The latest set of abortion statistics have come out for Illinois that indicate Planned Parenthood and friends "covered up" at least 290 cases of child rape during the year 2004. Local media in the state seemed to miss this during their coverage of the latest statistics.…
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76 - JR
RedTard: Your side has to lie to yourselves and hide behind medical terminology so you can stomach your choice. I just look at it like it really is.
No, I don't believe you do. I think you lie to yourself by neurotically anthropomorphizing an unthinking, unfeeling collection of cells. I am therefore quite comfortable with abortion no matter what you call the fetus/baby/adorable-warm-fuzzy.
77 - Trish
So. Incredibly. Disturbing.
78 - Christopher Rose
Actually, RedTard, I have no problem at all with calling abortion what it is: yes, it is the killing of unborn children. No argument there and I really don't see what your point is.
Your talk of "inconvenience" is what I find offensive. Unborn babies die all the time for many different reasons but I've yet to meet a woman who didn't take the issue of whether to have a baby or to have an abortion very seriously indeed. That's because they actually understand, apparently unlike yourself, that having a baby is a very serious business and not one to be undertaken simply because pregnancy has occurred.
Before the procedure was available legally there was precious little a woman could do other than risking the old gin and knitting needles routine in some dingy backstreet room, often helped by a midwife or nurse or other caring figure. Quite often people would die or suffer other complications leading to hospitalisation.
It seems frankly deranged to me to suggest that the decision about the baby's birth must be paramount. It's fine for adults to live their lives by that rule if they choose to do so but I really don't see what right you, your government, or anybody else for that matter have to be interfering in the freedom of other people to live their lives as they see fit.
79 - Dawn
Inconvenient or not, RedTard, it really isn't your individual decision to make.
But nice job making a complicated issue so crystal clear for us on this side of the fence. So glad you have it ALL worked out. No wonder your side relies on religion so heavily, you have nothing else to rely on, like perhaps intellect and facts.
80 - RedTard
"Inconvenient or not, RedTard, it really isn't your individual decision to make." - Dawn
With the upcoming shuffling on the supreme court it just might be. I've got my voter registration card at the ready.
I suppose that your sarcasm and thinly veiled personal attack was a sign of having the 'intellect' and the 'facts' on your side.
81 - kender
If a twelve year old girl is asking for an abortion and someone is NOT calling the cops something, somewhere, is broken.
It is as simple as that.
82 - Bill B
This has been an entertaining thread but one issue from the story linked by JB (had the mother of the daughter...) points toward a facet of the story conspicuously left out, maybe?
They did, did they. Could it be that the girl wanted an abortion and the parents didn't want her to get one?
Did they know who the father was?
If so, why didn't they pursue rape charges?
I don't know much about the case except what I've read here so I'm just askin.
83 - zingzing
why do conservatives, christians, far right zealots, republicans, whatever... want to make everyone conform to their morals? morals are not absolute.
aww, shit, i suppose i'd like to see torture and execution banned, and i suppose i just see that as common sense.
but an outright ban on abortion!? there ARE cases where a woman's health or the circumstances demand one.
ever heard of a liberal bombing a prison because they perform executions there? (it just doesn't make much sense to begin with... kind of lets you know how far off these people are...)
your ideas about abortion are just that: your own. don't tell others how to live their lives.
i suppose the main difference between abortion, capital punishment and state-sponsered torture is that the state has no right to kill or torture. they just don't. abortion is a choice that a woman makes about her own body, something the state has no right to legislate.
how would you like it if the state reached down and shook a chastising finger at your (or your wife's) vagina? it's her goddamn vagina!
how would you like it if the state reached down and opened up your veins?
how would you like it if the state reached down and electrocuted your nethers, just to start a conversation?
it's just perverse.
84 - John Bambenek
Morals aren't absolutes? How many people here would be ok with my shooting them in the face?
There, murder is bad. Moral absolute.
85 - zingzing
nice one. not all morals are absolutes then.
murder is bad, and you can call abortion "murder" if you want. i say it's not. execution is murder. war is murder. but abortion as murder is a bit more up in the air.
i think taking drugs and smoking is okay. drinking to excess is alright. all you teetollers (did i spell that right?) out there can't tell me not to do what i want to do to my own body. so, don't tell women what to do with their's.
there isn't much out there in this world that is 100% black or white, like lots of conservatives like to see things. their opinions are valid. our opinions are valid. abortion is an individual choice and one should respect the individual.
86 - gonzo marx
oh John...then howabout murder in war or torture?
if muder is an absolute, and we define murder as killing humans...how moral is the war in Iraq...especially in light of civilians caught in collateral damage?
next example...sex...some say that any outside of marriage is "immoral" and that such proclamation is an absolute
you still want to stand by your assertation?
you see, i consider "morals" to fall into the authoritarian/religious line...
and Ethics to fall under man made via Reason
nuff said?
Excelsior!
87 - RogerMDillon
"How many people here would be ok with my shooting them in the face?"
I'd be okay with you shooting yourself in the face.
88 - zingzing
ahh... "ethics." much better word. i think everyone can agree that ethics are not absolute. and that gonzo is now a genius.
89 - gonzo marx
just now zing?
geeez...well, at least i made it today...
{8^P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
just messing with ya...thanks
Excelsior!
90 - Andy Marsh
gonzo is my hero...
91 - Dawn
I thought of that exact example this morning Gonzo. If a police office shoots you in the line of duty, the results the same, but it's not considered murder, so killing isn't an absolute right or wrong, and neither is abortion.
It may violate your individual moral code, but something that resides within your body is under your control until it takes that first breath on it's own. That doesn't mean you as a pregnant woman do not a have moral obligation to the unborn, but the question is when does that obligation begin.
I would not advocate a late term abortion unless it was under the most extreme and gravest of circumstances, but the medical community at this stage has a pretty firm grasp on when life is viable, and up until that point it should be the woman's choice what her moral obligation is.
This is the most grayest of issues, and I can't believe our elected officials are going to just lay down as our judicial body slowly but surely takes a slide from the middle to the far right.
It may not be this year or next year, or even the year after, but we are getting further and further away from our constitutional rights as American citizens.
92 - zingzing
i have a point to make:
men have no business meddling in abortion as legislation. at that level, it is a woman's issue. on the individual level, i think a woman should, if circumstances allow, discuss all the options with her man.
93 - John Bambenek
Murder and killing are not exchangable words. For instance, killing in self-defense is not murder. Murder is a very specific subset of taking someone's life. Warfare is also not murder. Killing, yes.
Wars should be avoided, but the only absolute way to avoid war is preemptive surrender. I'm not a fan of torture either. Though I would say some of the stuff they are doing to detainees is not torture.
As far as separating out morals and ethics, that largely gets us in muddy waters because then we'd be very quickly arguing definitions. I would argue that there is moral truth, to a large degree we can know it, and that it isn't arbitrary.
You mention sex outside marriage. Well, if people (1) had sex only in marriage and (2) were faithful to their spouses there would be no such things as (1) STDs and (2) children born out of wedlock. Food for thought.
And I can tell anyone anything I want, that's what free speech is. You are free to ignore it, zingzing.
94 - John Bambenek
Zingzing-
Why exactly don't men have any business talking about abortion again? It takes two people to consent to sex and thus produce a pregnancy. Once the child is born, if nothing else, the man owes the woman money. Why is it there is a 9 month black hole where the man is irrelevant where before they both made decisions together and after those 9 months the decision greatly affects both parties?
95 - Michael J. West
Why is it there is a 9 month black hole where the man is irrelevant where before they both made decisions together and after those 9 months the decision greatly affects both parties?
Because the man's anatomy, physiology, metabolism, chemistry, psychology, diet, and lifestyle are not being uncontrollably thrown into extremes, chaos, and possibly harm's way because of the thing growing inside him throughout those nine months.
96 - Elvira Black
In addition to the usual crimes against humanity, yesterday I saw at least two cases on the local news of horrendous torture, sexual abuse, and murder of innocent children at the hands of their own families. Is this the kind of blood the anti-abortionists want on their hands?
To say that PP is trying to "profit" from the "abortion business" is absurd. In actuality, by making information and contraception more readily available, they are preventing countless abortions each year.
But this is something the wacked out far right does not want to hear, because everyone knows that sex outside of marriage is just, like, wrong and sinful, and you must be punished by enduring a pregnancy and unwanted child, right?
(Never mind all the holier than thou preachers who get caught with their pants down and all the priests who molest young children, hiding under their collar. But hey, no abortions, right?)
BTW--the prescription that everyone is so up in arms about that women can take shortly after unprotected sex does not abort anything. It takes several days at least for an egg to become implanted. This pill merely makes the womb unviable for implantation. No more an abortion than using a condom would be, but then, those on the far right don't believe anyone should have protected sex at all, apparently. I think underneath it all, this is what it all boils down to--trying to force the whole nation to "just say no."
I'd love to see all these blowhards who talk about the "sanctity of life" open their door one day and see that someone has dumped all the unwanted chiildren in the neighborhood on their doorstep. If you're so concerned about this, why not concern yourself with the fate of children who are beaten, tortured, and yes, even raped by their so-called guardians? Plus which, I take it that as far as the sanctity of life goes, all bets are off when it comes to bombing abortion clinics and threatening those who work there with bodily harm and worse.
It's a shameful thing when a writer makes it seem like an organization that is actually trying to PREVENT needless abortion is attacked for supposedly trying to make some sort of unholy profit. Please. OK. Let's just breed ourselves into oblivion and then put the kids on a mountaintop to die of exposure, like in the good 'ol days, ok?
97 - John Bambenek
Another nice straw man, because one set of parents abuse their kids, we must let that exception drive the rule. We have mechanisms in place to deal with those people, let's have those mechanisms work.
But again, it's all about personal attacks. "You" can be against abortion you "holier than thou". Hey, us "holier than thou" people were the ones the led the charge against segregation, thankyouverymuch.
And if you want to talk about priests, let's talk about public schools. 1 in 6000 Catholic kids were victims. Around 15% of public school kids have had outright intercourse with their teachers. 90% of planned parenthood clinics cover up child abuse despite clear laws requiring them to report. But let's pick on the Catholic Church because it really isn't about child abuse... is it?
98 - gonzo marx
John B sez...
*Hey, us "holier than thou" people were the ones the led the charge against segregation, thankyouverymuch.*
excuse me?..i had not realized you were a New York jewish student who was in a station wagon getting your brains blown out in the early 60's
but i digress
Excelsior!
99 - Shark
re: Bambineck, comment 93
Johnny, Johnny... um... this is REALLY hard to watch; suffice it to say that you're in WAY over yer head "debating" the Great Gonzo on this.
In the Intellectual Department, you ain't worthy of *anointing his feet.
{shark averts eyes while verbal execution takes place}
*yall like that one?
100 - Shark
Bambineck: "...Around 15% of public school kids have had outright intercourse with their teachers. 90% of planned parenthood clinics cover up child abuse..."
PLEASE ADD:
"...and 99.9% of my data are FUCKED UP."
Thanks,
The Management
101 - Shark
[Shark waits for Bambi to verify "...15% of public school kids have had intercourse with their teachers..." -- while seriously considering returning to get that high school diploma he missed out on...]
102 - Elvira Black
Re: my comment above (#96):
Something "came over me" after I posted this comment and I felt compelled to write my own post on the subject, incorporating and expanding on said comment 96.
For more fun and games, see Pro-life or anti-sex?
Thank you.
103 - gonzo marx
Shark...your Praise both Honors and humbles me...
as for my conversations with John B.
/sigh
allow me a Moment to try and explain...
my Observations have lead me to think that he is a person of "good" Heart, he appears to be coming from a staunch "social conservative" place..where he erroneously views America to have deen like "Father Knows Best" of "Leave it to Beaver" at one time, and longs for a return of such perfection
alas, a more apt Metaphor would be "All in the Family" which depicted Archie Bunkers mental and spiritual Journey of Discovery...from the same "place" as mentioned above to a more accurate View of Reality after having his "nose" rubbed in the dirty Facts of the World...slowly over the course of Time, Norman Lear's genius took us on that Journey with Archie...a wonderful Parable telling the Tale of a Nations growth in Understanding and Acceptance
you get the Idea...
my Hope is that something said in discussion will trigger a desire to look beyond the blinders of his narrow Viewpoint
silly of me, i know...but i can't help trying
Excelsior!
104 - Adam
It's apparent that John does not have ovaries and has never gone through a menstrual cycle. Maybe if he had, he'd know that there's more to Depo than just screwing anything that walks. Christ, even my wife didn't start birth control just to have sex.
Rape cases, at least in the military, are hell to go through for both the victim and the perpetrator. In many cases, the extremity of the ordeal causes victims to not report the case... their lives have already been turned upside-down, and they don't want them to go even further to hell. It's a victim's right to decide whether or not they report it, correct? Can you or can you not choose to ride out a cold instead of visiting a doctor?
Now obviously rape is not so trivial. But forcing unwanted children into the world is selfish, irresponsible, and stupid.
105 - yehitsme2
ok so 13 year olds have the common sense to agree to have sex with 17 year olds?!?! and this is OK???
13 year olds are way to young to have sex with a guy that is older and proably has like 2000 more STD's than she does!!!
106 - WHAMMO
I have one simple question for you. Your site "exposes" statistics on the number of unreported cases of child rape/abuse. If these cases were "unreported" then how in the hell could you have any statistics? UNREPORTED seems to denote that it was never recorded, so the only other way they could gain these "numbers" would be through unconfirmed sources and non-governmental sources, i.e. Private sources. Somehow that just doesnt seem very reliable
107 - Griffin Boyce
Many women are also afraid that a medical professional will disclose when they've been raped because there is a huge shame aspect about it. I was raped and I would be horrified and disgusted if it were just reported to the police. Rape (ie forced se xual acts) is a crime, but it is also an extremely private matter. If women think that someone's going to call the police if they seek an abortion, then they will take care of the matter themselves and give themselves an abortion. Forcing yourself to miscarry is an incredibly dangerous act, which is why it's done in a controlled setting now. You could get an infection, bleed to death, cause irreversible damage to other organs, and prevent yourself from being able to have children. Home abortions are done with chemicals, stabby objects and brute force -- Medical abortions are done with suction in a sterile setting, and by a trained doctor.
Is it okay for a 13-year-old to have s ex? Not really. But most girls lose their virginity at 13-15, and virtually always with an older teen. Yes, there are 30-40 year-old men who rape and impregnate young girls, but these are much fewer and far between than teens having s ex.
If someone comes in to ANY clinic and says "Someone raped me and I got pregnant, but please don't tell anyone" -- virtually every time the clinic will hide it. There are great reasons for doing this: they were raped weeks or months ago, so no trace evidence remains. If they go to the police, they will have to have a rape kit performed on her which is traumatic and takes hours to perform. So at this point it's her word against his, with probably no evidence to back it up. If they can get his DNA from the fetus, it still only proves that they had s ex as any wounds or bruising would have healed by the time of the abortion. So it serves no purpose other than shaming the victim and making other women in need think twice about getting a doctor's help for an already sensitive medical situation.
108 - John Bambenek
If the Catholic Church did this, there wouldn't be one Church in this country that wouldn't be razed to the ground for it.