6th March 2010, 12:49 AM
(This post was last modified: 6th March 2010, 1:59 AM by A Black Falcon.)
This argument will go nowhere except to cause continued anger so I don't know how much point there is to continue it for too long, but I will for a little longer at least.
Abortion foes claim to care about life, and then oppose "life and health" exemptions, proving their hypocrisy.
Geno's point that abortion opponents are usually also national health care opponents is also a very good one, and another case of massive hypocrisy. If they care so much about the health and welfare of the American people, they should be advocates for welfare reform... for single-payer, preferably, because that would actually work. But no, they're somehow opposed to actually giving poor people actual competent health care. They only oppose abortion because of religious missionary zeal ("It's murder!"), not because of much actual real concern for people's welfare.
On that note, yes, the Catholic church does consider birth control murder too, because it ends a potential life, and because they believe that sex should never be for fun but should only ever be done for making children -- because humans are corrupt and evil (the Original Sin, remember), so we cannot be allowed to enjoy it, oh no...
Anyway, that is why the Catholic Church opposes birth control and abortion, and is why we have an anti-abortion movement today. You're not religious, yet it is religion that is behind your entire side's argument pretty much... Oh yeah, and that opposition to birth control has played a key role in the spreading of AIDS and other diseases in Catholic countries, and of the massive, dangerous population explosions in some third world countries, because those attitudes are the exact opposite of what the people in those countries so desperately need... These are not separate issues.
It's not disgusting or untruthful, it's fact. Sexism is a major point behind the pro-choice side, it's very real, and it's one of the most important, most central factors in the debate.
To be short, again, the percentage of men that oppose abortion is much, much, MUCH higher than that of women. As I said, there's a very good reason for that -- women actually know somethign about it because they can have children, so they realize what "abortion is illegal" actually means. Men, however, who don't have to think about it, only think about it in the theoretical way, and don't even pause to consider for a second the actual facts such as I presented there.
That may sound like a different reason from what I said there, but it's actually not. The reason why they're not stopping to consider it is partially because they don't have to, but partially because of sexism that causes them (consciously or not) to think less of women than men. It's not exactly saying anything to say that our society is still pretty sexist, it's an obvious fact. That so many men oppose abortion is just another point on the long list.
... Ever notice how most of the Republican women in the House and Senate support abortion rights of some kind, while almost virtually all (or perhaps all) of the Republican men are opposed? Yeah, there's a reason for that. If those men were women, they wouldn't all be opposed, that's for sure. They'd support women's rights, as many women and liberals do, instead of opposing them, as many conservatives do. But they are not, so oppression continues.
Women are a majority of the American population, hopefully eventually these attitudes will come back to bite the Republicans... here's hoping, anyway. Their anti-minority attitudes sure are, at any rate! Good luck winning Texas in a few decades as its Hispanic population increases if Republicans continue to hyperventilate about how evil Mexicans are... :D
The problem is, you're trying to conduct a theological debate here, as of course has been said... the issue of when a life is not an absolute. You seem to say conception. Okay. I described the quite different Catholic position above when I talked about birth control. Pro-choice people would probably generally say that it's at the point where science says that the fetus takes on recognizable characteristics of being a human and not some other species -- that is, at about the first trimester. Most abortion laws say that you can't have an abortion after the first trimester without a good reason; that is, late term abortions are not just done for fun. They are done for people with strict medical necessity. That abortion doctor who was murdered was not doing that just to rid people of their fetuses or something, he was doing it for people who had a really good reason for being there.
Oh yeah, and as always, abortion opponents have absolutely no answer for the point that women are going to ignore anti-abortion law anyway, get them done in secret, and then sometimes die of it. People our age today don't remember what those days were like, but my mom for instance does...
So people like you think that it would be better if women were dying back alleys with no medical care instead of getting the help they need to end their pregnancies. Utterly despicable. I guess the "response" is "well, fewer 'people' overall would die", but you're putting a priority on early fetuses over actual humans, and that's just not right. Those self-righteous anti-abortion people, you are supporting murder too... you just won't admit it.
SO yes, restrict choice. Call it "protecting the innocent" instead of "trying to hold back the advancement of women's rights". I however totally disagree.
Honestly though, overall, because of the whole "MURDER" thing, I can understand why it is such a tough issue... gay marriage I can see going away as a major issue, but abortion... that one won't be so easy, and might never go away as an issue. The whole is it murder/isn't it/when is a fetus a human question is so difficult in so many moral, religious, and social grounds that I'm sure it will be a very difficult question for a long time to come, and for good reasons.
Democrats usually say that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, and apart from how it's kind of a weak defense of keeping abortion legal, they're pretty much right. Some people getting abortions probably shouldn't be -- they should have been more careful with birth control in the first place. Abortion shouldn't really be a replacement for actual birth control. But it must be legal. And it is a matter of choice; it is not your (or my) body. It's their bodies and their right, and it'll either be legal and regulated or illegal and dangerous. And a first-trimester fetus is not a human being... but honestly, considering that religious reasons (as in conservative Christian opposition) form the primary reasons why people oppose abortion, debate over that latter point isn't even really the focus of the argument, I think, as it probably should be.
On that note, I almost didn't notice it because I wasn't reading every post in the thread, but I did now... your defense of opposing abortion in cases of rape is utterly despicable. Rape is not an act of sex or love, it is an act of violence. The victim is not at fault, the perpetrator is. Understanding that fact, and socially agreeing that people (mostly but not entirely men) who rape are wrong for doing it, and that the victims (mostly but not entirely women) are not at fault for being raped, has been a massive social struggle of the past century. That struggle is still ongoing, but it is kind of amazing when you look back, or at some third world countries today, to see how far we have come... and while allowing abortion in cases of pregnancy after rape is a relatively small part of that, it is an important part for the women inflicted by that particular form of suffering. They've already been tortured enough by the rape itself... forcing them to go through with a pregnancy due to it is just incredibly cruel. You talk about the fetus, but you're ignoring the woman, the person who is actually a full, living human...
My point there was that anti-abortion laws often do not have such exceptions, and when they are put in it is usually only because they think that there is a slightly higher chance of the thing somehow getting through with the exemption, not because they actually care about saving lives.
Darunia Wrote:Rephrase that. I don't understand what you're saying.
Abortion foes claim to care about life, and then oppose "life and health" exemptions, proving their hypocrisy.
Geno's point that abortion opponents are usually also national health care opponents is also a very good one, and another case of massive hypocrisy. If they care so much about the health and welfare of the American people, they should be advocates for welfare reform... for single-payer, preferably, because that would actually work. But no, they're somehow opposed to actually giving poor people actual competent health care. They only oppose abortion because of religious missionary zeal ("It's murder!"), not because of much actual real concern for people's welfare.
On that note, yes, the Catholic church does consider birth control murder too, because it ends a potential life, and because they believe that sex should never be for fun but should only ever be done for making children -- because humans are corrupt and evil (the Original Sin, remember), so we cannot be allowed to enjoy it, oh no...
Anyway, that is why the Catholic Church opposes birth control and abortion, and is why we have an anti-abortion movement today. You're not religious, yet it is religion that is behind your entire side's argument pretty much... Oh yeah, and that opposition to birth control has played a key role in the spreading of AIDS and other diseases in Catholic countries, and of the massive, dangerous population explosions in some third world countries, because those attitudes are the exact opposite of what the people in those countries so desperately need... These are not separate issues.
Quote:Ok up until here this has been a civil argument but if you're going to start making disgusting, untruthful accusations at me I'm going to have to tell you to go fuck yourself.
It's not disgusting or untruthful, it's fact. Sexism is a major point behind the pro-choice side, it's very real, and it's one of the most important, most central factors in the debate.
To be short, again, the percentage of men that oppose abortion is much, much, MUCH higher than that of women. As I said, there's a very good reason for that -- women actually know somethign about it because they can have children, so they realize what "abortion is illegal" actually means. Men, however, who don't have to think about it, only think about it in the theoretical way, and don't even pause to consider for a second the actual facts such as I presented there.
That may sound like a different reason from what I said there, but it's actually not. The reason why they're not stopping to consider it is partially because they don't have to, but partially because of sexism that causes them (consciously or not) to think less of women than men. It's not exactly saying anything to say that our society is still pretty sexist, it's an obvious fact. That so many men oppose abortion is just another point on the long list.
... Ever notice how most of the Republican women in the House and Senate support abortion rights of some kind, while almost virtually all (or perhaps all) of the Republican men are opposed? Yeah, there's a reason for that. If those men were women, they wouldn't all be opposed, that's for sure. They'd support women's rights, as many women and liberals do, instead of opposing them, as many conservatives do. But they are not, so oppression continues.
Women are a majority of the American population, hopefully eventually these attitudes will come back to bite the Republicans... here's hoping, anyway. Their anti-minority attitudes sure are, at any rate! Good luck winning Texas in a few decades as its Hispanic population increases if Republicans continue to hyperventilate about how evil Mexicans are... :D
Quote:Horrible anti-abortion laws. Because any law that prevents women from putting fucking forceps in their vaginas and forcibly removing unborn fetuses is horrible. Who could fucking see anything objectionable to that? Who would ever find anything wrong with pulling a squirming bloody dying fetus from between a woman's legs? What's wrong that that? Only a fool would look at that and find objection to it!
The problem is, you're trying to conduct a theological debate here, as of course has been said... the issue of when a life is not an absolute. You seem to say conception. Okay. I described the quite different Catholic position above when I talked about birth control. Pro-choice people would probably generally say that it's at the point where science says that the fetus takes on recognizable characteristics of being a human and not some other species -- that is, at about the first trimester. Most abortion laws say that you can't have an abortion after the first trimester without a good reason; that is, late term abortions are not just done for fun. They are done for people with strict medical necessity. That abortion doctor who was murdered was not doing that just to rid people of their fetuses or something, he was doing it for people who had a really good reason for being there.
Oh yeah, and as always, abortion opponents have absolutely no answer for the point that women are going to ignore anti-abortion law anyway, get them done in secret, and then sometimes die of it. People our age today don't remember what those days were like, but my mom for instance does...
So people like you think that it would be better if women were dying back alleys with no medical care instead of getting the help they need to end their pregnancies. Utterly despicable. I guess the "response" is "well, fewer 'people' overall would die", but you're putting a priority on early fetuses over actual humans, and that's just not right. Those self-righteous anti-abortion people, you are supporting murder too... you just won't admit it.
SO yes, restrict choice. Call it "protecting the innocent" instead of "trying to hold back the advancement of women's rights". I however totally disagree.
Honestly though, overall, because of the whole "MURDER" thing, I can understand why it is such a tough issue... gay marriage I can see going away as a major issue, but abortion... that one won't be so easy, and might never go away as an issue. The whole is it murder/isn't it/when is a fetus a human question is so difficult in so many moral, religious, and social grounds that I'm sure it will be a very difficult question for a long time to come, and for good reasons.
Democrats usually say that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, and apart from how it's kind of a weak defense of keeping abortion legal, they're pretty much right. Some people getting abortions probably shouldn't be -- they should have been more careful with birth control in the first place. Abortion shouldn't really be a replacement for actual birth control. But it must be legal. And it is a matter of choice; it is not your (or my) body. It's their bodies and their right, and it'll either be legal and regulated or illegal and dangerous. And a first-trimester fetus is not a human being... but honestly, considering that religious reasons (as in conservative Christian opposition) form the primary reasons why people oppose abortion, debate over that latter point isn't even really the focus of the argument, I think, as it probably should be.
On that note, I almost didn't notice it because I wasn't reading every post in the thread, but I did now... your defense of opposing abortion in cases of rape is utterly despicable. Rape is not an act of sex or love, it is an act of violence. The victim is not at fault, the perpetrator is. Understanding that fact, and socially agreeing that people (mostly but not entirely men) who rape are wrong for doing it, and that the victims (mostly but not entirely women) are not at fault for being raped, has been a massive social struggle of the past century. That struggle is still ongoing, but it is kind of amazing when you look back, or at some third world countries today, to see how far we have come... and while allowing abortion in cases of pregnancy after rape is a relatively small part of that, it is an important part for the women inflicted by that particular form of suffering. They've already been tortured enough by the rape itself... forcing them to go through with a pregnancy due to it is just incredibly cruel. You talk about the fetus, but you're ignoring the woman, the person who is actually a full, living human...
Quote:Open your fucking eyes. I've said that is the one instance where I would allow it.
My point there was that anti-abortion laws often do not have such exceptions, and when they are put in it is usually only because they think that there is a slightly higher chance of the thing somehow getting through with the exemption, not because they actually care about saving lives.
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