Abortion

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The good old Prohibition problem.

Ban them and people will just get them by illegal and sometimes dangerous means.

Just because I have not personally adopted someone does not mean that I cannot speak on the value of adoption, or the logic of the pro-life position. That's like saying because of haven't smoked I cannot speak for or against smoking cigarettes, or if you haven't been in the military you can't speak or the war in Iraq.

I just said that pro-lifers (and the religious) are more likely adopt then other groups. I don't have the statistical information in front of me though. Here is an old link that sort of relates to this (link).

It's quite simple, it has nothing to do with the war in Iraq or smoking cigarettes.

If you are not prepared to take up babies from unwanted pregnancies, then do not preach to the people who do not want them either.
Can you not see the hypocrisy?

edit: this 'pro-life' thing is nonsense, may as well say 'pro-anyhumanfunction'.
We are talking about the logic of abortions.
Not the logic of 'pro-life'.

It was claimed that the legalization of abortion would lead to less abortions. This was one of the main reasons, before Roe, that abortion laws were liberalized. Ronald Reagan signed such a law and called it his "only mistake" while governor of California. The opposite has occurred. The estimated number of abortions in the United States has jumped from thousands a year to a million a year.

It is often claimed that thousands of women's lives are saved by preventing them from going to back-allay abortion. First, this is misleading since a reversing of the Court imposed abortion regime would merely allow the issue to be decided by the legislature(s). Second off, the number of people to die of illegal abortions, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, was 1,313 in 1940. It then dropped to 159 by 1966, and to 41 by 1972*.

(*ource=The Party of Death by Ramesh Ponnuru, p. 71)

I am no more preaching then you are.

I object to the child being killed. That is what I object to, alright. I believe that to be unethical.

To be a hypocrite one has to violate one's own standards and I have not done that. It would hardly be correct for me to adopt a child now as it would not save a child's life and it would not improve that child's life.

Now, in regards to pro-life versus pro-choice, they are both labels. Pro-lifers claim that pro-choicers aren't really pro-choice because they don't allow the being they are destroying any choice. But I try to be polite and use both groups own labels equally.

EDIT: This is going badly. I seem to have irritated people in some way.

So what?
Is there any point to this post?

Some people do not like hypocrisy.
You claim to want to save lives.
Admittedly, i do not know how many but i can have them lined up outside your door within days.
How many do you want to save?
Zero it would seem.
But you still want to discuss the logic of 'pro-life.'
Is it any wonder you irritate.

You debate via the insult. That is rather pathetic. Is it not surprising then that you take the authoritarian position that says that a court of nine people should dictate like high priests what major domestic policies should be.

Yes, I would love to save lives. One million lives a year in America. If that is irritating, so be it.

EDIT: I'm not sure where that brief burst of adrenaline came from because I was a depressed ten minutes ago. To avoid a flame war I will not respond to any further posts in this topic. Ugh...I have no idea how I get into these things -Jim

Last edited by jimservo on 17 Feb 2007, 7:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Jimservo: you won't even save one, let alone one million.
I can give you one abortion to save within the next week.
You won't take it, but you talk of one million.
That's all it is.. talk.

The whole prolife/prochoice terminology is ridiculous; you either want abortion to be legal, illegal, or only legal in certain cases.

I really think that the terminology should be changed from pro-life/pro-choice to anti-choice/pro-death. It would be a lot more interesting really though it is just a sample of how people try to use words in a manner to make themselves sound good.

I said I wouldn't respond but the topic has shifted so I think it is OK. I agree with what Awesomelyglorius has just said. I am reading a book entitled Words That Work by the pollster Frank Luntz that delves into this very topic. It is rather interesting.

One of the things he stresses is that most people simply do not have the time (or interest) to keep up with the specific details of political topics. Hence, by the use of language by interest groups can gain an advantage. Two examples in this very area.

For decades now anti-abortion/pro-life forces have been gaining in the polls partially because people, largely, don't like abortions. They don't like the word. The pro-abortion/pro-choice advocates know this. This is why the group formerly known as The National Abortion Rights Action League officially changed it's name to NARAL Pro-Choice America. It is to emphasize to abortion, which people largely dislike, but choice, which has connotations of freedom which people do like.

Now let's turn to a battle which the pro-choice advocates most definitely are winning (and they have a political reason to want to be triumphant in this arena even though it isn't directly linked to them): embryonic stem cell research. Polls show a majority of Americans do not like cloning, and they do not like embryo cloning (even for possible positive research purposes), however they do like "stem cell research" in the generic. This is why words are important. Proponents of stem cell research are talking, of course, about a specific type of research (that is another debate), and they are very careful not to be specific about the cloning and destruction of human embryos not other types of stem cell research. Politically, this would be stupid because then people would turn against them.

Why not just anti-abortion?

It makes me extremely angry that this non-issue is ever discussed. It's just a blind to keep stupid people talking and feeling like they're intelligent and involved, and keep their minds off Islamic extremists trying to kill us and rising gas prices.

I would have no problem calling a truce with the name thing from now on and just using the more neutral terms pro/anti-abortion. To be honest, it is more descriptive then the cheer leading pro-life/pro-choice. Also it would get around confusing situations like people like John McCain being accused of "not really being pro-life" because he is for embryonic stem-cell research.