As I've said before, if women have to be forced to see the sonogram of the fetus they are about to terminate, then we as a public should be forced to see the innocent civilians and the soldiers who are killed in our wars. How is a child in a foreign country killed by an errant missile somehow less important than an embryo 2 days after conception?
The reason for this is it is convenient and intellectually lazy. It is easy to push your values on the poor, those who have no other real choices than to go down to the clinic and get an abortion. It is hard to stand against a well-oiled, well-lobbied war machine. It is easy to dismiss the death of 6 year old boy in Afghanistan because he "isn't one of us" or "he would have grown up to be a terrorist anyhow." It doesn't require the effort to be ideologically consistent across multiple scenarios and cultures or consider the socio-economic situations that caused this to be an issue in the first place.
"Abortion bad, war good", that's pretty much what it boils down to for the majority of these people, even though they claim to oppose war, they're often the first ones cheering for it.
I agree wholeheartedly...while abortion does sadden my heart and I would love for it to end...I also don't think a child should be brought into the world unloved and unwanted. I love the cranberries song "war child" just for reasons like this...we should be made to face any death caused by human error...whether it be war or abortion or just plain ignorance. Well said sir!
ReplyDeleteHumans seem predisposed to identifying with groups and subsets. Once we became divided into "them" and "us" our fate was sealed. It likely has roots in the first clan of homo sapiens as they distanced themselves from the Neanderthals to protect their women from being "polluted". I've often said that most of the motivations driving our society are simply adeptations of our primal instincts that no longer serve their original purpose, but linger in our genetic code like viruses hidden in a database.
ReplyDeleteNice wedging there. In reality there are plenty of people at pro-life rallies who are objectively anti-war, heavy hitters too. They know better than to try to bring in other issues to pro-life rallies though because doing so splits coalitions and they're interested in building majorities to end legalized abortion.
ReplyDeleteCold blooded murderers who publicly brag about what they've done get more due process than unborn children who are killed for convenience while being the ultimate innocents.
That is how wars are started. One side takes an utterly unprovable position (one for which there have been many opinions — both secular and religious — throughout recorded history, as there are today). then make that position "God's position," via the logic of the utterly delusional. Then "God's people" proceed to persecute those who disagree with armed clergymen through the force of law.
DeleteIt is my opinion that a fetus is no more a person than an egg is a chicken. I am an adult sentient citizen and a human being with the right to live m life by my own views. I have that right because I demand it and because I will defend it.
I believe, TMLutas, that any attempt to force your narrow, sectarian view on me is ignorant, arrogant, evil. unAmerican and ugly. I believe that you have no right to impose your opinion on anyone. Stuff it.
Joey,
DeleteA great and articulate response to an idiotic statement.
Thanks.
I'm sick of people saying "oh, she had an abortion for convenience" like that puts them on moral high ground. Convenience is an unfit word for the weight of the decision, a cute piece of villifying rhetoric meant to paint sex-having women as human garbage. I think admitting that you are unfit to be a parent is a mature, responsible thing. It means the woman takes parenting so seriously that she realizes she can't do it, and thus does the responsible thing. Abortion ends up being a necessary mercy killing, if you insist upon calling it a killing. It's a pregnancy even more than it's a "child", and I think women ought to have the right and privilege to decide whether something continues to feed off her body and force her health into a challenging contortion. I mean, many mammals such as wolves and rabbits are able to reabsorb pregnancies if conditions for parenting aren't good. It's the ultimate responsible thing to do.
DeleteAnd DO NOT go there about "why not adoption?" Adoption is not a clean-cut process, and you still have to endure a pregnancy and all the money and time and suffering that goes with it. It's torturous if the pregnancy is unwanted, and women deserve safe, professional options that are not obstructed by laws that amount to little more than state-sanctioned harassment. That goes for the "well you shouldn't have had sex" argument too. Way to simplify things when it's convenient for you.
Pro-lifers, in the end, are people who somehow are in a position to romanticize pregnancy and motherhood and what sex is for. It's not really about the child at all, because we all know that no one gives a good goddamn about making the world more hospitable for families. I suppose it's a fine line of policing...don't have sex, but we'll punish you brutally if you do, all the while pretending to "think of the children" while treating women of reproductive age like children who should be seen and not heard.
Love your statement. So fucking true.
DeleteNo abortion has ever been performed for convenience. Nothing on earth is stronger than a mother's instinct to protect her child. For her to choose abortion means the pain of her situation has overcome her protective state of mind. That's a massive amount of pain. You want abortion to end? Become pro-woman and pro-motherhood.
DeleteTMLutas is a typical right wing hypocrite who is opposed to abortion as long as the solutions to lowering the abortion rates don't raise his taxes. Because at the end of the day, TM's greed will always trump his moral beliefs.
DeleteWell said, The Furiosity!
DeleteThe most shocking thing about this is that you show a photo of whisky and you misspell it "whiskey!"
ReplyDeleteBoth spellings are correct.
DeleteWar is the abortion of the human race. War is sin, just as abortion is sin.
ReplyDeleteLet's all follow Jesus: no war, no executions and no abortion.
Anyone who thinks that the universal acceptance of crack-pot Christianity is the answer to world peace, must have skipped the last 2000 years of World History.
DeleteIf you think Christianity is such a good idea, try living it, but stop pimping Jesus as some panacea for peace, it requires too much collective amnesia or ignorance. has Every sort of war, slaughter, inquisition, crusade and every imaginable atrocity has been initiated in the name of "Christianity." Every crime has been committed in the arrogance of anticipating that soul-cleansing delusion.
To accept what you wrote a person would have to know nothing.
Yes, wars and atrocities have been committed in the name of Christianity. No, such things are not Christian but a human perversion of what Jesus taught, which boils down to love your neighbor and be a decent human being. Do the Sunday dinners for the homeless my Church sponsors get headlines? No. Do the church people who help out new mothers with rides to child care get any notice? No. Do the church visitors who run errands for hospitalized people get any gold medals? No. A good deal of active Christianity goes unnoticed, as it is not scandalous and there is no blood-soaked body count, but I have it on good authority that the positive actions will not go unrewarded.
DeleteSo, I take it you think your good authority is a single piece of philosophical/theological works? Yeah, I think you just proved the point Joey was making. Grow up, unicorns aren't real. It is all good and fine if you believe in unicorns, but you seem crazy when you keep telling people in a public forum that you have faith that they are real. Also, the rest of us don't care to hear it.
DeleteI do not believe in Unicorns., That was a fiction placed in the King James Bible along with the "Cockatrice". I still have not figured that one out! I am a pacifist. Whether or not it is the cure all for peace, I do not care. I do know it is the way Jesus taught His followers to live. No weapons in our hands. Our only weapons are of the Spirit: love and peace. God bless you all.
Deleteseeing as its an article about american issues, "whiskey" is absolutely correct.
ReplyDeleteI am in complete agreement with you. Soldiers are someone's children. When their lives are aborted by war, the parents and country have invested decades, not days, into their well-being. The military industrial complex is evil. Money and attention should be put into education, diplomacy, prevention, creativity - to avoid both abortion and war.
ReplyDeleteWe may disagree about everything else,
ReplyDeletebut we can not disagree about single-malt Scotch.
Never thought of it this way, but you're absolutely right Soldiers are someone's children and we send them off to have their lives aborted, AND they can feel their pain in dying. And their families live with broken hearts forever in their grief of losing a real person.
DeleteI personally am pro-life and anti-war, but I don't think the two are as related as you make them out to be. A soldier dying on a battlefield is not an "abortion" - the soldier has had some measure of freedom in choosing the path that led them to that battlefield. An aborted child has no choice in its fate. No voice to cry out against its death. No chance to strike back against its oppressors.
ReplyDeleteHowever in my opinion it's just as ludicrous to believe that life begins at conception to believe that it begins at birth. Once a fetus can have thoughts, it is a person, and is entitled to all the rights of any innocent person.
... No chance to strike back at its oppressors? You just gave me a great mental image of a bunch of fetuses working as slaves on a plantation or in a chain-gang. Also, Martin Luther King Fetus giving his famous speech in Memphis. Thank you for that hilarious thought. Also, there is a reason why there is a time constraint on when you are allowed to legally have an abortion, because it is the middle ground that people could (somewhat) agree on. Now, pro-lifers want to take away the rights of everyone, thinking that only their way of thinking is correct. If you don't want an abortion, don't get one. Leave everyone else who doesn't have moral qualms with it to their own lives. And, yes, you can be a moral person while still being fine with abortion.
DeleteSome measure of freedom? Are you serious? Clearly you have never served and know no one that has. There is no choice. Get shot at or go to jail.
DeleteOppressors? Those forcing their faith and morals on women aren't oppressors, or anything...
DeleteFor me it boils down to Freedom From Religious Persecution -- you don't get to push your religion on me and punish me if I choose not to follow. Separation of church and state exists for a reason. All citizens are free to choose what they believe in -- the government cannot put into law the beliefs of one w/o compromising the beliefs of another.
ReplyDeleteArticle 18 (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights)
1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.
2. No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.
3. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.