I’m old enough to remember when Pro-life groups were commonly known, even amongst themsleves, as anti-abortionists. It was the label of their choosing until it started playing against them. Even though it is a more accurate description, inasmuch as they are only pro-life for the duration of the pregnancy.
It would be folly for anyone to argue that there is such a thing as pro-abortion.

Huh, can we expect Mr. Tea to start calling it the DemocratIC Party now?

Well, by the way I think you’re improving as a debater, it isn’t a “fail”. It wouldn’t fail here because it hasn’t failed there.
I mean, that is the kind of thing that your mentor the Evil One trades in. A kind of psych war–I really do think that Glenn is on a CIA or NSA payroll because it just reads to0 much like psy ops and propaganda– against any kind of progressive direction and reality pretty much anywhere on Earth!

And, well, people who oppose the European social state, while they may not be conservative and I don’t think I used that word by the way, they certainly aren’t progressive. That opinion is also shared by your pal Glenn, which means you need to rethink your view of the European social state. Didn’t you see Sicko?

I never called for any European collapse or forecast any folly of the sort, I’ve also spoken about our debt to the Chinese and how we are currently sowing the seeds of that while also bailing out corporate no goodniks.

Stop ascribing to me positions I don’t have in order to make some kind of untrue point. Simply because I don’t think America is or should become a European style social state yesterday does not make me a conservative and you don’t get to decide.

But there have been cases where the Dad is responsible for the daughter being pregnant. Would you really give him the opportunity to decide what the kid gets to do?
No, if you you know that for a fact you throw the bastard in jail and make sure his cellmates know what he’s behind bars for.

But while for a sliver of kids notification may be a bad thing, you have to make laws anyway. Not in every situation does a law work perfectly (for instance a cop not reading someone their Miranda rights could let someone who is clearly a murderer go free, and that sucks but we can’t renege on Miranda because of the greater good), but we need to have a baseline rule.

My baseline is that I don’t think a child can have a major medical procedure like abortion without parental notification.

http://www.oliverwillis.com/index.php/2008/04/13/apparently-im-not-a-progressive/#comment-90957

I also have to ask you: collapse compared to our system? Our system where we now trust our mideastern and Chinese “pals” to keep us out of a massive depression? That one? I’ll take theirs. Really.

Philip Shropshire
http://www.threeriversonline.com

PS: And he would add: “We are six months away from total victory in Iraq.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwrcZTvbwIs

Oh, please don’t Strowbridge me, Oliver, and criticize me for saying things I didn’t actually say. I didn’t was clear: “Blanket solution doesn’t work for this one.”

Generally I’d fall on the side of parental notification. But there have been cases where the Dad is responsible for the daughter being pregnant. Would you really give him the opportunity to decide what the kid gets to do?

OW: If you went to pick up your kid at school would you react well to a teacher who said we amputated little Billy’s finger and we didn’t think we should call you?

I’m thinking no. And abortion isn’t much different.

Well, the way you phrase it they do seem quite different to me. The school just choosing to amputate my kid’s finger isn’t the same as my kid choosing to have an abortion. I get what you’re heading at, but your particular example could have been better chosen or phrased.

I would certainly want to know about anything momentous (and not so momentous) that was going on with my kids. But I can see situations where having to get parental permission, or even notify the parents, would not be a good thing to have to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxLag-EXiZk

OTOH, far too many parents simply suck at parenting and may be the LAST people who should know their kid is considering/getting an abortion.

This does not seem a distinction we can leave up to the state to make. Because some parents do a shitty job you invalidate the rights of them all? No. If you went to pick up your kid at school would you react well to a teacher who said we amputated little Billy’s finger and we didn’t think we should call you?

I’m thinking no. And abortion isn’t much different.

I’m surely a Bush/McCain Republican and I didn’t even realize it yet.

Negro, Please.

Philip Shropshire
http://www.threeriversonline.com

I’m undecided on this. On one hand, parents bear significant responsibility (moral and legal) for the actions of their kids up to age 18 so it makes sense to me that they should be informed of their kids’ activities. OTOH, far too many parents simply suck at parenting and may be the LAST people who should know their kid is considering/getting an abortion.

Blanket solution doesn’t work for this one.

If “pro-lifers” were honestly pro-life, they’d oppose the death penalty.

Unless there is compelling reason otherwise, the respectful thing to do is to refer to a group by the terms they choose to define themselves. I also have a problem with the pro-lifers calling the pro-choice crowd “pro-abortion.”

Simply calling each side by their preferred term, and not giving either side the power to define the other, avoids a lot of pointless arguments about terminology and allows the discussion to proceed to pointless arguments about the issue.

J.