Don't make decisions too soon or be rushed to judgement

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Nov 7 2006, 10:46 AM) [snapback]345123[/snapback]</div>

Probably in the top three, of my favorite author's and read's. I shun/avoid as much as possible any discussion about abortion. I wish science/technology would come along that would make abortion moot.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Nov 7 2006, 01:58 PM) [snapback]345133[/snapback]</div>

It has. Condoms and RU486. Boggles my mind why the Catholics would be against either. Or are they still? I forget.

 

Catholics are an odd lot. I've known a surprising number of them who consider themselves good Catholics, but who openly reject papal teachings. I once asked a progressive priest friend of mine about some of the reactionary positions of the former pope. My friend's reply was, "Yes, we've tried, but we just can't get him to see reason." This was a priest, and he declared to anyone who asked that the pope was just plain wrong.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dragonfly @ Nov 7 2006, 12:26 PM) [snapback]345186[/snapback]</div>

Hmmmmm, condoms don't always work and RU486 has been impicated in some deaths.

Wildkow

 

Salvor Hardin, the great Mayor of Terminus, has always been a hero of mine. His motto; "Violence is the last resource....for the incompentent". Much of the world's suffering would be alleviated if we teach this wisdom. Because violence is in the end, a sign of weakness.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Nov 7 2006, 10:37 PM) [snapback]345325[/snapback]</div>

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/ru486.html

The 4 or 5 deaths (a number so low it is of questionable statistical significance) resulted from using the medication in a manner "not consistent with the approved labeling."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Nov 7 2006, 01:46 PM) [snapback]345123[/snapback]</div>

Good point, but when a group of people is calling for a decision, choosing to put that off is still a decision. For some, the reason for the decision comes from the Bible, which won't change and therefore doesn't require gathering more information. My problem with that is, there are many interpretations of the Bible (and other religions which must coexist according to our Constitution), so this can easily create a situation where one dominant religion or even denomination is favored over the others.

Addressing this idea to the other topic in this thread:
If people choose not to have abortions because of their religion, more power to them. Some call this murder, since there may be a heartbeat, etc. But others may feel that a body doesn't have a soul until it takes breath (after all, according to Genesis, God created Adam from dust, then breathed life into him. Jesus "breathed his last" on the cross and his soul departed from him.) So abortion, while perhaps regrettable, is not murder in their eyes, even with Christian beliefs. Our government cannot pick sides between religious interpretations and impose a law on all, including non-Christians.

Back to the point of the books, you could say that Roe v. Wade was the pivotal moment in time, when 9 Supreme Court justices made abortion legal for all women. But really, wasn't it the elections before that, that put the presidents in power that nominated those justices to the Supreme Court? People may have been voting for entirely different purposes, but the effects of those votes lasted well into the future. Some claim the current reduction in crime is due to the availability of abortion - many unwanted children who may have been abused or largely abandoned and gone into a life of crime were instead never born. So you may say you aren't making a decision on that issue yet, but really you're already laying the groundwork for that decision, and its consequences many decades later.

I think rural areas of India and China are going to face big crime problems in the future because of the heavy infanticide and abortion being used to artificially select boys instead of girls (by a 30% margin in some cases). More unattached, young men will grow up and this is the demographic most likely to cause crime, including violent crime towards women. By letting this continue, they're affecting their future negatively for at least a generation.

 

A very sound argument can be made from the Bible that abortion is not murder. While I cannot quote chapter and verse, I'm sure our resident Bible-believers can.

When the OT is laying down punishments for various crimes, the penalty for killing someone is death, but the penalty for injuring a pregnant woman and causing her to lose the foetus is the payment of a fine to her husband, exactly as for the theft or destruction of property.

The Old Testament clearly regards a foetus not as a person, but as property of the husband.

Thus according to the OT, abortion should be allowed if the husband wishes it, just as a man is allowed to slaughter a sheep that belongs to him.

Since even most Bible-believers no longer regard a woman as the property of her husband, it is the woman who has the right to decide if she will terminate her pregnancy, as the Bible makes clear that the foetus is not a person, but merely an item of property.

My own view lies somewhere between the two, but the Bible is clear as to where it stands on the matter.

 

Your argument would seem to be based on a lack of distinction between an accidental death and murder.

I don't carry around the OT in my head either, but I doubt this is correct.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Nov 8 2006, 07:14 PM) [snapback]346017[/snapback]</div>

My point is that the OT regards the foetus as an item of property, and not a person.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 8 2006, 10:59 PM) [snapback]346007[/snapback]</div>

Wrong again Daniel. The penalty, if the fetus died, was DEATH. If the baby came out, and was fine, there was a fine imposed.

Bad arguement. First, Adam was NOT "born", he was created. Yes, he did not become alive until God breathed the "breath of life" into him. But there is nothing in air itself that makes us alive, oxygen by itself can not bring a person back to life, so the scripture is obviously referring to something else. There is some unmeasurable "force of life" that keeps us alive. The Bible in Hebrew calls it "ruahh", roughly translated "spirit", if I recall, and the mother's blood obviously supplies that life force. We need to continue to breathe, in order to sustain that life force. But, the breath itself is NOT the life force. (For example: I'm sure there are medical ways of oxygenating blood in our bodies without breathing, to sustain that life force.)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Nov 8 2006, 02:27 PM) [snapback]345742[/snapback]</div>

I think politically, you want to do your fund-raising from the staunch supporters, but your outreach to the undecided (swing) voters, since the staunch opponents are probably not a cost-effective target. The swing states are the ones that get the attention. So you might say it's the undecideds who really affect outcomes. Of course, they are choosing from the arguments presented by the supporters of each side, so they do have a say in the matter.

Definitely right, and it emphasizes your point of not rushing to a decision, but I wanted to add you can't be complacent about thinking it can just be put off indefinitely. I don't know if you've watched the series "Connections", which I think was on PBS or maybe Discovery a few years back. The host would start with some invention and then go on a wild ride thru history showing how apparently unconnected events affected other things which eventually led to that invention. Like the Black Death plague in the middle ages left a lot of extra clothes, which lowered the price of paper (made partly from cloth) which fueled the incentive for a better way to make books which led to Guettenberg's printing press. I'm not sure he was completely correct on all the connections, but it was pretty fascinating nonetheless.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Nov 8 2006, 11:50 AM) [snapback]345517[/snapback]</div>

Well, all they need is a really good war. Maybe if China and India go at it in 10-15 years, that will take care of the excess male population. We'll just have to be careful to butt out.

 

"I'm fundamentally against abortion, not because it 'kills' or 'doesn't kill' anyone/anything, but because options like that tend to encourage some people to think less about consequences...and in doing so trivializes both the action and the results."

But thats the rub with anything MORAL. I have no problem with my government mandating that all drivers be insured. It's the right thing to do for everybody but I really do have a problem with my government stipulating I can't have an abortion.

I'm a man so I'll never need an abortion, but I am not threatened or distressed by someone else who wants one. I am also a happily married man with 3 kids so, it's unlikely I will ever marry another man. I do, however, think that if two men wish marriage and they arn't forcing their values on me, live and let live. They do not threaten my choices but to deny that choice to them, on moral grouds, is to me... abhorrent.

Our current administration is forcing both these issues along with many others I want no part of. Like it or not, we are a country where the voting public decides whats moral either through direct action or by voting into office administrations who back their ideology and, as a result, the laws judged by their successors. If you have moral issues with how things are right now, go vote. That, unfortunately, is the only way moral issues in this country are decided anymore. We no longer can govern our own moral judgements because so many choose to ignore that single freedom and the consequences of their actions. I for one will always advocate the right choices for each of us. That includes the right to own firearms and the right to same sex marriages even though I want niether of them. The right to an abortion and the right to stand center stage shouting at the top of my lungs right next to another who shouts at the top of his that which I have spent a lifetime opposing. I guess I'm liberal but I am an absolute firm believer in FREEDOM to make the right choices for each of us no matter whether they are the wrong ones for me for moral reasons. I certainly don't need my lieing and deceptive administration choosing whats right for me based on whats moral for them. Hats off to you, Pinto Girl.
-Paul R. Haller-