I am strongly opposed to abortion. The argument to me is obvious. No apologies, the as yet to be born child is as human as human can be. Simply because we cannot see them move on their own, or whatever stupid argument a child killer throws out, does not make that right.
I have an 11 month old daughter. She is the apple of my eye. I cannot compare my wife to her, I love them both, and would die for both of them. They hypothetical question asks: “When given the choice between saving your wife or child, who would you save?” I would choose my child, because that would be the wish of my wife. I would hope my wife would do the same.
The comments left are totally amazing. The hate spewed towards this father reaches new levels of hatred. Hitler would admire their malevolence. The lack of intelligence displayed is almost humorous, but then you realize that these feminists are serious.
If there is one thing I can’t stand, it is irrational arguments.
Arrogant New Englander 
April 27, 2007 at 8:26 pm |
Actually, the question wasn’t hypothetical at all. It was a response to a this post by Disgusted Beyond Belief:
http://disgustedbeyondbelief.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-views-on-abortion.html
April 29, 2007 at 2:04 pm |
Right, but I was asking the almost impossible question of who would you choose in the chance that both are at risk of death and you only had one choice. Your child, or your spouse? Say the child is 4 years old, who would you choose?
April 30, 2007 at 3:43 pm |
Why worry about hypothetical four-year-olds when we’re talking about a real, flesh-and-blood woman bleeding out in the tenth week of pregnancy? Even if the situations are morally equivalent, they’re very different. A four year old child can survive without its mother, as long as it has *someone* to take care of it. A ten-week fetus really, really can’t. DBB was in a situation of save his wife or lose both of them, and even then he couldn’t bring himself to make the decision until the doctors told him that the pregnancy was irretrievably doomed. Hard to see how anyone can find fault with that.
April 30, 2007 at 3:51 pm |
To clarify, in the instance that an unborn baby cannot survive, and is causing the probable death of her mother, I would leave the decision up to the mother. I certainly have sympathy for their unfortunate situation, which is very rare.
Should abortion be used as birth control? If you, as a woman (I assume), were under the same circumstances, what would you have done? Did you make that decision in a split second?
Of course, I might add, that we may soon see the day when it is possible for a 10 week old premature baby to survive outside the womb. The closest we have now is a 22 week old. That would have been impossible even 5 years ago.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/20/health/main2493294.shtml
I find no fault with them. I find fault with the ugly comments left to another commenter who expressed his own beliefs on using abortion as child birth. If you read those comments, you should be left with an uncomfortable feeling about the feminazi movement.
April 30, 2007 at 6:02 pm |
I have read them, and to be honest, I agree. The man was blatantly contemptuous of his wife, inordinately proud of how he forced his will upon her, and went on far too long about how much more he loved his daughter than his wife because his daughter was half him. He clearly only considers other people important in terms of how they relate to him, and it doesn’t matter what side of the debate you’re on – that’s sociopathic.
In any case, I am *not* a woman, so I sought a woman’s perspective on this: I asked my wife what she would do, or want me to do, in DBB’s situation. She not only said that she would do (or want me to do) the same thing, she was offended that anyone would suggest otherwise. She (like DBB and his wife) wants children very much (once we get our finances a bit more in order), but she has value beyond bearing children.
Before I answer your question about using abortion as “birth control”, I have a few questions for you:
1) Do you support comprehensive sex education, so that young people are fully informed about their birth control options when they start having sex?
2) If there were a sudden glut of children available for adoption as a result of abortion being outlawed tomorrow, would you adopt any of them?
2a) Do you have any problem with homosexuals adopting children from said glut? If not, would you support civil unions or homosexual marriage so that those children can have stable homes?
3) Would you support an increase in government funding to Welfare and educational programs for single mothers, so they can support their families? Would you support funding to public health programs so poor women can receive pre-natal care?
Ten weeks, huh? Wow. At that age, I think they’d need an artifical womb to survive.
April 30, 2007 at 6:37 pm |
1) Do you support comprehensive sex education, so that young people are fully informed about their birth control options when they start having sex?
Quite honestly, I don’t believe that it is the job of the educational system to provide sex education to our youth. The one important matter of birth control and std prevention that is constantly left out is abstinence. I think studies have shown that children are engaging in sexual activities at a younger age. That should be concern to the educators.
2) If there were a sudden glut of children available for adoption as a result of abortion being outlawed tomorrow, would you adopt any of them?
Great question. I would like to switch the question back to you. Would you consider giving your child up for adoption if you did not desire to raise her? There are plenty of qualified people that cannot have children for whatever reason on long lists awaiting an infant. I don’t believe we’d have this sudden glut once abortion became illegal, I think the difficulties of adoption have prevented many well qualified would be parents from pursuing adoption.
2a) Do you have any problem with homosexuals adopting children from said glut? If not, would you support civil unions or homosexual marriage so that those children can have stable homes?
Yes, on the basic principal that I believe God intended a child to have a mother and father. I don’t see how being raised in a homosexual household can be deemed “stable”. I am aware of the fishnet you are trying to throw here also.
3) Would you support an increase in government funding to Welfare and educational programs for single mothers, so they can support their families? Would you support funding to public health programs so poor women can receive pre-natal care?
I honestly believe that we as citizens should not rely on the government to save us from our misery. I support local charitable organizations to do this, and know that they are far superior at reaching out to our needy then the Feds. The more our government takes away from the average person, the less we are able to give as we so desire. Why should the government be responsible for providing someone’s well being? Isn’t that just the lazy way out? Isn’t that forced socialism?
April 30, 2007 at 9:14 pm |
>Quite honestly, I don’t believe that it is the job of the educational system to provide sex education to our youth.
Really? Seems like a perfectly valid topic for Health class if you ask me. Certainly comes up much more often in the average person’s life than the need for CPR.
>The one important matter of birth control and std prevention that is constantly left out is abstinence.
That’s just not true. Every Health program that I’m aware of – and since my father is the Superintendent of schools in his district, that’s quite a few – emphasizes that abstinence is the only 100% effective Birth Control…but since almost all of you will have sex at some point in your life, here’s what you need to know. Isn’t the whole point of education to prepare someone for something *before* it happens?
>I think studies have shown that children are engaging in sexual activities at a younger age. That should be concern to the educators.
It is. I can tell you that first-hand. After all, teachers are the ones who have to see pregnant teens in the halls and watch them drop out every day. Still, as other studies –
Click to access impactabstinence.pdf
have found, abstinence-only education doesn’t change it a bit.
>I would like to switch the question back to you. Would you consider giving your child up for adoption if you did not desire to raise her?
That would be one of the options, yes. Still, I don’t quite share your confidence that our biracial baby would have no trouble finding a home.
Which brings us back to you: interested in adopting a half-white, half-hispanic child?
>I don’t believe we’d have this sudden glut once abortion became illegal
You may have a point. It’s not like illegality has ever stopped abortions from *happening*. It just meant that women tried to do it themselves, or went to back-alley practioners. Besides, one of the reasons that adoption has become a lot less common anymore has nothing to do with abortion – it’s because women are keeping children who would have been given up for adoption in times when there was a greater stigma to single motherhood.
>I am aware of the fishnet you are trying to throw here also.
Just trying to feel out your priorities.
>I support local charitable organizations to do this, and know that they are far superior at reaching out to our needy then the Feds.
In what way? Are they more efficient? Do they have more effective strategies for getting people back on their feet? Can they, with their more focused resources, provide more money to the people in their care?
> The more our government takes away from the average person, the less we are able to give as we so desire.
*If* we so desire. You may very well be an extremely generous person, but there are too many people who are too poor to count on the kindness of strangers.
>Why should the government be responsible for providing someone’s well being?
Because that’s why governments exist.
>Isn’t that just the lazy way out?
Lazy for whom? It seems to me that a situation where you can give to the poor by giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s is extremely convenient for Christian taxpayers.
>Isn’t that forced socialism?
Providing a government-funded safety net for the poor doesn’t seem the same as Socialism to me. Still, I don’t see why socialism (incidentally, I can recognize fishnets when I see them, too – all liberals are commies, aren’t they?) should upset you. Didn’t the earliest Christians give up their worldly goods and live in communal groups?
April 30, 2007 at 9:38 pm |
Hmm…need I remind you of FEMA and Hurricane Katrina? They were terrible. Yet, I know of many volunteers from my church, and thousands of others that were there to help immediately following the hurricane. FEMA is a valid example of government gone wrong.
BTW, about half of my cousins, nieces, aunts, and uncles are black. I don’t think I’d have a problem with a child from a different race being that my family historically was in the forefront of the civil rights movement well before the general “blue” liberals.
Most liberals have communist leanings today. Not the old school liberals like JFK, who incidentally would never get voted in as a democrat today.
Just an fyi, I consider myself strongly libertarian with the prospect of standing for individual’s rights, especially infants and unborn children. I am opposed to the Iraq War, probably for different reasons than yourself, yet I don’t believe big oil to be our largest concern.
April 30, 2007 at 10:37 pm |
>Hmm…need I remind you of FEMA and Hurricane Katrina? They were terrible. Yet, I know of many volunteers from my church, and thousands of others that were there to help immediately following the hurricane. FEMA is a valid example of government gone wrong.
You’ll need a better one. The fact that an agency that was gutted by Shrub and his incompetent cronies didn’t do its job very well doesn’t convince me of what you probably want to convince me.
In any case, are the people from your Church *still* helping? Will they be able to stay until the rebuilding is complete? Can they provide medical care, building materials, money, and jobs for thousands of people for years on end?
>I don’t think I’d have a problem with a child from a different race
God bless ya, then. You’re something of a rarity, though. Healthy white babies may be in high demand, but everything else…not so much.
So the next question becomes: okay, you have no problem adopting a baby of any race (health status?). Is that what you’re *doing*?
>Most liberals have communist leanings today. Not the old school liberals like JFK
How ’bout FDR? The New Deal got him accused of communist leanings more than once.
>JFK, who incidentally would never get voted in as a democrat today.
Nonsense. He was young, handsome, and well-spoken. If the current president proves anything, it’s that personality counts for more than policy with the American electorate.
>Just an fyi, I consider myself strongly libertarian with the prospect of standing for individual’s rights, especially infants and unborn children.
What about adult women?
>I am opposed to the Iraq War, probably for different reasons than yourself, yet I don’t believe big oil to be our largest concern.
Glad to hear it, but I think we’re completely off-track now.
April 30, 2007 at 11:08 pm |
Anyway. I should stop wasting both of our time with this. We’re not going to convince each other of anything, and I don’t think anyone else is reading.
So. To answer your question: yes. I think abortion should be available for whatever reason a woman needs one. If she’d rather use a painful, invasive, $400 surgery as birth control rather than condoms or the Pill, that’s her lookout. If you disagree, that’s fine – it’s when you try to turn your beliefs into laws that we start to have issues.
April 30, 2007 at 11:09 pm |
But before I go, where did my post in answer to your 9:38 PM post go?
May 1, 2007 at 12:12 pm |
Seraph, not sure. I certainly did not remove it. Aren’t most laws created based on someone’s belief that whatever it is the law is protecting us from is wrong? (I think this land has too many laws, but that is a whole different story).