The House Republicans voted to defund Planned Parenthood.
And they voted to choke off funding for Health Care.
So they don’t want to do anything to help with birth control…and if you have a child, you’re on your own.
Perfect.
PAD
The House Republicans voted to defund Planned Parenthood.
And they voted to choke off funding for Health Care.
So they don’t want to do anything to help with birth control…and if you have a child, you’re on your own.
Perfect.
PAD
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Ugh, Peter. I guess someone could say about democrats that they want babies killed and if a child happens to make it out of the womb then they have to work until April/May(tax freedom day) paying for government debts that they never had any say in accumulating.
Except for the fact it’s been the Republican presidents like Reagan and Bush who have rammed the national deficit up the most with things like overspending on military and worthless wars.
That’s interesting. I thought a Democratic president was responsible for keeping us involved with Vietnam while a Republican president contributed to getting us out of it as well as set up a foundation for free trade with China, a country that our current Democratic president wants to negotiate with. I guess it dependes which way the wind blows which party is the worst but as far as I’m concerned “A pox on both their houses!”
Conservatives crack me up. They really do. Anything that went wrong in the Bush administration, they blamed on Clinton. Now Obama comes into office after Bush sinks the country into debt and unnecessary war and conservatives claim that everything is Obama’s fault.
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Now the GOP wants to screw over the working poor by kneecapping both Planned Parenthood and Health Care, and when that strategy is rightly criticized, the response is to bring up a war from half a century ago?
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It’s interesting to me when conservatives claim that evil dark liberal forces are trying to curtail their first amendment rights or shut them up. I hope no one ever manages to shut conservatives up. They’re hilarious.
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PAD
If the last part of your statement was addressed to me, Peter, please remember the last statement that I posted: “A pox on both their houses!” I’m neither Republican or Democrat by registration or philosophy. I was just expressing my own amusement over the polarization of two political parties that have outlived their usefulness as the Federalists, Anti-Federalists and Whig parties have in the past.
Because Democrats didn’t also push the WMDs in Iraq thing, right? Oops, yes, they did. And Democrats controlled Congress for 4 years and had a super-majority for 2, and the U.S. has been in Iraq the entire time and is now even further into Afghanistan.
Why is the U.S. even further into Afghanistan? I guess Democrats must love war just like they love voting for the TARP bill and giving poor people’s money to big banks. Obama got a million bucks from Goldman Sachs, so no surprise.
Speaking of deficits and debt, how high are those the past 2-4 years? (Democrat Congress, Democrat super-majority.) Pretty sure there’s plenty of Trillions in that answer. Democrats controlled Congress and the Presidency last year, and they Still couldn’t be bothered to pass a budget for this year.
But it’s no surprise Democrats aren’t good with budgets — since they Finally came clean and admitted 500 billion of Obamacare funding was indeed counted twice. Which everyone was saying it was the whole time but they kept denying it. I guess we had to pass the bill in order to find out what’s in it….
Ugh, Peter. I guess someone could say about democrats that they want babies killed
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Well, that would require the notion that working to inform and implement birth control was the same as killing babies. In other words, one would have to believe that life is so sacred that the mere act of trying to prevent conception is tantamount to murder.
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PAD
Well, yeah – the Pope said so.
Well, yeah – the Pope said so.
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Just another reason I tend to think the Roman Catholic Church does more harm in this world than good.
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One man, who’s own pëņìš has probably withered away long ago from atrophy, deciding for a billion people that things like birth control and contraceptives are bad (and the rest of the Christian world follows along). He decides for countless women what they should do with their bodies.
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Yeah, that makes a whole helluva lot of sense. It reminds me of why I’ll never be a practicing Catholic again.
Yeah. A lot of people complained because the death of the Princess of Wales (not “Princess Diana”, though that’s pretty much a lost cause) five days before Mother Teresa’s to a great extent overshadowed that of the future saint.
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However, as a friend remarked at the time, that a woman who worked effectively toward the banning of landmines seemed, to him, at least an equal, if not superior, in moral stature and relevance to one who – no matter how much other good she did – worked aggressively against the teaching or practice of birth control in a country with one of the world’s worst over-population problems…
Ooops. Imagine that only the word “not” is in itals.
What did you expect? It’s not like the Islamic fundamentalists have a monopoly on ideological nutjobs.
Yep. We have to think of the children before they’re born, but after they’re born we can forget about them. Foster care, welfare, education? Nope, sorry. We won’t let you get rid of ’em but we won’t help you with ’em once you have ’em, either. Bootstraps!
How very Christian of them.
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yeah, that was sarcasm
The Republican position on life: They’ll do everything they can to protect you before you’re born, but after that, it’s bootstrap time, kid.
By the way, when I said “everything,” that includes killing obstetricians. Because there’s no greater threat to a fetus’s health than an obstetrician.
Screw this country.
Yeah, I’ve been saying that for a while now.
America is a sick, barbaric nation, it’s just hidden behind the false presumption of “wealth” and “Democracy”.
they are also cutting health care to premature children as well.
As the immortal George Carlin once said, “If you’re pre-born, you’re fine. If you’re pre-school, you’re F-ed.”
It’s a pretty consistant position, and a very obvious one for Republicans. (Even ignoring the “Hate everything Democrats do” and “No Government spending on anything, except a rediculous ammount on defense” solipsisms.)
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1) If you have sex, you should have to have a child. Children are the punishment for having sex.
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2) You are are your own. So is your child. The sooner they realize this, the sooner they will wise up and start that job in the coal mine, work hard, and become Bill Gates.
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If everyone would just stop having abortions and get to work, America could become as great a country as China someday…
You said it with much more humor than I did. Thank you.
This has long been the hypocrisy of the so-called “Pro-Life” movement that just hurts my brain. They don’t want people to have abortions, but they won’t tell people how to not get unwanted pregnancies outside of the useless celibacy talks. They claim their concern is about the children, but their concern ends as soon as it’s born. If this statement wasn’t true, then they would be helping programs that help families with unplanned children. No, they want to block those as well because they don’t care anymore. They don’t care that these families will struggle for the rest of their lives and that these children will be resented by their parents.
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They don’t want to give people knowledge, and then they want to penalize them (i.e. not help them at all) when they inevitably make a mistake due to ignorance. And of course, the poor suffer the most. The rich or even middle class aren’t going to be affected as much by this because they have other options and have better education.
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These activists have something against women in general and poor women in particular. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense to me. They hate poor women and want to do all in their power to keep them that way.
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They aren’t “pro-life,” they are “anti-choice.”
On top of that, you have the bill introduced in South Dakota, which expands their “justifiable homicide” to include protecting a fetus. Yet, the bill’s sponsor says it has nothing to do with abortion. Excuse me while I check this guy’s head for the šhìŧ that he’s full of.
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And the other one, where Republicans introduced a bunch of stuff into Congress in the last week or two that would basically order doctors to protect the life of a fetus over the life of the mother, pretty much no matter what the circumstances. How’s that for government interfering the lives of individuals? Oh, wait, *this* doesn’t count? Oh, well then.
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They only care about life until it leaves the womb. Then they only care about whether said life votes for them or not.
Even as somebody who is pro-life, the idea that the life of the fetus is more important than the life of the mother if it comes to the end of the line strikes me as idiotic. One can still reproduce; the other will be born an orphan. And, if the GOP has their way, get zero helping benefits. Of course, it’s all lip service anyway; the GOP will never pursue the policies that make abortion unnecessary anyway, just claim they’re against it. Cute.
The GOP doesn’t even pay lip service to the idea of making abortion unnecessary.
I believe the full quote from George Carlin is appropriate here:
Why, why, why, why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn’t wanna f*** in the first place? Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren’t they? They’re all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you’re born, you’re on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don’t want to know about you. They don’t want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re preborn, you’re fine; if you’re preschool, you’re f****d. Conservatives don’t give a s*** about you until you reach ‘military age’. Then they think you are just fine. Just what they’ve been looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life… pro-life… These people aren’t pro-life, they’re killing doctors! What kind of pro-life is that? What, they’ll do anything they can to save a fetus but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it? They’re not pro-life. You know what they are? They’re anti-woman. Simple as it gets, anti-woman. They don’t like them. They don’t like women. They believe a woman’s primary role is to function as a brood mare for the state. Pro-life… You don’t see many of these white anti-abortion women volunteering to have any black fetuses transplanted into their uteruses, do you? No, you don’t see them adopting a whole lot of crack babies, do you? No, that might be something Christ would do. And you won’t see a lot of these pro-life people dousing themselves in kerosene and lighting themselves on fire. You know, morally committed people in South Vietnam knew how to stage a god-d***** demonstration, didn’t they? They knew how to put on a f***** protest. Light yourself on fire! Come on, you moral crusaders, let’s see a little smoke to match that fire in your belly.
And for good measure, let’s hear from Rep. Moore!
…aaaand of course I should have considered that we can’t embed video in the comments!
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5GOCfpE4RQ&feature=player_embedded
I hope this is just a quick flash of the Republicans playing to their base (which is odd, because they campaigned on jobs, jobs, jobs). If not, I hope that the President (who did not replace abstinence-only education with comprehensive sex ed) will finally stand up to them.
I fully support comprehensive sexual education, as it gives people the information to make an informed choice. I’m also pro-choice (which is NOT “pro-abortion,” as opponents like to say), which gives women the ability and control over what happens to them and their bodies, as opposed to a church or the government. Hey, don’t conservatives support individual rights over government interference in people’s private lives?
And the “conservative conundrum” remains: If you don’t teach people about contraception (or worse, claim using any is a sin) and also try to eliminate abortion, you’ll just have a whole lot more unwanted children in the world. And I think overpopulation is bad enough already.
“Overpopulation” is a bunch of bûllšhìŧ. We are able to feed more people than ever in the history of mankind and there is plenty of space left. Really.
Jerome, “really,” no we don’t. Oh sure. If you’re including all the land that has no human population currently living there, yeah, we’ve got “plenty of space left.” The only problem is that trying to get people to live there requires a whole lot of resources (of which we don’t have “plenty”) to make habitable. You’re just rehashing conservative bûllšhìŧ (largely perpetuated by conservatives who live in big cities and are paid well enough to spout their bûllšhìŧ so they can get what they want when they want it).
Room on the Earth isn’t the problem. Resources are. Infrastructure is. Think about it small scale instead of large scale. How about jobs? We obviously have too many people for the available jobs right now. I’m certainly not advocating killing people off as a fix for unemployment rates, but it’s a sign of the limitation of resources.
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And it’s funny that the same people not concerned about overpopulation are the same ones that are looking to cut any and all help to the unemployed, or for those extra babies that could have been prevented with a little education. Not in any hurry to get that “extra” food to those extra people.
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Wait, that’s not funny at all.
“Overpopulation” isn’t just about having enough land to live on. It’s about the resources that a person will require and/or use through their life. It’s about putting a greater strain on the government to protect/care for the people. And, as technology makes it possible for fewer workers to do more/different jobs, it’s about a massively increasing number of people vying for a shrinking number of positions. Or, as one stand-up comic (whose name sadly eludes me) put it, “If there were a thousand people on Earth, we could all be living like millionaires!”
I’m not suggesting that abortion is the solution to overpopulation. But knowledge about contraception, along with the idea that women are more than just walking incubators who should breed as much as possible, would be a very good start.
Not really.
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Not even nearly.
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And we’re running out of water for the people we already have.
as it gives people the information to make an informed choice.
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Well, *there’s* your problem right there.
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Information, informed, and choice. All antitheses of the right-wing agenda.
Short response: Yes, you have got this straight.
Short response: No. It is the same b.s. that has been spouted for 38 years now. Planned parenthood is not about “birth control”. If we were talking about outlawing condoms or The Pill that would be one thing. we are not. We are talking about an organization that time after time has demonstrated one of the things they live for is to advocate destroying a child in it’s mother’s womb. That is an entirely different thing and it is delusional to pretend otherwise.
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As for ObamaCare. You would swear what the GOPers were attempting to defund was going to provide universal coverage,. Seeing as how the Adminsistration is providing waivers left and right to it’s own law – including to 4 entire STATES – it is clear hat many will still be without insurance. So to claim it is solely the GOP saying “You’re on your own” is also a lie. They merely have different ideas, which have been debated for at least two years now.
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Happy to clarify.
Planned parenthood is not about “birth control”.
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That would come as a big, big shock to my wife, Jerome. She’s walked through the doors of PP many a time (mostly when we were younger), and it was never about abortion in any way.
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You want to claim it’s not *solely* about birth control, that’s legitimate — but spinning it the way you currently are is not merely dishonest, it’s rather blitheringly incorrect.
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Not that this would be a particularly new state for you, mind … but it’s certainly worth a reminder.
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Happy to clarify.
Jerome wrote: Happy to clarify.
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“You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
–Inigo Montoya
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PAD
Jerome Maida said:
Planned parenthood is not about “birth control”.
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We are talking about an organization that time after time has demonstrated one of the things they live for is to advocate destroying a child in it’s mother’s womb. That is an entirely different thing and it is delusional to pretend otherwise.
Not even close to true.
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But, then, given the stiupid BS you spouted about overpopulation a few posts up the column, why am i surprised you buy into the Republican/anti-choice propaganda.
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You would swear what the GOPers were attempting to defund was going to provide universal coverage
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Considering that the reason it isn’t universal coverage is because it’s merely the best that Obama could get through Congress against Republican obstructionism, and that the GOP now wants to defund even that band-aid solution, tends to support the “you’re on your own” view.
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First you try to stop it, then you try to undercut what you couldn’t stop.
Tim Lynch,
Yes. You are correct. Planned Parenthood is not solely about birth control. Much the same way McDonald’s is not solely about salads. They also have some burgers, too.
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Yes, I am sure there are some people to go to McDonald’s specifically for their salads and find them delightful. But they are hardly what drives the business, hardly the “meat” of the business. Hardly the reason rainforests were being destroyed at an alarming pace years ago (I was actually a rabid environmentalist many moons ago).
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So, yes, Planned parenthood offers birth control. But since you are once again using the term dishonest in relation to me and my words, answer these questions honestly:
Would the GOP be getting anywhere near as much flak for this if abortion was not at least a big part of Planned Parenthood’s listed ‘services”?
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Would Planned parenthood’s defenders be defending them as vehemently – generally speaking – if abortion were not one of their major ‘services”? If they provided everything but?
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As for facts, it took persistent, investigative work of young pro-life journalists to put Planned Parenthood’s true, ruthless, money-grubbing colors on full, fresh display.
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Have you seen the should-be-shocking-but-by-now-I’m jaded new videos from Live Action Films? They are on YouTube, and demonstrate once again the routine, parental authority-sabotaging advice the taxpayer-funded abortion racket gives teens every day and which if it were any other issue would be making more front-pages and headline news shows, too.
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Live Action is a California-based “new media, investigative and educational organization committed to the protection and respect of all human life” led by Internet undercover pioneer Lila Rose. The group’s latest video footage at abortion clinics in Perth Amboy, N.J., the Bronx and four cities in Virginia shows Planned Parenthood officials aiding and abetting individuals posing as criminal sex traffickers seeking abortions for underage girls.
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Abortion activists first attacked the videos as “doctored,” then claimed they had already taken steps to rectify problems at the targeted clinics, then fired a worker after the tapes had been released and finally denied any systemic failures while patting Planned Parenthood on the back for ordering new re-training measures for their employees this week.
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Those who dismiss the scandal as an anomaly are in denial or abjectly ignorant.
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In 2007, while an undergrad at UCLA, Rose visited a local campus Planned Parenthood clinic posing as a 14-year-old minor seeking an abortion after being impregnated by a 23-year-old man. California’s mandatory reporting laws require abortion providers to report statutory rape involving girls under the age of 16. Rose secretly captured video of her visit in which the staff advised her to “figure out a birth-date that works,” to obtain the abortion and avoid getting the man in trouble with the law. Instead of vowing to do more to protect girls from predators, Planned Parenthood threatened to sue Rose to shut her up.
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That same year, a teenager came forward in Ohio to blow the whistle on how a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Cincinnati had ignored her cries for help after her father — who had been molesting her for three years from the age of 13 — forced her to have an abortion. She told an abortion staffer, who was required by state law to report suspected abuse to police. But the women’s health provider so beloved by liberals on Capitol Hill did nothing.
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Another Ohio teenage victim of sexual abuse filed suit against Planned Parenthood after the soccer coach who abused her at age 14 forced her to undergo an abortion. “Although she used a junior-high school I.D. and the coach, 21, paid with a credit card and driver’s license,” the Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune reported, “Planned Parenthood failed to report the abuse.”
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And have you heard about the scandalous butcher, Kermit Gosnell who set up shop and truly victimized young, poor, minority women? In some cases, the women were drugged and operated on even when they had expressed misgivings or at least indecision. Gosnell was allowed to operate freely thanks to ‘pro-choice” PA Governor Tom Ridge basically telling officials not to enforceany abortion restrictions, to make it as available as possible. And this is a wonderful result of that wonderful decision.
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Does your heart not go out to his victims, Tim? Especially since abortion being “safe and legal” seems to make people forget that even in the best of circumstances we are talking about an operation with at least some element of risk?
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“Pro-choice” radicals assert that butchers like Gosnell — charged along with his baby-killing death squad last month with multiple counts of murder, infanticide, conspiracy, abuse of corpse, theft and other offenses — are an exception and that young girls and women who choose Planned Parenthood are “safe.”
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Tell that to the Washington, D.C., family of 13-year-old Shantese Butler, who was left permanently injured and infertile after a botched Planned Parenthood abortion. Students for Life of America reported that Shantese was left with “severe abdominal bleeding, severe vaginal injury, severe injury to the cervix, significant uterine perforation and a small bowel tear.” In addition, parts of the unborn child were found inside Shantese’s abdomen.
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And don’t forget the Nebraska Planned Parenthood clinic that refused to disclose the terms of a settlement with another victim whose botched abortion resulted in a perforated uterus, massive blood loss, an emergency hysterectomy, permanent infertility, seizures and lifelong pain and suffering. According to the suit obtained by Life News, the woman told the abortionist and his assistants to stop, but was told: “We can’t stop.” The Planned Parenthood employees held her down to complete the procedure.
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None of this is disclosed on Planned Parenthood’s informational website aimed at teenage girls, of course. Instead, the group aggressively advises pregnant girls under 18 on how to avoid telling their parents about visiting their abortion clinics through a process known as “judicial bypass.”
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Through its “award-winning” website Teenwire, Planned Parenthood ideologues normalize teen sexual activity, peddle their “family planning” services, whitewash the physical and moral consequences of abortion, downplay the long-term psychological consequences and circumvent parental authority at every opportunity. What other enterprise receives taxpayer support to entice children to hide their health decisions from their own mothers and fathers?
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Planned Parenthood is a $1-plus billion business that rakes in one-third of its budget from government grants and contracts at both the state and federal levels. Congress has interrogated banking, energy, health insurance, tobacco and oil execs — treating them like serial killers before the cameras. When will they finally de-fund a corrupt industry that has real blood on its hands?
Jerome,
Yes. You are correct. Planned Parenthood is not solely about birth control. Much the same way McDonald’s is not solely about salads. They also have some burgers, too.
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Malcolm told me one of my analogies was ridiculous. I’d love to see him weigh in on this one.
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Jerome, I have told you flat out that while my wife and I have been in PP many times, it has never been for abortion-related activities. I will add to that — many of my friends from college and grad school could say precisely the same thing. It’s anecdotal evidence, certainly, but at the moment that’s at least as good as whatever you’re offering.
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To equate what PP does — both on the birth control front *AND* the abortion front — as akin to different offerings at McDonalds is highly insulting to the women making use of such services. Do you really think people who go into Planned Parenthood, whether for abortion or not, are treating the decision with as little weight as their fast-food order?
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Would the GOP be getting anywhere near as much flak for this if abortion was not at least a big part of Planned Parenthood’s listed ‘services”?
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The honest answer to this and the other hypothetical questions: I do not know, not being able to glimpse into the alternate future where that event has occurred.
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Have you seen the should-be-shocking-but-by-now-I’m jaded new videos from Live Action Films?
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(remainder of this seven-paragraph “question” deleted)
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No, I have not. However, let me ask you a question in turn: since you refer to PP as the “taxpayer-funded abortion racket,” what’s your real issue here? Is it that abortions exist, or is it the taxpayer funding?
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Assuming that the events you recount are true, I 100% share your outrage with them and think the people responsible should be prosecuted.
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Is it fair to blame an entire nationwide organization for the actions of a few, barring evidence that those few were following policy or the general ethos of the institution?
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And have you heard about the scandalous butcher, Kermit Gosnell who set up shop and truly victimized young, poor, minority women? In some cases, the women were drugged and operated on even when they had expressed misgivings or at least indecision. Gosnell was allowed to operate freely thanks to ‘pro-choice” PA Governor Tom Ridge basically telling officials not to enforceany abortion restrictions, to make it as available as possible. And this is a wonderful result of that wonderful decision.
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I have not heard about that case. I intend to read more about it now, since I suspect that the reality is just a smidge different from the one-sided broadside I just quoted.
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baby-killing death squad
butchers
a corrupt industry that has real blood on its hands?
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And this is why I feel it’s difficult if not impossible to have rational conversations with you. I’m frankly not going to respond to the rest of it, because I’m not seeing a point to it. I posted to George a day or two that I would be happy to have a rational discussion trying to find middle ground in the abortion debate. Your screed rather strongly suggests that you feel no middle ground exists.
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Good day, sir. I’d love to say it’s been pleasant.
Is it fair to blame an entire nationwide organization for the actions of a few, barring evidence that those few were following policy or the general ethos of the institution?
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Only if it’s the likes of Planned Parenthood or ACORN, apparently.
Tim,
“To equate what PP does — both on the birth control front *AND* the abortion front — as akin to different offerings at McDonalds is highly insulting to the women making use of such services. Do you really think people who go into Planned Parenthood, whether for abortion or not, are treating the decision with as little weight as their fast-food order?”
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Um, when I know women personally who nonchalantly tell me they have had two abortions in the same calendar year that they’ve given birth or have had five abortions and five children because, they laugh, they’ll be dámņëd if they let their man at the time use condoms, then yes, I do believe more women than we care to admit are desensitized to the point of being blase about it.
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And, conversely, I feel the large number of women for whom “safe, legal and rare” abortion has been truly traumatic never gets reported, because that would harm the narrative.
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And you take offense to my using terms like “butcher”? Google the story in the Philadelphia Daily News and then tell me if I’m not in fact being kind to this monster.
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And the term “blood on their hands” has you upset? Really? It’s a term used constantly against corporations, gun makers, etc. Yet, even if you want to claim the “fetus” has no rights and is not viable, it is clear there is much blood spilled performing legal abortions all over America. It is not just a cluster of cells. there is real blood.
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If that sounds harsh to point that out to you, well so is the procedure itself and, usually, it’s consequences.
I don’t doubt for a second that there are teenage girls that have been coerced by the males that have impregnated them, or even by her parents. When you think about it, many parents would prefer their unwed teen daughter to have an abortion, than to face the social, psychological, and finantial consequences of raising the kid.
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My therapist, who is a very, very liberal person, adopts a mostly Pro-Life stance, because she’s worked in the Brazilian health industry and saw that in many poor families, the parents will coerce their unwed daughter into having an abortion. But in Brazil the Fundamentalist Christian movement is only beginning.
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In the US, the problem is that Jerome and conservative Christians in general have so tainted the debate, that people won’t take seriously something that should have been looked at with concern. Christians obviously aren’t interested in the betterment of the institutions so that no one is coerced into having an abortion. They want to shut down all abortions, period.
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And THAT polarizes people. Anyone who is against Christian theocratic ambitions rightfully will adopt a rigid pro-Choice stance, when the alternative is a bunch of religious fanatics telling you what to do with your own body.
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That’s the real sad part of introducing religion into such discussions. It stops the question from being examined in all its complexity when one side is screaming SHUT IT DOWN, IT’S AGAINST THE WILL OF THE LORD.
Jerome:
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Live Action is a propaganda operation that uses deceptively-edited video to appear to support its issues.
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If you were to, sort of accidentally, follow up on their latest little foray into deception, you would find that (A) most of the Planned Parenthood clinics they tried their stunt at refused to go along, and that (B) even at the ones where someone played along, it was clearly a violation of PP policy.
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This is like the video purporting to “prove” similar charges against ACORN, which was similarly produced and edited (including inserting footage staged and shot in other places to add to the deceptive effect.
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However, i’m sure this is very difficult for you to comprehend, since it clashes with your paisley-sun view of the world.
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“Have you seen the should-be-shocking-but-by-now-I’m jaded new videos from Live Action Films?”
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Tim says he hasn’t. I have.
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I’ve also seen the raw footage (now out there and available) that was obtained once their films got the interest of the authorities (as it did here in Virginia.) The proper question now should be whether or not you have seen those.
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Have you seen the raw footage of the same scenes they released where the audio doesn’t match the footage they released and the people aren’t talking about the things the Live Action released footage had them saying? Have you seen the raw footage that shows the questioners asking questions that don’t match the ones in the same LA released scenes?
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Were you aware of the fact that Lila Rose worked with and apparently shares the same ends-justify-the means of “documentary” making of exposed fraud and liar James O’Keefe (shared as well by supporter, multi-time proven fraud and liar Andrew Breitbart?) Were you aware of the fact that, despite the early claims of Rose, Planned Parenthood reported the visits to the authorities when the visits did involve questions about illegal activities? Did you see the side splitting performance by Rose when Lee Stranahan asked her about the fact that Planned Parenthood did report the visits (and others in the past that weren’t her bad actors) and she then spent about 500 words explaining why Planned Parenthood actually doing what she claimed they didn’t and never do was in fact the proof that they did indeed do things exactly as she claims they do?
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Sheesh… I’m surprised she didn’t borrow that liar O’Keefe’s pimp suit and fraudulently claim that her actors were wearing them the entire time just like he did in his debunked stories of how his fake films went down.
Jerome,
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To equate what PP does — both on the birth control front *AND* the abortion front — as akin to different offerings at McDonalds is highly insulting to the women making use of such services. Do you really think people who go into Planned Parenthood, whether for abortion or not, are treating the decision with as little weight as their fast-food order?
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Um, when I know women personally who nonchalantly tell me they have had two abortions in the same calendar year that they’ve given birth or have had five abortions and five children because, they laugh, they’ll be dámņëd if they let their man at the time use condoms, then yes, I do believe more women than we care to admit are desensitized to the point of being blase about it.
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I have no doubt that some women feel that way.
I have a great deal of doubt that MOST women do — and as I noted when I posted my own anecdotal evidence, anecdotal evidence is hardly convincing to either side. (Nor should it be.)
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If you really feel that a significant majority of abortions are done for those reasons, then I understand your concern — but I also, frankly, really really question your overall opinion of women.
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To take it out a step to the side, however … this is actually an example of why I’m pro-choice. To say “an abortion for reason X is okay, but an abortion for reason Y is not” is to open the door to an incredible abuse of power — one essentially invites thought police at that juncture.
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That, in turn, implies that the two main choices which avoid the “thought police” question are to keep abortion legal and recognize that some fraction of them (hopefully low) will be for the “wrong” reasons, or to ban it entirely — and if you choose the latter option, when whether women are doing it for the “right” reason or not is irrelevant to you.
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Have I missed some particular point of logic in the above? I’m frankly not seeing it.
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And you take offense to my using terms like “butcher”?
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No. Offense had nothing to do with it; it was simply evidence to me that you’re not likely to craft rational responses, which makes the conversation pointless. I have posted the above reply in the hope that I’m wrong.
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See, Jerome — it’s not usually about offense. It’s about your appeals to emotion over rational thought — something which, as a teacher, I try to fight in my students most days. The fact that you’re closer to my age than my students’ age is irrelevant.
I can corroborate what Tim is saying. I have never met women who cheerfully bragged about how many abortions they had.
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One of my best female friends had one when she was 18. It’s clear to anyone hearing her speak that it was a rough decision that she feels conflicted about to this day, more than two decades later.
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It seems like an attempt to demonize women who’ve had abortions.
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“I can corroborate what Tim is saying. I have never met women who cheerfully bragged about how many abortions they had.”
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Nor have I and I have in my time lived around and worked around some of the worst areas you can imagine for poverty and things like this.
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“One of my best female friends had one when she was 18. It’s clear to anyone hearing her speak that it was a rough decision that she feels conflicted about to this day, more than two decades later.”
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Likewise I know several woman who had abortions; one from a rape. The times range from about five years ago to about twenty-five years ago and none of them speak of them (when they do speak of them) as easy decisions or brag/boast cheerily about them.
With this idiocy and that emanating from Wisconsin, it’s like the GOP read the Communist Manifesto and are using it as a how-to book for waging class warfare on America’s working class.
During the Bush 43 years I swore they used “1984” as a primer.
Whereas a number of people have watched Babylon 5 and asked about the Bush administration, “they do realize that Pres. Clark was the bad guy, right?”
Bush II in the States, Harper and the (New) Conservative Party in Canada…
That’s a funny line there about WI. If you want to teach in WI, you are FORCED to join the union even if you don’t want to. Oh, but “it’s for the children.” Yah, right.
The only people waging class warfare in WI are the public unions vs. the rest of the taxpayers. Federal employees have little collective bargaining, but suddenly everyone is so concerned about it in WI despite Democrat-hero FDR saying it’s a very bad thing.
I have found that thinking about the anti-choice movement (I refuse to honor their claim to “pro-life”) hurts my brain a lot less since I realized that they genuinely do not care about already-born children and the people who raise them. There’s no inconsistency. The fact that their policies will lead to a lot more unwanted children growing up without healthcare (and adequate food, and safe shelter, and decent education, but that’s a rant for another time!) is not a problem. Their policies make perfect sense once you take love of children and the joy of parenthood out of the equation.
Yup. They’re not pro-life — they’re pro-birth (arguably, pro-forced birth).
That is a lie,Sasha. At best, it is an ill-informed statement. Many pro-life and – believe it or not – truly try to show women there is an alternative to abortion. They give advice on everything from how to give their child up for adoption to how they can get material necessities for raising the child through the government or charities to how to deal with their situation and new responsibility emotionally.
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These organizations have ALWAYS been there. But they are almost never reported or acknowledged. That would get in the way of a multi-million dollar business that has made inconvenience a reason to embrace a culture of death.
That is a lie,Sasha. At best, it is an ill-informed statement. Many pro-life and – believe it or not – truly try to show women there is an alternative to abortion.
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Well, gosh-all-hemlock, Jerome, any informed person would tell you that that is likewise the intent and mission of Planned Parenthood, which you turned around and characterized as being all about abortion. So when people who share your side of the ideological scale do it, it’s okay; and when an organization on the other side does it, they’re abortion mongers.
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How have you not wound up in Congress?
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PAD
<So when people who share your side of the ideological scale do it, it’s okay; and when an organization on the other side does it, they’re abortion mongers.
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Welcome to Jerome World.
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Where if you say something about Palin and he doesn’t like you, it’s sexist. But if somebody else says it, it’s perfectly fine.
Many pro-life and – believe it or not – truly try to show women there is an alternative to abortion. They give advice on everything from how to give their child up for adoption to how they can get material necessities for raising the child through the government or charities to how to deal with their situation and new responsibility emotionally.
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How ’bout they put their money where their mouths are, Jerome?
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Every “pro-life” (see: anti-choice) advocate steps up and personally provides the health care for a woman considering an abortion. Then, once the child is born, they adopt him/her.
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–Daryl
I remember an editorial cartoon a few years back:
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Congresscritter with banner/sign/whatever “Support our troops in Iraq!”
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Guy in wheelchair with both legs gone at the knee and one hand missing asks, “But what about me, Congressman?”
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“You’re not in Iraq anymore…”
Planned Parenthood is not under fire for merely advocating “birth control”. It is their loud advocacy of abortion that has earned them the defunding attempt by the House.
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All these claims that conservatives don’t care about the child after it’s born are complete and utter šhìŧ. Only those who take the idolatrous view of the government as messiah can make that claim. How many private charities deal with adoption? Many, if not most, crisis pregnancy centers are run by the very same Christians many of you call hypocrites for holding the views of personal responsibility.
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So we don’t approve of the murder of the Unborn, and believe it’s our personal responsibility to care for and love “unwanted” children. That’s a much more courageous stance than the moral cowardice it takes to pawn the unwanted off on the government. To you progressives, an unwanted child is nothing more than an unseemly pothole in need smoothing over, preferably by tearing its limbs off and burning it to death with saline solution before it it has the chance to become unseemly.
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That is the history of the “birth control” movement in America. Margaret Sanger, the patron saint of birth control, advocated it precisely because she saw it as a way to keep the unseemly population down, she meant blacks specifically, and now the definition has expanded to mean those unseemly poor people in general.
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Is it more loving to kill an unborn child than to take the chance it might have a rough life? Proverbs tells us that the righteous cares for even the well-being of his animals, but “the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” I’ll let you decide where the snuffing of a baby’s life fits into that equation.
Well, *that’s* not a hysterical view of things, up to and including capitalizing “unborn”…
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More realistically … an awful lot of progressives don’t especially like the idea of abortion, but do not feel that the option should be denied. As I and others have pointed out here many times, if you give the government the power to outlaw abortion you are simultaneously giving it the right to mandate it at some future time.
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I am eternally intrigued by the fact that many of the same people who profess to want government to have less control are simultaneously wanting to more or less literally give it the power of life and death in some cases.
It’s merely the next step towards total control and totalitarianism…
That sounds like you’re talking about ‘death panels’, Tim.
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But to address Malcolm:
It is their loud advocacy of abortion that has earned them the defunding attempt by the House.
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It wouldn’t matter if they were loud or not (and they’re not). That they do abortions at all makes them a target.
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NPR and PBS are by no means loud, and yet they too are the constant target of the Right because they don’t spout the bûllšhìŧ that the Right wants.
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All these claims that conservatives don’t care about the child after it’s born are complete and utter šhìŧ.
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The current GOP tactics prove otherwise. Why are they so hard up to punish the children of these situations? What has the child done that it so deserves to be born and then kicked to the curb?
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That is the history of the “birth control” movement in America.
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You obviously don’t have the first clue as to what the words “birth control” actually mean then.
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But hey, I’m obviously doing something wrong: been married 9 years, no children, no abortions.
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Apparently, under right-wing creed, I’m supposed to just knock my wife up as often as I can and then give those unwanted children away to Christian organizations who will then indoctrinate them in the evils of birth control.
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Is it more loving to kill an unborn child than to take the chance it might have a rough life?
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Is it more loving to kill an unborn child than to force it to have a rough life when nobody loved it in the first place?
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I’m pro-choice, but I full believe in the motto “safe, legal, rare”. If the right-wing had their way, it would be “back alley, illegal, we have no idea how many occur because we want to pretend they aren’t done”.
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I saw in the last week or so that even Focus on the Family had reached out to pro-choice groups, and that they may have finally seen The Light. That to prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions, you have to make birth control available, you have to give people information. You know, the kinds of things that the right-wing has railed again for decades.
“Well, *that’s* not a hysterical view of things, up to and including capitalizing “unborn”…”
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I did that once. It was a typo born it being of 3:43am.
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“As I and others have pointed out here many times, if you give the government the power to outlaw abortion you are simultaneously giving it the right to mandate it at some future time.”
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That very well might be the dumbest argument I’ve ever heard in the abortion debate. “If the government outlaws murder they can mandate it.” I can take any law and say that. “If I give the government the right to outlaw defecation on sidewalks, I give them the power to mandate it.” And you call my response hysterical?
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“I am eternally intrigued by the fact that many of the same people who profess to want government to have less control are simultaneously wanting to more or less literally give it the power of life and death in some cases.”
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I argue for smaller government, not anarchy. There is a difference.
Well, *that’s* not a hysterical view of things, up to and including capitalizing “unborn”…
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I did that once. It was a typo born it being of 3:43am.
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Fair enough. Given that you’d only used the word twice and capitalized it once, the question was basically which one was the oversight. My apologies.
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As I and others have pointed out here many times, if you give the government the power to outlaw abortion you are simultaneously giving it the right to mandate it at some future time.
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That very well might be the dumbest argument I’ve ever heard in the abortion debate. “If the government outlaws murder they can mandate it.” I can take any law and say that. “If I give the government the right to outlaw defecation on sidewalks, I give them the power to mandate it.” And you call my response hysterical?
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Yes, I most certainly do.
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And if you think my argument is dumb, I suggest you not look at China’s one-child policy. For that matter, the US government *has* mandated sterilization for “certain classes of people” earlier in its history.
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So no, I don’t think my argument is particularly hysterical or dumb. If you want to give the government explicit power to determine what a person can do with his or her body (her, in this case), you absolutely need to realize that that power can and likely will be used in ways that you don’t like somewhere down the line.
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How this squares with allegedly giving government less control over people’s daily lives is something I have never understood — and your response did not ease that confusion in the slightest.
“If the government outlaws murder they can mandate it.”
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First of all, “outlaws murder” is redundant since murder is by definition the act of killing someone illegally.
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If a government can prohibit killing, though, it can certainly mandate it as well. For example, there are states in the U.S. that have a death penalty.
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I’m afraid you’re making Tim’s point for him. Not that the usually eloquent Mr. Lynch needed any help.
Malcolm Robertson said:
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Is it more loving to kill an unborn child than to take the chance it might have a rough life?
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It ain’t a “child” until it could live on its own.
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Until then, it’s very similar to a cancerous tumour growing in the woman’s belly.
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A friend once outlined a story plot he’d come up with to me:
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Imagine a real, anti-cancer drug. Prevents and or is 100% effective against all cancers. But 80% of the time, the body of a woman using it treats a fetus as a cancer and destroys it. This is not discovered in testing, because pregnant women (or women likely to become pregnant, are not used in the testing.
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This is not discovered until its use is widespread
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(Think of thalidomide – which, i see, looking at in in Wikipedia, is now apparently used in kinds of cancer treatments…)
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Due to the initial cost of the treatment, its use is preponderately higher among the well-to-do, among whom conservative views, etc., are higher than in the general populace, too.
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So, it’s abortion; your religion/political beliefs forbid abortion … just stop using it.
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Simple.
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Ah – but what if it turns out that, once you’ve been on it for a while, stopping using it results, 80% or so of the time, in immediately developing one of a number of cancers?
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[The case of the nun who was recently excommunicated and the hospital where she worked cut off from Catholic Church funding for authorising (she was the hospital ethicist) and performing an abortion to save the life of the mother (see next post – not sure if this board has a one-URL limit) resonates here.]
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Would rabid anti-abortionists demand that everyone stop using that drug immediately?
URL for the story referenced above about the nun/hospital stuff (which, BTW, is an opinion piece stimulated by this very Congressional action).
Ooops – sorry – i see it’s about the SD bill.
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But equally applicable here.
So we don’t approve of the murder of the Unborn, and believe it’s our personal responsibility to care for and love “unwanted” children. That’s a much more courageous stance than the moral cowardice it takes to pawn the unwanted off on the government. To you progressives, an unwanted child is nothing more than an unseemly pothole in need smoothing over, preferably by tearing its limbs off and burning it to death with saline solution before it it has the chance to become unseemly.
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So, quick question, Malcolm:
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Can I safely assume that you are actively pursuing adoption of an “unwanted” child?
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That’s certainly “more loving,” isn’t it?
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–Daryl
Glad to see the GOP is making jobs and the economy job one.
Glad to see the GOP is making jobs and the economy job one.
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#1: Overturn anything the Democrats have done
#2: Attack the usual targets: NPR, PBS, abortion, gays
#3: Get more Republicans elected
#4: Now what?
#3: Get more Republicans elected
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Hey – they got jobs, didn’t they?
Yeah, whatever happened with that? Since they took power, their emphasis seems to be mainly tossing red meat to their most extreme constituents. Haven’t heard word one about jobs or the economy.
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Let me guess: There’s actually plenty of discussion of jobs and the economy, but the liberal media is stifling it in order to make them look bad.
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PAD
I’m hoping this is a quick, futile nod to their base (no one believed they’d actually overturn Obama’s universal health care, but they had to try to they could say “Look, we said we’d try and repeal it, so we tried”) before getting to the economy.
I’m fearful that this is a sign that, as influenced by the Tea Party, Republicans will adopt the “us vs. them” apporach to politics, where “compromise” is again a dirty word.
We shall see.
“Obama’s universal heath care”?
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You mean “Gingrich’s plan to make everyone buy insurance”, right? (Seriously, and this is like the eleventeenth time I’ve pointed it out, the so-called “Obamacare” plan is almost word-for-word the plan proposed by Republican leadership in 1994, to head off Clinton’s attempts to reform American health care – they feared the single-payer plan that most Americans favor in polls these days.)
Actually, I’d have to say that it’s being discussed by only the liberal media. It seems that jobs and the economy is ruining the GOP’s “Empire Strikes Back” agenda. (and since I’m a Republican who votes his conscience, not the GOP’s propaganda machine, I have the right to make that statement, AND request “The Imperal March” In fact I’m playing it right now on my cell. Take that, “Leadership!”)
Peter David says:
February 20, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Yeah, whatever happened with that? Since they took power, their emphasis seems to be mainly tossing red meat to their most extreme constituents. Haven’t heard word one about jobs or the economy.
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Let me guess: There’s actually plenty of discussion of jobs and the economy, but the liberal media is stifling it in order to make them look bad.
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PAD
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Since they took power. Wow they’ve been in power for what 50 days? Its not like they left town to avoid doing their jobs, oh wait… that was a bunch of Dems. Just imagine if that were a bunch of Repubs that run away like a bunch of little children. This board would be on fire.
I’m not surprised by the GOP’s lack of focus on jobs and the economy. After all, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell not that long ago said the Republicans’ focus should be limiting Mr. Obama to a single term. Not, y’know, putting people back to work or anything crazy like that.
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I think they’re headed in the wrong direction, though, if they continually let the Tea Party extremists be the tail that wags the Republican dog. Most people in this country are concerned about jobs, not ideological bûllšhìŧ.
They are focused on jobs! The focus is busting unions and depriving people of the ability to make middle class wages in states like WI, IN, OH!
test
Strange two attempts to post failed.
Republicans are interested in focusing on jobs, just not the way the public wants. Their focusing on busting unions and putting the middle class in the poor house!
Brian says:
February 20, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Republicans are interested in focusing on jobs, just not the way the public wants. Their focusing on busting unions and putting the middle class in the poor house!
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Hey Brian you forgot making grandma eat cat food. Please Brian. Putting those $90,000 a year folks in the poor house. When can I move-in.
Conservatives love life and cutting costs so much that when a Minnesota congresswoman proposes that $7 million dollars earmarked for the Pentagon to spend on advertising on a NASCAR vehicle be trimmed, she gets death threats.
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Oh yeah. That’s having your priorities in order.
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PAD
Ancient Rome used the gladiatorial games to keep the peasant class appeased, distracted and from raising up… NASCAR is the modern equivalent. And think, it’s the perfect analogy, going around in circles and getting nowhere fast, just like congress is today with the House in the hands of the Republicans.
That one’s new to me. Which Minnesota rep? (Not the ever-surprising Ms. Bachmann, I assume.)
Peter David says:
February 20, 2011 at 6:21 pm
Conservatives love life and cutting costs so much that when a Minnesota congresswoman proposes that $7 million dollars earmarked for the Pentagon to spend on advertising on a NASCAR vehicle be trimmed, she gets death threats.
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Oh yeah. That’s having your priorities in order.
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PAD
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Yes PAD because you have it on high authority that it was conservatives that made those death threats.
Well, let’s see, Pat. Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota gets a fax that reads, “Death to all Marxists Foreign and Domestic.” Ask any ultra conservative and they’ll tell you that Democrats are all Marxists and socialists. So yeah, I think it’s a reasonable assumption.
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But hey, don’t worry. Her amendment wound up being voted down by those cost-cutting Republicans. Dodged a bullet there. Why fund the arts when you can have the Pentagon funding NASCAR?
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PAD
Kathleen David says:
February 22, 2011 at 12:37 pm
But hey, don’t worry. Her amendment wound up being voted down by those cost-cutting Republicans. Dodged a bullet there. Why fund the arts when you can have the Pentagon funding NASCAR?
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PAD
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I actually agree with you. Being from MN. there is not much of anything I agree with when it comes to Betty McCollum, but she hit this one on the head. I’m sure she hasn’t given up. It will show up again.
Yeah, the economy was awesome for the past 2 years under Obama and the democrat controlled congress. They really turned things around. Just like Obama promised unemployment never went below 8%, oh wait….Regarding some of the abortion comments above, there is not one argument that is used to justify abortion that cannot also be used to justify infanticide.
An infant can survive outside a woman’s body.
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Happy to help.
An infant can survive outside a woman’s body.
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For a few days maybe. After it will die of lack of nutrition. Time and nutrition are the differences between a fetus of any age and a baby.
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Really George? It might die of lack of nutrition after a few days? Well, yeah, if it’s not fed. However, the fact that you’re shutting your eyes, covering your ears and making loud noises to ignore is that an infant can survive outside of the womb. Barring unusual or extreme circumstances, a baby is born and the parents can take it home and start rising it. A fetus has to spend weeks (if not months) hooked to machines to be kept alive outside of the womb long enough to develop to the point that it can survive.
Really George? It might die of lack of nutrition after a few days? Well, yeah, if it’s not fed.
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Yes, and that would be infanticide. Rudy said there is not one argument that is used to justify abortion that cannot also be used to justify infanticide. Tim responded that an infant can survive outside a woman’s body. My point is that it cannot survive without proper care and nutrition. Without those things the baby dies and that is infanticide.
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I’ve been involved in abortion discussions on this board and others before. It never leads to anything resembling intelligent debate. It becomes more of a one-upmanship game. Maybe that is the nature of those who participate on comics-themed boards. Making sarcastic comments: “Happy to help.” Describing the opposing side as “Anti-Choice” or “Pro-Abortion”, (something I always strive to avoid). It’s Pro-Choice and Pro-Life. Calling them something different doesn’t mean anything.
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For largely personal reasons, I consider the abortion debate to be more important than any other political issue, jobs, war, the economy.
This is letter I wrote to my local paper a couple of years ago. It comments on two stories that were printed on the same day.
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The juxtaposition of two separate, yet linked, stories in Sunday’s Post-Dispatch produced a special kind of irony that should not be lost on anyone who paid even the smallest amount of attention. The front-page feature, “Struggling From the Start” detailed the miraculous efforts of medical personnel in the newborn intensive care unit at St. Louis Children’s Hospital as they work to help premature babies survive. On the first page of the NewsWatch section, a story titled, “Both sides believe they’re saving lives,” profiles the Hope Clinic in Granite City as well as Angela and Daniel Michael, who maintain a presence outside the clinic in an effort to influence those who seek the clinic’s services.
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On page A11 there is a picture of a 24-week “micro-premie” who has a name. She is Norah Ann Werner. On page B4, it is reported that $2000 was the price for an abortion performed at 24 weeks of pregnancy. Obviously, no name given. The presence of these two accounts illustrates the schizophrenic complexion of our society. How can both of these circumstances persevere? In one case, a baby is the focus life-saving efforts and in another, a fetus is disposed of. They are the same age.
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The reason Norah Ann Werner has a name is that someone wanted her. That made her a person. The aborted fetus, developmentally identical. is not a person. Can that really be justified?
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Call me naive and stupid. Pick apart my post for some typo or errant capitalization. Cut me down with a withering comment that displays how clever you are. None of that changes my opinion. None of that changes the facts. I won’t engage in petty bickering about something as critical to society as the value of a human life,
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“Yes, and that would be infanticide. Rudy said there is not one argument that is used to justify abortion that cannot also be used to justify infanticide. Tim responded that an infant can survive outside a woman’s body. My point is that it cannot survive without proper care and nutrition. Without those things the baby dies and that is infanticide.”
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Uh… No.
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Jeez… George, you’re now trying to equate two different things and stretch a point to ridiculous degrees. Take the average infant home and you can feed it easily. Take the average fetus home and without hooking it into machines to keep it alive and that handle things beyond simple feeding and care and it still dies.
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Seriously, your argument here is about as retarded as claiming that your unfinished car with no wheels, no gas tank and no engine yet installed is just like my finished car because neither will run without gas. True, but so long as I put gas in my tank every few days, my car will run just fine. Put all the gas you want in yours and you still just have a 2000 lb. paperweight.
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Take an infant home, give it a breast or a bottle, give it a safe place to sleep and keep it clean and it will live and grow. Take the fetus home and do the same and it’s still dead without the extreme measures used in a hospital to keep them alive. No matter how much stupidity you invest in the concept and the argument, it changes not one bit the fact that Tim’s basic point is correct and Rudy’s is a steaming pile of cow dung.
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“Pick apart my post for some typo or errant capitalization.”
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No need to stoop so low when we can simply pick apart the faulty logic displayed in your arguments.
The obvious, huge difference between a fetus and a baby is that the baby does not depend on a SPECIFIC person to survive. The baby is an individual, while the fetus is not.
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In other words, the mother of the unwanted baby can give it to adoption with little trouble, since the baby is a separate physical entity. The same thing can be said of the elderly, the sick, the mentally disabled. They depend on other people, but not on specific other people.
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The fetus is different. There is only one person that can guarantee its survival. It makes sense that this one person should be the arbiter of the fetus’s destiny. It’s her dámņ body.
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The day they invent the fetus transplant, will be a day to be rejoiced. Millions of pro-life women will be able to show their dedication to their cause, put their money were their mouth is, and accept in their bodies the fetuses that would otherwise have been aborted.
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It would be even better if they develop a way to transplant the fetuses even to a man’s body. I’d love to see Rudy and George donating their time and bodies to make sure no unborn babies are ever killed again.
I won’t engage in petty bickering about something as critical to society as the value of a human life,
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Except, as several of us have pointed out, the value of a human life is worth far less to many than a fetus is. And you really have to wonder why that is.
George,
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While you’re right that a newborn cannot survive outside the mother’s body for more than a few days, the broader point is that once a baby is born, ANYONE can offer to care for it and in general successfully do so. Unless you want to claim some vague “drag on society,” at that point a baby (generally speaking) can be assured of a reasonably safe time of things given proper care.
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A fetus, on the other hand, is locked very specifically to one person, namely the one gestating it. That is a qualitatively different situation than a newborn theoretically going days without care, and as such I don’t feel the arguments are remotely parallel.
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As for your observation that snide comments are the norm … guilty as charged in this case, but I will note only that it was posted in response to a very broadly phrased and rather over-the-top assertion. When the “challenge” is put forth as IMO snidely as this was, I tend to be a bit more snide in my response. My apologies for causing offense, however.
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I don’t take the abortion issue lightly at all, George — while I have no personal connection to it (fortunately), I consider my pro-choice attitudes a rather integral part of myself. I agree with you that it’s an issue that too often leads to stupid posturing (on either side) and not nearly often enough to thoughtful conversation. I’m not clear on what can be done to change that, but I’m perfectly happy to try.
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(Oh, and as for your point about calling the “other side” names other than what they want to be called, I agree — the only time I ever engage in that is if someone on the pro-life viewpoint throws the first grenade.)
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TWL
Really, Tim? So, it’s all a matter of geography? So, the cold and callous thinking that has a candidate for president of the U.S. – and now current president – saying his daughters shouldn’t be “punished” with a baby, that sees a child or potential child as an obstacle or inconvenience, that mindset is supposed to automatically change when the baby is born?
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Really. I see these stories about women killing their newborns or young children or even tossing them in a dumpster and I’m like, “Why is anyone surprised?” And “Why is this so much worse than a woman aborting the same child at, say, six months and havng him/her tossed in that same dumpster?
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A society that cannot protect the weakest, most vulnerable among us and allows developing human life to be snuffed out as a matter of convenience, is facing a true moral crisis.
Jerome,
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Really, Tim? So, it’s all a matter of geography?
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The answer to Rudy’s idiotic claim? Yes, it is.
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You are speaking to a broader question — which most certainly has merit. (Even broken clocks, and all that.)
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My own view is that if it were not for the massive politicization of the abortion debate, where those women who choose to get abortions are condemned by many as wrong, evil, šlûŧŧÿ, callous, immoral, stupid bìŧçhëš … then there would be less dehumanization on the pro-choice end as well, and there would be far fewer of the “newborns in dumpsters” syndrome you cite with such a tone of triumph.
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The Obama slam is not worth responding to.
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A society that cannot protect the weakest, most vulnerable among us and allows developing human life to be snuffed out as a matter of convenience, is facing a true moral crisis.
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Fine, Jerome. Fine. Take the challenge someone posted earlier in the thread, and put your gøddámņ money where your mouth is. You think every single abortion represents a a moral crisis? Offer to pay for the woman’s health care throughout pregnancy and to adopt the child. THAT would truly help to address the “moral crisis” you claim to be citing.
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If, on the other hand, this is your usual posturing, then I kindly invite you to keep quiet on this issue while the grownups try to have civil conversations.
George:
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Let me, then, rephrase the point you are carefully misunderstanding:
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If it can survive outside the womb, it’s a child – it’s “alive”.
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If it can’t survive, even with the best care (and i mean 100% of cases, not pick and choose), then it ain’t “alive” … it ain’t a “child”.
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And making my below point for me… Rudy!
Really, Tim?
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“Fine, Jerome. Fine. Take the challenge someone posted earlier in the thread, and put your gøddámņ money where your mouth is. You think every single abortion represents a a moral crisis? Offer to pay for the woman’s health care throughout pregnancy and to adopt the child. THAT would truly help to address the “moral crisis” you claim to be citing.”
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Number one, you have no idea what I’ve personally done on my end concerning this, including helping foster children, etc. Number two, an analogy to your statement would be that unless you are willing to take in a homeless person, you have no business asking taxpayers/the government to help them out.
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‘If, on the other hand, this is your usual posturing, then I kindly invite you to keep quiet on this issue while the grownups try to have civil conversations.”
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And I was not being civil how, exactly? I did not attack you personally, use profanity, or do anything to start a flame war. I stated my opinion and backed them up passionately and with some factual events. If that bothers you so much, well, that would be your problem.
Jerome,
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While I suspect this conversation is well past the point of … well, having a point, I’m willing to continue it another iteration in the hopes of something better.
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Fine, Jerome. Fine. Take the challenge someone posted earlier in the thread, and put your gøddámņ money where your mouth is. You think every single abortion represents a a moral crisis? Offer to pay for the woman’s health care throughout pregnancy and to adopt the child. THAT would truly help to address the “moral crisis” you claim to be citing.
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Number one, you have no idea what I’ve personally done on my end concerning this, including helping foster children, etc.
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Fair enough. However … note that you are discussing foster children, and make zero mention of the woman involved. It’s her body, and in general she’s the one who needs massive medical care leading up to the birth. Have you “personally done on [your] end” anything about them, or is it all about the fetus and not the woman?
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Number two, an analogy to your statement would be that unless you are willing to take in a homeless person, you have no business asking taxpayers/the government to help them out.
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That’s true, it’s an analogy. It’s a bad one, though. I am not proposing making an action illegal in your analogy. You are doing very much that in the reality.
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There’s a huge, huge, epically huge difference between *asking* and *legislating*. You want to raise a public campaign trying to get women not to choose abortions? Fantastic, knock yourself out — depending on the approach you took, I might even stand alongside you. However, that’s not the argument you’re making — you are proposing that legislatures — that big, bad, eeeeeeevil government you generally decry — pass a law saying that women cannot have abortions.
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Rather a big difference in my world.
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If, on the other hand, this is your usual posturing, then I kindly invite you to keep quiet on this issue while the grownups try to have civil conversations.
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And I was not being civil how, exactly?
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My apologies. “Civil” was the wrong word.
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“Rational” works better.
“an analogy to your statement would be that unless you are willing to take in a homeless person, you have no business asking taxpayers/the government to help them out.”
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Wouldn’t asking that our tax money go to provide and maintain homeless shelters also suffice?
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The reverse analogy to this would be having the government support child care, aid for single parents, and Head Start programs instead of Planned Parenthood.
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But, aren’t those on the same chopping block? And, if so, doesn’t that reinforce the claim that the GOP is against women and children, not against abortion?
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Theno
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Obama made a huge error in his first two years in office. He had a very real, very large problem in the form of the economy facing him and then he had the healthcare problems in this country that he could choose to make issue #1. He chose to make the biggest fight, biggest issue and biggest signature priority of his first two years the healthcare issue.
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The problem with that was that people were suffering due to the economy. Obama and the Democrats certainly addressed the economy and they did attempt to address it through a series of tax cuts and various items in the stimulus bill, but they didn’t trumpet those things as loudly as they should have and the public saw the biggest fights in Washington being over Obamacare. That cost him.
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And of course, the Republicans road that horse for all it was worth and right into the November elections.
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They pushed the jobs thing hard. They pushed the economy (stupid) hard. They pushed the debt and economic responsibility hard. They also pushed repealing Obamacare hard since it’s “unconstitutional” and because it hurts the economy and increases the debt.
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That last one being the case; I’m somewhat amused when I see people arguing the “jobs and economy” line when discussing the Republicans. According to the Republicans, Obamacare is an issue related to the economy. Supposedly, the people that elected them agree. They claim it to be/see it as a burden on our economic situation. Them going after it rather than making a “jobs bill” doesn’t matter since their narrative is that it’s an economic roadblock to getting the economy and the debt back on the right track.
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Likewise, this situation is “for the economy.” Hey, we’re broke after all. We can’t afford to hand out money for every old thing. And all the better that they can spin the facts about the target so that they can make their most rabid base happy about the idea of the targeting.
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Right now, they’re doing everything that they said they would do because the narrative they created and that their followers swallowed says that these things are hurting the economy and thus preventing job growth. Besides, they are the ones who (while grabbing stimulus funds to create and retain jobs in their home districts and pose for photo ops to take credit for the great job they were doing back home) declared that government cannot create jobs. What made any of you think that they were going to do anything like creating a jobs bill? Their narrative is that government stifles free market job creation/growth and that only the private sector can do anything about job growth/creation. Their narrative was that government is just a stumbling block for that process and that big government programs and debt were contributing to the economic woes of the country.
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That is what got them elected. What on Earth makes you think that they’re going to do anything but play to the base and continue to try to undue/stop anything Obama wants done?
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Yeah, you can say that they’ll risk the same blow-back from voters that Obama and the Dems got, but at this point I don’t think that’s going to happen. The two simple facts of the matter are that we are probably past the worst of the economic decline we were seeing from late 2007 to now and to some degree the Stimulus Bill worked. Even if it didn’t have the restorative abilities that it was sold on, it very likely slowed the economic free fall and, as evidenced by even the Republicans embracing it’s job creating abilities at home while declaring that it created no jobs when on the national stage, it created and helped maintain jobs during the worst of the last two years (even if some of the jobs were temporary jobs.)
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The worst is very likely over. Things are starting to show signs of turning around. At this point, the Republicans will simply do what they started to try and do back in early January when some good news about the economy came out; they’ll claim credit for it. It won’t matter if, as with the news from late December/early January, they stats showing the good news predate anything they did (let alone they’re being elected) as they’ll just claim that the very fact that they were elected/stopped an Obama Bill/woke up that morning created the new mood/allowed the free market to shine and anything that comes out that’s bad news will be blamed on Obama and his policies. Hey, he’s the guy in charge after all.
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It will certainly play for the base. These are mostly the same people who were blaming Clinton’s policies for economic issues halfway through W. Bush but then turned on a dime and declared that Obama was now wholly and solely responsible for the state of the economy two seconds after he was sworn in and that discussing the very real fact that Bush and the Republicans mismanaged the economy and the debt for 8 years (6 under completely Republican rule) was just lame “Blame Bush” games to try and cover Obama’s blundering. These are some of the same people who discussed how bad off we were after three (Three!) Obama budgets as we ran up to the 2010 elections when we had in fact only been under one full budget submitted and signed off on by Obama. (Yes, that number of “one” is correct. The budget submitted and passed to fund government operations from October 2008 to September 2009 was Bush’s. Obama’s first budget did not take effect until October 2009. By November 2010, we had only lived under one full Obama budget and one month of his second. We had not been under almost two full years of Obama budgets or under two (or the idiotically claimed by some, three) full Obama budget proposals.) And these are the same people who declared that Obama increased the Federal Budget to unseen levels three months into his Presidency by simply ending the smoke and mirrors game we had under W. Bush of not counting the war budget as a part of the overall budget when releasing the budget numbers. He didn’t actually add a dollar to the budget, but that didn’t matter since the new number, the honest number, was now larger than it was the day before.
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So, yeah, of course it’ll play for them.
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Will the Republicans pay with the same backlash Obama and the Democrats did with the moderate and independent voters? No, likely, on the whole, they won’t. I honestly believe that the very worst of what we’ve been seeing is over with. We’re going to start see (at worst) stabilization in our economic situation and (at best) moderate improvements. They could do nothing truly job creation related and simply claim that what they have done and what they stopped Obama from doing helped the economy. Most people, many of the moderate and independent voters who couldn’t seem to grasp the concept that an almost decade in the making financial meltdown was not going to be turned around and fixed in 90 days to be sure, are too stupid to see anything beyond simple 1+1 concepts. If things get even a little better in late 2011 and early 2012; they will just add 1 (2010 election results) + 1 (any economic improvement) and decide that it = 11 (Republicans fixed the economy even if they did nothing at all.)
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“Glad to see the GOP is making jobs and the economy job one.”
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“Yeah, whatever happened with that? Since they took power, their emphasis seems to be mainly tossing red meat to their most extreme constituents. Haven’t heard word one about jobs or the economy.”
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Pointless questions. Doesn’t matter. Their narrative was not making jobs bills and having government help to create jobs. Their narrative was getting government out of the job making business and the regulations business. Their narrative was one of getting rid of Obama’s burdensome programs. They’re still operating under that narrative and playbook and they’re supporter’s are quite happy to ignore anything that doesn’t conform to that playbook and that narrative.
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Plus, there is something that was discussed just prior to the 2008 elections that seems to have fallen down the memory hole.
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Back in early 2008 there was talk by some Republican advisers doing the chat shows and some of the conservative pundits out there that maybe running a bad candidate would be a good idea for their side. They flat out stated that the economy was screwed and that it would get worse and that there was a chance that whichever team took the White House in 2008 would take a ad hit for it even if they did everything right. We’re seeing that now (other than the “did everything right” part.) We’re seeing the party that took the White House take a big hit because of the mess that they inherited. That’s already in play out there. They just have to push that narrative even more and they’re somewhat covered against the blow-back that the Democrats caught last year. A lot of people simply see bad times and see the party in charge of the White House and get “11.”
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So, no, the “jobs” questions don’t matter as much and, no, I doubt we’ll see the blow-back against the Republicans that we saw against the Democrats over the issue come 2012. Quite the opposite actually. I doubt we’ll see the White House go Republican simply because most of the projected Republican front runners make Obama seem like a staggeringly impressive world leader, but I can easily see a larger Republican majority in both houses going into 2013.
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Uhm…
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“And of course, the Republicans rode that horse for all it was worth and right into the November elections.”
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I just so love missing stuff like that through two proof readings and then seeing it jump out at me two seconds after hitting “Submit Comment.”
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Or the other typos…
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Jeez… Never blog on medication.
You assume the worst of the economic problems are over and thus the rethugs won’t have a problem in 2012… You might want to check where englNd is headed having invoked austerity lSy year while recovery was kicking in. 3 percent economy shrinkage and growing. Boehner is threatening to kill the jobs of thousands of government employees. Wi, in, oh, are all threatening to kill the spending power of public employees who do keep their jobs.
Health care reform is a big red herring that is in.no way impacting any jobs, the major clauses that might, and that is a big might impact the job markets won’t kick in for a couple years yet.
There is also the early indicators that in late 2011 another avalanche of wall street malfeasance will start to hit…
You are right the idiots who voted the middle class destroyers into office last year weren’t listening to the message very well… However politics has a half life of weeks, not months or even years. As the real intent of the republicans become painfully obvious and begins to affect every day survival for people attitudes can quickly change and today’s heros become tomorrow’s zeros.
Love my iPad but not the best thing to type long messages on…
Above should say “check where England is headed”
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I got what you were saying just fine.
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I know that doing the wrong thing will cause issues. We’ve actually seen economic models like our last few years plus possible outcomes take place in other countries before as well as our own. But the catch is that you have to make certain steps in the wrong direction to restart the crash and, frankly, I don’t see that happening.
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Obama might play the game of giving a few concessions here and there to play the “I’m the moderate here” game, but he is not going to backtrack far enough in the next two years to create the situation needed for that and, even he if might be so inclined, I don’t see the Republicans doing it on their own with only one house of Congress under their control.
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Right now, the results of this match up will likely be seeing very little of significance changing or being done by either side (barring crisis level events like massive and successful terrorist attacks or wars on our borders) and very little changing any time soon.
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“Health care reform is a big red herring that is in no way impacting any jobs, the major clauses that might, and that is a big might impact the job markets won’t kick in for a couple years yet. “
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Yeah, but look how many Americans blamed Obama’s healthcare bill for things happening in the insurance industry that they didn’t like after it was signed into law but before any single part of it took effect. There are a lot of stupid people out there. They’re stupid because they just don’t care to be informed before deciding why something is or isn’t happening or they’re simply “stoopid” with two Os because they choose to believe the “news” they want to believe and refuse to accept even facts that are clearly and readily available if they dispute the dearly held belief. Right now, the Right (mostly the talking heads, but some of the politicians) are playing towards that crowd as heavily as they can.
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“However politics has a half life of weeks, not months or even years. As the real intent of the republicans become painfully obvious and begins to affect every day survival for people attitudes can quickly change and today’s heros become tomorrow’s zeros.”
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Yeah, but they have to realize what is actually hurting them and what is actually helping them. Ant number of recent studies where the entire thing was geared on simply asking people to answer basic questions about what was going on in their country and how and why certain things worked keep showing that huge numbers of people haven’t a clue. Huge chunks of our population think that whatever loudly parroted “facts” from their side are actual facts and a lot of the indifferent believe whatever is propelled by the side with the loudest noise machine and the biggest eco chamber.
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Right now, that would be the Right side of the political spectrum.
The people get the government they deserve. Close planned parenthood, bust the unions, and effectively DESTROY what is left of the once mighty middle class. What I don’t understand is after they get done picking all the meat off the bones of America who will be left to buy their garbage at Wal-Mart?
The people get the government they deserve. You wanted Republicans…. you got them…. now reap the whirlwind… learn NO lesson… and keep electing them you easily lead sheep.
Some of us don’t want republicans… or democrats.
Some of us want part time legislators, NO lobbyists/corporate contributions, and bills written in plain english, with size limits in terms of how many pages a law can be.
And no riders, each law they wanna pass has to pass on it’s own, none of this, “Well, this is a good one to pass, but it also means passing this garbage law too…”
“Some of us don’t want republicans… or democrats.
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Some of us want part time legislators, NO lobbyists/corporate contributions, and bills written in plain english, with size limits in terms of how many pages a law can be.
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And no riders, each law they wanna pass has to pass on it’s own, none of this, “Well, this is a good one to pass, but it also means passing this garbage law too…””
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I agree with everything you say, Bladestar.
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Although, I would like to point out something. You mention size limits on the number of pages in a bill. How many pages would you say that is?
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Because, the Health Care Reform Bill, with its infamous length, was only about 150 pages. Or, rather, it was once you reduced its type setting from 36 to 12, and its margins to 1 inch. You know, reformated it to match pretty much any other written document you may ever read.
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You know those news reports that showed the bill? The page on a desk, clearly legible. Words so huge there were maybe 10 words per line? That? That was actual size.
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Theno
“Although, I would like to point out something. You mention size limits on the number of pages in a bill. How many pages would you say that is?”
Yeah, that can become an issue, but that’s also why the whole “plain english” vs. “dense legalese” argument comes in.
The idea there is to prevent “slipping things in” by hiding them 20+ pages deep in the legalese that no one but a lawyer could understand…
The people get the government they deserve.
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Some people do. What bugs me is that the rest of us get stuck with it, too.
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PAD
Amen, brother …
I can’t wait to see some individuals defend the likes of this:
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Georgia Representative Wants To Investigate All Miscarriages
http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/georgia-rep-investigate-miscarriage/
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This guy just isn’t happy enough trying to denigrate rape victims. At this point, Republicans aren’t even being sly about it. They’re simply outright targeting the poor and middle class, and basically want women to have no say over their bodies. Any notion of their wanting to stay out of people’s lives is a bald-faced lie.
That’s from the same nutbar who feels it necessary to redefine “victims” of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to “accusers”, yet doesn’t see the need to similarly rename victims of other crimes, right?
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Oy …
You know, reading over the whole thread again, and considering the position of so-called Christians violently opposed to abortion, I’m reminded of part of a Dennis Miller rant. (Myself, as an atheist, I appreciate this take from the viewpoint of believers supposedly enforcing the will of an omnipotent being who surely wouldn’t need their help.)
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If abortion is wrong, and I believe in many instances it is, somewhere down the line God’s gonna let you know about it. And believe me, God paybacks are an eternal bìŧçh. Somebody else’s abortion is none of your business. And listen, if you really believe that your God is telling you to kill an abortionist in his name, then you’ve got to crush some tinfoil on your antenna, pal, because you’re gettin’ some heavy interference.
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–Daryl
(It’s a shame this pragmatic, centrist Dennis was swallowed whole by a bitter ultra-Conservative.)
he’s not a bitter ultra-conservative. he simply changed his view on things like national security after 9/11. That’s all.
Some people just know how to step in it, don’t they?
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Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker answers his master’s call
http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=5045
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And yes, the governor’s office confirmed with the local NBC affiliate that this is audio is genuine, and that the governor was indeed ‘pranked’.
Hmm, it looks like that website is now having issues, so here’s another location for the story and audio:
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http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/23/koch_walker_call/index.html
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Yeah, I heard the call a bit ago. There aren’t too many ways that Walker can spin this into any positive light.
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He won’t take calls from the Democrat Minority Leader, but he’ll jump at a call from a “Koch brother” in a heartbeat. He’s also botched any way to salvage this since he admitted that he thought the call, a call where he discussed things like his thinking about using fake protesters to start trouble, was a real call from a Koch brother. The fact that this was a prank call of sorts is likely all that will save his ášš from being removed from office, but the number of ethics violations he broke in that one call alone would have (should have) been enough to throw his butt out of office.
Planned Parenthood. That’s the thing where the founder said, “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population…” right? Yep, I guess it is.
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Obamacare. That’s the thing that has now been ruled unconstitutional in a court of law, right? Yep, I guess it is.
Wow, it only took you several weeks to find this thread! Congrats!
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“Obamacare. That’s the thing that has now been ruled unconstitutional in a court of law, right? Yep, I guess it is.”
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And has not been found unconstitutional by still other courts who have looked at the matter.
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