Thanks for posting this, Steve.

I think anyone who says that the religious right has no significant influence on U.S. policy needs to buy a plane ticket to Kenya.

Phillip Winn, I'm looking in your direction (comment #11).

You can start here.

Since when does the FDA need to spam people?

We need to use everything we can to defeat Bush. CHeck out my web site, the fact that Bush lied about why we were attacked on 9/11 is never mentioned by the media.
My group is the only one making this an issue.
You can by T-Shirts too. http://www.cafeshops.com/newpriorities

"Complications of pregnancy and childbirth kill a quarter-million African women each year, and those deaths are what the refugee consortium is trying to prevent."

A question that came to mind when I read this statement was, "How many children does abortion kill a year?"

Just a thought, but I was wondering what you would say in response to it.

0

fetuses aren't children.

My, Ms Tek, but that's a very convenient and utterly illogical belief system.

At what point does that "choice" attain personhood? The childbirth I recently witnessed pulled out a fully made person. Was he not a person the day before? Or the day before that? A couple hours later- after the birth, it was then a person? It would be murder to kill an hour post-birth child?

It's enough to give a little fellow a complex.

The childbirth I recently witnessed pulled out a fully made person.

Really? You mean he could already forage for his own food, speak, write, drive, pay bills, do calculus, and breed?

Abortion is probably THE intractable moral issue of our time. There are deeply powerful and emotional argumetns for both sides. For now we compromise: there comes a point in time when the needs and rights of the fetus overcome those of the mother. Most people aren't comfortable with abortion after the first trimester other than for extreme circumstances like the health of the mother.

Is it perfect of morally consistent? No, it comes down to competing rights, but most people also find the notion that a just-conceived fetus has the same rights as the woman carrying it to be absurd, while they would be much happier if the conception had been prevented in the first place, and most people see an element of irresponsibility in abortion, especially when a woman has more than one. Most people find "abortion as birth control" to be morally unacceptable.

And most people who have abortions and the people who support the right to chose are not saying that it should be used as a form of birth control.

Planned parenthood does so much more than perform abortions. They provide STD checks, prescribe birth control, give out condoms. Some even do pre-natal care. The truth is that unless you are the person who is pregnant and know all that is surrounding you, you have no idea what is going on. Let her and her God duke it out. No bad deed goes unpunished.

No body should be forced to have kids they do not want. ESP when there are so many kids out there that need to be adopted. Even worse, no one wants a minority child unless it comes from China. THAT is what disgusts me. We have all these treatments for infertility, etc... and everyday kids grow up in group homes. What kind a vanity is it that you must raise a child of your loins? A child is a child... black, white, yellow, red, brown, and if you raise her with love and oppertunity, she is just as much your child as if it came out of you, or out of asia (rolls eyes).

Conservatives are so worried about abortion, yet they do nothing for the kids already suffering here. Show me where they are adopting more kids, improving education, improving the quality of life for people before we worry about bringing more in.

I fully understand that there are issues and circumstances. For starters, I'm not real thrilled about granting the government at any level the power over something going on up in your body ever. What if the woman was raped, what if... I end up having to be mostly pretty much pro-choice, however begrudgingly.

However, I STRONGLY object to having unborn children de-humanized, as per comment 5. "0 Fetuses aren't children." Damn, that's cold. That would be just about exactly equivalent to some evil old plantation owner claiming that Negroes aren't people. NONE of the pro-choice arguments changes the fact that we're talking about little people.

JR's comment 7 was particularly noxious. No, my godson was not born walking, talking, or fending for himself. So he's not really a person, then? Is he still open for a post-partum abortion until what, age 6 or 8 because he can't yet take care of himself?

Ms Tek's arguments in #9 are just silly and irrelevant. The Republicans are not spending enough on welfare programs, so they have no right to bitch about killing babies. What kind of serious argument is that?

I think it is a serious argument as to the practicality fo the matter, which is central to why we have legal abortion in the first place: forcing people to have unwanted, unplanned, and children they are unwilling or unable to care for is simply not practical, and if the mother can't/won't do it, the rest of society gets "stuck" with the job, which is where social welfare comes in. Abortion and social welfare are thereby directly related.

I don't consider adoption to be welfare.

But what do I know? I'm just a bleeding heart that cares about kids with no homes. Shelters are crappy places.

Hey, don't blame me. God made fetuses and children unable to defend themselves or even survive unassisted. If you're going to be offended, be offended at God. God is the one who dehumanized "unborn children". God is pro-choice; who am I to argue with Him?

So are you arguing that no one who has not adopted children has any right to complain about killing unborn children?

LOL

*puts devils horns on*

Acutally, I think God knew how much damage and evil the human creature can do. This is why he made out children to be dependent on a parent longer than any other species in the world. Most onther creatures after 2-5 years can take care of themselves. God knew wanted to even the balance out to have us die more easily. The damn thing is that we learned science and now nature is not allowed anymore.

Damn humans!

That's real clever and all, JR and Victoria, but I didn't invoke any God- and you didn't even TRY to address my issue.

It would appear from your responses that you do in fact think that it would be okay to just abort an inconvenient year old baby. I find it unlikely that either of you are quite that monstrous, but that's how it reads.

I don't address you, Barger. We've been over this.

And you're right, I could never live up to your monstrosity. Sorry.

*Shrugs*

Really Victoria, is anyone supposed to take you seriously as a respectable, thinking human being? Or are we all just supposed to be wowed by your mere emotional outbursts and presumptions of self-righteousness?

I'm a "monstrosity" for the crime of having been passing friendly with someone who has issues with black folk. You, on the other hand, are the fount of morality because you believe in de-humanizing and then killing unborn children at will with no consideration whatsoever of their personhood.

I'm so impressed.

Funny thing Al, the God argument seemed to be good enough for you to defend scientific racists. Is it only valid when you agree with the conclusion?

I've heard of cultures where a baby wasn't considered a "person" for months or years after birth. In such cases, a parent killing the child wasn't considered murder. That's not our culture, and I personally have no desire to adopt such customs. But there is no universal, definitive transition point to "personhood". The definition of the term itself is as flexible as the definition of "monstrous".

Pre-partum, the life of the baby cannot be sustained without the help of the mother. Afterwards, others can step in and take the place of the mother. That seems as good a point as any for society to confer a "right to life", as it is only at that point that the rest of us can in any reasonable way defend that right.

The debate over late term abortions may generate a lot of noise over the next several years, but the battle over early term abortions is essentialy decided. With "morning after" pills available, women will be able to abort without anybody ever knowing they were pregnant. Laws against abortion have become as enforceable as laws against smoking pot.

No Al,

Your are a monstrosity because your mouth smells like poop when you open it.

Thank God I don't impress you. That means I'm doing something right with my life.

You better go answer some of your Aryan Front emails. I hear they are wondering where you are.

Al... Al... where is the white sheet we loaned you?

JR, I don't recall ever defending any "scientific racism," whatever exactly that is, and certainly not by reference to some God. What in blazes are you talking about?

I understand the issues about enforcing a right to life for fetuses and all that. I just ask that people quit pretending that a six month old child in utero is not human, like it's just a blob of tissue. That's just not recognizing facts in order to make it easier to justify killing inconvenient children.

Again, this is very much similar to a slave owner convincing themselves that Negroes were not really human so that they might justify their continued wickedness toward them.

Comment 19

HAHAHA!!

Al looks funny with his pants down!

No wonder he needs that white sheet!

Wow! Busted! This would appear to be the most incriminating piece from my comments there: "There are some differences between racial groups, perhaps some slightly different talents here and there."

If that's your idea of a Klansman or a racist, then I'll take that for evidence that real racism from white folks in America is dead.

It's just purely dishonest to pretend that there are no genetic differences whatsoever between different racial groups. I tend to mostly discount genetics in terms of behavior, suspecting nurture rather than nature to be responsible for most observable differences in group behavior.

It is also purely dishonest and slanderous to label anyone who notices any differences as being a "racist" or a "scientific racist." It's surely a fact that African-Americans tend to be taller than Jews, and thus have some advantage in playing NBA level basketball. It's pushing the word "racism" to the point of being meaningless to give me that label for noticing.

Ohhhh, goody! Are we doin' Abortion?! There goes the neighborhood!

SHARK'S TAKE:

When the world population reaches 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, BILLION, (our lifetime, according to most projections) we'll look back on this debate with nostalgia.

Abortion will probably be a state-supported necessity, or even a state-sanctioned law. We'll not only be giving them away at your local drive-thru window, they might even be mandatory.

And "post-partum" abortions will be performed in the millions DAILY by Mommy Nature and/or God him/herself in the guise of famine, disease, wars, and other 'natural' catastrophes... I mean..natural population controls.

In the not-too-distant-future, the only reason one more newborn will be celebrated will be because somebody needs a fresh meal.

BTW: Over-population is at the heart of every problem we face on this planet, and yet it will be the LAST one addressed by politicians and the populace.

And have a nice day.

PS: The biggest contradictory issue facing Conservatives in the near future will be moral outrage over abortion -vs- the need to stop the billions of poor, uneducated morons in the world from droppin' a bundle of joy every nine months.

The point is even people who believe abortion is murder should want to prevent deaths of women and babies during childbirth. Cutting off funds may prevent some abortions. It does result in the deaths of women and children. Doesn't sound very pro-life to me.

Please read the column again. Actually, go to a public place and read it. Everyone should know the info in this column.

It amazes me that anyone still makes the argument that a fertilized ovum is a person. To anyone who has kept up with medicine and law in regard to reproduction, it is just plain ignorant. Until a fetus becomes viable, it is totally dependent on the person carrying it. No person relies on another to carry out his or her basic functions. The law already weighs society's interest in viable fetuses in whether an abortion is warranted. That is why, along with pragmatism, there are very few late term abortions.

Ms. Tek said something I must second. There is an ugly current of some folks not being equal throughout the American child acquisition situation. About half nationally, and in some states, 70 to 80 percent, of children available for adoption are minority. They languish in foster and group homes while white Americans spend millions on fertility treatments (which fail the overwhelming majority of the time) and overseas adoptions. The real child acquisition scandal in America is not that abortion is available. It is that plenty of children are available to infertile people, but most white Americans do not want them.

"...70 to 80 percent, of children available for adoption are minority."

Can't wait to hear MacDevil's theory on why 70 to 80% of parentless children are minorities.

...five...four... three... two....

ducking

Nice.

Oh that's dark, Shark. The whole drive-thru thing. I see it more as a factory, where women go in with their legs in the air, circling a staff that's yanking fetuses left and right and down the shoot and into the hands of the fetal tissue resellers who keep the rich alive, which in turn feeds the number of women having abortions. In time they realize they are being milked, but by that point nobody cares because it's the only industry left. Less than a decade after the women figure out that a turkey baster is easier than supporting a man, men by the millions will be sent off to Australia for retraining. Most will do oddjobs in the outback, many will provide food for the hungry and nothing will go to waste. A few of these men will be selected for seeds, and they will spend their short lives eating oysters and watching old "porn" from the old "internet" while modified dairy equipment, clamped to their penis, extracts the seed through the combined technologies of electroshock, udder pumping and vacuum packaging. The seedlings have all the advantages: they never have to work or scrounge to survive or suck up to anybody, and their lives are the shortest since they are the tenderest meat for the various festivals throughout the year.

I think that's a cheerier vision, Shark. The future need not be depicted in so negative a light, little Sharkie.

Maybe we just need a new 19th amendment against sex in general.

I just think we need to get a whole bunch of new amendments out there for all kinds of frivolous things, and we're just the people to do it. Tek, you first. Mac, where's Mac? Never mind, get Al out of here first. Al, I'm good for at least two new amendments, what about you? Eric, you in? Shark, you're the opposition. Whatever any else writes, you throw a stink. Dirtgrain? Go long. Once we get a likely scenario linked to plausible people we leave it around for David Flanagan to pick up, legitimize and republish. By Tuesday the rumor is news and by that evening the White House has denied it and John Kerry thinks it has merit. By Friday, we got a new one.

I can't wait for Psycho Shark's Web Daddy, Al Barger, to have him permanently committed, as a responsible parent would do.

The states with high rates of minority children in foster and group homes tend to be (surprise!) states with a large population of African-Americans, Indians or Hispanics. Since health problems, poverty and incarceration are higher among minorities, they are reflected in parents not being able to care for their children. In places like, say, Alabama, which has an associate of the Council of Conservative Citizens as its governor, the government is largely indifferent to the problems of its minority population, contributing to the breakdown of families. That has been true since about 1865, further explaining how the situation has gotten to be as bad as it is.

Steve, I think you are being too easy on the Bush administration. I believe their actions are intended to have the results they will. The GOP curries favor with the far Right by slamming both anything related to abortion and people of color, here or abroad.

Fishman, look, here's the deal for the future; I toss out a half-baked, under-cooked idea, and you develop it into a short Blogcritic essay, then on to a novel, a screenplay, a Broadway production, and then go on to collect the Nobel Prize.

Just thank me in yer speech, bro, that's all I ask.