’)The numbers are in. Nobody tell the cons.
Survey USA releases an excellent new survey showing opinions on abortion for all 50 states. The most “pro-choice” state is Vermont (70%); the most “pro-life” state is Utah (61%).
Overall, 56% of Americans consider themselves “pro-choice” vs. just 38% who are “pro-life.”
The idea of abortion is disturbing to me personally. But it disturbs me more that the people who (yes, there are exceptions, but an occasional exception, proves the rule) are only interested in the ‘pre-born’ and suddenly lose interest in the child during it’s developing years. That bothers me just as much.
The other thing that bothers me is their insistence that a woman’s uterus is somehow, public domain. Like they should be stickin’ their noses in private places where they have no business.
They get all ethically philosophical on the issue of birth control. They don’t want to mess with the divine will by somehow interfering with the issue of conception because that is god’s perogative. They don’t stop for a minute and ask why a blighted ovum is rejected from the womb. They seem satisfied that god’s will worked to abort that fetus.
Yet they think their political and religious responsibility is to somehow save every child from a grisly, premature death before being born, without giving the man upstairs credit for completing his plan on his own. He doesn’t need our help to accomplish his purpose. To me, that sort of self -important arrogance is the part that is most disturbing.
Abortion is a touchy subject, and generally I stay away from it. My personal beliefs are as such. But, I thought it was disturbing that some of the things that people are questioning Alito on are abortions. It seems people were dismayed that he was behind “spousal consent” for abortions. I think that we as Democrats, Liberals, Progressives, or whatever word we choose ought to move more toward the center on subjects such as these. If we defend a “mother’s” right to choose, why then do we think it is okay to tell a “father” he has no say in the matter. I know….I know….I expect to get hit by the tomatoes, but as a Dad, I couldn’t imagine finding out that my wife chose to abort a child without so much as informing me.
While I normally do not touch this subject with a ten-foot pole and would actually lean more on the anti-choice only because it involves death but for no other reason. The real reason this pole is important is because the anti-choice crowd think that because they elected Republicans that they all have these moral and dutiful Christians who hate abortion. I have no proof, but I believe that 2/3 of the congressmen and women don’t give two shits about abortion, or school prayer, or any other red herring argument that is not affecting this country. So if Roe v. Wade gets overturned, can I cry out that conservatives have legislated from the bench?
No tomatoes here, Mr. Dkel. However, consider this: would your wife’s decision whether or not to inform you about an abortion be an issue that should be under governmental jurisdiction, or would it be an issue of trust and communication between two adults who have taken a public oath to love, honor, cherish, etc.?
While the rights of caring, concerned (potential) fathers are not something that I take lightly (especially since my first child was born yesterday), but the rights of women to control their own bodies is paramount. Any law that requires a woman to consult or inform a man– even the biological father of an unborn child– of her fertility and childbearing decisions effectively makes the woman’s reproductive hardware (and, by extension, the entire woman) property of the man.
I don’t know about you, Dkel, but I love and trust my wife. She can do whatever she wants with her body. If she does something that I can’t live with, then I’ll leave. I hope that she would love and trust me enough to share her decisions with me (before or after the fact), but I desire no legal mandate to that end. She is my partner, not my property. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Once again, we have a generic poll on abortion that does not get into specifics and Oliver claims victory.
Considering that Democrats (for the most part) think abortion should be legal at all times, at any age, for any reason and at any point in the pregnancy, and that puts them far out of the mainstream. If the poll was broken down, the numbers would be different. As such, these polls are useless. For example, with regard to parental consent. One would think that from reading the results of the poll results Oliver linked to, the majority of the country would be opposed to parental consent. The fact is, anywhere from 75%-80% of the country supports parental consent.
Alex, the problem with your view is that your looking at it from the point of view that the child growing inside of the woman is just part of “her body.” Sorry, but that doesn’t hold up. That is a human being inside. It’s not simply her “reproductive hardware.” When we went to see the sonogram of my son for the first time at 10 weeks, we saw his little legs kicking. That was our son, not her body.
In addition, it’s a little off don’t you think that it comes down to a woman saying, “My body. My choice” but if that choice is to keep have the baby, it suddenly becomes “Our responsibility”?
It’s a debate worth having. Unfortunately, it too often comes down to loudmouths on both sides, with one side shouting about “Murder!!” and the other talking about “You want to control a woman’s uterus!!” That’s why I mostly stay out of it, but when I see polls like this, I have to speak up.
Good point. One scenarion that is usually brought up is the abusive or threatening husband. There are always the “what ifs” to toy with, but say we just want to address this from an idealistic view point, don’t we want our law to convey the act of procreation being a two-way street? Having children and marriage would have to be in alot better shape in America to sway us away from these cynical outlooks from both sides of this issue.
More proof that the Democrats need to figure out abortion if they want to win a presidential election anytime soon…
I think if you deny women the right to an abortion, you should make contraception freely available and educate people about sex in the context of relationships. All they did at my school was show the mechanics of sex and reproduction. A day spent with a 16 year old single mother would’ve been a lot more educational. I believe the term is ’scare’m straight’.
Whilst I don’t condone underage sex, it certainly goes on. Open eyes seem to stop this occurring in some countries.
Congratulations Alex! Health and happiness to you and your family.
The most interesting thing is, in spite of these polls, the republicans who at least mouth lip-service to pro-life keep winning the white house!
In addition, it s a little off don t you think that it comes down to a woman saying, My body. My choice but if that choice is to keep have the baby, it suddenly becomes Our responsibility ?
Not at all. However, I believe there might be some women who do think that’s a little off. That’s their right, as well. However, if you give the state the ability to tell a woman what she can or can not do with her body– even if it involves an unborn child– then you are doing no less than consigning her to conditional slavery contingent upon the disposition of her womb. It is about liberty and personal responsibility. If you enter into a relationship with a woman– especially one that involves sexual contact– then you are taking a risk. It doesn’t matter if you are married; the marriage contract doesn’t make the woman or her body your property. She is designed to carry babies, the man is not. Her body, her choice. Don’t like it? Then make sure you’re with a woman who’s on the same page as you. If you think you are but still get blind-sided, those are the breaks. Better luck next time. There are far more women in the world who get abused and/or abandoned by men then men who have their children ’stolen’ from them through abortions they didn’t want. I don’t think we need a poll for that one.
Personally, I am secure enough in my manhood– and with the risks inherent to personal freedom– that I don’t need the government to force my wife to do what I wish with her body. I trust her; if she violates that trust, then the state already has a remedy for that: it’s called divorce.
It’s also interesting that many more women say “Abortion is OK” than say, I would have one.”
Why stop with third trimester abortion? If the kid seems unruly or continually keeps Mom up at night, I’d limit the death sentence to those who have less than 2 years under their belts.
They are still “unviable masses”. I mean, what 2 year old can actually feed or bathe himself?
Mouse? Is that you?
RiR;
I don’t think anyone could have made my point about pre-born versus child out of the womb better than you just did
Very good, Alex.
Really the entire abortion debate is about Repug efforts to keep women “in their place.” When you hear shills like Jay C. yap about ‘human beings inside”–it’s so much gas because Jay C. and his ilk could care less what happens to that “human being” outside.
And face it–their logic doesn’t hold water. Victims of rape or incest or in those cases where pregnancy places the woman’s life in peril all fail the logic test if we are to assume conception immediately creates another citizen with full rights.
Straw man, anyone?
owever, if you give the state the ability to tell a woman what she can or can not do with her body even if it involves an unborn child then you are doing no less than consigning her to conditional slavery contingent upon the disposition of her womb.
Your argument doesn’t make sense logically. An unborn child is a separate person from the mother. It is not “her body.” The law in almost all states recognizes the unborn child as a separate person. IE, if I kill a pregnant woman, I can be charged with two murders.
In addition, the state already tells women what they can and cannot do with their body. Women cannot legally take drugs. They are not allowed by law, to offer their body sexually for money. Women can be prosecuted for abuse or manslaughter if they consume enough alcohol while they are pregnant.
It doesn t matter if you are married; the marriage contract doesn t make the woman or her body your property.
Again, it is not “her body” that’s the party of interest. It is that of another person – the unborn child.
She is designed to carry babies, the man is not. Her body, her choice.
And until the biological makeup of a woman changes so that she can pro-create asexually, your comment doesn’t make much sense. “Designed to carry” does not equate to “designed to make on her own.”
It’s really simple. I’ve said it for years; if you scratch one of these “pro-life” people just a little, you find that they are really “anti-sex”.
I personally find abortion a crude and invasive procedure. With widespread availability of birth control and “Plan B” pills, abortion should quickly become as crude, unnecessary, and backwards as frontal lobotomies, amputation to prevent infection, applying leeches, or “taking the waters”.
Birth control for everyone. Give out Plan B pills like Smarties in High School nurse’s offices. Put fishbowls of condoms by the door so kids can grab a handful of them on their way out. And, while we’re giving the Puritan Wingnuts apoplexy, why not teach *both* genders how to perform oral sex TO COMPLETION. Pregnancy is impossible when oral sex is performed properly, enthusiastically, and expertly. We can end abortion in our lifetime– I guarantee you.
And that’s where you quickly find out that these “pro-life” people don’t give a shit about fetuses, or even blasocysts. Their real problem is with *semen*– specifically, they have an overwhelming need to control what everyone does with theirs.
Every sperm is sacred, it seems. The horrifying idea that people are actually HAVING SEX and “avoiding God’s punishment for their sins” is what motivates them to bomb abortion clinics, harrass young girls, elect Repugs, fulminate against basic common sense contraception, and write wretched, un-Constitutional, un-American legislation.
I’ve had enough of the anti-sex lobby. More blowjobs, more contraception, less abortions.
Heaven for freaking bid that somebody have a principled position in regards to this more than a little bit complex issue. People like goat leave no room for anything other than blind loyalty to the “right to privacy”.
Goat proceeds to follow TomY down the path of knowing others true, yet never stated, intentions.
In regards to the substance of the post, if poll numbers are the indicators by which we will now be deciding the fate of the issues, then I assume that school vouchers, parental notification and/or consent, etc … will quickly be implemented into law, as they are prefered by large margins.
It’s high time the pro-life movement shifted its focus from clinical abortion to the number-one killer of pre-birth children: spontaneous abortion. Over 50% of the children conceived each year never even make it to the implantation stage in their mother’s uterus. These babies –tens of millions of babies each year– die horrible, lonely deaths, never having known the loving motherly gifts of vasculation and gonadotropin.
What can be done about this unspeakable carnage? With enough research and testing, scientists may someday come up with a preventative medicine, but we can’t wait for that day while the souls of untold billions of the spontaneously aborted cry out to us for justice.
Clearly, allowing men and women to conceive by natural means is like holding a Russian-roulette pistol to your baby’s head with half the chambers loaded! Legislation is urgently needed to mandate the collecting of sperm and ova from all fertile males and females. After the gametes are collected, each male and female must immediately be gelded and/or spayed to prevent the accidental or unauthorized creation of persons in the horrifically dangerous confines of the human reproductive tract.
Some well-meaning people might say that we should learn to suffer through this carnage, since it is obviously God’s will that these tiny boys and girls be called home to heaven before they even form a neural tube. But is this what Louis Pasteur said about microbial illness? Is this what Jonas Salk said about polio? Surely the Lord would not want us to stand by passively and watch our children perish!!
And don’t expect any action from the mealy-mouthed, duplicitious politicians in Washington or in your local statehouse. Not even from the “plino” (pro-life in name only), Republicans. Their lack of zeal for this crusade shows that they have no real regard for the weakest among us. They don’t really believe life begins at conception. For them, pro-life is just a role they play for election-day crowds. They pursue the easy and meaningless drops-in-the-bucket like partial-birth abortions and ten year olds getting abortions without parental consent. Meanwhile the real death toll of forgotten blastocytic angels mounts and mounts.
Goat has a point.
I never dreamed that this was a Republican style smokescreen to cover the real intent. This abhorrence of the animalistic nature of sex and it’s dichotomy with the spritual world was seen, by the Church, as insufficient for preventing people from copulating at will. Hence, the abortion and contraception issue become the same quest, even though contraception practiced competently would reduce fetal deaths considerably.
Although the reference below is verbose and clear as mud with regard to the Catholic view (as well as many fundamentalist Protestants) that the original sin (eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden) Adam and Eve committed was sexual intercourse.
As the foundation for religious belief, this is mildly important.
When you think of Muslims and their social structure, it is important to note a similar construct exists in their midst. When a female member of a family disgraces them for having sex outside of marriage, in many countries she can be killed by a family member, legally.
The heavenly reward for faithful adherents to Islam receive 70 virgins as their personal consorts. I’ve often wondered what happens to the virginal status once sex has taken place. Perhaps when the 70 are deflowered, the adherent gets 70 more. That’s not the point. The issue is their virginity.
They are clean, unblemished by the nasty business of sex.
Yes, again I will say abortion is terrible to conceive. But we are not going to stop it by keeping teenagers ignorant of ways to avoid pregnancy.
Continue to preach the good sense of abstinence. That has a lot more merit than boycotting abortion clinics, or fighting sex education, or opposing the dispensing of condoms.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm
Frank_D Says:
November 2nd, 2005 at 9:18 pm
It s also interesting that many more women say Abortion is OK than say, I would have one.
It’s interesting that these women would indicate that they are pro-CHOICE, even if they would personally CHOOSE not to have an abortion? What is interesting that the anti-choice side wants to dictate, and deprive people of their right to personal choice in this matter.
My God, Frank, you are an idiot. Being pro-choice means you want a woman to have the option of an abortion, and not a thing more. It doesn’t mean you want to abort all babies, the way that the radical anti-choice groups claim. You know, that, I hope, or are just being dumb on purpose.
No, what they’re saying is, “The idea of abortion is OK — I wouldn’t want to deny women the right to have one — but I wouldn’t have one, myself.”
So they actually are pro -choice and anti – abortion at the same time. I’m sure that both the distinction and the significance are lost on you, and other pro – abortion folks.
What always amuses me is how it is generally men who are more vocal about abortion than women.
Nevertheless, the problem with the abortion debate is that both sides are in an all-or-nothing posture. Pro-lifers want all abortions outlawed and pro-choice’ers want abortion without restrictions. Of course they cling to Roe v. Wade, which allows for restrictions, and yet refuse to support any restrictions at all.
Take the same sampling in the poll OW refers to that identified themselves as pro-choice and ask how they feel about restrictions, parental notification, spousal notification, partial-birth, etc. I would bet that the results would change in a way that would not please the pro-choice lobby.
I am also waiting for the pro-choice lobby to come out in favor of legalizing prostitution for if it is a women’s body to do with as she chooses shouldn’t that include receiving payment for sex between consenting adults?
As for when life begins, I don’t know any mor than the rest of you. I read a book once by Carl Sagan who tried to reconcile science and religion as to when life begins. He concluded that at approximately the end of the second trimester brainwave function can first be detected and thsu that is when life begins. An explanation as good as any, I suppose although I would limit abortions to the first trimester only, unless the health of the mother is at risk.
No one who has ever been with their wife to an ultrasound around 12 weeks can convince me that what is on the screen is not a life.
Hedley…
What always amuses me is how it is generally men who are more vocal about abortion than women.
Leaving near and/or visiting D.C. at various times over the past twenty years, I have seen my share of large-scale abortion demonstrations on both sides. My observation is that woman outnumber the men by far.
Scratch, I was speaking more from the standpoint of the Internet boards, etc., but I don’t doubt your experiences.
Oh good, a pointless and unwinnable debate.
What the heck, here are my stream-of-consiousness thoughts on the subject:
- “Pro-lifers want to keep women in their place” = “Pro-choicers want to murder children.”
- Echoing a post above, at some point in the pregnancy one has to accept that the thing inside a pregnant woman is a person, not just a part of the woman’s body (I personally think that occurs sometime after the very early stages of the pregnancy.) After that point, the woman’s “choice” involves both her and another person (not to mention the father.)
- The case in which Alito dissented involved spousal notification, not spousal consent. And as far as I know there were provisions in the law (which Alito supported) for exceptions such as spousal abuse. I t surprises me that so many people apparently think so little of a father’s right to know about the termination of his future child’s life. If push comes to shove I think the mother should make the ultimate decision, since she is the one with the most immediate responsibility and the one most at risk, but the law at issue concerns just the right to know.
- As far as I know, even if Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion would not be “illegal.” It would simply not be considered a right guaranteed by the Constitution.
- I would like to see Alito confirmed because of his conservative philosophy, but I do not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned, nor do I want abortion to be illegal. I’m willing to bet that there are plenty of conservatives who feel the same way.
Hedley…
I see.
Just for grins, I will tell you a little semi-off-topic story. A couple months ago, just when the Plame/Rove thing was really starting to get hot, I was driving in D.C. and saw a bunch of pink-clad ladies ahead of me at the curb, carrying protest signs and making noise at the people driving by. I read some of the signs: “Save Rove!” What? Save Rove?! He’s the last person I’d expect to see people out demonstrating for, least of all ladies in pink.
I pulled up a little closer, wondering what the heck was going on. After watching them for a bit, one of the signs finally registered properly on my addled brain: “Save Roe!”
And once again all was right with the world.
No, Oliver, I’m not being dumb on purpose. As I thought, the distinction was lost on you.
If all the women who thought abortions were OK for hypothetical other women also wanted to have abortions, that would turn out to be one hell of a lot of abortions.
I think, and I can’t prove it, because I’ve never seen a survey that asked the question, “Under what conditions would you feel comfortable having an abortion?”; but I believe that most women only “approve” of abortions in the abstract, i.e., :If you really have to have one, well, all right,” not “Women have some undeniable, incontestable ‘right to choose,’ a right to do whatever they want with their own bodies, a right, it seems, neither male teens nor adult men possess.”
For that matter, I’ve never heard the questions asked in any these surveys
Open heart surgery does not, at some arguable point in time, directly involve a 2nd life. One procedure is clearly life-saving and one is, arguably, life-taking. Comparing the two is beyond absurdity.
So while women should be able to have abortions, the notion that such abortions should be without limitation or reasonable restriction is assinine.
Nobody with any common sense feels comfortable having an abortion. Then again, nobody feels comfortable having open heart surgery. Yet, you should have the option to choose both medical procedures.
Name one restriction or reasonable limitation that any pro-choice lobby has supported.
Spousal notification with exceptions? No.
Parental notification and/or consent? No.
Ban partial birth abortion procedure? No.
Ban third-trimester abortions except to save the life of the mother? No.
And on and on and on.
Just as you claim that equating pro-choice to abortion without limitation is a strawman, so too is claiming that the pro-life position is dependant on theologians and not doctors. My guess is that most people, pro-life or otherwise, would agree that life does not begin at conception but that it does begin sooner than birth. Maybe one day the pro-choicers can agree and this issue won’t be such a political distraction.
How ’bout a little fire for that strawman.
Who’s arguing the “without limitation or reasonable restriction” side of the argument? What supporters of choice argue is that reasonable limitations and restrictions on medical care are made by doctors, not theologians.
That would be odd.
Why oppose all abortion, or emergency contraception, or stem cell research if life begins at some time other than conception?
Wouldn’t people who hold such a belief be willing to accept an abortion up to that point?
Oliver, you’re being ridiculous. First of all, you have no information as to whether woman “feel comfortable” having abortions or not. I, on the other hand, know that something like one million and a half abortions are performed every year. You’ll never convince me that a million and a half women were uncomfortable with that choice.
Many years ago, Jerry Falwell (yes, that Jerry Falwell) offered what he called the “70 per cent compromise”: “Let’s assume that 10% of women who want abortions are victims of rape or incest, let’s assume that 10% more are women whose pregnancies must be kept secret, and 10% are women whose pregnancies represent a true medical danger to the women involved,” he said.
“We will ‘give you’ those,” he said, “just let us stop the other 70 percent.”
From the feminist side came: No takers.
Why would people who claim that they are in favor of reasonable limitations on abortion and not unlimited abortion never support a reasonable limitation?
Both sides take an unreasonable all or nothing posture out of fear of the slippery slope.
Isn’t citing Falwell some sort of modern version of Godwin’s law? Who the hell are you or Jerry Falwell to decide who the 70% or 30% should be? These women are choosing to have abortions, for their own goddamn personal reasons. We don’t need the government inserting itself in their bedrooms to make this decision for them, unless you’re prepared to start telling people yay and nay for every medical procedure under the sun.
Oliver…
We don t need the government inserting itself in their bedrooms to make this decision for them, unless you re prepared to start telling people yay and nay for every medical procedure under the sun.
So I assume you would approve of an abortion when a woman is in the stirrups, the doctor sees the top of the child’s head, and the woman stops pushing and cries out, “Wait, wait, I changed my mind!”? It’s OK then, right? After all, this woman is choosing to have an abortion for her own goddamn personal reasons.
Extreme example? You bet. Many, if not most, people also think it’s an extreme position that any woman can have an abortion any time for her own goddamn personal reasons. According to your position above, a woman could do that, even with the attending doctor saying, “No! It’s moments from birth!” And then what, does he get sued if he doesn’t do it?
As Hedley pointed out, there are two unreasonable extremes in this issue. You have shown yourself to be on one of them.
The problem with OW’s position (and obviously he is not the only one to share it) is that he is treating abortion as a medical procedure alone, akin to open heart surgery, without considering that there is at some arguable point, another life involved. The whole point of Roe v. Wade is that there is another life involved whose interests (and hence, the State’s interest), at some point, become nearly equal, if not equal, to the mother’s.
I am guessing that most, if not all of us would agree that at the moment of conception life does not begin, but rather the potential for life. At some point that potential is realized. We would all probably also agree that that realization of potential occurs at some point prior to birth. And when it does occur, there are competing interests at stake which makes abortion wholly unique to any other medical procedure.
As a matter of belief, it’s easy to accept that proposition. As a matter of law, it’s more difficult.
Law must not be vague. For law to define the point at which potential life becomes actual life, it must be precise.
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that science and law can make that determination.
Would you then argue that the law should prohibit abortions beyond that point? In all cases?
If a determination could be made as to when life begins, then yes, I would support a law that prohibits abortions after that point in all cases.
However, since that determination can’t be made Roe v. Wade is, for now, the best we have. The problem is that despite clinging to Roe, the pro-choice lobby is unwilling to accept its precepts that reasonable limitations on abortion can be imposed at certain periods.
For once I agree with Carter:
Carter condemns abortion culture
By Ralph Z. Hallow
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 4, 2005
Former President Jimmy Carter yesterday condemned all abortions and chastised his party for its intolerance of candidates and nominees who oppose abortion.
“I never have felt that any abortion should be committed — I think each abortion is the result of a series of errors,” he told reporters over breakfast at the Ritz-CarltonHotel, while across town Senate Democrats deliberated whether to filibuster the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. because he may share President Bush and Mr. Carter’s abhorrence of abortion.
“These things impact other issues on which [Mr. Bush] and I basically agree,” the Georgia Democrat said. “I’ve never been convinced, if you let me inject my Christianity into it, that Jesus Christ would approve abortion.”
Mr. Carter said his party’s congressional leadership only hurts Democrats by making a rigid pro-abortion rights stand the criterion for assessing judicial nominees.
“I have always thought it was not in the mainstream of the American public to be extremely liberal on many issues,” Mr. Carter said. “I think our party’s leaders — some of them — are overemphasizing the abortion issue.”
While Mr. Carter has previously expressed ambivalence about abortion, his statements yesterday were “astonishing,” said Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute at Concerned Women for America.
“He has long professed to be an evangelical Christian and yet he had embraced virtually all the liberal political agenda,” said Mr. Knight. “Maybe with Jimmy Carter saying things he never uttered before, more liberals will rethink their worship of abortion as the high holy sacrament of liberalism.”
Running for president in 1976 — just three years after the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision — Mr. Carter took a moderate stance.
“I think abortion is wrong and that the government ought never do anything to encourage abortion,” he said during that campaign. “But I do not favor a constitutional amendment which would prohibit all abortions, nor one that would give states [a] local option to ban abortions.”
In Washington to promote his latest book, “Our Enduring Values,” Mr. Carter acknowledged he made mistakes in office.
“I can’t deny I’m a better ex-president than I was a president,” said Mr. Carter, who in recent years has traveled the globe with his wife Rosalyn, “trying to help hold 61 elections” in developing countries.
He has been outspoken in condemning Mr. Bush’s policy toward Iraq. “I think all Christians — and certainly all Baptists — are different,” Mr. Carter said yesterday. “I have a commitment to worship the Prince of Peace, not the Prince of Preemptive War.”
But he praised Mr. Bush’s policy toward war-torn Sudan, and declared that the best treatment he has received since leaving the Oval Office was from the first President Bush, and the second-best treatment he got was during the Reagan administration, especially from Secretary of State George P. Shultz. The worst treatment he’s received, the former president said, was from President Clinton.
Mr. Carter said his party lost the 2004 presidential elections and lost House and Senate seats because Democratic leaders failed “to demonstrate a compatibility with the deeply religious people in this country. I think that absence hurt a lot.”
Democrats must “let the deeply religious people and the moderates on social issues like abortion feel that the Democratic party cares about them and understands them,” he said, adding that many Democrats, like him, “have some concern about, say, late-term abortions, where you kill a baby as it’s emerging from its mother’s womb.”
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20051103-111740-7148r.htm
Rape? Incest? Health or life of the mother?
And re: Carter. Careful. You’re about to mess up the whole “Pro-lifers aren’t welcome in the Democratic Party” myth.
If it is agreed that a life has begun then I don’t see how that life began, no matter how horriffic, as relevant. I know that is a rather hard-lined position but I don’t see how it can be reasonably reconciled.
I would allow an exception if, and only if, the health of the mother was at stake such that the baby would have to be aborted, rather than delivered, in orcer for the mother to survive. If there were truly equally competing health decisions, then I would side with the interests of the mother.
To me it is not terribly important when “life begins”. I believe that life begins at conception.
But so what?
There are two other issues here:
1) Something like 35 or 37 State laws that forbad abortion were swept away on the day of the Roe v Wade decision. Interestingly, that’s about the same number of states it would take to ratify a Constitutional Amendment. This, despite a specific Amendment that says that no power not specifically defined in the Constitution, and assigned to the Federal Government, can be assigned to the Federal Government. (Amendment X)
2) Abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution, nor is there a “right to privacy” that extends to a women’s reproductive organs. Yet, it was “discovered” in 1973, just lying around on the floor, I guess, or maybe it came in from Europe by DHL.
“When life begins” has nothing to with either of those issues.
Well, then I have to give you credit for logical consistency.
Now we can go back to your first point: somewhere between conception and delivery, there’s a moment at which something called “life” begins. Those who pretend to know with certainty when that moment happens can’t provide scientific or medical evidence as proof.
As I said before, law can’t be vague. How would you write such an idea into law?
Well, if you’re going to get all real-world about it, I’ll remind you that the “right to privacy that extends to a woman’s reproductive organs” has been upheld by the court several times since.
You’re quite right that the words “abortion” and “privacy” do not appear in the Constitution or its amendments. However, the general principle of restraining governmental interference with individual liberties is asserted in several places, including the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth amendments.
It would be quite a stretch to argue that the framers did not envision a freedom from governmental interference or intrusion as a fundamental right of citizens.