Inflaming the Theologically Correct ...

... might lead them to follow the example of the Hebrew sky g-d in Exodus ch21 vs 22 (wherein the penalty for causing involuntary miscarriage is a fine).

To be fair, lines like

To be fair, lines like this--"We treasure all life, even the abortionists"--are scary as shit. Someone might also want to let the moderates know about Freud's theory about how the unconscious doesn't know/understand negatives . . .

Jim

Anyone supporting abortion or anyone considering abortion needs to look very closely at the child which is dismembered and sucked out of the mother's womb.
To deny that, that is a person is the height of selfishness.
Simply look at the pictures of the child at different stages of growth and then consider what you are saying, when you say killing that child is OK.
Shame on us as a society, we are not progressing we indeed are digressing.
May God have mercy on us all, as we ALL are guilty of innocent blood.
The truth is indeed sometimes offensive.

jimorsheryl: Okay, but

jimorsheryl: Okay, but anyone against the pro-choice option has to look at who generally supports pro-life--and they do tend to be those who ultimately care least for women, children, a good society (I know none of them think so, but it is true).

Some of us support pro-choice primarily because of who tends to support and who tends to oppose it. If it was all just women's choice, I, for one, am not entirely sure what the signfiicant difference between a woman's body and a woman's home is--they're both surrounds.

so tired of zealots

I am so tired of these US zealots and their twisted ideology. I was listening to a BBC doc the other day, and no big surprise, the epicenter of this terrorism is in the US. So, where is the axis of evil again?

Right on nechakogal!

Muslim extremists are the cause of terrorism? I submit that these fruitcake pro-life groups preach the same kind of terrorism.

Before the last Parliament's

Before the last Parliament's dissolution theocon Ken Epp's private members bill c-484 Unborn Victims of Crime Act a thinly disguised anti abortion measure received second reading with the 93% support from Harpers social conservatives. Currently muzzled fundamentalist MP Russ "The Deacon" Hebert in White Rock has before muzzling promised private members bill to criminalize abortion.

We are unlikely to get any action on violent prolife wackos from the Harper's bunch of theocon thugs in Ottawa.

Patrick .. what kind of logic is this??

You said:

"Okay, but anyone against the pro-choice option has to look at who generally supports pro-life--and they do tend to be those who ultimately care least for women, children, a good society (I know none of them think so, but it is true)."

How in the world does this justify ripping the arms off a living child inside it's mother's womb? And then suctioning out the torn pieces.
Are you saying that people who condone this barbaric behaviour somehow care for children?

Twisted logic at it's best.

Twisted logic?

Since a large majority of the nutcase anti-choice brigade supports initiatives that harm women and children (especially low-income and single parent families) like restricting access to welfare, safe daycare and job training, I find your statement disingenuous to say the least.

In my personal experience, the pro-choice movement does far more for the health of Canadian women, children and families than any of the anti-choice organizations. We're talking pushing for more coverage of women/children's health, early screening, funding for daycares, all the stuff that is needed after the child is born. All the anti-choicers care about seems to be the woman's choice of whether to carry the pregnancy, not whether she's physically, financially or mentally able to do so. They're not remotely interested in helping the kid once it's born, or ensuring that the woman doesn't need to go through an unwanted pregnancy in the first place.

I've also provided escorts for many women to and from abortion clinics, and the foulness and religious zealotry spewed by the anti-choicers towards women about whom they know nothing is both pathetic and appalling. Four of the women I talked to were aborting because their lives were at high risk from the pregnancy and they had children at home whom they wanted to see grow up. Two were teenagers from Catholic school who had received no sex education whatsoever. Another two were rape victims. Others had experienced birth control failures. Out of the several dozen women I escorted to the clinic, maybe 50% were actually getting abortions. Most were getting gynecological care or low cost birth control to keep them healthy - care that wasn't accessible to them in other areas because of fundie forced-birthers who think that everyone should do as their imaginary friend in the sky tells them.

I'd recommend anyone who wants to hear the other side of the story on why women have abortions and what they actually think go to http://www.imnotsorry.net to get it from the horse's mouth.

Rhea ... yes Twisted Logic

You said:

"Since a large majority of the nutcase anti-choice brigade supports initiatives that harm women and children "

Are you saying that dismembering a child, and let's be clear, I mean ripping the arms and legs off and crushing the skull, so it can them be sucked out of the womb, is the action of people who do not harm children?

Yes, twisted logic at it's best.

Visit a few websites which show exactly what that child looks like you are killing by means you would not inflict on a dog. And then say that you are doing no harm!

I wasn’t going to comment,

I wasn’t going to comment, since the abortion debate always turns so toxic. But this article is pretty one-sided. At its heart is the insinuation that simply articulating the pro-life ethical position (i.e. abortion is homicide) is somehow tantamount to incitement to violence and terrorism, and therefore by implication should be made illegal. Think about that for a moment. I really don’t think such an illiberal approach to freedom of speech in a democratic society would help matters. Quite apart from the reprehensible actions of a small number of extremists, the pro-life position is one of the most ethically developed arguments in civil discourse today.

That said, I feel immense distaste for the way the debate is manipulated by both sides. Sincere law-abiding pro-lifers are shamelessly manipulated and fleeced by the neo-con right. Conversely, vulnerable women seeking abortions are subjected to all manner of ideologically-motivated manipulation on the pro-choice side of the equation, as Lila Rose’s undercover videos in Planned Parenthood clinics have exposed with such devastating clarity.

Another weakness of the article is that it seeks to strengthen its bias by failing to draw a proper distinction between the U.S. and Canadian experiences. Pro-life “zealotry” is a lot rarer here. As Prime Minister Chrétien once said, there has been an uneasy truce on this issue in Canada which should not be disturbed. However, as an urban Canadian who passes a downtown women’s clinic on my way to and from work every day, I have noticed the increase in on-site protests that began almost immediately following the reckless and provocative decision to award Morgentaler with the Order of Canada. The protests I’ve seen are peaceful, docile and law-abiding (and comprised mostly of women). The Order of Canada gesture signaled that the debate was resolved (it isn’t – there’s no law) and politicized the Canadian honours system unnecessarily. So one has to ask, in the Canadian context, who is really turning up the temperature on the abortion debate?

jimorsheryl: Most

jimorsheryl: Most pro-lifers tend to pretty "conservative," that is, they vote for parties which actually take pride and pleasure in creating a world that is visciously mean and abusive. As pro-choicers have long and rightly noted, pro-lifers don't actually evidence much interest in human life--their anger is loud, but its source isn't from where they believe it is. In my judgment, they're not actually thinking of the child, but are using the situation to recall early abuse they themselves suffered, and want revenge for. It's an unwilling act of projection, that can't be helped, but still ultimately amounts to a lack of interest in, sympathy with, the unbirthed child.

A fair retort to your account must be in documenting the cruelty, human suffering, conservative governance brings with it. Blow by blow.

another response to jimorsheryl

I think that perhaps the point Rhea, and other people have made about what you said is that most anti-choicers, as well as being socially conservative, are fiscally conservative.That means that as well as being in favor of further restricting access to Birth Control and being unlikely to support comprehensive sex education for teens, They generally not in favor of government spending for subsidized daycare, better support systems for single mothers, welfare reform, etc. Is condeming children to a life of poverty any less horrible?
It seems that many of these people view pregnancy as a way for women to be punished for being sexually active.

Q.E.D.

"Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State." ~Edward Abbey

Otherwise, as the Planned Parenthood ad reads, 77% percent of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never be pregnant.

My personal view is a bit more radical. The essence of 'human being' is not defined on the basis of potentiality, but on actuality - that is, its independence from the womb; its structure and function in that independent world of fellow humans. An unborn (potential) human has no ability to function independently in the world. As such, an independent woman's rights to control her body unequivocally take precedence over any potential human growing inside of her.

quod erat demonstrandum

wayfarer: That argument

wayfarer: That argument doesn't strike all of us as all that strong. A two year old is very unlikely to be able to support herself for long, either. Her protection is the parents'/mothers' home (surround), desire in others to take care of her. To me, it's just too easy and appropriate to extend the logic of your argument so that you could argue that a mother's home is her own, and only until a child is able to function by itself on the streets, is it truly a human being. Until then, it's just all potential, of significant less worth than the woman/mother whose space it occupies.

Not a good argument--there's got to be more empathy: you make mothers seem egotistical monsters, quite unwilling to agree that you have rights until their own needs have been accorded their primacy of place.

Pro-choicers do best when they draw attention to how much they do to assist pregnant women, to really validate their choice if they decide to give birth. When they demonstrate--as they so often do--not their anger but their love, for everyone involved--including the unbirthed child.

personal is political

As a woman who had an abortion, I would say that safeguarding that life-affirming personal choice is one of the most important responsibilities of the just society.

"A fair retort to your account must be in documenting the cruelty, human suffering, conservative governance brings with it. Blow by blow." Patrick, bring on your fair retort.

PatrickMcEvoyHalston

PatrickMcEvoyHalston,

You misrepresent the premises in my argument and draw a false conclusion.

A 2-yr-old child, a disabled person requiring assistance are all distinct entities from a fetus or unborn potential human, which is necessarily connected to its mother for feeding, breathing, indeed life. Under my definition, this potentiality does not equal the actuality of a 2-yr-old or any other being that has been given the privilege by its mother to enjoy an independent, autonomous life.

The general debate over this right is over, except for a minority of religious zealots who draw their moral outlook and conclusions from mysticism and religious texts.

It's not even worth my time to debate this fundamental right of all women, except that I have a few minutes to kill and it's never a bad idea to review one's philosophical positions on rights and freedoms.

I don't want Sandborn's point in the above article to be lost in a futile series of red herrings initiated Fraser Valley Bible-belt dogmatists and engaged in by the rest of us rational folk.

The real issue here is around public safety for those who choose to exercise their rights, and for doctors and health care providers who heroically put their own lives on the line helping women exercise those rights. That's my main concern, and it should be yours.

The related issue is whether authorities are doing enough to enforce the law in preventing anti-choice lunatics from harassing or killing people who are doing little more than exercising their fundamental human rights.

Debating a women's right to choice is like debating your right to speak freely in a democratic society. It's been settled and therefore moot. The job now is to ensure those rights are not eroded or infringed upon.

No one is pro-abortion

Sheez. Arms ripping...gross pictures... yeah, but that's not what it's about.

Nor, ultimately, is it really about whether the fetus is a human or just a proto-human, a rather fine distinction IMHO.

The issue is control of the body. No one is legally obligated to donate blood, organs, or room inside one's skin, even to save another's life. It is awesome of you to do this, but to make it mandatory is pretty Matrix-y.

Well said Yammer. The

Well said Yammer.
The pictures shown by the anti-choice crowd serve no purpose but to inflame emotion. What they fail to recognize is that there are women who have abortions for health reasons, and while I'm sure there are women who would refuse chemotherapy in order to save their fetus, or who will risk the chance of death due to a risky pregnancy, or who will give birth to a baby that is dead/will not survive etc - that is their CHOICE and is not something that should be FORCED on anyone.

wayfarer

wayfarer: You're right that the debate has been settled. In a way. Certainly the left seems to operate now with enough confidence-evidence routine, that it is genuinely startled when old arguments are presented as if they actually should be addressed, and not just quickly picked up and put back in the junk bin (how did you get loose?) (as this article evidences). This has made (as the narrator of any end-of-times movie would announce) the left a bit vulnerable--lacking vigilance (as the LOTR narrator would say), off guard. The argument you present is not that good--it won the day because the other side is represented by the scowling, patriarchal Right, by a generation the baby-boomers delighted in and quite rightly needed to individuate themselves from.

Being pro-choice means being unclean, to a lot of people--it means being counted amongst "one of them." That's the very enabled stage, the left has won for itself in respectable quarters.
But my sense is that there are a lot of people out there who are looking for a politician, for means, to make pro-life/anti-choice clean again. It could come from someone like (old school feminist defeating--i.e., Hillary and Ferraro) Obama, it could come from someone like Ignatifieff: both politicians whose leaness and greeness, whose claim to a clean, virtuous, (traditionaly masculine) higher purpose could, and in my judgment will, offer/extend respect/validation for their homophobic and anti-choice leanings. My sense, again, is the left needs to prepare itself: look to Salon.com, perhaps, and its accounting of Obama's early betrayal of the gay community, to the gay community's surfacing concern (and even panic) over who the hell they've just help elect in.

I completely agree with you in arguing that abortion clinics need and deserve full respect and protection. Women who have abortions cannot be allowed to exist in an environment where they are stigmatized, deemed unclean, unworthy. They are just as beautiful as anyone else--which is beautiful indeed. But again, a 2 year old is not meaningfully less dependent/vulnerable than an unborn. The only difference is that someone else can take care of the 2 year old. (This may well prove possible for the unborn as well, though.)

P.S. Please don't announce that you're advancing an argument simply because you've got time to kill. It's disrespectful to your reading audience, to who your talking to (in this case, to me). Next time it's not worth your effort, find something else to do, please. Remember, the Right argues that woman have abortions primarily because they're an inconvenience.

Of course it's emotional

But the emotion on the pro-choice side of the debate is equally valid and, as others have said, the fact a woman's body is involved seems to tip the scales for me.

There is little doubt in my mind that, all other things being equal (status, economic power, vested interests, history and the like) if men were called upon to rent their body (so to speak) for 9 months as women are out of biological hegemony, because that's essentially what it is, there would have been access to abortion without question or hesitation for all of human history.

The other curious thing that often crosses my mind is the consanguinity of religious and right wing attitudes on the anti-abortion side of these arguments.

Why is it that, very often, the same people who argue for forcing women to have children they don't want to bear are the same ones who don't want to spend any taxpayer dollars on the children in poverty here in BC right now?

Just a little hypocritical don't you think?

VivianLea

Fair request, VivianLea. I am hoping someone else might do it. What I'll offer now amounts in my judgment to "one word says it all," so if offers some of the extension I know is needed: Pro-choicers are right to argue that THEY are actually the ones who are most pro-life: they ARE the ones who support societal programs which enable, empower, a more nurturing, caring world; they are the ones who sniff out the sadism and despair in pro-lifers'/conservatives' advancement of ostensible free market bounties.

about reasons!

Our society pretty well is based on the premise that sex sells!

Given that fact one outcome is that some women become pregnant at a time when they cannot reasonably take time out to have a child.

Perhaps abortion seem cruel, but the alternative is often worse!

I had a cancerous growth removed and I am sure it was not a pretty picture, but at the time it was an essential operation; there are times when we have to do what makes sense, even if an operation can be fatal to the patient (or the fetus in these cases)

Now, if our religious zealots would let off on their campaigns and allow proper education of teens, much agony could be spared!

Like wise it would be great if they could sell cars without posing near naked girls to entice buyers!

Too much drivel!

Quite apart from the abortion question is the drivel and innuendo used to support either sides argument.

Rhea and Patrick suggest that anti-abortion supporters don't care for children and don't support daycare or children after their born. What rational is there for these statements?

They pay the same taxes to support the healthcare, childcare and welfare systems that exist now, and the largest private child organizations in Canada are christian based. One would likely associate them with an anti-abortion viewpoint. (Such as YMCA which is the largest daycare and childcare org in Canada).

Worse yet is blaming anti-abortionists for the problem itself for failing to "Ensuring that a woman doesnt need to go thru an unwanted pregnancy in the first place".

If it is a womans right to control her pregnancy after conception, isn't it her right (and therefore responsibility) to control it before conception?

As for the sucking and dismembering comments, well lots of unwanted tissue and fluids get sucked out of bodies daily.

So glad I could add to the nauseum..

Paying the same taxes?

jwstewart: They tend to vote for governments which would weaken healthcare, childcare, and welfare systems as they exist now. They would pay way less taxes, disempower government's ability to reduce misery and enable citizens, if they could. They are, unfortunately, much more comfortable with suffering (suffering and sin is man's lot), than they are with happiness. Personally, I admit to being sorry they can vote at all.

and the political is damn personal

It has been argued (by the conservative right, often) that the ability of judges to 'make law' sidesteps the public debate about issues such as abortion.For those who find this public conversation drivel or a way to kill a few minutes - why, by all means, opt out friends. Myself, I welcome it.

No one pretends that abortion is a wonderful thing. However, many of those supporting choice recognize it as a 'lesser evil' - but be that as it may, it is of course the element of choice that affirms the just society. In a society where motherhood and childhood were truly valued - not 'priced' at the bottom of the heap but supported by public programs of all kinds, lauded by the citizenry as a meaningful and remarkable contribution to society, and celebrated as 'work' that makes possible all the common dreams of humaity - why then, the choice to not have an abortion would be meaningful.

But Patrick, I am unwilling to let you off the hook, friend - I suspect that you could (ought?) put forward the argument with rather more eloquence than I.

But I will close with a poem from my eight-year-old niece:

Nice to me

As I enter the door peace arrives. Love isn't a big dream, its
life. Shimmering lights shine down at me. And my blond
hair fly’s thro the sky! People greet me with joy. And are so
kind I will not pass the day!
People ask to dance
with me and when they are nice I am back.

Only a time-waster

Yes, these are the same hypocrits - those very same ones who supported Bush's adventuers in Iraq and the "shock and awe" tactics which have seen hundreds of thousands of children (though only Muslisms of course) killed and maimed.

These are the same Catholic and Fundaemtalist believers who burnt tens of thousands of women at the stake in the hope of "saving their souls"

These are the very same people who would deny any kind of US aid to Third World countries which promote contraception.

They are virtually ignored in Europe, as also are their looney-toon ideas about "Scientific Creationism".

It is only in the Right-wing USA and vassal-state Canada that that they can command any serious attention.

So I wonder why we are wasting our time here debating what is and what is not "God's Law".

Back to the old ways...

"you could argue that a mother's home is her own, and only until a child is able to function by itself on the streets, is it truly a human being. "

This confusion is so an expression of how cultureless we have become! Go three or four generations back in most of our backgrounds, and you find some kind of tradition, where a recently born child, by some small ceremony, was welcomed into the tribe/village/community. This membership, which has always 'had its advantages' is the form in which we got accepted into the human race. It has been squelched as it does not fit the obsession some of us have with other people's uteri. Just one question puts that notion where it belongs: why are these people not equally incensed about the carnage of our highways and streets? Because, in the words of a recently famous, or should that be infamous, high-ranking official, roadkills are not sexy, childbirth is. The harping on abortion as evil is, in my view, just a bad excuse for acting out closet voyeurism.

Important Correction

Up there somewhere I said: "Being pro-choice means being unclean, to a lot of people--it means being counted amongst "one of them." That's the very enabled stage, the left has won for itself in respectable quarters."

What I meant to say was, "Being pro-LIFE . . .

Yikes! Not a small error. Sorry about that.

Pro-Life means ...

... pro- sex education, pro- contraception

... pro- workplace safety, pro- road safety (as dorothy posits above)

... anti-war, anti-death penalty.

Otherwise, it's just Abortion Prohibition - with compulsory childbirth.