is there anyone else who is pro-life AND pro-gay rights, or is it just me?

[Rog]

Originally Posted by Deckard

That's where teh gays come in.
Serving the world since 1845. (BC)

LOL!

[bryantm3]

and beyond that, let's say these babies weren't so lucky. they could have easily been born with retinal malformation which can result in blindness. they could have been born with fluid on the brain which eats away at brain tissue, resulting in retardation. they could have been born with necrotizing enterocolitis, which means extended NICU stays and multiple surgeries.

who is adopting these babies?

if the mom is forced to carry her unwanted pregnancy to term and gives up her right of custody at birth, who cares for these babies in NICU? and where are the adoptive parents who want to sweep in and sit for hours on end at their babies' incubator, praying for a miracle to heal them? assuming they survive their health complications, who is waiting to adopt the poor baby with cerebral palsy resulting from birth complications? who's waiting to adopt the baby with down syndrome?

where are these legions of adoptive parents, willing to take on the children of complicated pregnancies and deliveries? have you signed up to be an adoptive parent yet?

you automatically assume that most women who have abortions do so because their pregnancy becomes a danger to their own personal health. as i have stated time and time again, the doctor should be able to perform an abortion if the situation is like the one above. in addition, abortion doesn't magically get rid of birth defects in newborn children, as most children aborted are not aborted because of complications in childbirth:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.pdf

That poll, conducted in 2002 by the Alan Guttmacher Institute among women who had abortions, finds that 93% of women primarily had them because of convenience issues instead of significant health issues or other problems such as rape or incest. these abortions are what should be eliminated by disincentives, ie: making it more inconvenient to have an abortion. not every aborted child has a birth defect.

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by stimpee

Bryantm3: youre saying that travelling out of state should be enough of a deterrent / lesson learned. But what if the whole of the USA bans abortion? Until youre in a relationship where your girlfriend/wife accidentally gets pregnant (believe me it can happen, pills and condoms arent 100%) or the baby has been scanned and is so mentally/physcially deformed, or is likely to cause problems that it will be still born, I dont see how you can judge the situation. Do you want to ban the morning-after pill also? how about contraception? Would you like no-sex-before-marriage to become law? Should people only have sex to pro-create? Where do you draw the line? Just how much freedom and civil liberty do you restrict in order to impose "moral values"? Moral values which usually have been written in religious scripts dating back centuries. Times change but religious beliefs dont, it seems.

stimpee, first of all, not every state is going to ban abortion. california? florida? new york? hell, even virginia and iowa would probably not ban abortion. get real. secondly, you're taking this way too far with your slippery slope argument. i previously stated that sex before marriage happens and it shouldn't be judged. it's not a great idea, but let's be realistic. why would i ban contraception when it prevents pregnancies in the first place?

the reason i want to allow individual states to ban abortion is because the child that has been conceived has the same rights as the mother does to live, and those that are so strongly pro-choice seem to either ignore this part of the argument or don't care. why does an unborn child not hold certain rights if he or she is alive? what is the difference between aborting a child out of convenience and 'aborting' a newborn child that you don't think you have the responsibility to take care of? my point is not to legislate 'morality', my point is to protect the rights of an unborn child to live because he or she cannot stand up for themselves. i would stand up for the rights of the mother and father to make choices if condoms were proposed to be banned, or if some of your other situations became true. i oppose abortion because one conception occurs, there is a third person involved and it seems that no one wants to respect the inalienable rights of that person.

Incidently, which church are you a member of?

I'm Episcopalian.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

the reason i want to allow individual states to ban abortion is because the child that has been conceived has the same rights as the mother does to live, ...

I'm Episcopalian.

And if that child turns out to be gay? What then?

[Sean]

It just seems to me that the issue of abortion is so peppered with legitimate physical health and psychological issues that it's virtually impossible to restrict it legally without causing someone serious injury in one form or another. I think most people would agree with the concern that too many abortions are based on decisions of convenience, so it's probably fair to say that this is largely an issue of educating the public about the potential consequences of irresponsible sex, about what abortion does to a fetus and mother, about what childbirth does to a mother, about contraception, about adoption, etc. No solution I've ever heard will be perfect, but the more we can find ways to guide people towards making responsible, mature decisions about the specific, personal situations they find themselves in, the more long-term positive affects we'll see. Simply legislating things like this just won't cut it in my opinion.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by IsiliRunite

'pro-choicers' view the fetus as an extension of the female form while 'pro-lifers' view the fetus as its own entity with its own rights.

wrong. so very very wrong.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

you automatically assume that most women who have abortions do so because their pregnancy becomes a danger to their own personal health.

no, i'm not automatically assuming anything. i'm deliberately creating a scenario for you that falls out of the "knocked up irresponsible sinful slut deserves what she gets, damnit" category.

again, the problem with "pro-lifers" is that you want to make this an issue of responsibility and morality. but the fact is there are many things that happen in pregnancies that have nothing to do with responsibility and morality. the difference between me and "mary" is that i knew it was time to welcome a new life (lives) into my life, and i was willing to put my health on the line. and if there had been a complication like CP i was committed to seeing it through.

by and large the women who make it to delivery are women who are committed. it takes commitment to put your life and health on the line and face the unknown number of possible outcomes. a world where abortion is banned leaves unprepared and unwilling women to bear the burden of those consequences. you will see an increase of cost of complications passed on to taxpayers and you will see more children with congenital defects up for adoptions that WILL NEVER COME because the people who were not prepared to commit themselves to life in any form will have bailed out by then.

your world creates a ballooning population of needy babies for whom no one may be waiting to receive them with open arms. you create more wards of the state.

it's not about "kids with CP and DS are born every day." it's about the parents who are willing to commit to their care.

i've said this to my father in law (a raging "pro-lifer") and i'll say it to you: it's not about all of the scenarios you can think of. it's about the ones you can't. and it's about protecting the rights of people who fall into these minority categories becaues when you add up all of the minority categories you get a great big group of people who deserve to have the choice.

Originally Posted by bryantm3

as i have stated time and time again, the doctor should be able to perform an abortion if the situation is like the one above.

and as i've stated, this really shows your ignorance in sparkling clarity. the complications i described didn't manifest until after the current legal cutoff for abortions. by the time it became life threatening the babies were well into "viability." your statement basically says you'd open the door to MORE abortions during the time when anyone, even pro-choicers, could argue that it really is murder.

in an effort to protect the 12 week old embryos, you're willing to slaughter the 30 week viable lives. congrats, you really thought this one through.

[bryantm3]

i'll be honest with you, i got confused and thought where you said the health problems were starting to occur was a little after the 8 week period, yet you posted 24 weeks. my mistake. from what i understand at even 23-24 weeks a child can be delivered prematurely via c-section and the remaining time can live in an incubator, therefore if the mother is having serious health problems before that time period, she can have an abortion, or if it's close enough to 24 or after 24 they can deliver the child, leaving no need for an abortion.

i know what you're talking about now. sorry for not reading your argument more thoroughly; i need to take more time with these responses, i'm writing them in 5 minute segments cos i've got a lot going on.

[IsiliRunite]

Originally Posted by cacophony

wrong. so very very wrong.

then why is it okay to murc a little baby?!?!

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by IsiliRunite

then why is it okay to murc a little baby?!?!

Because poor, garbage people don't want their accidental children to be used by intellectual, rich people to be killed in an accidental war they say god told them to start.

Or something.