Widgetized Section
Go to Admin » Appearance » Widgets » and move Gabfire Widget: Social into that MastheadOverlay zone
Jon Stewart on the GOP, ‘If a woman wants to have a baby via IVF she can’t. Rape? She has to.’
Jon Stewart summed up the GOP’s positions on rape, abortion, and conception, ‘If a woman wants to have a baby via IVF she can not. Rape? She has to.’
Here is the video:
After playing Mourdock’s God intended rape comments, Mourdock’s follow up press conference where he declared that his God abhors rape, and Joe Scarborough claiming that Mourdock is turning off swing state voters, Stewart said,
No, that’s not the problem. That’s not the problem. The problem is the believing of the things, not that he. The problem isn’t that he violated the first law of Fetus Club, which is don’t talk about Fetus Club. Like that’s not, because it’s the ideas. I mean where does Mourdock get his crazy fringe ideas about rape and abortion anyway? Ah, I don’t know. Maybe from Mitt Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, who cosponsored a Sanctity of Human Life Act so severe that it not only could outlaw all abortions, but it could also effectively ban in vitro fertilization. Or from the platform of the Republican Party, which states that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life, and calls for a human life amendment to the constitution. Nothing in there about exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother, or feelings of swing voters.
In other words, according to the Republican Party platform, and the man who wants to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, if a woman wants to have a baby, in vitro fertilization, she can not. Rape? She she has to. No wonder they buried it on page fourteen instead of splashing it across the cover.
The Daily Show host summed the issue up in an understandable way that every American should hear. The Republican Party has gone so far to the extreme that their position is to force women to have their rapists’ babies, while they forbid women from conceiving in a modern, non-Bible approved way. The Republican rejection of IVF is also related to the fact that the GOP is under the control of the conservative anti-science fringe.
Stewart was right on. The Republican Party doesn’t get it. The problem with the Akins and Mourdocks of their party isn’t that they turn off swing voters and lose elections. The problem is that they believe in things like “legitimate rape,” and rape being, “God’s intention.” These men are advocating a policy that glorifies the fruits of a heinous and violent crime against women.
Republicans also seem to be under the delusion that this issue is a trivial distraction in this campaign. On The Ed Show, Republican strategist Ron Christie called issues of contraception and choice, “small ball.” There is nothing small ball about telling women what they can do with their bodies. There is nothing trivial about the idea that men like Tom Smith, Richard Mourdock, and Todd Akin will be coming in between a woman and her doctor. Would any American, male or female, want Akin and Mourdock acting in their capacity as federally elected officials making healthcare decisions for them?
If the Republicans are successful in using the government to dictate what women can do with their bodies, who is to say that someday they won’t decide that cancer is God’s will, and it would help reduce the deficit if we let those people die as, “God intended.”
Where would it stop?
Richard Mourdock’s comments aren’t just a political issue.
The Republican positions on rape and abortion are more than women’s issues.
The issue is freedom, and destruction of personal liberties knows no gender.
Related Posts :
President Obama was on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" last night. After Obama finished off Donald Trum ...
National Organization for Women President Terry O'Neill issued a statement Wednesday saying that Republi ...
On CNN this morning, Jim Acosta reported that Mitt Romney refused to answer questions about his support ...
Tick tock. It's been two days since Richard Mourdock outraged women and many men with his comments on pr ...
Post Ryan soul mate Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comment that exposed the Republican Party's true age ...
44 Responses to Jon Stewart on the GOP, ‘If a woman wants to have a baby via IVF she can’t. Rape? She has to.’
Sally
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 8:13 am
Small ball? I think that is the trouble with these men (and women..Rachel has a rigue’s gallery of 12 that includes two women, just so the GOP can continue their claim that all of us stupid wimmen agree with them.) They are sexually repressed, small ball throwbacks to the 18th century. I also wonder of they don’t envy old Mitt, who may only have one wife, but his grandpappy moved to Mexico so he could take his harem with him and live outside American law. An when he slunk back, he needed government help to survive? And he took it.
Anyone, anyone, who thinks the GOP cares about a damn thing but power and their ever-increasing fortunes is a fool. They do not believe in small government. Notice they have not created one job in four years? Notice they never talk about disabled vets, but only about more unfunded wars? Notice they never tell you HOW they will replace universla healthcare? Notice they want to end unions, but the ‘ove teachers?’ Notice that Mitt still has not released even ONE complete set of taxes? Not one, folks. Anyone who has that much to hide should not even be a candidate fort his office, let alone be so close to achieving his church’s goal of taking over America for the LDS. Be very careful, people. We can either take this country forward, or we can let the GOP win again and end democracy forever.
Ecnal
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 8:27 am
I’m not a Pro Life person, but I do think that for the Pro Life platform to make any sense, it has to insist that abortion cannot be carried out in cases or rape or endangerment of the life of the mother. Any other position — again if you are Pro Life — just doesn’t make any sense. That’s because the position is based on the idea that life begins at conception and therefore that abortion in any term is murdering a human child. In effect, an anti-abortion person believes that killing an unborn baby is the same as killing, say, a kindergartener. No distinction. Do we agree that is their belief? If so, then you can see where there is no wiggle room to allow for abortion, even in the case of rape or mother endangerment. If you subscribe to their beliefs, and would not kill the kindergarten-age child of a rapist, then you cannot condone the killing of an unborn child of a rapist. Similarly, if someone said, either a mother or her kindergarten age child must die, most people would say, the mother should be the one to die. So again, in the mind of an anti-abortionist, the decision is fundamentally the same if the child is unborn (especially if the mother’s death in childbirth is not guaranteed, only a percentage chance — because killing the fetus is 100% guaranteed). I know that explaining all that as I did probably makes me sound like an anti-abortionist pretending not to be to try to convince people to be Pro Life; but I promise you that isn’t so. All I’m saying is that I understand a Pro Life position in which there are NO exclusions, because a Pro Life stand that does allow them would be illogical and hypocritical. I personally believe that life DOES begin at conception, but that sometimes we have to make tough choices, and that the rights of the fully formed and conscious take precedence over those of the unborn and as-yet-unaware. It’s harsh, but it’s practical; as is the universe.
Ecnal
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 8:42 am
To reply to my own post because I ran out of room, the abortion issue gets sticky when one introduces religion into it. An atheist is able to look at it from a scientific and pragmatic standpoint, ultimately deciding either that life does not begin at conception and therefore abortion is OK, or else deciding that life does begin at conception but, terrible as it may be, terminating a human who never knew it was alive is an awful but preferable choice to sacrificing the fully sentient mother — whether that “sacrificing” means literally allowing her to die in childbirth, or forcing her to care for a child she is not emotionally or financially capable of raising. But religion forces people into a corner on this issue, because suddenly science and pragmatism aren’t enough; one is required by doctrine to consider things like the baby’s “soul” and add that to the scales to weigh against the rights of the mother and/or the likelihood the child will live a life of misery, poverty and abuse, and likely grow up criminal. I’m not looking to troll here, so I’ll just make that statement, which I think is pretty neutral, and let people draw their own conclusions. The one non-neutral thing I will say, though, is that it never ceases to amaze me that the party that claims to be all about “small” government (excluding military, of course) and less government intrusion in our lives (or at least the lives of corporations) is also the party that wants to take away people’s choice in these matters, and also wants to force prayer back into schools, etc. Of course, it’s because if they only ran on their rich-man’s socio-economic platform, only 1% of the population would vote for them; so they tie in a bunch of conservative Christian dogma to get the poor, uneducated and gullible (no shortage of those) to join their party.
MTinMO
Oct. 29th, 2012 at 9:31 pm
The Republicans want to make government small enough to fit in the vagina’s of women. With all the new laws in Republican run states they have put in place to make it more difficult and expensive for a woman to obtain an abortion as well as requiring doctors to lie to their patient and tell them abortion causes things that have no connection to abortion, it has become an issue for women because it is an effort to take away a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body. My huge problem with the Republicans is they are trying to force everyone to live by their beliefs instead of allowing those of us who do not believe their way to hold our own beliefs and make our own decisions in accordance with said beliefs. No woman has to have an abortion if she doesn’t want to have one. Period. She can carry a rapist child, she can go through with a pregnancy that could kill her or leave her unable to have any other children, she can decide to carry a pregnancy and give up a child born to her for adoption. She has the right to do that just as we should all have the right to do those things or choose to end a pregnancy. That is what true freedom is about- being able to make your own decisions.
robyn ryan
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
If you believe women are human beings, you don’t try to force pregnancy on them. My body, my liberty.
The Constitution’s 13th amendment trumps your Hebrew translation and belief system.
Reynardine
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 8:56 am
Well, to be exact, the position of these “pro-lifers”, that life begins at conception, is that babies exist to punish women. If the belief is that they exist to punish a woman for having sex, then abortion is the case of “legitimate” rape makes sense, because she did not “transgress” voluntarily. If the punishment is for having a vulva, no excuse is good enough. By the same token, if a woman wants a baby, it must be denied her. Who is this uppity bitch, to think her will counts?
Buddah
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 1:19 pm
It is interesting to consider the “personhood” amendment if a fetus obtains all rights of the citizen. under those pretenses, any posting of a prenatal ultrasound of the nude fetus for non-medical usage will constitute child pornography. In addition to fines for distribution of private medical records, the guilty party–the mother if she posted or shared the image–would be labeled a sex offender and be prohibited from being around the child/fetus unsupervised for fear she may further exploit it.
Quite the conundrum.
Shiva (Moderator)
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 8:57 am
I think this discussion(in society) has to be turned to rights. I am not specifically pro abortion, however any woman or family has to have the right to choose. This is not a states issue, a federal issue, its a woman/family issue.
No one should ever have the right to legislate your rights to your own body. The same goes for euthanasia
Paws
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 9:10 am
These people are not pro-life – they are forced birthers. They care nothing for life. They want women to have babies regardless of how they were conceived, regardless of whether she can afford to raise the babies – the people who call themselves pro-life are the same people who cheer at executions and think every citizen ought to be able to arm themselves to the teeth. They are the same people that want to cut off funding for food stamps and free school lunch programs for poor children.
They care NOTHING for life.
Lori
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 12:08 pm
And, they want more wars–that is definitely pro life.
A Walkaway
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 1:14 pm
Arming yourself to the teeth can be truly pro-life too (compared to the dominionist/Republican “force them to give birth and then let them starve”). If someone comes into your home to kill or harm (or starts shooting it up for any reason), having weapons might save YOUR life.
We nearly lost my sister-in-law a year or so after my brother and her were married – a guy forced himself into her car with less-than-honorable intentions. Luckily the nutcase did it in broad daylight in public, and was seen and stopped. If it had happened at night or somewhere more private (and she wasn’t armed), she wouldn’t probably be here today and I wouldn’t have two very smart and lovely nieces – or a grand-niece.
Private ownership of guns has also saved my life more than once. I’ve been shot at a couple of times, and even hit (luckily the idiot used birdshot at long range and it only left a bunch of very nasty spot bruises). With the political environment around here, I expect if Romney wins, I won’t live for more than a year or two because of my opposition to the dominionists. If Obama wins, it might even be scarier, although I’d have the force of law on my side (and hope that the military would put down the dominionists if they try to rebel). Disarming me would leave me helpless to those bastards, and I’m sick of being made helpless.
A friend of mine has said that they’re cowards, so the threat of loosing their life while they attempt to “execute God’s Judgment on a sinner” very well might keep them at bay.
Reynardine
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Indeed, I myself have thought I would not long outlive the installation of a total Romney regime (a Romney Presidency with both houses of Congress Democratic would be survivable)
Goss
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 9:44 am
I think the point that needs to be concidered is not when life begins, but where humanhood starts. When does that fetus become recognizably human? That is the point where abort or not becomes an issue.
A Walkaway
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
That varies greatly around the world and has always been so, not only today but in the past as well. The damned dominionists and their supporters insist that life begins at conception, but in the middle ages it wasn’t until much later… sometimes over a year after birth, because of the number of children who died (and as I just learned in Bioarchaeology, the idiots in medieval Europe did things to little kids that were just the opposite of what they should have done* – they caused the death rate to be far higher than it could have been – maybe over 30% died before age 3). Today there are cultures who don’t recognize a child as human until it can speak clearly and demand it’s place in society, and others who have other criteria. Only some cultures define being human at birth, and far fewer before birth.
The early Jews (past Jesus’ time) didn’t consider a fetus to be more than water until after the quickening – when the mother could feel it, and a fetus wasn’t the same as a human being until after birth. That’s “Biblical”.
Funny, but there is good evidence that while they didn’t consider children to be human, at the same time they punished women for having sex (and the evidence was childbirth). Infanticide was fairly common because of that.
The dominionists and their Republican/Tea Party ilk don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re IGNORANT and brainwashed and blinded by ideology.
*- Lewis, M (2007) The Bioarchaeology of Children.
A Walkaway
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Ack… not as clear as I should have been.
During the medieval period and afterwards, women were punished for having sex (and the evidence was childbirth). That was if they were single or there was any evidence that it might not have been their husband’s child.
During the time up to Jesus… well, they did go to stone the woman caught in adultery.
Reynardine
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
It was fairly common in medieval and Renaissance times to destroy all female infants after the firstborn. This was done sometimes by sealing them in jars, preferably glass, so you wouldn’t accidentally take them out while they could still breathe. Such deaths were put down to “overlying”. In other cases, they were exposed to long and elaborate christenings during bad weather, and the resulting illnesses not tended to. “Angelmakers”- alleged nursemaids whose business it was to make fatal mistakes with babies- were around in Europe well into the Twentieth Century.
KatzKids
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 10:40 am
I was in a “discussion” with a vehement Catholic apologist a few days ago, a hard line anti-abortionist. The subject was abortion to save the life of the mother. He was fanatically against it. I reminded him that if the mother died, so would the fetus, resulting in two deaths instead of one. His reply was that case was perfectly acceptable because they would have died from “natural causes.”
I think these freaks are even worse than the Taliban or are equal to the worst of them. That they continue to get elected in the 21st century or any century is beyond dangerous & frightening. I’m not a violent person at all, but can’t help but think of many bolts of lightening, striking judiciously.
VOTE!!! Obama/Biden 2012 – Straight Democratic Ticket at all levels.
Debbie Williams
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 11:51 am
These men are horrible, but the women who support them are the people with whom I have an issue. They give the term stepford wives a whole new meaning as they, not the men, are the reason we are fighting not to be sent by to the middle ages.
Brandybuck
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 11:54 am
*wince*
Can we not do the slippery slope argument? I am extremely tired of repeating THE-SLIPPERY-SLOPE-ARGUMENT-IS-NOT-A-REAL-ARGUMENT. It slips both ways; for instance, if you are pro abortion, you condone killing fetuses. If you are successful at doing this, will you someday condone killing retarded children? Killing 1/10 of all children as population control?
Where would it stop?
Perfectly persuasive arguments can be constructed without resorting to fallacy.
ifyourenotpartofthesolution
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 1:21 pm
When people start talking about “God’s will” this and “God’s will” that I always want to bring up cancer. Is cancer “Gob’s will”? Why would you be OK with going against that and aggressively fighting what must be legitimate death if you believe it is wrong to tamper with “will” and such? Never made much sense to me. When you start talking about “God’s will”….then modern medicine effectively gets thrown out the window. Right? Or is God selective in who may reap the benefits of “His” knowledge bestowed upon the people.
laurap
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
The answer to this question is simple: Morality is not about how you feel. Morality is based on logic. Once an egg and sperm are joined, they become a human being, with a human DNA. To use IVF is to freeze or dispose of some of these human beings, which logically is wrong. A baby conceived of rape is still a live human being, so it should not be destroyed any more than the embryos in the lab. To stand up for this kind of morality means I must have a strong heart to do what’s right, even if I really, really want a baby (IVF) or really, really don’t want a baby (case of rape/incest.) I’m talking about mature reality that goes beyond my selfish feelings. Yeah, I know I’m making a lot of people mad, but again, morality is not about feelings.
Reynardine
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Prove a fertilized egg is a human being.
A Walkaway
Oct. 27th, 2012 at 1:02 am
Really? Not going to argue the Bible too? Strange…
Because if you’re what I think you are, the Bible condones and even demands abortion. Read about the “Water of Bitterness” (funny that an abortion is called for because of the husband’s jealousy – what about the woman?). The Jews of Jesus’ day and before considered anything before the quickening – when the mother could feel the baby moving, to be nothing but water. If they were so wrong, don’t you think God would correct them? The Biblical laws also made a fetus to be less than a human being… look to the laws regarding causing a miscarriage.
Let’s say I’m wrong about you (I’m so used to “Good Christians” trying to tell me how to live my life and what to think and threatening and trying to prove us wrong and invading our space and trying to take it over – instead of minding their own business and tending to their own religion):
A major flaw in your argument – a great many fertilized eggs never implant and survive. Are the women murderers or have they committed manslaughter, because their body didn’t receive the egg? What about miscarriages? What about inviable eggs?
Don’t try to dip into the morality and ethics water unless you’re prepared to think.
Kees
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Concentration camps are gonna get full real quick if Mourdock and his friend’s outlook on women’s reproductive rights becomes real. Maybe they’re Mormons.
Overpopulation greater than that of China, food shortages, even crappier healthcare (or lack of it), laws forbidding more than one child per licensed couple and a lot of crazy homeless people.
Just because incest (which IS a form of rape) happened in Smith’s family doen’t mean we should be practically bent over and ‘raped’ into submission, forced to accept his views. Next thing you know, the rapists are gonna want visitation and custody.
Kees
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Replying to my own post because it just occured to me; what about those women who can’t speak or are not compenent enough to understand what’s going on? If they can’t scream rape or know what it is, rape should they still be forced to carry the pregnancy to term? What about those women in comas? What about small children who become pregnant because of rape? Sure, it’s statuatory rape because the age of legal consent is 18 I guarantee you there are 7 year old boys and girls out there that knows what sex is and where babies come from and if they are curious enough to force themselves on the girl going through puberty and she gets pregnant, what then? It’s obvious Mourdock is pro rape because it looks like rapists are going to have more rights than the women they forced themselves on.
I Mean Really
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
So what about when the rape is in dispute?
He said, she said.
Who gets to decide then?
Life Panels, that’s who.
Makinha
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Three possibilities in just over a week from now:
1) Women and people who love them will vote Republicans out of office.
2) These issues are not in line with what voters want and Democrats will be voted out of office.
3) Election fraud will occur and Democrats will be deprived of votes, because nobody did anything to prevent the fraud, because nobody saw it coming, again.
sara
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 6:45 pm
The GOP extremism is getting truly frightening.
According to the GOP—in particular Paul Ryan and the official platform; due to their extreme stance on reproductive rights—if a woman wants to have a baby with in vitro—she can’t. If she’s raped however—she must.
It is past the point of reason now—we are either approaching SHARIA (ISLAMIC LAW) or the end of women’s rights as we know them.
Worth noting as well is that Mr. Romney made *millions* from abortions with his investment in Stericycle, yet tries to maintain he’s in step with the GOP platform and always has been. He was pro-choice when it suited his political needs and now he’s anti-choice, because and only because, it suits his political needs.
He used the death of four good Americans to gain cheap political points; crassly commenting on the Libya crisis while their bodies were still warm. He is not just the wrong person for the job; he’s someone we can clearly *never* trust.
He abused his own dog –he has no morality, no ethics and no integrity.
*Someone with no honor should never lead our great nation.* And Romney has no honor.
Make sure Mitt & Lyin’Ryan do not get elected—for the good of our country; thank you & God Bless.
Michael Siever
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 7:11 pm
If a rape victim is a lesbian, and she gets pregnant, should she be forced to have the baby against her will, since abortion is immoral? If so, should she also be forced to give the baby up for adoption against her will, because gay parents are also immoral?
Shiva (Moderator)
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 7:22 pm
I dont think lesbians are against having babys. However they probably think like any other woman who might or might not want an abortion
Michael Siever
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 9:35 pm
The purpose of me saying the woman in question is a lesbian is to set up the dilemma in the second question. Some states, mainly red states, refuse to let gay couples adopt children. So, could those state governments forcibly take the child away at birth to put up for adoption, even if she wants to keep it solely because she’s gay?
Shiva (Moderator)
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 9:58 pm
Good point
martinlluther
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 7:47 pm
The Republican party as a whole cannot be held responsible for the statements of a few men. You can denounce THEM if you want, but not their associates.
The party platform has meant nothing for decades, although I agree it should.
Shiva (Moderator)
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 8:19 pm
I would look at local republicans in states and districts. They are working just as hard to get rid of the right to choose, the right to vote etc. This is a concerted effort by the republican party and its in every state. This is not just ryan and romney.
Yes, of course there are “normal” republicans, but the republican party is not anti voter repression or anti anything else that effects the people of this country. I have nop problem blaming the republican party and those who do not speak out
A Walkaway
Oct. 27th, 2012 at 11:39 am
A few men?
Wake up and smell the coffee. It’s most of the Republican party at the national level (granting that there may be a few exceptions), and in many states almost the entire legislature (such as my state – there are SOME Democrats, and an even rarer old-school Republican, but for the most part they’re all dominionists).
Check this out – solid disproving your claim it’s just a few bad apples:
www.politicususa.com/
The reality is that almost ALL of the Federal-level Rebiblican candidates are very bad news.
me tray
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 8:07 pm
I don’t get. The same ultra conservative clods who oppose abortion also support the death penalty, also oppose all social programs to care for children. They’re up in arms because Catholic businesses have to provide birth control as part of their health care coverahge but fail to extrapoate that out to other religions and beliefs. If we let religious beliefs dictate health insurance coverages, don’t plan on that open heart surgery if you work for a Jehovah’s witness because of the blood tranfusions. what out for radical vegans who won’t cover any procedure that involves animal parts. Then you’d have to say goodbye to a bunch of pharmaceutical.
Derrick
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 10:54 pm
What a bunch of fluff! What relevance is there if a person has something awful done to them that They have a “RIGHT” in killing a PERSON! Every argument to justify abortion is an arrogant and/or ignorant attempt to justify cutting the very branch off a tree of that which we sit upon! What if someone out there decides that diabetics or people with aids, or the mentally handicapped or on and on and on is part of the decay of society!? This obsession with approving and applauding exceptions to rules is the very sign that a terrible idea has been conceived and oddly enough, the answer should be. We must abort! Maybe we could get people to understand this more by, “well if contraception and/or abortion as a Rule is applauded and encouraged to prevent PEOPLE from being born, then who can justify anything as right or wrong?! Why don’t we contracept these ideas, or abort them!?” Who’s the judge if everyone is the judge!? This completely irrational argument is a red herring. Only, maybe, in the most extreme cases should this disastrously abused process be accepted! We are on a destructive slippery slope into endless relativism where even someday the relativists will possibly be forced to wake up to their own failed good intentions and realize the very Baby that they have thrown out with the bath water!
Shiva (Moderator)
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 11:00 pm
Its called the right of choice. You dont have to choose abortion, but you sure as hell should have the right to choose.
A Walkaway
Oct. 27th, 2012 at 1:22 am
It’s obvious you don’t even know what you’re talking about. You’re trying to sound intelligent and reasonable, but your stance isn’t.
You want to reduce abortions? Birth Control. The human being is the only species right now that we know of that can choose to reduce populations without resorting to infanticide or war (or the Malthusian cycle). It’s quite simple, really. The suffering in this world is generally caused by the greed of the rich (demonstrated). However, another cause of suffering is cultural stress due to insufficient resources. There are too many people on this planet anyway (without science and things like artificial fertilizers, it would only support about a fifth of the population – if that) and we don’t have another world (or four or five) to spread to… so what are people going to do?
Oh, “Good Christians” – I know the answer “Stop having sex!”
My question to that would be “But didn’t God create Sex?” My second question would be “If we aren’t supposed to have sex except for procreation, why does it feel so good and have such a positive effect on us?” We could very well have been like many other species, with hormonal triggers and signals – and sex would be purely a biological and procreation-only thing.
SIGH. “Good Christians”. I swear their brain has been shifted and locked in reverse.
Rules First -exceptions last!!!
Oct. 26th, 2012 at 11:19 pm
So “Choice!” Yes, what kind of choice is the question Shiva!? What ideals are and what Rules are defines the exceptions. When the exceptions of a society start being applauded and even pushed/encouraged, we should be sure that something is rotting. Now, someone could say that the rule needs to change! Okay, call it what it is then, and least be honest! So essentially, Children, care of people and love, sacrifice, sanctity are not ideals! If they are, then we should defend what the majority of PRO-LIFE people defend but if those aren’t ideals and rules to strive for then what the heck!? Let’s obliterate the ideals and let people have complete autonomy over their lives, devoid of any objective values! That’s at least honest. Even in the attempt to justify for the mother, yeah you may or will rid her of sufferings/pains for years to come, which by the way, most mothers later on grieve the decision to abort. But, then what a contradiction. We care so much for this PERSON(Mother), that we should kill the beautiful person inside of her and rid the CHILD of “CHOICE” at the expense of the mother having a tougher life!? Where is the moral back bone!? It is a ghost, there is no back bone, but there is an invitation and a plethora of open gates to sleep around and put the baby in the ground or such a numbing of the people’s consciences that they wont believe that this was a person inside! Because they can’t Talk, See, or experience consciousness like us, then we should be able to kill! That morality is vacuous!
Reynardine
Oct. 27th, 2012 at 12:08 pm
Why does this troll sound just like the other trolls, hmmm?
Anne
Oct. 27th, 2012 at 12:30 am
These people are NOT pro-life but only pro-birth. The fact that they believe in the death penalty, along with cutting life-sustaining programs for kids once they are born, negates their claim to be pro-life. With their short-sighted stupidity and self-righteousness, they make a mockery of the Christianity they profess to believe in.
A Walkaway
Oct. 27th, 2012 at 11:53 am
They remind me of what I just learned about in fairly early Europe (from around the end of the medieval period through maybe the 19th century). Women would commit infanticide or abandon their babies if they weren’t married because of the stigma of having sex, even though some (many?) of them were forced to work as prostitutes. The penalty for infanticide was horrible – beheading was the most lenient punishment, and it deteriorated from there down to being buried alive – but being found out was bad enough that they’d risk that sort of death. At the same time, the way they treated “legitimate” little kids (especially the way they were weaned) was so bass-ackwards and stupid that it’s a miracle that Europeans survived. They fed growing babies “pap” (boiled flour) and stuff like that – no sanitation, used mercury for treating some ailments, and often used lead for utensils for the children. Knowing a bit more about infant biology… the WRONG thing to do. They also tended to not consider them to be not quite human until they were older (many infants were not buried in cemeteries, but under houses, abandoned in the woods, and so on).
I also learned that male infants are far more likely to die from disease or other problems than female – the death rate was far higher.
Source: “The Bioarchaeology of Children” by M. Lewis (2007).
You consider that religiosity was very important during that period and it also included the Reformation, which caused most of the conflicts of that age (and all the hostility between different viewpoints within “Christianity”, much less towards non-Christians).
The book really opened my eyes… and I’m still digesting how it relates to the present argument against abortion. So far, it kills every “pro-life” (pro-slavery) argument that comes along.
Anne
Oct. 30th, 2012 at 6:57 am
@rules first–exceptions last!!
The problem with so many folks who are anti-abortion is that they never seem to note the glaring inconsistency of politicians who use abortion as a wedge issue, pushing for birth under all circumstances but at the same time pushing for the draconian cuts that would give the same babies a good quality of life once born. Some of these very same folks would enact legislation which would deny women access to the very birth control that cuts down on the demand for abortions. As far as I’m concerned, anti-abortion folks who deserve respect are those who are consistent in valuing life at every stage and either vote for or enact policies reflecting concern for the well-being of everybody, like adequate food, education, job training, etc., and not pushing for war, for example. If women who have been raped choose to have the child, I respect that. However, what good does it do any woman to be FORCED to bear a child conceived from rape? What’s even worse is the idea that a rapist would be able to remain in the life of his victim as the result of a child’s birth. The “slippery slope” is the hypocrisy of those who act as if life begins at conception and ends at birth.