Fair is fair . . . Georgia Democrats propose an anti-vasectomy bill

[Imran Siddiqui]

Pro-life activists blow up bombs because they have no other recourse for stopping the killing.

Violence is the answer?

[kentonio]

Pro-life activists blow up bombs because they have no other recourse for stopping the killing. It happens because democracy has been subverted by the Supreme Court.

Funny how democracy is only ok with you ****ers when it delivers what you want. When it doesn't then its all 'activist judges' and 'democracy subverted' and 'freedom through revolution'. You act like a bunch of ****ing children who scream and shout because you aren't getting what you want. If its not democracy, then why do a majority of Americans support the right to abortion in one form or another?

The American mainstream has not become sick and twisted; it just hasn't gotten so ridiculously liberal as the European mainstream.

People here are treated as human beings who deserve the right to live healthy lives without fear of poverty. America looks ****ing barbaric to a lot of us.

[regexcellent]

Violence becomes the only option when democracy doesn't exist. The reason we don't have violent revolts like in Libya is because we have democracy. The correct answer is to let the democratic institutions decide whether or not abortion should be legal.

[regexcellent]

Europeans have a completely backwards notion of what rights are. They think that rights are something the government is required to provide for you. We think rights are something the government isn't allowed to stop you from doing.

[kentonio]

Violence becomes the only option when democracy doesn't exist. The reason we don't have violent revolts like in Libya is because we have democracy. The correct answer is to let the democratic institutions decide whether or not abortion should be legal.

A majority of people in America believe abortion should be legal. What part of that is so hard to understand?

Europeans have a completely backwards notion of what rights are. They think that rights are something the government is required to provide for you. We think rights are something the government isn't allowed to stop you from doing.

We grew up and realised that letting people fall too far helps noone.

[The Mad Monk]

How can science possibly settle when personhood begins when personhood is a philosophical concept to begin with?

May as well use science to determine when something is pretty.

[MRT144]

Europeans have a completely backwards notion of what rights are. They think that rights are something the government is required to provide for you. We think rights are something the government isn't allowed to stop you from doing.

Except own slaves at the time of ratification. For all our gusto about natural rights, we sure had a ****ed up and stupid way of applying them for the first half of our history, and a sad, foot dragging way of doing the right thing even to this day.

[regexcellent]

A majority of people in America believe abortion should be legal. What part of that is so hard to understand?

First of all, that's not true. A majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in limited circumstances. Very few Americans think it should be as available as it is now (see Gallup polling on this). Support for abortion is also steadily dropping.

Moreover, even if that were true, it doesn't change the fact that the mechanism by which it is legal is unsatisfactory and leaves no legal recourse for the people who don't like the decision.

EDIT: I should qualify "very few." It's somewhere in the range of, I believe, 20% or so. That's not really very few but whatever.

[MRT144]

First of all, that's not true. A majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in limited circumstances. Very few Americans think it should be as available as it is now (see Gallup polling on this). Support for abortion is also steadily dropping.

Moreover, even if that were true, it doesn't change the fact that the mechanism by which it is legal is unsatisfactory and leaves no legal recourse for the people who don't like the decision.

That's not unique to just abortion.

[Elok]

Except abortions are calculated decisions. No one has a panic frenzy abortion.

It's not a precise parallel, of course. And some abortions, I'm sure, are purely elective--there's a real choice at work, the woman is perfectly capable of caring for a child and simply chooses not to. But I don't think that is the case in the majority of abortions. More often I believe the "choice" is constrained badly.

I know a woman who, back in the sixties, got pregnant at age seventeen. Now, this was before Roe, and in any case their religious family wouldn't likely have done such a thing. But her father did tell her, in no uncertain terms, that if she didn't give the child up for adoption, she would be disowned and thrown out of the house. Well, what was she supposed to do? She gave her son up. And if the ultimatum had been abortion instead, I don't think her options would have changed much. And she wasn't in too bad shape in the grand scheme of things. Some women are simply too poor to care for the child one way or another.

I might add, though, that stories like the one I just told are the basis for what's been called the feminist argument against abortion: at least some of the time, abortion is not empowering or enabling, but simply another way for women to be controlled by the men in their lives. I don't know how often, but certainly it allows for sexual abuse of minors to be swept under the carpet. How frequently do you think fourteen-year-old girls are escorted to PP by their nervous, twenty-five-year-old "uncles," who pay for the procedure and never get reported to the authorities? Unfortunately, that's the sort of thing that's very hard to collect accurate statistics on. But I bet it happens pretty often.

[MRT144]

It's not a precise parallel, of course. And some abortions, I'm sure, are purely elective--there's a real choice at work, the woman is perfectly capable of caring for a child and simply chooses not to. But I don't think that is the case in the majority of abortions. More often I believe the "choice" is constrained badly.

I know a woman who, back in the sixties, got pregnant at age seventeen. Now, this was before Roe, and in any case their religious family wouldn't likely have done such a thing. But her father did tell her, in no uncertain terms, that if she didn't give the child up for adoption, she would be disowned and thrown out of the house. Well, what was she supposed to do? She gave her son up. And if the ultimatum had been abortion instead, I don't think her options would have changed much. And she wasn't in too bad shape in the grand scheme of things. Some women are simply too poor to care for the child one way or another.

I might add, though, that stories like the one I just told are the basis for what's been called the feminist argument against abortion: at least some of the time, abortion is not empowering or enabling, but simply another way for women to be controlled by the men in their lives. I don't know how often, but certainly it allows for sexual abuse of minors to be swept under the carpet. How frequently do you think fourteen-year-old girls are escorted to PP by their nervous, twenty-five-year-old "uncles," who pay for the procedure and never get reported to the authorities? Unfortunately, that's the sort of thing that's very hard to collect accurate
statistics on. But I bet it happens pretty often.

That some harm is enabled by enabling greater liberty doesn't mean we should suck the liberty baby out of the uterus with a tube.

[Jon Miller]

I have roughly the same compassion towards a woman who has an elective abortion as I do toward a single mother who, after dealing with a colicky, screaming child for weeks and weeks, finally snaps and shakes the child to death in a frenzy of panic.

Was she under a lot of stress? Yes.
Can I understand why she did what she did? Yes, at least in the abstract.
Do I call her a bad person? No.

Did she do something very, very wrong? Yes.

Good post.

Except that I would add to it.

Does she realize what she did was wrong? Probably not.

JM

[Lorizael]

I don't understand why the abortion debate causes such rancor. It's obvious that all humans should be genetically programmed to be sterile from birth with the option for sterility reversal upon receipt of a parenting certificate. In such cases where the sterility fails, fetuses should be removed from the uterus, grown in laboratory settings, and given to individuals with parenting certificates. Alternatively, sterilization can be permanent and new humans can be constructed when necessary and raised by robots.

[Jon Miller]

What does this mean?

It means they were lied to.

The same lie in this thread (the baby is not a person), but a lot more effort is put into convincing african-americans. And others whose children would be undesirable.

JM

[Jon Miller]

I don't understand why the abortion debate causes such rancor. It's obvious that all humans should be genetically programmed to be sterile from birth with the option for sterility reversal upon receipt of a parenting certificate. In such cases where the sterility fails, fetuses should be removed from the uterus, grown in laboratory settings, and given to individuals with parenting certificates. Alternatively, sterilization can be permanent and new humans can be constructed when necessary and raised by robots.

I could actually be OK with that, depending on what was requiredf ro a parenting certificate.

JM