If abortion was to be made illegal ....

[Imran Siddiqui]

Seriously, how can I not find an Archer meme picture or video that has "Classic You" on it?! What the ****, internet?!

[Ben Kenobi]

Ah, the yes or no strawman question. Classic Ben.

How is it a strawman? He said he found the photos 'abhorrent' and 'revolting' as justification as to why they should be censored.

[Elok]

Oh I agree. I am addressing the political difficulty. That is why I advocate tolerance based on a free society. I find abortion morally repugnant, but (as I have said), I am forced to leave to each persons conscience. As far as slavery is concerned, I think there is a very similar problem...slaves were defined as 2/3 of a person at one point in this country and thus not given "full human status" if you will. They were subject to some protection, but were denied others. Over time the moral correctness of determining slavery as evil won out. This was not an overnight civil war thing. Slavery was common in the north as well as the South for the vast majority of pre civil war history. People espoused their beliefs and the moral wrongness of it caused it to gradually fade in the north...as it would have in the South given time. I have seen many, many estimates that the South would have eliminated slavery by around 1880. Britian had slavery until 1856 (I believe that is right...historians correct me if I am wrong!).

When you have the moral high ground, you will eventually prevail. I believe that abortions days are numbered...not because the nation will force it, but because eventually its wrongness will gain more universal acceptance. I hope I am right....

See, the way you phrased earlier posts, it really did sound an awful lot like you were making a moral claim of the "abortion is murder but it's morally wrong to try and stop it" variety (I think of that as the John Kerry special). But if you weren't, you weren't.

IIRC, Britain banned slavery and the trade well before the American Civil War--sometime in the early 1800s. It was easier for them since they didn't have a whole agrarian economy rooted in it. As for awareness of the political impossibility of imposing a minority view on a majority under a democracy...I think, on some level, almost all pro-lifers are aware of that. But since Roe it's become effectively impossible to win that way anyway, so that got them to whip out the trench knives and fight dirty to work around the formal right Roe established. Which in turn radicalized the debate further, yadda yadda yadda. I'll leave it at that for tonight--wife wants to go to sleep and all that.

[Ben Kenobi]

It was easier for them since they didn't have a whole agrarian economy rooted in it.

I suggest you take a look at their colonies in the Caribbean. Even after the loss of the US - a very large proportion of total exports from the United Kingdom were tied up in the Caribbean.

[-Jrabbit]

Sometimes I hate this site.

[dannubis]

Ken, stop quoting ben. Please.

[MrFun]

Back to the topic of the OP.

If abortion was to somehow be made illegal in United States, what should the sentence/punishment be for the crime of having gotten an abortion?

[Egbert]

Back to the topic of the OP.

If abortion was to somehow be made illegal in United States, what should the sentence/punishment be for the crime of having gotten an abortion?

Life membership of Poly OT?

[kentonio]

Ken, stop quoting ben. Please.

Ok. The worthless little **** has just reverted to babbling Ben-speak anyway.

[MikeH]

Which raises the question - how does one determine what is correct? Both can't be right. One is wrong and one is right.

In this case - it's not as case of a position being correct and one incorrect. There are strong views at the extremes, especially in the states - i.e. it should be allowed in no situation or should be allowed in all situations.

In Europe the vast majority disagree with both extremes and think that, whilst it's not a situation you want to encourage it should be allowed in some situations. The people who see it in black and white rather than shades of grey dominate the debate in the states, which prevents a consensus, but really it's very much a shades of grey issue.

[Ben Kenobi]

it's very much a shades of grey issue.

If you don't believe the unborn are persons, why restrict abortion at all?

[PLATO]

If you don't believe the unborn are persons, why restrict abortion at all?

I would imagine that all but the most hard core abortion proponents believe that the fetus becomes human life at some point?

Your statement tends toward the absolute and is completely non-cognizant of the "shades of grey" meaning that you attempt to confront. Based upon what I think you believe, a more appropriate response would have been to deal with why you believe that it is not a grey issue. The response to it being "grey" is not to ask "why not the other absolute then?" which is what you have done.

Better to deal with descriptions of tiny little fingers and toes.

[Ben Kenobi]

believe that the fetus becomes human life at some point?

Which highlights my point. It's not really a gray issue. It's white or black.

[PLATO]

Which highlights my point. It's not really a gray issue. It's white or black.

Oh I believe everybody (or nearly so, anyway) believes that at some point a fetus becomes life. The shades of gray are when that happens, not if it happens.

You and I believe one thing. Others believe something different. Religiously I believe I can argue my point. Politically, it is a much different story. The question of this thread addresses the legal aspect of abortion and thus puts it in the political arena.

If the thread was "Does God approve of abortion?" then you and I would likely have many similar points.

[Sava]

Oh I believe everybody (or nearly so, anyway) believes that at some point a fetus becomes life. The shades of gray are when that happens, not if it happens.

Sure. A fetus is alive the second it becomes an embryo. That's not the point. The point is, should that lump of cells be given the same legal status as people who have been born. It would be an absolutely ridiculous and unprecedented statement with no ethical, moral, or religious justification. It's simply arbitrary. Birth is arbitrary. But it's a more significant milestone in human development... and one that makes sense.

Should late term abortions be banned? That's not the point either. Should driving your car on two wheels be banned? Why even bother wasting government resources on enforcing that? It almost never happens. But in the case of late term abortion, it happens mostly because of health concerns to the mother. But then you get idiots like Ben who just deny reality.

If the thread was "Does God approve of abortion?" then you and I would likely have many similar points.

Any person who has actually read the Bible and possesses a modicum of intelligence, can easily get an idea for the value God places on an infant's life... let alone a fetus. Adam wasn't even a person until God breathed life into him. I know the authors of the Bible weren't out to set precedent on when personhood starts. But considering those filth ridden dip****s lived in an era of insanely high infant mortality, the attitude that you should count your chickens until they hatch would probably prevail over the notion that a few cells is the moral equivalent of a person.

The point is moot, obviously. It's settled law. Abortions are a constitutionally protected right. Public opinion on the issue has largely been unchanged since Roe v Wade. It's not likely the support will ever be there for a constitutional amendment banning abortion... or much of anything else for that matter. Though, I could see congress granting legal personhood to corporations in the form of an amendment way before they do so for human embryos.

The anti-choice nutbags do more to hurt their cause than help it. Ben is probably on the more intelligent side of that lot... and look how utterly out of touch he is with normals. Such activists are collectively the crotchety, old, retarded person at the Thanksgiving table that everyone else talks **** about behind their back. They've marginalized themselves even within their own families with their idiotic extremist nonsense.

This is only news now because the Republican party is itself marginalized... and likely on life support... barely surviving by pandering to those nutbags. Unless the moderates are let back in the clubhouse, the crazies are going to ensure the party is electorally irrelevant for decades.

So by all means, I hope they continue to bang their heads into the brick wall. Eventually, they'll bleed out and die... becoming just another comical historical oddity in the history of American politics.