Redstate

my compliments.

Your first link is broken.  Is it mis-entered?  I'd like to read the whole piece.

Not the first link, the one linked to this text:

had made some frank admissions:

sorry.

Leon,

The link for "had made some frank admissions" is taking me to a screen that says that story can't be found.  Can you provide a citation for Dr. Bernard Nathanson admissions?  

I didn't realize that the "intelligence had been cooked" concerning preabortion statistics. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Has Dr. Nathanson been silenced since he leaked the truth?

He hasn't been 'silenced', but has been ignored.

Ah, he is the author of the book "The Hand of God."  I somehow did not make the connection right away (senior moment).  Leon has done a nice job of providing critical quotations.

I've figured out who he is and posted about it downthread.

All the links lead to this message: "Sorry. I can't seem to find that story." Hopefully you can fix the problem. I'd particularly like to read the Dr. Nathanson citation.

... I didn't know that liberals considered fetus' human beings. Therefore, I don't think they'd agree with any death statistic on the matter.

I know personal beliefs here and elsewhere might be otherwise, but this is not a black and white comparison of figure vs. figure.

How many of those who had a direct role to play have since turned from that and become believers?  Norma McCorvey, Sandra Cano, Dr. Nathanson.  I realize there are many here who are not Christians and so please do not take this post the wrong way.  

I just felt compelled to say that I can't explain this except by believing that the God I serve is amazing.  

isn't a human being what is it?  A monkey?  Rabbit?  Or the old stand by "mass of cells."

The fetus is a human, at every stage of development, the only question up for debate is at what point in development does it deserve to be protected.

There's a difference between something's being biologically human and its having the moral status of a person.  Clumps of cells and corpses are biologically human, but not persons.  Chewbacca, Galadriel, and Lt. Worf all have the moral status of persons -- thus it would be wrong to kill them -- but are not human.  

I'd say they believe it to be a mass of cells. Life only began once; whenever God created it. Life doesn't begin at conception. The question of abortion is when personhood begins, and (like you said) when it deserves to be protected.

That said, I don't know why all of this is being thrown on liberals, I was under the belief that the Supreme Court decided this case. You could argue that liberals support the Supreme Court, but I didn't realize that constituted murder on a collective basis.

Barlow, is that the liberals "cooked the books" to convince the Supreme Court to rule the way they did in Roe. I'll have more information on the famous "memo of 281" which Blackmun relied on heavily in the opinion forthcoming.

totally ethical, if it is the liberals that do it *note the sarcasm for those who can't read sarcasm over the net.

Apparantly those who are in favor of abortion will choose to justify the book cooking, because they have been brainwashed by the likes of NARAL into thinking that we should allow a woman to rip her baby from the womb at all stages of pregnancy, because to do otherwise would impose on her right to be selfish.

The brief of 281 was for Webster.

could u imagine the population being 40,000,000 higher? that would be an increase of about 13.5 percent in the U.S. population.

Also, you didn't mention adoption, but it's a good thing for me to bring up: could you imagine even half, 20,000,000, of them in foster homes? would you be willin to care for all 20,000,000 of them, or even 100 of them?

i didn't think so.

That you have to offer, it would be better to disengage from this discussion.

When taken to its logical conclusion, we should kill those 40 million we keep hearing about who don't have insurance. Clearly, the infrastructure of this country can't handle them, and they'd be better off dead.

I suspect some of the parents of those babies, probably wouldn't have had others later (ie baby born earlier may mean you choose not to have the one you had later).

You can't say automatically that all those babies being born would automatically mean an increase in population by that amount.

Mrs. Nachos became pregnant when she was 22, and I was 23. We were planning on eventually having children, but  not really planning on having children at that point.

So what's happened is that we've taken much more active measures to ensure that the second child is not born for another few years.

u have quite a compelling argument, but the only issue i have with it is that we are capable of taking care of those without insurance, etc., but the republicans in the government insist on cutting taxes and converting funds for medicare and medicaid to pay for their pork (bridges to nowhere in alaska, for example).

compelled me to ask the question of conservatives that I am curious (if for only anecdotal information rather than a serious poll) of when do you view life begins?  I myself don't know, but generally am pro-choice until the point of viability.  The biggest support I find for life not beginning at conception is that over 50% of fertilized eggs fail to implant in the uterus even though conception has occurred.  I don't pretend to know when life begins, hence my views on viability, but I am generally curious of the views of this community.  In the voice of Mike Myers' Coffee Talk character, discuss.

Defending the bridge to nowhere.

Nonetheless, funds were not "converted from medicare" to pay for it.

In case you missed it the Republicans expanded Medicare by roughy a trillion dollars a couple years ago. So, to call the recent Medicare/Medicaid adjustments (amounting to less than 20 billion) "cuts" is a little disingenuous.

From someone who lives in a Medicaid expansion state, I can tell you affirmatively that if you take it upon yourself to "take care of those without insurance," you'll suddenly find a lot more people without insurance.

So your argument against conception as the starting point of life, simply because many fertilized eggs do not implant (and I was under the impression that the number was closer to 30 per cent) is something of a non-sequitur. Put another way, if a certain society has an infant mortality rate of 30%, does life not begin in that society until the age of 2?

Here's the best link I could find, and as I don't know how to embed, you'll just have to copy and paste.  Sorry.

http://msn.prevention.com/article/0,,s1-1-93-35-4166-1,00.html

Anyway, as to your other point, I find the number to be biological evidence of how life functions in the sense of the soul, where it would seem peculiar to me that God would deign a biological process acceptable that effectively destroys half the souls he creates.  This of course gets into theology areas where my expertise goes bye-bye, but that's my basic feeling on the subject.  As to where the line on 'life' is, I lean towards the viability point with Exodus 21:22-24 as a guide that a killing a pregnant woman is an eye-for-an-eye killable offense, but merely terminating her pregnancy is not.  I don't pretend to have all the answers here, so please don't accuse me of preaching as I do.  I just know that for me, the best public policy view along with what science and conscience tells me is that safe, legal, and rare seems like a pretty good idea, and use a viability cutoff to prohibit abortions after that, but allow them before.  Thus, somewhere around week 24 or so (forgive me, I have not taken embryology).

Of Exodus 21 is spurious. See, in particular, this discussion.

if I supported criminalizing abortion (something that would cost me personally nothing) would you support trying Bush for war crimes?

that was most interesting - I do enjoy the translation games with the Bible, make for good discussion and a wish that I could read Aramaic.  Alas, I can barely keep my Spanish together as it is.  Anyway, I generally come down on von's side with that, but the question is no doubt debatable and your interpretation is a most defensible position.  Still, I have to go with what the rest of the information out there tells me and mix well with some primacy of conscience (which, Archbishop Burke notwithstanding, I was always led to believe was a big part of being Catholic) and go with my gut on this one.  Thanks for your thoughts though.

Let me see if I have this straight. If we were both living in a completely hypothetical world, and I could somehow wave a magic wand and make abortion illegal, but in exchange Bush is removed from office - would I do that? In a second.

Your question, on the other hand, goes to something else entirely. My personal conviction is belief in the war, and for the reasons that were stated before the war started (most of which had nothing to do with WMDs). So no, I don't think what you're proposing is a fair trade.

For the purposes of this post, I was, as they say, "drawing all the reasonable inferences in favor of the adverse party" to see if, even if all they allege is true, they have a worthy claim.

Conclusion: they don't.

So some people think it's bad that over 2000 American troops have died in Iraq for questionable reasons, but rather than answer that charge, i'll magically presume that all of them (verified through my mind reading abilities) support abortion, a process by which living things die too, and furthermore, some of them may have lied to the public about it, and did I mention that they're also linked to anti-Catholic bigotry 25 years ago?  If you didn't know it already, I'd also point out to you that 1 or 2 elected members in their party were in the KKK a long time ago, and they also supported slavery a hundred years ago.  Therefore all Democrats are bad, and you don't have to argue their points on Iraq.  Because they're bad, evil, lying people whose arguments are automatically false....

I'll presume that this wonderfully coherent argument will get filed into the same playbook as the neat logic that taught us "Hey! Torturing people isn't bad because Saddam Hussein was worse! So you can't talk about torture! Shut up! You must hate America!"

That any of the people I linked to in that post are pro-abortion?

Because I would think that before one started hyperventilating, one would consider that if they were against the Iraq war AND opposed to abortion, this post wouldn't apply to them.

Or then again, one could just start hyperventilating, and post in the midst of the ensuing dizziness. Whichever.

I'd like to authenticate the material attributed to Nathanson in this post. Unfortunately, the link provides no bibliographic or other source information.  If anyone can point me to more information about this, I'd appreciate it.

Brett Bullington

I think that many abortionists and their supporters change their minds is telling. People can convince themselves a lot of things are OK... gassing civilians, sucking the brains out of an unborn baby, whatever it may be.

But deep down, they know it's wrong. I'm not particularly religious, but imagine living with yourself knowing you killed 75,000 people personally. Even Hitler, Stalin and the rest could say they just gave orders.

I can see the day when technology has advanced enough to make abortion totally unnecessary. Of course this will require wider support of contraception, but that's a separate debate.

But that's not the trade. Bush is tried for war crimes, not just removed from office. Deal?

Thank you.

I can see the day when technology has advanced enough to make abortion totally unnecessary. Of course this will require wider support of contraception, but that's a separate debate.

Abortion is currently unnecessary, and that is very much the debate we are currently having. But I sense that it isn't the one you want to engage, so we'll move on.

But that's not the trade. Bush is tried for war crimes, not just removed from office. Deal?

Hmm. So we're still in the world where I have my magic wand, right?

A truly flummoxing question. I don't feel any personal loyalty to Bush, really, and as a purely pragmatic matter, I certainly should be willing to trade the unjust persecution of one man in exchange for hundreds of thousands of lives, yes? But if I say so, then am I not promoting substantive injustice in the case of that one man, and what are we to make of him?

And yes, I know all the liberal arguments based on this principle (affirmative action being a prominent one) - that occasionally substantive injustice to the few must be necessary for the good of the many.

However, I am generally not one of the conservatives who will argue against that position. Frankly, I don't see how it's avoidable. Take warfare, for instance. Someone had to storm the beach at Normandy. Is it substantively fair that the decision on who that person is was basically determined by a roll of the dice? No. Was it necessary for the preservation of the greater good? I say yes - totally justified.

However, I'll take that one step further and be intellectually honest and grant that if affirmative action actually did serve the greater good, I'd support it. I mantain that it does not (and that really is a separate discussion) and therefore have no qualms about answering your question,

Yes.

to me translates into somebody who has a cold, cold heart.

There is usually that still small voice inside that tells me when what I am doing is wrong-I am usually far better off, and much happier, when I listen to that voice, rather than listen to my own desires in a matter.

I think some people have just become experts at ignoring that voice, but some people can ignore it for only so long, and they realize what they have done is wrong.  

I suppose I should have searched before posting here.  The Nathanson material certainly appears to be authentic.  This cite contains the same material, plus source information:

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0005.html

Brett Bullington

Sometimes it feels as if politics has been reduced to three people in a room: the liberal, the conservative, and the guy who's somewhere in between.

This post makes me feel even more this way.

Dr. Nathonson says that NARAL stands for "National Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Laws".

I thought it stood for "National Abortion Rights Action League".

After Roe the old name was kind of useless.

Wikipedia has more.

I would rather a world without abortion and a world where a president who lies us into a war over other available options is held responsible for the lives lost during that war.

How we get to such a point is where we disagree. You feel the former is an option now, but don't indicate how abortion is "unnecessary" in cases of rape or incest. I feel the later is an option now, but admittedly don't like the precedent that sets.

For both issues we disagree with the choice an individual made and want them to not have that option again.

How we get to such a point is where we disagree. You feel the former is an option now, but don't indicate how abortion is "unnecessary" in cases of rape or incest.

The obvious response to this is that if I assault you, you don't get to send me and one other random person to jail. Just me. Same principle applies with rape and incest.

I'll grant you that's a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow, though. It shouldn't be, but it is. So, for free, I'll throw those two exceptions into the compromise brew we've got going here - since they represent an amazingly small percentage of abortions.

For both issues we disagree with the choice an individual made and want them to not have that option again.

Not... EXACTLY. FWIW, I generally don't think that people should be restricted from making irresponsible sexual choices (within rational limits), I'd just make them live with the consequences of those choices afterward, rather than punishing an innocent third party (the child) for their indiscretion.

P.S. I'm neither Catholic nor opposed to birth control.

because less than 1% of cases are due to rape or endangerment of the mother. the rest of the cases are simply  a matter of keeping one's pants on.

the only problem with what you suggested is that moderation would be too easy a route to take. why would anybody want to compromise when you can fight and argue constantly?*

*note the sarcasm

Almost all of your facts are wrong. Firstly, the Democratic Party was split in two about 150 years ago over slavery, not entirely support of it 100 years ago. Secondly, we're not anti-Catholic. Catholics, believe it or not, aren't oppressed -- do you know which religion was responsible for every single one of the efforts to "cleanse" the world of us Jews during the Middle Ages (take a guess)? Thirdly, your remark on the KKK may or may not have been true, but ever since the Civil War ended, the Republican Party became the party of racists and Klansmen, especially up until the 1960's.

How do you like dem apples?

You couldn't even understand that she was trying to argue your side.

And plus, you're also apparently incapable of recieving warnings about personal attacks (or trolling), so welcome to The Pile™.

I'm personally fine with trying Bush with war crimes in exchange for 40,000,000 innocent human lives (and growing).  If the process was just, the prosecution would not survive a simple motion for dismissal.  We would all be spared this preposterous discussion about his "lies" and get back to fixing social security and making tax cuts permanent.

In fact, I think the President would throw himself on the altar for that one.

Incidentally, Leon, this is one of the most poignant and stimulating political pieces I've ever read.  And believe me, I read an unhealthy number of them.  Muchos Nachos!

"...that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."  

Philippians 2:10-11

Oddly enough both pro and anti abortion forces use it.  

The Bible does apparently authorize an induced miscarriage upon the demand of a jealsous husband in Numbers 5 11-31.  

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=numbers%205:11-31;&version=
31;

This is one reason that the use of the Bible as an anti abortion reference is slippery at best.  

I have to tell you, I have been studying the Bible literally since I was 5, my undergraduate degree is in Bible, I took a year of Hebrew that focused entirely on the Pentateuch, and the paper for my capstone class was on the foundations of modern law in the Pentateuch.

In that context, that is literally the first time I have ever seen the curse of bitter water in Numbers 5:11-31 interpreted as an authorization of induced miscarriage.

Congratulations. You've espoused a Biblical theory so bizarre that I've never heard of it. I didn't think that was still possible.

First, the dudes on your side.

Second, you try to refute "facts" that you don't like.  The only former KKK member in the Senate right now is a D (Robert Byrd D-WV).  The vast majority of KKK members serving the national government as well as the majority of opposition to the Civil Rights Act were Democrats... in the 1960s.  And despite the effort to act like every racist switched parties for racist reasons, it doesn't really match up to the numbers.  Even "fire house" George Wallace was a D and he served as GOV of Alabama in the 1980s... as a Democrat.

But thanks for the accusation of racism.  Good-bye.

Really, now... THREE new accounts in as many days?

You've made me go and get Clayton involved.

we'll explain how Exodus authorizes us to hurl rocks at people we dislike ad libitum.

I respect your views and your passion about this issue.

But I think it is completely outrageous to compare the War in Iraq with abortion.

But I presume he agrees with you that "it is completely outrageous to compare the War in Iraq with abortion."  But probably not in the way you mean.

But I would suspect that just 100% of Americans agree that a dead soldier is the lost of human life.  OTOH, the same can't be said about a fetus aborted the day after conception.  

What really gets me is that the things abortionists do to children... I couldn't do to a frog without feeling pretty bad about it.

I would like to at this time...draw our attention to the T and the U...

TOTAL Depravity (who could argue with that here!!?? ha!)

Unconditional ELECTION (who has a better explanation??...)

Yes indeed, most certainly agreed! I like to think of this as a special kind of revelation, sort of a hybrid, special-general revelation.

Out of the darkness, rises up light. It can be seen in many times and in many places, particularly here. I wonder if there is a proper theological term for it... I have been wondering for quite a long time....

OTOH, the same can't be said about a fetus aborted the day after conception.

Therein lies the big problem, flyer. And I would argue that it is those who disagree with Leon's premise who own the problem. Yet the task set before us is to help solve the problem.

As it is often said, majority consensus does not dictate morality. Afterall, I'm pretty sure that as best I recall, at one point in the past great numbers of Germans hoped for the demise of great numbers of Jews.

75,000 babies murdered.  And he mentions that as if it were a statistic about the number of flies swatted in Key West in the last 10 years.  This blase attitude is really what we are up against.  These peope don't see that they are murdering children.  To them it's obviously analogous to stepping on cockroaches in a darkened sidewalk.

It chills me to the bone.

I reached my pro-life position independent of my religious faith (I work in the medical field).  Happily, I believe my Christian faith and pro-life views concur.

There are three points in the creation of a human being where there is fundamental, discrete change.

    A.  Conception.

    B.  Implantation.

    C.  Birth.

At any other point, change is gradual and you cannot point out a difference in the fetus between one day and the next.  The heart does not just "turn on" at 12:10 am on gestational day 35.  The brain does not suddenly function at day "x", while not functioning at day "x-1."  Viability fits this description as well: a fetus is not suddenly viable at 24 weeks, having not been viable at 23 weeks and 6 days.  All of these things vary between individuals as well.  If you determine that viability is the litmus test for humanhood, how do you make sure you are not a day late and aborting a human (you can't).

In my mind, then, only these three points in time can be legimately considered at the begining of the human.  I have chosen A or B, probably coming down harder on the A position.

As much as the proponents of partial birth abortion repulse me, they have an intellectually consistent, but ridiculous position.  They can argue that there is a fundamental, measureable difference between a baby at birth and one day before birth.  The problem for them, is that anyone can look at a full term baby in the womb and know, without a doubt, that it is a person.

I think some of the pro-partial birth abortion people understand this train of thought and that is why they fight so fervently against laws retricting it; they realize, if they cannot maintain the position that life begins at birth, they must logically accept A. or B. as the begining of life.

If you accept that A. or B. defines the beginning of life, then the fetus is a human being from that point on.

Now the question becomes: when can one human kill another, even if the smaller human is within, or dependent on, the bigger one.

   For convenience?

   Because they don't want the smaller human?

   Because the smaller one may be inconvenient?

We don't accept the killing of one month old babies for these reasons, why accept it at any age?

BTW, I'm new to the Blog scene and have also perused the Kos website.  The difference b/t it and Redstate is remarkable.  Thanks for the "no profanity" policy.

The obvious response to this is that if I assault you, you don't get to send me and one other random person to jail. Just me.

This would be parallel if in addition to incapacitating you and possibly costing you your career, this assault also saddled you with a child by the person who assaulted you...a life-long reminder of the assault and, whether it's right or not, the shame that goes with having been assaulted. Since your example doesn't come close to approaching that parallel though, I'll accept your compromise.

Which brings us back to where I think the answer lies: birth control. This does then leave open the question of what defines pregnancy, though, the formation of a zygote of its secure docking, if you will (not a doctor), in the uterus. Folks will make mistakes, and as much as I agree its ok to make folks own up to those mistakes, I more strongly feel there are nowhere near enough safeguards or caring options in this country for unwanted children to leave those folks with no options. Despite my personal belief that every zygote represents the potential for a unique individual, reality demands some flexibility here, and so I'd favor a readily available morning after pill, with laws preventing pharmacists from denying them to women on demand.

Get me to that point, and I'll happily support restricting abortions.

conscience is a big part of being Catholic and the concept of a "fully formed conscience" is central.

Abortion is different, in Catholicism there is no room for conscience on the issue of abortion. From the Catechism:

2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.72

    Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.73

    My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.74

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

    You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.75

    God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.76

2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,"77 "by the very commission of the offense,"78 and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.79 The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:



"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death."80

"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights."81

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, "if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual. . . . It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence."82

And I would argue that it is those who disagree with Leon's premise who own the problem. Yet the task set before us is to help solve the problem

But the difference is that there are many people who don't consider it wrong to have an abortion.  OTOH, everyone considers the death of a soldier a bad thing.  Some of us may find it acceptable and some may not. But we ALL agree it's bad.

One other thing.  While you may feel entirely correct in comparing pro-choice people to Nazis, these sorts of comparison do NOTHING to further your position and actually damage your credibility with moderates.

...and she never once said, "the fetus is really kicking hard today!".  Under PC orthodoxy, must a pregnant liberal refer to her unborn baby as a "fetus"?  It's an ugly, cold and clinical word designed to keep humanity at arm's length.

the descent into "personhood" whereby disinterested parties get to decide if other people have the "moral status" of people.

You don't have to believe slippery slope arguments to see where that gets us, you just need to review European history from 1936-1945.

But our history of treating one group of humans as non-persons shouldn't leave you so sanguine.

lies euthanasia ... for the 'other guy' of course.

... if it's the 'other guy' that gets culled of course.

You at least recognize this is a philosophical argument, then.  An individual human life (or any other species for that matter) begins at conception.  That's a matter of medical fact.  One must be very careful when consigning the lives of a class of individuals to exposure to arbitrary termination based on philosopy.  There were philosophical arguments supporting slavery and genocide, too.

"The biggest support I find for life not beginning at conception is that over 50% of fertilized eggs fail to implant in the uterus even though conception has occurred. "

I found the following definitino of 'conception' on at http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=conception.

"Formation of a viable zygote by the union of the male sperm and female ovum; fertilization. "

If an egg fails to implant, is that considered 'conception'?

(and not to speak for him either, but it seems obvious to me) but Leon was not nor was I really comparing abortion and its supporters to anything or anyone else.

A comparison would have gone something like this: "Abortionists and pro-choice-ers are like Nazis. They are both too blinded by evil to see the evil of their ways."

But actually I was comparing what was seemingly your rationale for determining  truth to that of other populations, namely Nazis.

But if I were to subscribe to the view that what 'everyone' thinks determines  what is true or what is right, I might counter your point by reminding you that there are likely plenty of people out there who are happy when an American soldier is killed. In which case, I suppose we would be remiss if we did not conclude that killing a soldier is not necessarily wrong because not everyone agrees that it is.

OK, this is a bit of a reach. More than a bit, actually.

The core reason why liberals (of which I am one, although I am a pro-life liberal, so nyahh-nyahh =) are in favor of choice is that they don't believe life begins at conception. Their arguments on privacy stem from this: if the fetus is not "alive", but is in fact part of the mother's body at that point, why shouldn't she be allowed to choose what to do with her body? Or course, those who do believe life begins at conception believe that the fetus is not part of the woman's body, and thus have a different view on the matter.

NARAL's tactics from the late '60's may have been unethical (or not), but I doubt anyone really much cares in 2005. Their opinions on the matter were formed outside of the politics. Your comparison of these tactics with the tactics used to sell the Iraq debacle may be valid, but irrelevant.

"And he mentions that as if it were a statistic about the number of flies swatted in Key West in the last 10 years.  This blase attitude is really what we are up against."

There is nothing in the text that indicates what his what his feelings were at this time.

After the ultrasound tech had finished up her check for heart/liver/brain/whatever-they-are-looking-at she moved her little viewer around and let me and my husband watch our little fetuses sucking on their thumbs, playing with their toes, jumping up and down (no kidding - just like a frog - who knew there was that much room in there?).  We looked for their little private parts so I would know if I needed blue booties or pink.  We worried when my daughter pushed her fist up into her cheek and kinda made a little bulge.  We weren't completely convinced until she was born that she did not have one extremely large malformed cheek.

We also like to watch in the last month or two when the little fetuses turned over and made my belly look like two cats fighting in a gunny sack.

No, we never did call them fetuses.  She was Esmeralda Gertrude.  He was Amos Moses (after the Jerry Reed song :-]).  They were my babies then, and they will be until I die.

My grandma told me when I was a teenager, the best birth control in the world is an aspirin.  Just hold it between your knees.  :]

the question that ought to be asked is this: Why do they believe life does not begin at conception? Why do they attempt to believe it starts at some other, otherwise seemingly arbitrary point in gestation? Why, so they can have abortions of course!

i.e., so that they may continue to build up what in many respects is a branch of the sexual revolution.... Consequence free relations- why else?

There are about three choices here for when life begins:

1. arbitrary or random determination (spin the bottle, pin the tail on the beginning of life, random number generator, etc.)
   
   
2. a point that enables one to persue an agenda (e.g. viability, abortion)
   
   
3. the de facto, default, common sense option: when doing the thing that people do to make babies results in a baby being made (i.e. conception)

The answer is: nobody knows when life begins. There's not even a clear answer on what scientifically defines "life," so until that's settled, how can you know when "life" begins?

I know some pro-choice people might say something like "life begins at birth because the fetus fails to meet conditions A, B, or C", and they use that to justify abortion. But there are just as many scientific arguments that life begins at conception, the second trimester, third trimester, or whatever.

Based on that ambiguity, and based on my religious beliefs, I've come to the conclusion that we should err on the side of caution and preserve life when there is a chance that it exists. But that's just me. I can see how others who might subscribe to a "life begins at birth" idea would honestly come to a pro-choice conclusion.

One thing I do not understand is the desire to define the question and the answer in "scientific" terms. Science has nothing to say about when life begins. Honestly I find it absurd that anyone on either/any side of the issue would attempt to bring science into this question. (No offense to those on the Right side of the issue)

But admittedly, I have not studied nor really even paid attention to the "science" aspects of the matter. Science can no more tell us when "life" begins than science can empirically tell us that science matters at all. Nor that life matters at all. Nor that human rights matter at all.

Science may be able to answer some questions about when brains start doing brain things, and when hearts start doing heart things, but this is all immaterial in my estimation, straw men of sorts. Who ever said life's beginnings has anything to do with viability, brains, hearts, eyes, or fingers? Some people may have invented this notion, but science certainly didn't give rise to it.

This is a philosophical matter to start with. It is at end a theological matter. (and yes everyone has a world view, everyone has a philosophy, everyone has a theology, and everyone is religious)

;-)

But the difference is that there are many people who don't consider it wrong to have an abortion.

And according to Nathason, the reason many of those people don't consider it wrong is because they were persuaded by poll manipulation and The Big Lie.  Not a valid comparison.

Sure,

40 Million abortions is a grim statistic, but so is 2,000 deaths in Iraq.  Let's not sweep Iraq under the carpet by changing the subject to abortion.  Abortion and Iraq are both bad news.

Right. For these people, science is precisely the tool they use to determine when life begins. After all, "biology" is the "study of life". So yes, they will try to make a definition of life out of collections of cells, zygotes, measurements, and the like. It's probably human nature to want to have a nice, defined equation that will spit out the answer on whether something is "alive" or not, and ignore all of those messy details like "souls".

These are also probably the same folks who won't accept the notion of a God unless and until you can "prove" the God exists. Go check out the number of atheists on Daily Kos who post diaries with titles like "There Is No God (And You Know It)." Hundreds of comments in each diary, about 75% comments from atheists bleating about how "oppressed" they are. They don't even see the irony. :)

...as "separation" instead of "end" helps me frame the issue. "Spiritual death" is separation of a created spirit from God; physical death is separation of one's spirit from one's physical body.

Keeping in mind that death is an intruder in God's creation -- the result of sin and the curse -- it follows that "separation of spirit and body" is the inevitable result of the curse, regardless of how long it has been since conception.

In short, a fertilized egg failing to implant, an abortion, a murder, a terminal disease, and dying peacefully while sleeping are all just variations of the death sentence on a cursed creation.

if the fetus is not "alive", but is in fact part of the mother's body at that point, why shouldn't she be allowed to choose what to do with her body

If the fetus is not alive, why the need to affirmatively kill it?

And, exactly what part of the woman's body is the fetus?  I guess I missed that lecture in anatomy class.  snark

(N.B., glad to see a pro-life Dem on this board.  Welcome.)