sig=w0y9t0VfQN5VYHtPUuOalsLMwrs&hl=en&ei=dzenTa3UAoK3tgfOsdWFAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=19&ved=0CJ4BEOgBMBI#v=onepage&q&f=false
Crusades: http://books.google.com/books?id=_fL3jwjhyQ4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=crusades&source=bll&ots=bVl7f04abB&sig=19hQQVT2oB2VusCPsThw82upfxg&hl=en&ei=-TenTZyoIcq2tgfbmcyFAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=19&ved=0CJABEOgBMBI#v=onepage&q&f=false
Sex abuse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases
All this is just further proof you’re an idiot.
Who said I was the final arbiter? If I were dying and you were forced to give me your lung, would you agree with it? What if I wanted your wife’s kidney? I can have it without her consent, right, because she’s a woman and I have a right to life!
Also: 90% of abortions take place in the first trimester, usually before the fetus has developed a nervous system, and therefore cannot feel pain. So no, Planned Parenthood doesn’t torture it.
If you seriously think morals come from someone else and not from your own thinking process, then where in the Bible does it say abortion is wrong?
“And if men struggle and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”
Exodus 21:22-25
If a fetus’ life really was “murder,” then why does the Bible say the man should only be fined?
Let’s break down what you say. Torture is equal to pain. If it’s not painful it’s not torture. So it’s ok to verbally abuse detainees at Guantanamo Bay, right? As long as we don’t cause them physical pain?
I say taking a person’s life without their consent is torture. When a fetus tries to get away from something it instinctively knows is wrong, the fetus has feelings.
If abortion doesn’t kill a baby, how come Planned Parenthood counselors are trained to use every word under the sun except “baby”? And why do so many women in abortion clinics ask questions regarding “my baby” when they’re in consultation? Is it because calling it what it is would humanize it, and maybe change the person’s mind against it?
If the Bible specifically said it was wrong, would you stop??? And why does it have to come from the Bible? The Bible is not the only word of God, it is only the written word.
I noticed you didn’t have any snide comment about the rest of my post…
Fetuses don’t have consciousness and therefore cannot hear nor comprehend verbal abuse. What exactly do you think abortion doctors do that tortures fetuses? They don’t yell at them, they don’t hurt them, they don’t torture them because fetuses are not aware of their surroundings and therefore cannot feel or understand it.
Because it’s not a baby. Duh. A baby is an independent being that can function on its own without needing to use another woman’s body. I’m not sure if you’re just incredibly unintelligent or just really, really bad at forming arguments.
Because…you’re talking about morality. And it comes from God. If the Bible is the written word of God, then why are you ignoring it? Good grief, you’re incredibly hypocritical.
And what rest of your post? I addressed all the points in both my comments, didn’t I? You have neglected to address many of my points on various occasions and yet you decide to bring up my supposed “neglect”? Hahaha, you’re obviously running out of ammo.
Oh. The other point is awaiting moderation because it contains links, I presume. I can see it, but you can’t. -shrug- Wait for it. I already refuted your points.
So, sucking it out of the womb is not torture because there’s no pain involved. So painless death is ok. So let’s get a nice sharp sword and lop your head off. No pain, so it’s ok? Great.
A fetus attempting to evade a suction device indicates that fetuses do have awareness. Your contradicting empirical evidence. It’s seen. Too bad you ignore what’s plainly visible.
It isn’t a baby, why, because you say so? Even medical textbooks admit that the life in the womb is a human child, which is a baby.
Not ignoring the Bible, I said that’s not all there is to God’s word. As the early Christian writer Tertullian pointed out, the law of Moses ordered strict penalties for causing an abortion. We read, “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [Hebrew: “so that her child comes out”], but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Ex. 21:22–24).
This applies the lex talionis or “law of retribution” to abortion. The lex talionis establishes the just punishment for an injury (eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, compared to the much greater retributions that had been common before, such as life for eye, life for tooth, lives of the offender’s family for one life).
The lex talionis would already have been applied to a woman who was injured in a fight. The distinguishing point in this passage is that a pregnant woman is hurt “so that her child comes out”; the child is the focus of the lex talionis in this passage. Aborted babies must have justice, too.
This is because they, like older children, have souls, even though marred by original sin. David tells us, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5, NIV). Since sinfulness is a spiritual rather than a physical condition, David must have had a spiritual nature from the time of conception.
The same is shown in James 2:26, which tells us that “the body without the spirit is dead”: The soul is the life-principle of the human body. Since from the time of conception the child’s body is alive (as shown by the fact it is growing), the child’s body must already have its spirit.
No, I have lots of ammo. I’ve addressed every relevant point you’ve made.
Lemme break it down for you again:
1. A fetus relies on another person’s organ system to survive.
2. A fetus does not have personhood because of this.
3. A fetus does not have the necessary neurological system to actually feel pain.
4. A fetus does not have memories, awareness, or independence.
5. All the points you have made address something that is not a fetus and therefore is not applicable to this circumstance.
You can’t even make analogies either, good grief.
“The distinguishing point in this passage is that a pregnant woman is hurt “so that her child comes out”; the child is the focus of the lex talionis in this passage. Aborted babies must have justice, too.”
Except you say aborted babies are murdered babies. So why not take a life for a life? Clearly, the Bible makes it clear that an aborted baby is only worth a fine, not an actual life.
Your point about sin makes no sense in the context of this argument.
The Bible is not proof of anything. Seriously, that isn’t evidence. If you’re going to resort to the Bible as “the truth,” then do you eat shellfish and polyester? Because according to Leviticus, you should be put to death.
Your statments are patently false. You have no knowledge of what you’re talking about. That you think you or anyone else is the final arbiter of this opinion is very telling about you. Again, people who claim power over other people are called dictators. Hitler deemed Jews to be non-persons, too.
Since you have no moral authority other than yourself to rely on, it makes sense why you feel how you do.
I find that statement quite ironic, especially because you’re the one who tries to tell people what to do with their bodies. You’re the one saying women shouldn’t get abortions or birth control. You’re the one who wants to force them into giving birth. While I am simply saying that women should have the right to get an abortion if they want to. I never said I wanted every pregnant woman to get an abortion; as implied, I advocate choice. You’re incredibly close-minded if you think forcing women into giving birth isn’t dictatorship. Hitler was also pro-life, so your views fall more along his side than mine do.
Since you have no intellect to comprehend how illogically you’re acting, it makes sense why you’re as ignorant as you are.
As if I had the power to do such a thing! God doesn’t even do that. He/I do tell you where you’re headed if you stay on the road you’re on, but it’s your decision to go down that path!
I’m not forcing anyone to do anything. To be sure, you aren’t either. But to suggest that abortion is just an innocent little procedure that affects nobody but the woman who’s pregnant is a lie. Saying that Hitler is pro-life is like saying jumbo shrimp. It’s an oxymoron, like ‘military intelligence’. The point is that you think you can decide what a person is, and I say you don’t have that right. The individual in question has that right, but you silence him before he gets his chance to speak.
Illogical? Hardly. In fact, very God-centered.
So you’re saying you know/are God? How do you know what said God wants? Who are you to judge others or tell them what to do? How do you know what this God has planned for others? And besides, why do miscarriages happen?
God-centered = illogical. Your inability to see this renders you incapable of having a debate about this, therefore your opinions and “logic” are worthless because you do not have facts to back up your opinion. Please find some other website to troll.
Where did you learn to comprehend people’s writing??? How do I know? Because I take the time to study Him. Do I know it all? No, but I know a lot, and try to learn more. I don’t know my wife 100% but I know a lot. It gets me by.
Oh, and now you’re king of the blog, too. Let me kneel down and worship…not,.
Sorry, the idea that you are morally superior because you study some book is completely unfounded. You “knowing a lot” does not give you the right to impose your own morals on anybody else. To discuss, perhaps. But you are not automatically made more “right” because of this, but it’s obvious you think so.
Why does there need to be something superior? Can’t you accept that people’s opinions differ and try to learn something instead of needing to be told endlessly? Clearly, you have chosen to delude yourself rather than have an actual discussion, and as such, are not worth debating, because none of your “points” are reasonable.
Lin, the idea that I am morally superior is yours, not mine. I don’t give a damn about being superior to anyone, regardless of what I know. Thank you for giving me permission, as if that was required, to discuss moral issues, which is exactly what I’ve been doing here. There is not ‘more right’ or ‘less right’. There is only right. If it’s not right, it’s wrong.
I accept fully that people have different opinions, and I work diligently to show them the truth. Truth, by the way, does not sway based on opinions or anything else. Truth just is.
Then, there you go, as always, attacking other people’s views because they don’t agree with yours. Thanks for your opinion that the truth makes no sense to you.
I never said it was easy to live that way. In fact, it’s impossible to live a chaste life without God’s help. The fact that you dismiss God makes it impossible for you to live the way God wants you to live. I can only hope that, one day, you will see, for yourself, and that it will not be too late. God loves you too much to leave you the way you are.
Sorry, but your arrogant twaddle is rather unproductive. How are you so sure you know what the truth is? The fact that you are so certain of “truth” demonstrates exactly how close-minded you are. You are not open to others’ opinions; you’re simply preaching and deluding yourself whenever you are confronted with a dissenting opinion. Please look up the definition of an open mind and get back to me.
I am so sure because I take the time to get to know the author of Truth. I am very open minded-to God and His universe, not to man and his idea of God’s universe.
Show me an open minded person today who is truly happy. Every open minded person in the movie industry is either divorced three times or more, hooked on drugs, or spends a good portion of their time in psychotherapy. Every truly God-centered person I know of is conscious of the world around him, thankful to God that He made them, and trying to do the best they can in an imperfect world. And champion those who are in need of protection.
This is by far the craziest thing I’ve heard you say. There are many truly happy people in todays world that aren’t religious. I am one of those people! And for that matter so is my mother and my father and my brother and my boyfriend and you cannot speak for everyone in the movie industry. You do not know them or anything about them.
Scientologists are very happy people and they believe something completely different than what you claim your god says.
The fact that you say “I accept fully that people have different opinions, and I work diligently to show them the truth.” Is evidence that you don’t respect their opinions because you are trying to change them to be the same as yours.
“There are many truly…” Define happy. If happiness is “what makes me feel good”, that’s not happiness. It can change any minute. That’s like your likely definition of love. You might ‘love’ Britney Spears one minute, and hate her the next. You’re talking emotion and feelings. I’m referring to something much deeper. Does your iPhone make you happy, or your X-Box? What happens when the iPhone 5, 6, and 7 comes out and your iPhone 4 isn’t worth a thing?
To find eternal happiness, you have to look away from material things.
“Scientologists are very happy people…” Maybe some are, but I see a lot of them who are on drugs, or depending on earthly things to make them happy, but their inner happiness is questionable. If your happiness depends on having sex, pleasure, televisions, airplanes, and so on to the exclusion of everything else, you’ll be happy to know one thing. I’ve never seen a hearse with a u-haul on the back of it. When you die, all you’ve acquired will be left behind. You see people on the surface, not inside them. John Belushi, whom I doubt you would know, seemed to be a very happy person. Until he OD’d on cocaine. Charlie Sheen seemed to be a very happy person…eventually it all comes out. Depend on things on this earth, and they will eventually fail you.
Charli, we’re not required to respect anyone’s opinion. We are required to allow them to maintain their opinion. But when I believe, based on my faith, which is not an opinion, that someone is wrong, my duty, my obligation, is to show them the truth, again, which is n o t a n o p i n i o n. Truth cannot change. Opinions can and do all the time. If truth can change, then it is not truth.
Your use of narrow stereotypes is incredibly shallow. Take your God rhetoric elsewhere because it’s quite obvious you’re not looking for a discussion, but a sermon. I like to consider myself open-minded, and I’m quite satisfied with my life at the moment. I know plenty of people who are very open-minded and have extremely fulfilling lives. I have many friends who are atheist and very successful and happy in their lives. Not everybody subscribes to a world view such as yours, and not everybody tries to use their world view to justify their denial of others’ rights; if you can’t appreciate that, then you’re missing out on a lot of the beauty of the world.
Key words in your post…”at the moment”. Successful how? Monetary? Great, me too. That’s not real success.
When you die, God is not going to ask you what kind of car you drove or how big your home was. He will ask you if you clothed the naked, fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, sheltered the homeless, comforted the prisoner. Your answer will give you eternal happiness or eternal hell. And it’s all up to you! Has nothing to do with my opinion of your life. Actually, I do see the beauty of the world that God gave us. It’s even more beautiful when seen from the perspective of one who thanks him every moment.
I am by no means happy because of my material things . . . I’m happy because I have a wonderful sense of myself and the world around me. Because I have relationships with people who are loving and caring and because I can return that love and care to them. I’m happy because I’m comfortable in my own skin, because I love myself. Because I allow my self to grow as a woman and a human and to learn every day from my worldly experiences. Because my family is amazing and supportive. And because I have a shared sense of loving positive energy with other living things in the world.
My material things are just that – material. There are many things that are more important then that. Especially love.
The fact that you are trying to show everyone your truth is exactly the problem. You may not believe you are required to respect others opinions, but that is what contributes to the negative energy in our world – your lack of respect for the way others choose to life their lives. People like you with no respect for the opinion of other are breeding hate and bigotry and you have no right to do that. The god you speak of would not be happy with that.
Charli,
How do you know what my God would be happy with? You don’t know Him.
I do respect your right to have an opinion, but I do not respect that opinion because it is totally opposite the instinct of mankind. All of our being works for the proliferation and continuation of the species. Killing unborn babies does not. If you take God out of it, there’s your very argument. Killing new human beings will eventually kill humanity. 55,000,000 unnecessary deaths since Roe v. Wade.
That you have had an abortion does not show in any way that you love humanity, I’m sorry to say. Just because you didn’t see it doesn’t make it any better. This is not to say you’re not able to reverse your trend, it just puts you in with the rest of us-sinners. But your actions speak volumes louder than your words.
I think it’s extremely hypocritical to say that you’re better than someone else because of your “God.” That’s not very loving, is it? Perhaps you should take a look at your actual moral character and stop trying to preach what your God wants, because it seems like you’re twisting that ideal for your own means and opinions.
1.I didn’t say I’m better because of my God.
2.You don’t know what ‘loving’ means.
3.I examine my moral character every day, and so do people that I respect and admire, who’ve earned that respect by the way they live.
4. Someone has to speak up for God. And so, I do. That His truth is not popular among much of the world means little. Those who speak the truth can expect death because of it.
5. You don’t know God’s ideals to know whether they’re being twisted or not. You’re trying to fit God into your mold. We’re made in God’s image, not the other way around.
Also. 22,000 children will die today of hunger. There are millions of people suffering poverty and disease all across the planet. Maybe instead of championing fetuses who will never have to undergo that suffering, you could actually do something about your fellow humans who are in pain. It’s laughable that you care about humanity if you are so selfish as to judge others for having a good life.
Do you understand that children dying of hunger has nothing to do with the amount of charity that’s distributed? It has to do with the folks at the end, who misappropriate that money away from the poor. Look at our welfare system. Did it decrease the number of poor?
You have no possible way of knowing whether I already do exactly what you suggest. I’d bet I give more, as a percentage of income, to the poor than you do, and spend more time actually helping the poor than you do. And as I stated before, I don’t care about how you live. It’s not important. I don’t care about those who make more than me, unless I know that they’re not just squandering it. I do care about all those who are poorer than me in spirit and in wealth. And I do something about it. This is how I care for the poor in spirit (you and Charli) and others who are pro-abortion. It’s not a choice, it’s a child.
1. You said you were “right” because God was on your side, essentially. Therefore, you consider yourself morally superior.
2. If you truly loved somebody, you would not send them to Hell. Seriously.
3. As evidenced from this conversation, you don’t. Stop being a hypocrite, please.
4. If God was all-powerful and loving, I highly doubt he wants somebody as hateful as you speaking up for him.
5. And you don’t know your God’s ideals either, so you can’t tell me I’m twisting them around. I’ve read the Bible and none of your supposed morals are found in it. Also, it’s simply idiotic to believe I’m trying to “fit God into [my] mold” when I don’t believe in a deity. Utter fail. xD
1. So that means I said God is right. I didn’t say I was right.
2. So if your child does something you tell him not to do, and your child does it, and you punish your child for doing it, this means you don’t love your child? God loves you so much he’s willing to let you not love him. Why? Because true love requires free will, and God knows that if he forces people to love him, it’s not true love. So if you love money so much, God lets you have what you love. If you love wild sex so much, God lets you have it. But don’t expect him to roll over and give you heaven if you don’t earn it. Seriously.
3. You don’t know what a hypocrite is. Go look in a mirror and find out.
4. You have no idea what God wants because you never tried to get to know him.
5. Reading something and understanding it are two different things. Abortion falls immediately under the 5th commandment. Extra-marital sex falls immediately under the 6th commandment. The way Planned Parenthood operates falls under the eigth commandment.
By supposing that you think something I say doesn’t agree with God, you are trying to make God in your image.
1. Why are you telling me this, then, instead of God himself? Sorry, but you’re not God, so you really can’t speak on his behalf. That’s just arrogant, don’t you think? What if I told you that God knew you were wrong?
2. Yes. I wouldn’t punish my child by burning him forever. I would actually explain why it was wrong so that he would understand why he shouldn’t do it again. Punishment isn’t really very effective in parenting. What you’re talking about is classified as child abuse.
3. I would suggest you use a dictionary, but it appears you don’t even know how they work, so it’s a lost cause.
4. More religious twaddle. Seriously, you’re not doing anything to help the Christian cause here.
5. What’s so hard to understand about the Bible verse I posted? What’s so hard to understand about Leviticus’ statement that you shouldn’t eat shellfish? Seems pretty clear to me.
I am not trying to make God into any image, dear. I’m calling you out on your logical fallacies.
God is telling you that, but you’re not listening. I speak in accord with His Word. That can’t be wrong, so you would be.
By disobeying God, YOU condemn yourself to your way, which is hell. God doesn’t give hell to people who listen to him. Why would He want to let you have eternal life in heaven if you won’t love Him while you’re alive?
Prove that I’m a hypocrite.
Skip, you’re an idiot.
As I told you, Christians were delivered from Levitical law when Christ came. That was his purpose. Hebrews 10:1-18 proves my statement.
The ten commandments are thus summarized: Love God first, love your neighbor as yourself second. You’re not following the second part when you turn your back on the baby in you uterus.
Actually, the way you speak belies your belief system. One second you say you don’t believe in Him, one second you say my words don’t agree with him. Who’s confused? Who’s the hypocrite?
No, I don’t hear anything, sorry. There’s just this little voice in my head that says you’re sorely ignorant and wrong.
Eh. More God twaddle.
See my comment below about how you think men have to also take responsibility–yet they don’t haaave to if they’re not in a committed relationship.
Hahahaha, are you thirteen years old? That’s probably what’s been wrong with this entire conversation–I’ve been arguing with somebody who’s barely hit puberty. I know some intelligent thirteen-year-olds, but you’re not one of them, David. Sorry.
Annnd you’re the one who’s advocating war? [See? More hypocrisy.] But war isn’t loving your neighbor.
No, dear, I’m trying to argue with you on your terms. When you say “God says this” and I argue back with “But God also says that,” that doesn’t mean I have to believe in him. It’s like if you were to say, “Harry Potter actually loves Hermione more” and I argued, “Nono, he loves Ginny more.” I can talk about fictitious characters without having to believe they exist. It’s called having an imagination, which you clearly lack [among other things].
Sorry, but that isn’t caring. Coming from somebody who claims the Catholic Church didn’t torture [Inquisition, Crusades] or oppress [Protestant reformation, anybody?] people, it’s obvious your ignorance prevents you from gaining any actual knowledge. If you would rather blather on about pregnancy when you have absolutely no way of getting pregnant, then obviously you’re not qualified to call yourself even a charitable person, because you’re focusing on issues that completely don’t help the world. Again, it’s not about forcing abortion on everybody. It is allowing them access to it in the event there is a complication or they are not in a situation to deal with a child.
Actually, it does fall exactly under the classification of caring. Speaking of the Inquisition and Crusades, do you have any idea what you’re talking about? The Crusades was a war to protect people living in Jerusalem, in the Church’s purpose of it. The Inquisition was a court system. I never said there weren’t abuses, but I’d looooove to hear you tell me how many people you were taught were tortured by ‘the Inquistion’. Why was it even thought to be necessary? Oh, and the Protestant Reformation was so oppressive that a large number (35,000) of different religions were spawned as a result. You don’t even know what the Protestant reformation was about. Now go Google it.
By the way, it’s not just men who are anti-abortion, and there’s a large number of women out there that are anti-abortion after they had one or more abortions of their own. Ever wonder why they march with their “I regret my abortion” signs??? And regardless of whether I can get pregnant or not, 50% of all abortions in the US are males. So I have every right to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. And I have every right to offer support to women who don’t have abortions. The biggest problem on the face of our green earth is the downfall of the family. Real family. Mom, Dad, children. All the children conceived. For the umpteenth time, I never said that necessary abortions should be banned. I said that abortion for the sake of failed birth control should be stopped.
1. It would be better for all involved if a woman who didn’t want a child didn’t have sex.
2. If a woman has sex with a man and conceives a child, and doesn’t want it, let her put it up for adoption. There’s lots of people willing to support a woman through a pregnancy and take the child for her.
3. Every child conceived is unique and unrepeatable. You’re killing a possible curer of cancer.
“Caring” does not mean telling other people they’re wrong and going to hell. Just sayin’.
“The Crusades was a war to protect people living in Jerusalem, in the Church’s purpose of it.”
^ Hahahahahahaha. They were religiously sanctioned military campaigns that tortured/killed many Muslims living in Europe at the time. I’m not sure how you think that doesn’t classify as torture.
“The Inquisition was a court system.”
^ Are you serious? The “court” was a Roman Catholic tribunal. “Skilled Inquisition executioners would bring a victim to the point of death many times, only to stop the torture so the victim could revive, so they could be tortured again.”
Are you one of those women? You’re not. A lot of your personal preference is informed by the fact that you are not female and thus are not faced with the reality that you could get pregnant. Also, to believe that a) there’s a large amount of women out there who regret it and b) they actually had an abortion is naive and does not in any regard indicate that abortion is wrong.
“Real family”? What if a teenage girl gets pregnant? Wouldn’t she be enforcing the “downfall of the real family” because she doesn’t have a husband? What about the widower who just lost her husband?
If you think necessary abortions shouldn’t be banned, then why are you going around shouting at people about how it’s wrong? If you think that if a condom breaks, the person should have a child, that’s incredibly stupid. Why do you think they were using the condom in the first place?
1. Oh. So you’re saying a woman can’t have sex. What about the man? He’s also involved in it. You’re not talking about abortion; you’re seeking to deny women’s right to have sex.
2. Adoption isn’t an alternative to birth. It’s an alternative to pregnancy. She will still be giving up nine months of her life–many of which she would probably not be able to sustain herself because it would be too exhausting to hold a job and take care of herself at the same time–and many women cannot afford to do so.
3. You’re also killing a potential Hitler. A child in Afghanistan who was killed by a bomb that your tax dollars have funded could also have cured cancer. Also, it’s incredibly naive of you to think that knowing how to cure cancer is embedded in a child’s “unique” DNA. Knowledge comes from education, which you are sorely lacking in.
Oh, to YOU it doesn’t mean that. Caring means telling someone who’s about to fall into a hole that he’s about to fall in a hole. What he does with that information is his own business. My saying that hell awaits you is like saying don’t fall down the hole ‘because you might break your neck’. If you continue anyway, you’ll break your neck. In the case of promoting abortion, you are leading yourself to hell. If you stop it and repent, you can still be saved.
I love your knowledge of history, Lin. The Crusades was exactly what I said it was. The Church asked for armies from secular nations to go to the Holy land and protect the people. The Church did not say ‘rape, pilage, plunder, and murder for the sake of Jesus.’ The Church sanctioned one thing, the secular armies did something else. It was actually the Muslims who invaded the whole Mediterranean rim by this time, and Christians were protecting their interests.
The Inquisition was also a product of Muslim invasion. When the Spanish finally kicked the Muslim oppressors out of Spain, the required everyone to submit to the Church as a sign of loyalty to the Spanish Crown. The Inquisition was formed to ensure that people who said something were true to their word. And if you knew your history, you’d find that the Spanish Inquisition was something run by the Spanish monarchy, not the Church. Most of what you might ‘know’ about the Inquisition is urban legend.
Now back to the subject. What I’m most vehemently against, Lin, is sex with no thought of the consequences. If someone knew that they could get pregnant and be ‘tied down’ for 18 years or more because of it, maybe, just maybe, they would think twice. People make that choice all the time. I think all people should make that choice. Just to show you how falacious the argument is that ‘people want to have the pleasure of sex, and it’s natural that they do…’, let’s just say you married whoevery you fall in love with. You have a relationship for a while, and get married. All of a sudden, there’s an accident which paralyzes him from the waist down, and he’s unable to have sex with you any longer. What do you do, Lin? Do you abandon him and your vows and go have sex with someone else whenever you want? Or do you submit to what’s happened, live in the reality of it, and support the man you promised yourself to? Or what if you were engaged, not yet married, and said accident happened, would you even still marry that person?
The problem is what happens before and after conception, Lin. If you control your instinctual desires and don’t have sex until you have a family already, problem solved. After conception, it’s too late. Yes, you should be required to have the baby, your choice becomes whether to keep him/her or give him/her up for adoption to someone who wants a child.
No, same goes for the man. But as you so poignantly pointed out, it’s the woman who gets pregnant, and in the case of extramarital sex, it’s usually the woman who has to deal with the baby. I also think that’s wrong-it’s as much the man’s responsibility, and he should suck it up and step up.
As I have said all along, the woman should be thinking of that in the first place. If she’s not committed to the man in some way, thereby making him step up to the plate and support her and said child, your argument wouldn’t hold any water. Yes, it’s the man’s responsibility, too. Adoption is the alternative to raising the child yourself.
Lin, by your reasoning, then, we should be forced to always abort our children, we might have a potential serial killer on our hands. No, we have ways of taking care of those who don’t know how to act. Called prison. Also, I don’t advocate war, it’s a horrible thing, I know, I’ve been there. But I also know that war is sometimes necessary, especially in the face of oppressive goverments, like Hitler’s. Are you saying we shouldn’t have fought WWII? Well, the US, in war, does not invade for the purpose of taking the land, or governing the people. We go in to right what’s wrong. I agree, as I’ve said previously, that you can never do evil to gain good out of it, and that’s what war does. But it’s not Christianity that’s going to war, it’s secular state. You’re right, education is required to learn how to do things, but the capacity to learn is genetic. So, in today’s world, by aborting one out of every six children, we’re killing a lot of potential.
Sorry, but in your scenario, you’re talking about a hole that you don’t even know is there. So uh, not a good analogy. Also, there is nothing in the Bible, again, that is against abortion. See the quote I posted earlier.
“The Church asked for armies from secular nations to go to the Holy land and protect the people.”
^ The Church asked for an army, thus condoning all its actions.
“The Church did not say ‘rape, pilage, plunder, and murder for the sake of Jesus.’”
^ Actually, there are plenty of people who have murdered, raped, and pillaged in the name of Jesus. Even in today’s society. [http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/09/26/jehovah-s-witnesses-caught-by-police-after-killing-spree-in-russia-115875-20753376/]
“The Church sanctioned one thing, the secular armies did something else.”
^ So you’re saying the entiiire army was atheist? Really? I highly, highly doubt that. In today’s society, 97% of people believe in a higher power; how could atheism, what with the lack of knowledge and less general enlightenment, have been even greater back then?
“Christians were protecting their interests.”
^ By…attacking others.
“The Inquisition was formed to ensure that people who said something were true to their word.”
^ They tortured people. You can’t deny that. Seriously. It’s like denying World War II.
“And if you knew your history, you’d find that the Spanish Inquisition was something run by the Spanish monarchy, not the Church.”
^ Errr, but they were Catholic too, weren’t they? And no, it wasn’t solely the Spanish monarchy. They were puppets that the Catholic Church used. Also, if the Catholic Church knew they were torturing them, why didn’t they stop it? Also, what about the people in the Inquisition? They had to be Catholic, right? So again, yes, the Catholic Church did indeed torture people. If you don’t understand this, you’re incredibly ignorant.
“What I’m most vehemently against, Lin, is sex with no thought of the consequences.”
^ Can you think of anybody who doesn’t understand the consequences of sex? You’re using a straw man argument here.
” Just to show you how falacious the argument is that ‘people want to have the pleasure of sex, and it’s natural that they do…’, let’s just say you married whoevery you fall in love with.”
^ Marriage is completely different from sex. Argument invalid.
“Or what if you were engaged, not yet married, and said accident happened, would you even still marry that person?”
^ The fact that you believe sex is the sole support of a marriage is severely ignorant and misguided.
“If you control your instinctual desires and don’t have sex until you have a family already, problem solved.”
^ Except in order to have a family, you have to have sex. Or did you not understand that?
“Yes, you should be required to have the baby, your choice becomes whether to keep him/her or give him/her up for adoption to someone who wants a child.”
^ Except many women actually can’t afford to do that. If they did, they wouldn’t be able to work, wouldn’t be able to pay the bills, and would be living on the street. Imagine if your mother had to go through that. Imagine if, in order to have you, she had to give up her job, her house, and the ability to buy her own food because she can’t work while being pregnant. The US doesn’t require paid maternal leave. If you would rather her go through hunger and displacement in order to have you, then you’re a sick and twisted man.
“I also think that’s wrong-it’s as much the man’s responsibility, and he should suck it up and step up.”
^ Except you’re only advocating women not have sex, not men. Except you’re saying only women should understand the consequences. You haven’t said anything at all about men.
“As I have said all along, the woman should be thinking of that in the first place. If she’s not committed to the man in some way, thereby making him step up to the plate and support her and said child.”
^ Didn’t you just say the man had a responsibility, too? But you just said that if he isn’t committed to her, he doesn’t have a responsibility? So where does the responsibility happen? When sperm meets egg, like it does for the woman? Or is it somehow different for a man, even though you just said he should also take responsibility–but if he’s not committed, he shouldn’t have to?
“Lin, by your reasoning, then, we should be forced to always abort our children, we might have a potential serial killer on our hands.”
^ Excuse me. I never said any such thing. How typical of you, to come to idiotic conclusions. You said that every potential person could have cured cancer. I said that potential person also could be a serial killer. I never said anything about forcing abortion on every woman. That undermines the point of “choice.” Choice means you get to choose whether to keep it or not. If you can’t understand that, then you have absolutely no leg to stand on.
“No, we have ways of taking care of those who don’t know how to act. Called prison.”
^ After how many murders? Take a look at the Zodiac–he murdered about 37 victims and was never found.
“Are you saying we shouldn’t have fought WWII?”
^ No, David dear, unlike you, I am not delusional. I don’t talk about things that have already happened and say they shouldn’t have happened because they already happened and therefore, it’s impossible to change them and it’s simply pointless.
“But it’s not Christianity that’s going to war, it’s secular state.”
^ Except you’re the one trying to push your religious views onto the state. Your ideas have sprung out of your religious ideology. To you, in an ideal world, abortion would be immoral because God said so. If that doesn’t smack of religion within the state, I don’t know what does.
“So, in today’s world, by aborting one out of every six children, we’re killing a lot of potential.”
^ And how many children would actually be able to reach their potential? If a mother had numerous children, wouldn’t she be exhausted all the time? Would she be able to pay for their school supplies? Would she be able to give them the attention they deserve? What about the 22,000 children who die every day of hunger? There is more potential undermined through neglect than abortion. Why don’t you take your head out of your ass and care about the children already born? You can talk all you want about potential, but if you don’t do anything to help the kids who are already born, then you’re just being exceedingly blind to the world around you.
Also, since you admitted that the Protestant Reformation was oppressive–doesn’t that stand to reason that the Catholic church reacted badly? If you don’t think the Catholic church tortured Protestants for being “heretics,” you’re incredibly naive.
Sorry, but in your scenario, you’re talking about a hole that you don’t even know is there. So uh, not a good analogy. Also, there is nothing in the Bible, again, that is against abortion. See the quote I posted earlier.
^ Yes, we know the hole is there. What I said applies to every sin, not just abortion. You say I shouldn’t damn people to hell, well, the point is I’m not damning anyone, I’m warning them against their own actions. And what they do is up to them.
“The Church asked for armies from secular nations to go to the Holy land and protect the people.”
^ The Church asked for an army, thus condoning all its actions.
^ Wrong. The Church expressed the rules that the army was to engage in, and they, to some extent ignored or forgot their purpose once they were there. Again, safety of the pilgrims and citizens. I guess you’d be against having police? If a cop shoots an innocent person, is the city liable, or the cop?
“The Church did not say ‘rape, pilage, plunder, and murder for the sake of Jesus.’”
^ Actually, there are plenty of people who have murdered, raped, and pillaged in the name of Jesus. Even in today’s society. [http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/09/26/jehovah-s-witnesses-caught-by-police-after-killing-spree-in-russia-115875-20753376/]
^Which doesn’t mean the church sanctioned it. And JW’s aren’t Christian, in case you didn’t know.
“The Church sanctioned one thing, the secular armies did something else.”
^ So you’re saying the entiiire army was atheist? Really? I highly, highly doubt that. In today’s society, 97% of people believe in a higher power; how could atheism, what with the lack of knowledge and less general enlightenment, have been even greater back then?
^Didn’t say any such thing. I said they disobeyed their orders.
“Christians were protecting their interests.”
^ By…attacking others.
^Who Attacked them first. Do you realize the extent of Christianity before there was even 1 Muslim family?
“The Inquisition was formed to ensure that people who said something were true to their word.”
^ They tortured people. You can’t deny that. Seriously. It’s like denying World War II.
^Secular governments tortured people. True. Church tortured people in the Inquisition? False.
“And if you knew your history, you’d find that the Spanish Inquisition was something run by the Spanish monarchy, not the Church.”
^ Errr, but they were Catholic too, weren’t they? And no, it wasn’t solely the Spanish monarchy. They were puppets that the Catholic Church used. Also, if the Catholic Church knew they were torturing them, why didn’t they stop it? Also, what about the people in the Inquisition? They had to be Catholic, right? So again, yes, the Catholic Church did indeed torture people. If you don’t understand this, you’re incredibly ignorant.
^Oh, guilt by association, hmmm.I don’t think so. Lots of people claim to be Christian, just look in Congress, but don’t act like a follower of Jesus.
“What I’m most vehemently against, Lin, is sex with no thought of the consequences.”
^ Can you think of anybody who doesn’t understand the consequences of sex? You’re using a straw man argument here.
^If the knew the consequences when they did it, then they should be ready to face them. Don’t do the crime if you don’t want to do the time.
” Just to show you how falacious the argument is that ‘people want to have the pleasure of sex, and it’s natural that they do…’, let’s just say you married whoevery you fall in love with.”
^ Marriage is completely different from sex. Argument invalid.
^ Actually, sex is the primary reason for marriage.
“Or what if you were engaged, not yet married, and said accident happened, would you even still marry that person?”
^ The fact that you believe sex is the sole support of a marriage is severely ignorant and misguided.
^ Didn’t answer the point of the question.
“If you control your instinctual desires and don’t have sex until you have a family already, problem solved.”
^ Except in order to have a family, you have to have sex. Or did you not understand that?
^Actually, a newly married couple is a family. Do you understand that?
“Yes, you should be required to have the baby, your choice becomes whether to keep him/her or give him/her up for adoption to someone who wants a child.”
^ Except many women actually can’t afford to do that. If they did, they wouldn’t be able to work, wouldn’t be able to pay the bills, and would be living on the street. Imagine if your mother had to go through that. Imagine if, in order to have you, she had to give up her job, her house, and the ability to buy her own food because she can’t work while being pregnant. The US doesn’t require paid maternal leave. If you would rather her go through hunger and displacement in order to have you, then you’re a sick and twisted man.
^That is immediately fixable by the adoptive parents. Do you realize how much money childless couples pay to get a child from China? Well enough to help the pregnant woman get through the pregnancy. Also, said partner, the man, should be involved. But this involves a family dynamic which is missing today, thanks to a long downward spiral in morality.
“I also think that’s wrong-it’s as much the man’s responsibility, and he should suck it up and step up.”
^ Except you’re only advocating women not have sex, not men. Except you’re saying only women should understand the consequences. You haven’t said anything at all about men.
^No, I’m not. Can’t you read? I don’t think PEOPLE should have sex before they’re married.
“As I have said all along, the woman should be thinking of that in the first place. If she’s not committed to the man in some way, thereby making him step up to the plate and support her and said child.”
^ Didn’t you just say the man had a responsibility, too? But you just said that if he isn’t committed to her, he doesn’t have a responsibility? So where does the responsibility happen? When sperm meets egg, like it does for the woman? Or is it somehow different for a man, even though you just said he should also take responsibility–but if he’s not committed, he shouldn’t have to?
^Yes, but it’s the woman’s ultimate decision to actually have sex. Men can hit on women all they want to, but until the woman allows it, nothing happens, except in rape, of course.
“Lin, by your reasoning, then, we should be forced to always abort our children, we might have a potential serial killer on our hands.”
^ Excuse me. I never said any such thing. How typical of you, to come to idiotic conclusions. You said that every potential person could have cured cancer. I said that potential person also could be a serial killer. I never said anything about forcing abortion on every woman. That undermines the point of “choice.” Choice means you get to choose whether to keep it or not. If you can’t understand that, then you have absolutely no leg to stand on.
^If I mischaracterized what you said, welcome to the club. You’ve been mischaracterizing me all along. By the way, I didn’t say anything about ‘potential person’. A human fetus is a person with potential, which is a different thing.
“No, we have ways of taking care of those who don’t know how to act. Called prison.”
^ After how many murders? Take a look at the Zodiac–he murdered about 37 victims and was never found.
^ Doesn’t matter, we have a way to take care of criminals.
“Are you saying we shouldn’t have fought WWII?”
^ No, David dear, unlike you, I am not delusional. I don’t talk about things that have already happened and say they shouldn’t have happened because they already happened and therefore, it’s impossible to change them and it’s simply pointless.
^ I’m not your ‘dear’. You’re crying all over the place about the Iraq war, which is mostly past, and the Afghani war, which is mostly past. Same applies here.
“But it’s not Christianity that’s going to war, it’s secular state.”
^ Except you’re the one trying to push your religious views onto the state. Your ideas have sprung out of your religious ideology. To you, in an ideal world, abortion would be immoral because God said so. If that doesn’t smack of religion within the state, I don’t know what does.
^I’m not ‘pushing religious views’ on anybody. I certainly have suggested a religious point of view, but I’m not holding a gun to anyone’s head.
No, in God’s world, abortion is immoral. That’s plain truth. Whether it exists or not, whether it’s ‘legal’ or not doesn’t really matter. It is a sin in God’s eyes. That’s all that matters. But when you die and go to meet your maker, don’t act all innocent and say nobody told you. Your complete record will be in God’s hands, and nobody can make a fool of Him.
“So, in today’s world, by aborting one out of every six children, we’re killing a lot of potential.”
^ And how many children would actually be able to reach their potential? If a mother had numerous children, wouldn’t she be exhausted all the time? Would she be able to pay for their school supplies? Would she be able to give them the attention they deserve? What about the 22,000 children who die every day of hunger? There is more potential undermined through neglect than abortion. Why don’t you take your head out of your ass and care about the children already born? You can talk all you want about potential, but if you don’t do anything to help the kids who are already born, then you’re just being exceedingly blind to the world around you.
^ That so many children die of hunger is because of the evil of secular governments hoarding the resources available, and it is irrelevant to the discussion of abortion. The truth is that there’s enough resources provided in the earth for everyone, but the powerful literally take it from the mouths of the weak. Which is just what abortion rights people are doing to human babies inside the womb. So if you’re so concerned about the evil done to poor children around the world, you should be concerned also with the poor children who will never have a voice because they’ve been sucked out of their mother’s wombs.
“Yes, we know the hole is there. What I said applies to every sin, not just abortion. You say I shouldn’t damn people to hell, well, the point is I’m not damning anyone, I’m warning them against their own actions. And what they do is up to them.”
^ You assume everybody believes the same things you do. What about Muslims? Jews? Hindus? Your belief system is just that–a belief system. Stop imposing it on other people.
“The Church expressed the rules that the army was to engage in, and they, to some extent ignored or forgot their purpose once they were there.”
^ No, they didn’t. The Pope blessed them. Also, if you’re seriously stupid enough to think that the Catholic Church didn’t know about or condone their actions, you’re clearly not qualified to talk about this.
“And JW’s aren’t Christian, in case you didn’t know.”
^ They use the Bible as a holy text, don’t they? They believe in Jesus, don’t they? What’s the difference?
“Didn’t say any such thing. I said they disobeyed their orders.”
^ Uhh, no. The soldiers pronounced a solemn vow, received a cross from the Pope/his legates, and was granted an indulgence and exemption from civil jurisdiction. Which means they couldn’t be prosecuted for their crimes. Which translates to the Catholic Church sanctioning their actions, because they granted forgiveness from the very beginning.
“Secular governments tortured people. True. Church tortured people in the Inquisition? False.”
^ Wow. You’re stubbornly idiotic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade
“initiated by the Catholic Church”
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/WestTech/xcrusade.htm
“Pope Urban II called for a Crusade in 1095.”
You have absolutely no leg to stand on.
“Oh, guilt by association, hmmm.I don’t think so. Lots of people claim to be Christian, just look in Congress, but don’t act like a follower of Jesus.”
^ No true Scotsman fallacy. If somebody was acting in the name of God, then who’s to say they weren’t? They believed in God and Jesus and they believed they were doing the right thing. There was a woman earlier who said that you weren’t Christian, either–you didn’t follow the teachings of Jesus. Who’s right?
“If the knew the consequences when they did it, then they should be ready to face them. Don’t do the crime if you don’t want to do the time.
^ If you were in a car crash, you don’t deserve to be saved. You knew the consequences! If you’re drowning, you don’t deserve to be saved. You knew the consequences! Are you saying people with lung cancer who smoke shouldn’t get medical treatment?
“Actually, sex is the primary reason for marriage.”
^ Wow. So you married your wife for sex? Hahaha, what a hypocrite. Did you have premarital sex, then? Otherwise, how would you know it was good or bad?
“Didn’t answer the point of the question.”
^ The point is, I believe marriage is about more than just sex, whereas you shallowly think sex is the main reason.
“Actually, a newly married couple is a family. Do you understand that?”
^ Err, no. A newly married couple is a couple. Does that make sense? When you only have a wife at home, you say, “I’m going home to my wife.” Not family. Dictionary definition: “the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children.” Or “spouse and children.”
“That is immediately fixable by the adoptive parents.”
^ Except not all kids get adopted. That’s not a viable option.
“Do you realize how much money childless couples pay to get a child from China? Well enough to help the pregnant woman get through the pregnancy.”
^ Except we’re not talking about China right now, we’re talking about women in the US. Your point is quite irrelevant.
“Also, said partner, the man, should be involved.”
^ But you just said he doesn’t have to if he’s not committed.
“But this involves a family dynamic which is missing today, thanks to a long downward spiral in morality.”
^ Morality is subjective. Take a good, long look at yourself. Your morality borders on fanaticism.
“No, I’m not. Can’t you read? I don’t think PEOPLE should have sex before they’re married.”
^ Then why are you placing all the responsibility on women? It takes two to make a baby.
“Yes, but it’s the woman’s ultimate decision to actually have sex. Men can hit on women all they want to, but until the woman allows it, nothing happens, except in rape, of course.”
^ Are you saying men are mentally incapable of not having sex? Is that it? Men can also choose not to have sex, you know.
“By the way, I didn’t say anything about ‘potential person’. A human fetus is a person with potential, which is a different thing.”
^ Hahahaha, what? A potential person isn’t a person with potential? What are you even saying?
“Doesn’t matter, we have a way to take care of criminals.”
^ Except not all criminals get caught. Duhhh.
“You’re crying all over the place about the Iraq war, which is mostly past, and the Afghani war, which is mostly past. Same applies here.”
^ The key word is “mostly.” It’s not over yet. WWII is over. Do you understand the difference between “over” and “mostly over”?
“I certainly have suggested a religious point of view, but I’m not holding a gun to anyone’s head.”
^ Telling someone they’re going to hell and trying to force them to do something that holds with your moral views suuure doesn’t sound like you’re forcing your religious views on anyone. Take your head out of your ass and try to think for once.
“No, in God’s world, abortion is immoral. That’s plain truth. Whether it exists or not, whether it’s ‘legal’ or not doesn’t really matter. It is a sin in God’s eyes. That’s all that matters. But when you die and go to meet your maker, don’t act all innocent and say nobody told you. Your complete record will be in God’s hands, and nobody can make a fool of Him.”
^ If your only justification is God, then you’re already lost. What if God told you to kill people? Would it be moral?
“That so many children die of hunger is because of the evil of secular governments hoarding the resources available, and it is irrelevant to the discussion of abortion.”
^ There are plenty of churches out there who hoard the money they’re given and don’t feed starving children. There are plenty of televangelists out there who hoard their money and buy all sorts of things but still don’t feed hungry children. It’s the same deal. Also, it’s relevant in that you’re championing the rights of the unborn but you don’t have enough humanity to care about those already born.
“Which is just what abortion rights people are doing to human babies inside the womb.”
^ No, they’re not. What sort of human resources are they taking from the womb? The fetus doesn’t require anything except a woman’s body.
“So if you’re so concerned about the evil done to poor children around the world, you should be concerned also with the poor children who will never have a voice because they’ve been sucked out of their mother’s wombs.”
^ No, because I’m also concerned with the women who own the wombs. Abortion is a choice. It’s the woman’s choice. It’s not up to you to decide what they do with their own organ system.
“And JW’s aren’t Christian, in case you didn’t know.”
^ They use the Bible as a holy text, don’t they? They believe in Jesus, don’t they? What’s the difference?”
Actually, JW’s do not use the Bible, although they say they do. They use their own translation of the Bible, called the New World Translation. It is produced and sold exclusively by the Watchtower Society, and only sold to JW’s or those interested in becoming JW’s. In this version, several passages are altered from the Greek manuscripts in order to change the claims of Jesus; which directly effects your second question. No, they don’t believe in Jesus (although again they say they do). They believe in a different version of Jesus who is most certainly not the Jesus of the Bible. Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the 2nd Person of the Godhead, and the only Messiah. JW’s believe that Jesus is the archangel Michael in human form. A lot of the arguments I’ve seen on here have demonstrated a huge misunderstanding of Christianity. JW’s are not Christian. (source: former JW myself).
Now, while I am against abortion, and I do consider myself Christian, pro-life, what have you, I don’t believe religion is the only basis for formulating a legitimate argument against abortion. The problem as I see it is the pro-choice crowd really only has one argument that always goes something like this: “It’s the woman’s choice. It’s not up to you to decide what they do with their own organ system.” The fallacy in this argument is that the woman is deciding to do something to someone else’s organ system, not hers. There is a separate heart beating, separate fingers, separate brain, veins, liver, lungs, etc. developing which is in fact not the woman’s organ system, it is some one else’s. Therefore, the argument is self defeating because the woman is in reality not choosing what to do with her own body or organ system, she is choosing what to do with someone else’s. She is choosing to have a doctor take hold of some one else’s developing legs with forceps, and pull out their entire body except the head, then jam a pair of scissors into the back of some one else’s skull, open the scissors to enlarge the skull, and then use a suction catheter to vaccum out someone else’s brains until their skull collapses, removing them and discarding them. All because they would be “inconvenient” or take away from career, cost too much, etc. Sounds an awful lot like human sacrifice to the gods of comfort, convenient sex, money and power to me.
The other argument always spouted is what about instances of rape, incest, etc. The fact is such cases only make up 1% of all reported abortions.
Anyways, that’s the way I see it. I know the blog’s author and several commentators will disagree, but that’s why we have the legislative process in this country – ain’t it grand?
I just have 1 question for any one here advocating for abortion – have any of you ever had an abortion and/or witnessed/assisted in one being done? I am formerly pro-choice, and for me, that was the most convincing thing to change my view to pro-life. I wonder if they ever showed that on TV, how many Americans would change their minds too.
Yes, actually I have had an abortion. But the abortion you are referring to is called late-term abortion which is very different from a first trimester abortion. Or in my case a 7 week pregnancy – when (in my opinion) its just a group of cells in my body that could potentially grow into another life. That’s why abortion is so controversial – because so many people have differing opinions about when life actually begins and when it becomes a separate life.
I’m sorry to hear that, I wish I could give you a big hug. I do think that action was wrong, but it is not my place to condemn you. However, while you are correct that I described a partial birth abortion, it is not accurate that there was not another life there. This comes back to a point someone else made that truth is not relative, something is either true or it’s not. Now while that may be your opinion, the scientifically verifiable fact is that at 7 weeks, hands and feet have started to develop. eyes and eyelids have formed, both hemispheres of the brain have formed, as well as a liver which has begun pumping red blood cells. A heart, pancreas, appendix, and intestinal tract have also developed. So, with all due respect, your decision did in fact destroy someone else’s organs, not your own. The real question is not whether another life has formed, it’s whether that life is valued and respected.