The moral dilemma of abortion and war

[Rob]

The moral dilemma of abortion and war.

An individual who believes that we should never abort a fetus for any reason must also agree that war is unacceptable.

Here is the question to those of you believing abortion is never an option :

Should we have dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and why or why not?

This is a question of ethics and logic, let's try to keep it in that domain.
Thank you

[flourbug]

An individual who believes that we should never abort a fetus for any reason must also agree that war is unacceptable.

Why?

What basis do you have for that assumption?

[Rob]

It's not an assumption it is based on logic and is a valid premise.

What is your answer?

[Darkimbolc]

As a pro-choice and anti-war individual, I see both as something to be avoided whenever possible, but sometimes the necissary choice.

[flourbug]

My answer is, your assumption is neither logical nor valid.

Again, I ask for the basis of your assumption. Back up your claim and we have a starting point for discussion.

[Rob]

My answer is, your assumption is neither logical nor valid.

Again, I ask for the basis of your assumption. Back up your claim and we have a starting point for discussion.

The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki invariably killed unborn babies.

This is a fact. Period!

If you believe for instance, that this was a justifiable action of war then you must also believe that there is a time when killing unborn babies is justified.

Now, what's your answer?

[Rob]

As a pro-choice and anti-war individual, I see both as something to be avoided whenever possible, but sometimes the necissary choice.

Yes, this is perfectly consistent.

We can believe that there is a time when abortion is justified, the rape of an innocent individual for instance or danger to the mother and also believe that war is a justified in saving our loved ones.

[Flint]

What disturbs me is that abortion is not an issue in a vacuum. It's really much more of a side-effect of many things such as understanding how sex works in some detail, and understanding how to control pregnancy through all available options, and how to evaluate those options. Also involved is whether a child is wanted by either parent, whether government subsidies "buy" unwanted children, whether the parent(s) can afford to raise a children, can afford the time to spend raising that child, and so on.

And I'm bothered that the religious right tends (not insists, but tends) to be uncomfortable with sex education and birth control, tends to be opposed to subsidizing unwanted children after they're born, tends not to support family planning, etc. The pattern has sadly been that the same anti-abortion fanatics who literally scream that abortion is murder and picket clinics, turn their backs and walk away from the uneducated, unemployed teenage mother whose boyfriend is long gone. "OK, we saved a life, you're on your own, honeybunch."

I submit that we have things backwards. An unwanted pregnancy is an entirely avoidable misfortune, and avoiding it isn't particularly difficult or expensive. It takes nothing more than knowledge, planning, and (for the pill) a dollar a day. But we have an epidemic of unwanted pregnancies largely because the religious right is so dedicated in their opposition to both the technology to avoid them, and the knowledge that it's out there and how to procure and use it. And then even MORE dedicated to force girls to have unwanted children. After which apparently Jeezus doesn't give a shit anymore.

If there is a worse approach to conceiving and bearing children, I can't come up with it.

[flourbug]

My answer is, I confused your original post for an invitation to debate, when in fact it is just a forum for expressing your personal opinion.

Have fun. :)

[Rob]

My answer is, I confused your original post for an invitation to debate, when in fact it is just a forum for expressing your personal opinion.

Have fun. :)

Please, spare me this. You have every right to express your opinion.

I gave you a premise, you asked for justification for my premise and I gave it.

Now what is your stand?

Do you believe that there is never a time when abortion is justified?

Because we have this horrible dilemma in this country.

We have this abortion issue and individuals who believe we should use nuclear weapons on Russia if need be but in the same breath believe there is no time when abortion is justified. This is a moral impossibility BUT if you think my hypothesis is flawed then now is the time to step up to the plate as the old adage goes.

Can you do that? Can you make your case? I’m all ears.

[Renegade]

individuals who believe we should use nuclear weapons on Russia if need be
Since you're obviously referring to Palin, maybe you could produce the transcript where she talked about nuking Russia...

[preppiechick]

You are trying to "catch" pro life people, in what you think is a great hypocrisy, yet you clearly do not understand why abortion is WRONG. We do not wish death on others, but the most egregious abuse must be dealt with first. Here are some articles, from those more qualified to argue, than me.


http://www.priestsforlife.org/columns/columns2004/04-06-14abortionvswar.htm

"Abortion vs. War
Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life


This column requires extra effort to explain what it is not. It is not an evaluation of the war in Iraq or of any national leaders.

It is, however, an observation, on the level of moral principle, about the relationship between abortion, war, and being pro-life. And even there, I am limiting myself to a couple of very simple and specific points, and not an exhaustive analysis.

In his historic speech to the United Nations in 1965, Pope Paul VI cried out, "War never again, war never again!" The world must heed these words. They don't just mean, "Don't fight!" They mean that we have to make justice and human rights so secure that the need to fight disappears.

Many ask whether one can be a good Catholic or be pro-life and support the war. The answer is yes, which is to say that Catholic and pro-life teaching do allow for circumstances in which war is justified, because sometimes war has to be waged precisely for the defense of life.

Even when war is justified, life is always lost in the process. But innocent life is never targeted, and that makes all the difference in the world. How many innocent lives, and how many children, have been deliberately targeted for destruction in the current war?

By comparison, every abortion deliberately targets and destroys a child; otherwise, it isn't even an abortion.

The purpose of war is not to kill the enemy, but rather to deprive the enemy of his ability to wage war and to destroy others' rights. There's a big difference between targeting military/communications equipment to disrupt the operations of the enemy, and just trying to kill as many people as you can.

No doubt, some will read this column and begin arguing with me that the war in Iraq is not justified. This column is not arguing with them, but precisely pointing out that it is OK for them to come to that conclusion. It is also OK for someone else to come to the conclusion that the war is justified.

What is not OK is for someone to say, "You are not pro-life because you support the war." In fact, one may support the war precisely because he or she is pro-life and concludes that in this case, force is the only way to protect human life, human rights, and human freedom from the hands of those who would destroy it. Others may disagree with the conclusion, which is fine -- but don't deny the other person's right to come to the conclusion.

And do not miss the profound difference with abortion. There is no room for interpretations or evaluations of whether abortion may be justified. It cannot be, because its very essence is the deliberate targeting and destruction of a child. In war, we do not target a single child, whereas every abortion targets a child. Catholic teaching allows more than one position on war, but it does not allow more than one position on abortion."

http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/articles.cfm?id=265


"On Voting for Pro-Abortion Candidates

by Dr. Jeff Mirus, September 5, 2008


It’s election season again, and we should make one more attempt to convince our fellow citizens, our fellow Catholics and even some users of CatholicCulture.org that they cannot morally allow any issue to take precedence over abortion in their decision about how to vote in the U.S. presidential election. This statement may strike some readers as just another example of knee-jerk conservatism or, worse, sycophantic advocacy for the Republican Party. But it is neither. It is simply a moral fact of life. This time around, I’m taking the gloves off.

God’s Teaching and Man’s Statistics

Church teaching could not be more clear on this point. The Magisterium has stated repeatedly that direct abortion is intrinsically evil under all circumstances, and that it is immoral to vote for a politician because he supports abortion. The Church has also taught that voting for a politician in spite of the fact that he supports abortion is at least remote cooperation with evil, and so can be justified only when there is a proportionate reason. I endorse this latter point entirely. But the problem, for those who wish to take advantage of this to support pro-abortion candidates, is that there is no issue on the contemporary American political scene that is even remotely proportionate to abortion. No issue exists that can be cited as a proportionately moral reason to support a candidate that favors abortion, especially in a Presidential election.

Admittedly this is partly a prudential judgment, for it involves not only the nature of the evil involved but how widespread it is—how many people are impacted by it. The Church’s teaching authority can help us to discern that murder is a more serious evil than theft, but the Church can employ no special charism to determine how large a problem murder may be in a particular society at a particular time. If the murder rate is very low, and the theft rate high, one is certainly justified in voting for a politician who concentrates his attention on reducing theft. But abortion is not only in the most serious class of moral evils (the deliberate taking of an innocent human life), but it affects more people than any other comparably serious crime.

The number of abortions reported in the United States is over one million per year. Since abortion is notoriously under-reported, the actual numbers are substantially higher. For the sake of argument, we will suggest that there are at least 1.5 million abortions annually in the United States. By contrast, there are about 17,000 other homicides per year in our country, a number two orders of magnitude lower. In fact, abortion is in roughly the same class as far less serious (but still significant) crimes such as burglary and domestic violence assaults, which numbered about 2.1 million each in 2005.

When compared with the issues that are widely argued to be somehow proportionate, the lack of proportionality is even more astonishing. Thus, while abortion claims between one and two million lives per year in the United States, premature deaths due to inadequate health care are estimated at about 34,000 per year; the Iraq War has claimed a total of roughly 55,000 American and Iraqi lives since its beginning several years ago; and the death penalty claimed the lives of 42 persons in the United States last year, most of whom were presumably at least guilty of a serious crime. You can find all these statistics in about five minutes of research on the web. I submit, again, that no voter who is guided by reason can even begin to make the argument that there is an issue in the United States presidential election that is remotely proportionate to abortion.

False Assumptions

The argument that there are legitimate reasons to support a pro-abortion candidate is weakened still further when two common but false assumptions are brought into play. The first false assumption is that there is a moral equivalence between a candidate who places his emphasis on other issues and a candidate who is actually in favor of abortion. I stated earlier that, if the murder rate were very low and the theft rate very high, one might well vote for a politician who advances a good program for reducing theft. But what if this same candidate is determined to protect the right to murder or even seeks to expand murder's “availability”? Surely this changes both the moral equation, and the potential consequences.

The second false assumption is that abortion is so endemic to our culture that there isn’t likely to be much that any candidate can do about it; therefore, whether a President is pro-abortion or pro-life will make very little practical difference. While I would reject this assumption for symbolic reasons alone (what impact does it have on a culture to place in its highest office a person who publicly advocates murder?), the argument rests on so deep an ignorance of American political life as to be utterly ludicrous. The primary political reason abortion is both legal and extremely widespread in our culture is because we are increasingly ruled by an oligarchy of activist judges who wish to remake society in their own image. At the apex of this oligarchy is the Supreme Court, and Supreme Court justices are appointed for life by the President of the United States. Apart from all other considerations, this political fact is of capital importance in the selection of the next President, especially with the Court in many ways fairly evenly divided, and with an opportunity for the next President to appoint two or more justices.

Moreover, in the culture wars overall, our nation is fairly evenly divided. The future of abortion (along with many related grave evils) will depend on relatively small shifts in American voting patterns. Yes, it is a difficult and long struggle, but it is hardly an irrelevant struggle or a struggle with no hope of success. Persons who are very much more pro-life than would be suggested by existing rulings and laws are not in a tiny minority. On the various related issues, they are always close to half of the population, and often more than half. The person who argues that there is nothing we can do about abortion, and therefore it is perfectly moral to vote based on other considerations, is simply denying—in the midst of hotly contested circumstances—that there is at least one very important thing he can do: He can refuse to vote for those who support abortion.

Thanks, But I’m Not Personally Affected

I could go on at considerable length about the links between abortion and so much else that horribly afflicts the American people and their social fabric: the breakdown of the family, the objectification and abuse of women, contraception, rampant divorce, female poverty, ubiquitous pornography, experimentation on human persons, euthanasia and everything else that attends both irresponsible sex and increasing callousness toward the human person. But it should be enough to focus on the unmistakable fact that well over one million innocent persons are being willfully and directly murdered each year, and that this is happening not in a few inaccessible locations but all around us, in our local communities, as part of the fabric of our daily lives.

The bottom line is that to most of us the unborn child is invisible. It is not as if we have to witness the fear, the screams of terror, the bloodshed, the grief and the devastation that accompanies the murder of older persons, whom we often encounter and sometimes come to know. No, abortion is rather a case of out of sight, out of mind, for a little baby that hardly anybody wanted anyway, and we find it very easy to go on with our lives, attending to the issues that affect us personally, hobnobbing with those we find congenial, feeling secure in being part of the status quo, and thankfully aware that we’re not foolish enough to rock the boat. Indeed, with respect to abortion, the commitment to resist is very seldom the result of an emotional process; it is very seldom governed by our feelings. Very few pro-lifers are moved by feelings of solidarity with pre-born children. How could they be?

Instead, the pro-life moral and political commitment is a rational commitment: Abortion is a serious evil, it is an epidemic evil, and it is linked to a great many other evils in our culture. Therefore I will oppose it, root and branch, tooth and nail. Unfortunately, those who seek instead to justify with specious arguments their desire to vote for pro-abortion candidates make no such intellectual commitment. As we have seen, their arguments are utterly bankrupt. For where is their proportionate issue? Global warming? Tax revisions that might possibly benefit the poor? The price of gas? No, we are talking here about death, death immediately before us and on a grand scale. That is why those who justify voting for pro-abortion candidates are so obviously wrong, so seriously wrong and—let us tell the whole truth—so dangerously wrong."

[Rob]

individuals who believe we should use nuclear weapons on Russia if need be
Since you're obviously referring to Palin, maybe you could produce the transcript where she talked about nuking Russia...


"GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries. "

You can not be a leader of this country and not accept the responsibility of nuclear war. So how can she accept that responsibility and still contend a religious conviction that abortion is never acceptable? It’s a conflict of interests.

Is there inconsistency in her logic? Yes, very much so. Where's her God now?

Back to you? Do you believe abortion at all costs?

Then justify dropping bombs on pregnant women?

[flourbug]

I have no problem expressing my opinion. I asked you for the basis of your assumption.

I have never met "an individual who believes that we should never abort a fetus for any reason". I know of no religion or law that demands such a thing.

Rather than supplying me with legal, philosophical and theological arguments to support your position, you replied with more personal opinion.

That's fine, this is The Soapbox.

I believe your hypothesis is flawed, and the case against it has been made via jus ad bellum and the Doctrine of Just War as laid out by Augustine, explained by Thomas Aquinas and Hugo Grotius, legislated by the courts of 16th Century France and the Spaniards Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suárez, and codified in the UN Charter.

When you compare abortion to war, you are comparing apples to oranges. Killing a human being IS sanctioned by western standards in a variety of circumstances - if it is the result of an act of carrying out Justice such as a state sanctioned execution, or a policeman in the course of duty, or by a soldier acting under the command of the state in a Just War, and in civil society through self defense or to prevent grievous harm to another. Taking the life of a fetus when it is an unavoidable consequence of saving the life of the mother is also universally accepted.

So maybe you'll get lucky and find someone who fits your criteria and can answer your question. It's not me.

[Flint]

we should make one more attempt to convince our fellow citizens, our fellow Catholics and even some users of CatholicCulture.org that they cannot morally allow any issue to take precedence over abortion in their decision about how to vote in the U.S. presidential election.Ah, the voice of tolerance. To this author, his single-issue fanaticism is as far as his concepts can extend. Ignore all the other issues, ignore all qualifications of experience and temperament, judgment and patience, ignore the whole notion of compromise and cooperation, toss the golden rule in the shitcan, and think like HE thinks.

Maybe he really doesn't understand that a few fanatics like him, extracting one tiny aspect of a broad social issue and screaming MURDER! MURDER! MURDER! is very unlikely to attract a single thoughtful person, and might even drive away those less virulent in their intolerance.

But I'm sorry. I have no desire to tell this man what to believe, and I'd appreciate the same courtesy. Freedom as we know it is ONLY possible if all of us are willing to let other people do things we wish they wouldn't.

[flourbug]

PALIN: What I thiNk is that smaller democratic coUntries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to taKE over smaller democratic countries. "


I see it! I see where Palin said NUKE!

[Rob]

You are trying to "catch" pro life people, in what you think is a great hypocrisy, yet you clearly do not understand why abortion is WRONG. We do not wish death on others, but the most egregious abuse must be dealt with first. Here are some articles, from those more qualified to argue, than me.


http://www.priestsforlife.org/columns/columns2004/04-06-14abortionvswar.htm

"Abortion vs. War
Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life


This column requires extra effort to explain what it is not. It is not an evaluation of the war in Iraq or of any national leaders.

It is, however, an observation, on the level of moral principle, about the relationship between abortion, war, and being pro-life. And even there, I am limiting myself to a couple of very simple and specific points, and not an exhaustive analysis.

In his historic speech to the United Nations in 1965, Pope Paul VI cried out, "War never again, war never again!" The world must heed these words. They don't just mean, "Don't fight!" They mean that we have to make justice and human rights so secure that the need to fight disappears.

Many ask whether one can be a good Catholic or be pro-life and support the war. The answer is yes, which is to say that Catholic and pro-life teaching do allow for circumstances in which war is justified, because sometimes war has to be waged precisely for the defense of life.

Even when war is justified, life is always lost in the process. But innocent life is never targeted, and that makes all the difference in the world. How many innocent lives, and how many children, have been deliberately targeted for destruction in the current war?

By comparison, every abortion deliberately targets and destroys a child; otherwise, it isn't even an abortion.

The purpose of war is not to kill the enemy, but rather to deprive the enemy of his ability to wage war and to destroy others' rights. There's a big difference between targeting military/communications equipment to disrupt the operations of the enemy, and just trying to kill as many people as you can.

No doubt, some will read this column and begin arguing with me that the war in Iraq is not justified. This column is not arguing with them, but precisely pointing out that it is OK for them to come to that conclusion. It is also OK for someone else to come to the conclusion that the war is justified.

What is not OK is for someone to say, "You are not pro-life because you support the war." In fact, one may support the war precisely because he or she is pro-life and concludes that in this case, force is the only way to protect human life, human rights, and human freedom from the hands of those who would destroy it. Others may disagree with the conclusion, which is fine -- but don't deny the other person's right to come to the conclusion.

And do not miss the profound difference with abortion. There is no room for interpretations or evaluations of whether abortion may be justified. It cannot be, because its very essence is the deliberate targeting and destruction of a child. In war, we do not target a single child, whereas every abortion targets a child. Catholic teaching allows more than one position on war, but it does not allow more than one position on abortion."

http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/articles.cfm?id=265


"On Voting for Pro-Abortion Candidates

by Dr. Jeff Mirus, September 5, 2008


It’s election season again, and we should make one more attempt to convince our fellow citizens, our fellow Catholics and even some users of CatholicCulture.org that they cannot morally allow any issue to take precedence over abortion in their decision about how to vote in the U.S. presidential election. This statement may strike some readers as just another example of knee-jerk conservatism or, worse, sycophantic advocacy for the Republican Party. But it is neither. It is simply a moral fact of life. This time around, I’m taking the gloves off.

God’s Teaching and Man’s Statistics

Church teaching could not be more clear on this point. The Magisterium has stated repeatedly that direct abortion is intrinsically evil under all circumstances, and that it is immoral to vote for a politician because he supports abortion. The Church has also taught that voting for a politician in spite of the fact that he supports abortion is at least remote cooperation with evil, and so can be justified only when there is a proportionate reason. I endorse this latter point entirely. But the problem, for those who wish to take advantage of this to support pro-abortion candidates, is that there is no issue on the contemporary American political scene that is even remotely proportionate to abortion. No issue exists that can be cited as a proportionately moral reason to support a candidate that favors abortion, especially in a Presidential election.

Admittedly this is partly a prudential judgment, for it involves not only the nature of the evil involved but how widespread it is—how many people are impacted by it. The Church’s teaching authority can help us to discern that murder is a more serious evil than theft, but the Church can employ no special charism to determine how large a problem murder may be in a particular society at a particular time. If the murder rate is very low, and the theft rate high, one is certainly justified in voting for a politician who concentrates his attention on reducing theft. But abortion is not only in the most serious class of moral evils (the deliberate taking of an innocent human life), but it affects more people than any other comparably serious crime.

The number of abortions reported in the United States is over one million per year. Since abortion is notoriously under-reported, the actual numbers are substantially higher. For the sake of argument, we will suggest that there are at least 1.5 million abortions annually in the United States. By contrast, there are about 17,000 other homicides per year in our country, a number two orders of magnitude lower. In fact, abortion is in roughly the same class as far less serious (but still significant) crimes such as burglary and domestic violence assaults, which numbered about 2.1 million each in 2005.

When compared with the issues that are widely argued to be somehow proportionate, the lack of proportionality is even more astonishing. Thus, while abortion claims between one and two million lives per year in the United States, premature deaths due to inadequate health care are estimated at about 34,000 per year; the Iraq War has claimed a total of roughly 55,000 American and Iraqi lives since its beginning several years ago; and the death penalty claimed the lives of 42 persons in the United States last year, most of whom were presumably at least guilty of a serious crime. You can find all these statistics in about five minutes of research on the web. I submit, again, that no voter who is guided by reason can even begin to make the argument that there is an issue in the United States presidential election that is remotely proportionate to abortion.

False Assumptions

The argument that there are legitimate reasons to support a pro-abortion candidate is weakened still further when two common but false assumptions are brought into play. The first false assumption is that there is a moral equivalence between a candidate who places his emphasis on other issues and a candidate who is actually in favor of abortion. I stated earlier that, if the murder rate were very low and the theft rate very high, one might well vote for a politician who advances a good program for reducing theft. But what if this same candidate is determined to protect the right to murder or even seeks to expand murder's “availability”? Surely this changes both the moral equation, and the potential consequences.

The second false assumption is that abortion is so endemic to our culture that there isn’t likely to be much that any candidate can do about it; therefore, whether a President is pro-abortion or pro-life will make very little practical difference. While I would reject this assumption for symbolic reasons alone (what impact does it have on a culture to place in its highest office a person who publicly advocates murder?), the argument rests on so deep an ignorance of American political life as to be utterly ludicrous. The primary political reason abortion is both legal and extremely widespread in our culture is because we are increasingly ruled by an oligarchy of activist judges who wish to remake society in their own image. At the apex of this oligarchy is the Supreme Court, and Supreme Court justices are appointed for life by the President of the United States. Apart from all other considerations, this political fact is of capital importance in the selection of the next President, especially with the Court in many ways fairly evenly divided, and with an opportunity for the next President to appoint two or more justices.

Moreover, in the culture wars overall, our nation is fairly evenly divided. The future of abortion (along with many related grave evils) will depend on relatively small shifts in American voting patterns. Yes, it is a difficult and long struggle, but it is hardly an irrelevant struggle or a struggle with no hope of success. Persons who are very much more pro-life than would be suggested by existing rulings and laws are not in a tiny minority. On the various related issues, they are always close to half of the population, and often more than half. The person who argues that there is nothing we can do about abortion, and therefore it is perfectly moral to vote based on other considerations, is simply denying—in the midst of hotly contested circumstances—that there is at least one very important thing he can do: He can refuse to vote for those who support abortion.

Thanks, But I’m Not Personally Affected

I could go on at considerable length about the links between abortion and so much else that horribly afflicts the American people and their social fabric: the breakdown of the family, the objectification and abuse of women, contraception, rampant divorce, female poverty, ubiquitous pornography, experimentation on human persons, euthanasia and everything else that attends both irresponsible sex and increasing callousness toward the human person. But it should be enough to focus on the unmistakable fact that well over one million innocent persons are being willfully and directly murdered each year, and that this is happening not in a few inaccessible locations but all around us, in our local communities, as part of the fabric of our daily lives.

The bottom line is that to most of us the unborn child is invisible. It is not as if we have to witness the fear, the screams of terror, the bloodshed, the grief and the devastation that accompanies the murder of older persons, whom we often encounter and sometimes come to know. No, abortion is rather a case of out of sight, out of mind, for a little baby that hardly anybody wanted anyway, and we find it very easy to go on with our lives, attending to the issues that affect us personally, hobnobbing with those we find congenial, feeling secure in being part of the status quo, and thankfully aware that we’re not foolish enough to rock the boat. Indeed, with respect to abortion, the commitment to resist is very seldom the result of an emotional process; it is very seldom governed by our feelings. Very few pro-lifers are moved by feelings of solidarity with pre-born children. How could they be?

Instead, the pro-life moral and political commitment is a rational commitment: Abortion is a serious evil, it is an epidemic evil, and it is linked to a great many other evils in our culture. Therefore I will oppose it, root and branch, tooth and nail. Unfortunately, those who seek instead to justify with specious arguments their desire to vote for pro-abortion candidates make no such intellectual commitment. As we have seen, their arguments are utterly bankrupt. For where is their proportionate issue? Global warming? Tax revisions that might possibly benefit the poor? The price of gas? No, we are talking here about death, death immediately before us and on a grand scale. That is why those who justify voting for pro-abortion candidates are so obviously wrong, so seriously wrong and—let us tell the whole truth—so dangerously wrong."

Good, you're making my point. We know war kills innocent people. Harry Truman knew well that innocent PREGNANT women would die when he dropped those bombs. It wasn’t a mistake, he didn't wonder if innocent pregnant women would be killed. He knew it for a fact. He made the decision that there are times when killing unborn babies IS justified.

Now what is your answer? Do you believe we should have dropped that bomb and killed those unborn babies?

I’m not trying to catch anyone. It’s a perfectly justifiable argument.

You believe killing unborn babies is never right according to your understanding of God. How do you drop that bomb? Tell God to look the other way? Oh, Jesus won’t mind this one time?

What?

[Rob]

I have no problem expressing my opinion. I asked you for the basis of your assumption.

I have never met "an individual who believes that we should never abort a fetus for any reason". I know of no religion or law that demands such a thing.

Rather than supplying me with legal, philosophical and theological arguments to support your position, you replied with more personal opinion.

That's fine, this is The Soapbox.

I believe your hypothesis is flawed, and the case against it has been made via jus ad bellum and the Doctrine of Just War as laid out by Augustine, explained by Thomas Aquinas and Hugo Grotius, legislated by the courts of 16th Century France and the Spaniards Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suárez, and codified in the UN Charter.

When you compare abortion to war, you are comparing apples to oranges. Killing a human being IS sanctioned by western standards in a variety of circumstances - if it is the result of an act of carrying out Justice such as a state sanctioned execution, or a policeman in the course of duty, or by a soldier acting under the command of the state in a Just War, and in civil society through self defense or to prevent grievous harm to another. Taking the life of a fetus when it is an unavoidable consequence of saving the life of the mother is also universally accepted.

So maybe you'll get lucky and find someone who fits your criteria and can answer your question. It's not me.

You have just admitted that there are times when there is a justification for killing unborn babies. Regardless whether you justify it through Aquinas or anyone else.

So now you have just joined the ranks of pro choice.

[Rob]

PALIN: What I thiNk is that smaller democratic coUntries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to taKE over smaller democratic countries. "


I see it! I see where Palin said NUKE!

I explained this already. Please go back and read it. It is based on reason not on emotions.

[preppiechick]

http://www.htmlbible.com/abortstats.htm

Return to HTML Bible Homepage.
U.S. Abortion Deaths Compared to U.S. War Deaths

Each "" symbol represents 10,000 people (or fraction) killed.

Revolutionary War - 4,435 deaths.

Civil War (both sides) - 498,332 deaths.

World War I - 116,708 deaths.

World War II - 407,316 deaths.

Korea - 25,604 deaths.

Vietnam - 58,168 deaths.

Total killed due to abortion since 1973 - 35,000,000 (35 MILLION) deaths.

"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee..." (Jeremiah 1:5)

"He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15)

"And it came to pass , that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she spake with a loud voice, and said 'Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb'." (Luke 1:41-42)

"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." (Genesis 9:6)


This web page is in the Public Domain and may be freely distributed and used.
John M. Hurt 3/11/2000

[preppiechick]

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/abbott/050818

August 17, 2005
Prominent priest speaks on Iraq war, abortion
By Matt C. Abbott

As many will recall, during the 2004 presidential election, there was a lot of debate, particularly in Catholic circles, over the morality of the war in Iraq; and whether a Catholic should vote for a candidate — John Kerry — who supported abortion "rights" (an intrinsic evil) but opposed President Bush's (who most people conceded was more anti-abortion than Kerry) policy on the war, which certain members of the Church hierarchy also opposed, and still oppose, presumably.

The debate over the war continues, of course. The country is seemingly divided on this issue, as are Catholics.

I recently asked Father Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International (www.hli.org), what his thoughts are regarding the culture of death versus the war in Iraq. He responded:

"The war in Iraq has many supporters and detractors, but it is not of the same moral consequence as the war against the unborn. If you judge the gravity of a war by the number of casualties it causes, then Iraq looks like a playground skirmish in comparison to the killing of babies.

"Up to this point there have been less than 2000 soldiers killed in Iraq for what many consider to be a just cause. That does not even equal half the death toll of the babies that are killed by abortion every single day on the streets of America in one of the worst injustices ever perpetrated upon a class of human beings.

"Abortion is the greatest war in history — and, unfortunately for the babies, the one that people care least about."

Father Euteneuer seems to echo the sentiments of another prominent priest, Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life (www.priestsforlife.org), who wrote:

"... [O]ne may support the [Iraq] war precisely because he or she is pro-life and concludes that in this case, force is the only way to protect human life, human rights, and human freedom from the hands of those who would destroy it. Others may disagree with the conclusion, which is fine — but don't deny the other person's right to come to the conclusion.

"And do not miss the profound difference with abortion. There is no room for interpretations or evaluations of whether abortion may be justified. It cannot be, because its very essence is the deliberate targeting and destruction of a child. In war, we do not target a single child, whereas every abortion targets a child. Catholic teaching allows more than one position on war, but it does not allow more than one position on abortion."

(See: http://www.lifenews.com/nat577.html)

[Renegade]

PALIN: What I thiNk is that smaller democratic coUntries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to taKE over smaller democratic countries. "


I see it! I see where Palin said NUKE!

Thanks fb...I was fixing to go to the store and get stronger reading glasses!! :lol:

[flourbug]

Let me read over what I just wrote one more time...

By golly, I thought you were wrong - and I'm right!

I didn't "admit" or "join the ranks". I EXPLAINED. I can explain how a car's engine works. That doesn't make me a car, and it doesn't make me a taxi driver. It's a subtle point but an important difference. Honk, honk.

[preppiechick]

Good, you're making my point. We know war kills innocent people. Harry Truman knew well that innocent PREGNANT women would die when he dropped those bombs. It wasn’t a mistake, he didn't wonder if innocent pregnant women would be killed. He knew it for a fact. He made the decision that there are times when killing unborn babies IS justified.

Now what is your answer? Do you believe we should have dropped that bomb and killed those unborn babies?

I’m not trying to catch anyone. It’s a perfectly justifiable argument.

You believe killing unborn babies is never right according to your understanding of God. How do you drop that bomb? Tell God to look the other way? Oh, Jesus won’t mind this one time?

What?

Did you read it (I even highlighted it for you :laugh:)? It is called justifiable war.

"Even when war is justified, life is always lost in the process. But innocent life is never targeted, and that makes all the difference in the world. How many innocent lives, and how many children, have been deliberately targeted for destruction in the current war?

By comparison, every abortion deliberately targets and destroys a child; otherwise, it isn't even an abortion.

The purpose of war is not to kill the enemy, but rather to deprive the enemy of his ability to wage war and to destroy others' rights. "

[Flint]

As several economists and sociologist have pointed out, abortion in the US has tended to be most commonly practiced by the most disadvantaged cohort of the US population.

During the 1990s and continuing, it was noticed that the crime rate was dropping, and in some of the most crime-prone areas (poor districts in inner cities) it was dropping drastically. Statistics were collected about everything - changes in housing, changes in police practices, changes in incarceration rates and processing, changes in sentencing, changes in gun laws, etc. etc. etc. Nothing fit...

UNTIL someone suggested that (1) Minority (and other very poor) males between the ages of 13 and 30 have always been WAY overrepresented among the criminal population - they are 20% of the population and commit 60% of the crimes; and (2) These were exactly the unwanted children being far and away most commonly aborted.

Further study showed that, sure enough, the drop in crime rate during the 90s could be explained almost entirely by the legalization (and subsidization) of abortions in the mid 70s. The criminals simply weren't being born!

And this holds true today. Widespread practice of legal abortion of UNWANTED children, into largely single-parent homes where nobody was home to raise a child, has been a sheer social blessing for us, for those who no longer were forced to be unwilling parents, and especially for the kids left to fend for themselves in inner-city poverty. Abortion has been a win-win-win situation for everyone...

EXCEPT the religious fanatics, for whom facts don't matter. All the rest of us can count our blessings that the US finally came to its senses, shook off fundamentalist shackles, and discontinued one of the most detrimental and wrongheaded policies ever devised. Proving once again that if people are given freedom, they use it responsibly. Except the fanatics, of course.

[preppiechick]

Flint-

you missed this thread - crime was not decreased:

http://curevents.org/showthread.php?p=10131#post10131



.

Funny, murder rates didn't go down:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/hmrt.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/totalcounts.png

And the paper, that freakanomics based the chapter on, has been disputed (and I do own the book and this should be read by anyone who read freakanomics:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1596985062/ref=nosim/?tag=johnrlotttrip-20):

http://www.nrlc.org/news/2001/NRL06/randylaura.html

http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=yale/lepp
(Yale Law School
Yale Law School John M. Olin Center for Studies in Law,
Economics, and Public Policy Working Paper Series)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,377181,00.html
"...
Opinion

The Myth About Abortion and Crime

Monday, July 07, 2008

By John R. Lott, Jr.


This is the second part of a two part series on abortion. The first part can be found here.

Violent crime in the United States soared after 1960. From 1960 to 1991, reported violent crime increased by an incredible 372 percent. This disturbing trend was seen across the country, with robbery peaking in 1991 and rape and aggravated assault following in 1992. But then something unexpected happened: Between 1991 and 2000, rates of violent crime and property crime fell sharply, dropping by 33 percent and 30 percent, respectively. Murder rates were stable up to 1991, but then plunged by a steep 44 percent.

Many plausible explanations have been advanced for the drop during the 1990s. Some stress law-enforcement measures, such as higher arrest and conviction rates, longer prison sentences, “broken windows” police strategies, and the death penalty. Others emphasize right-to-carry laws for concealed handguns, a strong economy, or the waning of the crack-cocaine epidemic.
Related



Yet, of all the explanations, perhaps the most controversial is the one that attributes lower crime rates in the ’90s to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision to mandate legalized abortion. According to this argument, the large number of women who began having abortions shortly after Roe were most likely unmarried, in their teens, or poor, and their children would have been “unwanted.” Children born in these circumstances would have had a higher-than-average likelihood of becoming criminals, and would have entered their teens — their “criminal prime” — in the early 1990s. But because they were aborted, they were not around to make trouble.

It is an attention-grabbing theory, to be sure, possibly even more noteworthy than recent research indicating that liberalizing abortion increased pre-marital sex, increased out-of-wedlock births, reduced adoptions and ended so-called shotgun marriages.

But a thorough analysis of abortion and crime statistics leads to the opposite conclusion: that abortion increases crime.

The question about abortion and crime was greatly influenced by a Swedish study published in 1966 by Hans Forssman and Inga Thuwe. They followed the children of 188 women who were denied abortions from 1939 to 1941 at the only hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden. Their study compared these “unwanted” children with another group, this one composed of the first child born at the hospital after each of the “unwanted” children. They found that the “unwanted” children were much more likely to grow up in adverse conditions — for example, with divorced parents, or in foster homes. These children were also more likely to become delinquents and have trouble in school. Unfortunately, the authors never investigated whether the children’s “unwantedness” caused their problems, or were simply correlated with them.

Forssman and Thuwe’s claim, notwithstanding the limits of the data supporting it, became axiomatic among supporters of legalized abortion. During the 1960s and ’70s, before Roe, abortion-rights advocates attributed all sorts of social ills, including crime and mental illness, to “unwanted” children. Weeding these poor, crime-prone people out of the population through abortion was presented as a way to make society safer.

Indeed, the 1972 Rockefeller Commission on Population and the American Future, established by Richard Nixon, cited research purporting that the children of women denied an abortion “turned out to have been registered more often with psychiatric services, engaged in more antisocial and criminal behavior, and have been more dependent on public assistance.”

Even in the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun noted the same social problems attributed to “unwanted” children.

Recently, two economists — John Donohue and Steven Levitt — tried resurrecting the debate. They presented evidence that supposedly demonstrated abortion’s staggeringly large effect on crime rates, and argued that up to “one-half of the overall crime reduction” between 1991 and 1997, and up to 81 percent of the drop in murder rates during that period, was attributable to the rise in abortions in the early to mid 1970s. If that claim was accurate, they had surely found the Holy Grail of crime reduction.

Most people who challenge the “abortion reduces crime” argument do so on ethical grounds, rather than trying to rebut the empirical evidence. But it is worth looking at the data, too — because they do not prove what they are supposed to.

To understand why abortion might not cut crime, one should first consider how dramatically it changed sexual relationships. Once abortion became widely available, people engaged in much more premarital sex, and also took less care in using contraceptives. Abortion, after all, offered a backup if a woman got pregnant, making premarital sex, and the nonuse of contraception, less risky. In practice, however, many women found that they couldn’t go through with an abortion, and out-of-wedlock births soared. Few of these children born out of wedlock were put up for adoption; most women who were unwilling to have abortions were also unwilling to give up their children. Abortion also eliminated the social pressure on men to marry women who got pregnant. All of these outcomes — more out-of-wedlock births, fewer adoptions than expected, and less pressure on men “to do the right thing” — led to a sharp increase in single-parent families.

Multiple studies document this change. From the early 1970s through the late 1980s, as abortion became more and more frequent, there was a tremendous increase in the rate of out-of-wedlock births, from an average of 5 percent (1965–69) to over 16 percent 20 years later (1985–1989). Among blacks, the number jumped from 35 percent to 62 percent. While not all of this rise can be attributed to liberalized abortion laws, they were certainly a key contributor.

What happened to all these children raised by single women? No matter how much they want their children, single parents tend to devote less attention to them than married couples do. Single parents are less likely than married parents to read to their children or take them on excursions, and more likely to feel angry at their children or to feel that they are burdensome. Children raised out of wedlock have more social and developmental problems than children of married couples by almost any measure — from grades to school expulsion to disease. Unsurprisingly, children from unmarried families are also more likely to become criminals.

So the opposing lines of argument in the “abortion reduces crime” debate are clear: One side stresses that abortion eliminates “unwanted” children, the other that it increases out-of-wedlock births. The question is: Which consequence of abortion has the bigger impact on crime?

Unfortunately for those who argue that abortion reduces crime, Donahue and Levitt’s research suffered from methodological flaws. As The Economist noted, “Donohue and Levitt did not run the test that they thought they had.” Work by two economists at the Boston Federal Reserve, Christopher Foote and Christopher Goetz, found that, when the test was run correctly, it indicated that abortion actually increases violent crime. John Whitley and I had written an earlier study that found a similar connection between abortion and murder — namely, that legalizing abortion raised the murder rate, on average, by about 7 percent..."

[Rob]

http://www.htmlbible.com/abortstats.htm

Return to HTML Bible Homepage.
U.S. Abortion Deaths Compared to U.S. War Deaths

Each "" symbol represents 10,000 people (or fraction) killed.

Revolutionary War - 4,435 deaths.

Civil War (both sides) - 498,332 deaths.

World War I - 116,708 deaths.

World War II - 407,316 deaths.

Korea - 25,604 deaths.

Vietnam - 58,168 deaths.

Total killed due to abortion since 1973 - 35,000,000 (35 MILLION) deaths.

"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee..." (Jeremiah 1:5)

"He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15)

"And it came to pass , that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she spake with a loud voice, and said 'Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb'." (Luke 1:41-42)

"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." (Genesis 9:6)


This web page is in the Public Domain and may be freely distributed and used.
John M. Hurt 3/11/2000

First, spare me the Biblical interpretations.

You can if you like, use them as a bastion for your life’s decisions, I don’t anymore then if a Hindu stood before me with the Upanishads. Those are his opinions and I’m sure he would be just as upset as you if someone rejected his perception of God.

Now you quoted a bunch of statistic. What does that mean? That more unborn babies have been killed then people in a specific war? Is this about numbers? Are you saying that if less abortions then killed in war numbers existed it would be ok and we could accept it and have some more abortions?

Once more, it’s not a question of if or how many. Would you drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or stop that action. We already know pregnant women will be killed, Harry Truman knew.

What do you do?

Here’s the problem: if you say yes then you accept for whatever reason, that killing babies at some point is justifiable.

The instant you say that you become a member of pro choice regardless whether you like it or a long list of saints like it.

Because pro choice says it is the individual’s right and if the individual believes there is justification for her action then they are saying, as you just did, that there are times when killing a fetus is justifiable. We do not use your parameters to judge someone else’s life anymore then we use someone else’s parameters to judge your life. You too have the option just as Harry Truman did.

[Rob]

Did you read it (I even highlighted it for you :laugh:)? It is called justifiable war.

"Even when war is justified, life is always lost in the process. But innocent life is never targeted, and that makes all the difference in the world. How many innocent lives, and how many children, have been deliberately targeted for destruction in the current war?

By comparison, every abortion deliberately targets and destroys a child; otherwise, it isn't even an abortion.

The purpose of war is not to kill the enemy, but rather to deprive the enemy of his ability to wage war and to destroy others' rights. "

First, go read some history both Hiroshima AND Nagasaki were innocent lives that were targeted.
50,000 died instantly in Hiroshima and 75,000 died excruciating deaths over a five year period in Nagasaki. Again, Truman knew that he was killing innocent people AND knew there were unborn babies there.

Now, one more time, you know there are unborn babies there, Do you drop the bomb?

[Renegade]

Rob,
Let's go at this from a smaller scale and try to keep the fruit of the same type.

Here's the scenario,
You're a hostage in a bank robbery along with 20 other folks. Because of your career, you know there are SWAT snipers on the roof just waiting to take out the perp if he'll get near a window. In the course of the hostage negotiations, the perp offers you a choice. He can take 5 people and line them up near the front window and shoot them all, or YOU can kill one 3 year old kid. Two of the 5 are pregnant women. You know the sniper's will nail him at some point when he takes them up front. What you don't know is how many, or which ones, of the 5 he might kill before the snipers get a shot.

What do you do? Kill the one kid and hope for a better chance later? Or take a chance on losing up to 5, and maybe including the pregnant ones, but ending the situation in the process?

?

[Rob]

So now we come to the Sarah Palin dilemma. She says she believes there is no time when abortion is justifiable.

The problem is that she may be the position to drop that bomb and knowingly kill those unborn babies she has sworn to her God she would not kill.

What does she do? Defy her God and follow her government’s intentions or defy her government and follow her God?
If she follows her government then what does that say about her relationship to her God? What does she think her God will do? Banish her to hell for a fiery eternity?

If she follows her God then she subjects the people of this country to her religious convictions and we suffer because of them.

Now do you see the dilemma of abortion or war? You get one or the other.

[Rob]

Rob,
Let's go at this from a smaller scale and try to keep the fruit of the same type.

Here's the scenario,
You're a hostage in a bank robbery along with 20 other folks. Because of your career, you know there are SWAT snipers on the roof just waiting to take out the perp if he'll get near a window. In the course of the hostage negotiations, the perp offers you a choice. He can take 5 people and line them up near the front window and shoot them all, or YOU can kill one 3 year old kid. Two of the 5 are pregnant women. You know the sniper's will nail him at some point when he takes them up front. What you don't know is how many, or which ones, of the 5 he might kill before the snipers get a shot.

What do you do? Kill the one kid and hope for a better chance later? Or take a chance on losing up to 5, and maybe including the pregnant ones, but ending the situation in the process?

?


Yikes! Do you understand this? What you are advocating is making a choice. That’s what pro choice is about. Get it!

The pregnant woman who opts to save her life at the expense of the fetus is making a CHOICE. The mother who opts to abort the fetus of her 12 year old daughter raped by her husband is making a choice.

Anti abortion is just that. No abortions. It’s not pro-life because a pro-choice mother can opt to have the baby and the baby would live which would be PRO-LIFE.

It’s not about how many lives are saved. One life or a million lives. The moment you agree to abort a fetus to save a million lives you are advocating pro-choice. The moment you advocate aborting a fetus to save one life you are advocating pro-choice!

Your scenario is making my point!

[Renegade]

The only dilemma is what you're creating for yourself. Like every other choice in life, it's all about the risk/reward. If dropping a bomb and killing 50K is what it takes to save the lives of 200M, then you drop the bomb. If you're going to look at it entirely from the standpoint of judgment from God, then which is worst, causing 200M to die due to inaction or causing x% / 50K due to action.

Risk/reward. What your asking is not a comparable option, which is why fb was right about the apples and oranges. There is no comparison between abortion and war.

but good luck looking for it....

[flourbug]

Rob, check your facts.

Palin opposes aborting a child for social reasons - ie, there is nothing medically wrong with the mother or the child but the mother doesn't want a child so she aborts the baby. Palin SUPPORTS "medical abortions" - removing the fetus because of medical reasons involving the mother, child, or both. She has supported bills that outlaw late term abortions, and a bill requiring underage teens to obtain parental consent, but has rebuffed efforts by conservative groups to impose limits on abortions in her home state.

So clearly she is NOT against all abortion, she has NOT claimed she was going to Nuke Russia, and your entire argument is groundless.

[Flint]

preppiechick:

From the early 1970s through the late 1980s, as abortion became more and more frequent, there was a tremendous increase in the rate of out-of-wedlock births, from an average of 5 percent (1965–69) to over 16 percent 20 years later (1985–1989). Among blacks, the number jumped from 35 percent to 62 percent. While not all of this rise can be attributed to liberalized abortion laws, they were certainly a key contributor.I really have to wonder about this. The increase in out-of-wedlock births was a direct result of the way certain transfer payment programs were administered - if the child's father wasn't chipping in, the payment to the mother was FAR larger than if there was a father in the household. In effect (and it's a no-brainer) this imposed a significant "wedding tax" for any poor couple that had children. Indeed, may couples sought "non-divorce divorces" so as to qualify for the higher payments. Beyond this, money for having children was a source of income not to be sneezed at. In effect, out of the goodness of our liberal hearts, we were purchasing unwanted children with direct cash rewards per head!

It really makes little sense that a massive increase in the abortion rate would somehow create MORE unwanted children. Unless you wish to believe this strongly enough.

In any case, I disagree with Rob that war and abortion are in any way comparable, or that one can't consistently support one and oppose the other. I regard these as two entirely distinct issues, both practically and morally.

In any case, I'm a firm defender of the right of anyone to have any children they want, and not to have any children they don't want. I believe it's their choice either way, and most emphatically not MY decision and not YOUR decision. I sincerely believe you should ask yourself: Would I wish these people to enforce their preferences onto me? If your answer is no for them, it should be no for you.

[Flint]

Palin opposes aborting a child for social reasons - ie, there is nothing medically wrong with the mother or the child but the mother doesn't want a child so she aborts the baby.I would ask Palin the same question I asked preppiechick. Would Palin be happy with a government that obliged her to abort whether she wanted a child or not? This is Golden Rule 101.

If I'm reading this right, Palin had children because she wanted them. SHE was perfectly happy to exercise this freedom. Why should she deny it to others?

[Rob]

The only dilemma is what you're creating for yourself. Like every other choice in life, it's all about the risk/reward. If dropping a bomb and killing 50K is what it takes to save the lives of 200M, then you drop the bomb. If you're going to look at it entirely from the standpoint of judgment from God, then which is worst, causing 200M to die due to inaction or causing x% / 50K due to action.

Risk/reward. What your asking is not a comparable option, which is why fb was right about the apples and oranges. There is no comparison between abortion and war.

but good luck looking for it....


FB can call it apples and oranges and you can parrot that but it’s still about the same thing. What’s the difference if you knowingly drop a bomb on a thousand people and kill unborn babies or you decide to have an abortion? Both kill the unborn baby and both are a matter of choice.

War kills unborn babies, sorry, we already know this. When we bombed Baghdad we knew it and when Truman dropped the bomb on Hiroshima he knew it. If you accept the need for war you must also accept killing unborn babies. You are making a choice.

Now you want to make it about numbers? Ok what number do you abort a baby? One, eleven, ten million? Regardless which you choose you are making the choice. Anti-abortion is just that no abortions. Call it pro-life but either way you are saying you don’t kill the fetus.

The instant you decide, regardless of the number, the method or the justification to knowingly kill unborn babies you are making a choice AND you are no longer anti-abortion. AND you no longer have the say as to anyone else’s choice.

[Rob]

Rob, check your facts.

Palin opposes aborting a child for social reasons - ie, there is nothing medically wrong with the mother or the child but the mother doesn't want a child so she aborts the baby. Palin SUPPORTS "medical abortions" - removing the fetus because of medical reasons involving the mother, child, or both. She has supported bills that outlaw late term abortions, and a bill requiring underage teens to obtain parental consent, but has rebuffed efforts by conservative groups to impose limits on abortions in her home state.

So clearly she is NOT against all abortion, she has NOT claimed she was going to Nuke Russia, and your entire argument is groundless.

No. check your facts. Palin only followed the law with respect to that her religious perspective is NO abortions for any reason.

[Renegade]

What’s the difference if you knowingly drop a bomb on a thousand people and kill unborn babies or you decide to have an abortion?

If you can't see the difference then that explains this thread pretty well.

Palin only followed the law
Bingo. She followed the law, IN SPITE OF HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.

So, that should make your question moot.

[Rob]

preppiechick:

I really have to wonder about this. The increase in out-of-wedlock births was a direct result of the way certain transfer payment programs were administered - if the child's father wasn't chipping in, the payment to the mother was FAR larger than if there was a father in the household. In effect (and it's a no-brainer) this imposed a significant "wedding tax" for any poor couple that had children. Indeed, may couples sought "non-divorce divorces" so as to qualify for the higher payments. Beyond this, money for having children was a source of income not to be sneezed at. In effect, out of the goodness of our liberal hearts, we were purchasing unwanted children with direct cash rewards per head!

It really makes little sense that a massive increase in the abortion rate would somehow create MORE unwanted children. Unless you wish to believe this strongly enough.

In any case, I disagree with Rob that war and abortion are in any way comparable, or that one can't consistently support one and oppose the other. I regard these as two entirely distinct issues, both practically and morally.

In any case, I'm a firm defender of the right of anyone to have any children they want, and not to have any children they don't want. I believe it's their choice either way, and most emphatically not MY decision and not YOUR decision. I sincerely believe you should ask yourself: Would I wish these people to enforce their preferences onto me? If your answer is no for them, it should be no for you.


While I respect your right to disagree you can not simply say you do not. You must follow with logic.

You drop a bomb on ten million people for what ever reason. You kill unborn babies. If you are anti-abortion how do you justify the action? Numbers? Then what's the cut off number?

[flourbug]

No. check your facts. Palin only followed the law with respect to that her religious perspective is NO abortions for any reason.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-11-palin-cover_N.htm

Palin 'governed from the center,' went after big oil

April 23, 2008 - Palin writes a letter to state Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican, rejecting Green's proposal to add two anti-abortion bills to the special legislative session on construction of a natural gas pipeline.

[Rob]

What’s the difference if you knowingly drop a bomb on a thousand people and kill unborn babies or you decide to have an abortion?

If you can't see the difference then that explains this thread pretty well.

Palin only followed the law
Bingo. She followed the law, IN SPITE OF HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.

So, that should make your question moot.

Spare me the rhetoric.

Do you see that you are justifying your abortion by a number? This is specifically why I worded it that way.

Each kills unborn babies, the only difference is the number. So what number justifies killing babies?

I also specifically worded it that way, go back and look at the scenario that I hypothesized for her.

She, by faith, believes that there is no justification for an abortion BUT she abandons her faith politically. So what does that say about her perception of her God? That God takes a back seat to her politics?

[Susan4]

You're crowing about logic on a circular argument which is pointless. She can have separate opinions on war and abortion as most people do. How she intends to govern is more to the point as previously noted.

[Renegade]

So what does that say about her perception of her God?

Here's a better question. As long as she is upholding the laws that she has pledged to, then why do you care about the situation between her and her God?

Are YOU going to hold her accountable for what she does or not do in relation to her religion...or her politics...

[Fiddlerdave]

I recently asked Father Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International (www.hli.org), what his thoughts are regarding the culture of death versus the war in Iraq. He responded:

"The war in Iraq has many supporters and detractors, but it is not of the same moral consequence as the war against the unborn. If you judge the gravity of a war by the number of casualties it causes, then Iraq looks like a playground skirmish in comparison to the killing of babies.

"Up to this point there have been less than 2000 soldiers killed in Iraq for what many consider to be a just cause. That does not even equal half the death toll of the babies that are killed by abortion every single day on the streets of America in one of the worst injustices ever perpetrated upon a class of human beings.I find it quite indicative of pro-life attitudes about human life that this counting of deaths in the Iraq war includes ONLY US soldiers. The vast numbers of civilian deaths, high 5 figures by anyone's accounting, seem, as always, irrelevant.

[Flint]

While I respect your right to disagree you can not simply say you do not. You must follow with logic.But your logic is being applied within an incorrect conceptual context. You have crammed the issues into an inappropriate choice.

The question here has nothing whatsoever to do with the kill/don't kill false dichotomy. As others have pointed out, PURPOSE is critical here. Indeed, if you spend any time watching court cases, you find that intent and purpose are nearly always decisive. If you have a stroke while driving, lose control of your car and kill a pedestrian, did you commit murder? Well, no question you killed someone. If you are attacked and defend yourself, and in the process your attacker dies, is that murder? If a police officer or soldier is required to shoot someone in the line of duty, is that murder?

What we as a society have decided is, there are justifiable and non-justifiable reasons for taking lives. And these reasons rest entirely on the nature of your intent. What were you trying to do? The "cutoff" isn't a number, it's entirely a matter of your purpose. If society decides your purpose is permissible, then it is.

The abortion debate centers around exactly this issue. Should the justification for having an abortion meet some qualification of urgency (save the mother) or crime (pregnancy due to rape) or accident (birth control failed)? Or should abortion fall within the purview of personal freedoms generally, just like the decision as to what to study, where to work, whether to join the military, whom to marry, etc.?

The generic religious position, as far as I can tell, is that THIER faith defines abortion as murder and therefore abortion IS murder, and YOUR faith doesn't matter, adequate justification doesn't matter, the law doesn't matter, etc.

But I hope you can see that your approach is very closely related to the religioius approach - it frames the discussion in a completely self-serving and rather hopelessly inappropriate manner, forcing a foolish answer you've crammed into your set of bad assumptions.

I see war as a matter of defending our freedoms. I see abortion as ONE of those freedoms to be defended. I have myself fought in wars nominally to defend preppiechick's right to bear children if she chooses, or abort if she chooses. I'd do it again. Those freedoms are that important to me.

[Flint]

I find it quite indicative of pro-life attitudes about human life that this counting of deaths in the Iraq war includes ONLY US soldiers. The vast numbers of ivilian deaths, high 5 figures by anyone's accounting, seem, as always, irrelevant. But surely you understand that those Iraqis are MUSLIMS, not people.

Why do you think the first A-bomb was dropped on the slopes instead of real people in Europe? Sheer military strategic requirement?

And so I raised this same issue earlier. Once the precious fetuses are born and become real people, THEN the religious fundies lose all interest. Tough cheese, sweetie!

[Rob]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-11-palin-cover_N.htm

Palin 'governed from the center,' went after big oil

April 23, 2008 - Palin writes a letter to state Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican, rejecting Green's proposal to add two anti-abortion bills to the special legislative session on construction of a natural gas pipeline.

From your source:
"Since Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked Palin as his running mate, much attention has been focused on her deeply conservative social views — including her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest and her attendance at a church that promotes the "transformation" of homosexuals through prayer."

Yes, exactly, her religion takes a back seat to her political agenda. How does that work? First country, then God? Don’t these fundamentalists believe God at all costs, life ever after and all that? Burn at the stake before you give up your faith? What's really going on with her?

[Rob]

But your logic is being applied within an incorrect conceptual context. You have crammed the issues into an inappropriate choice.

The question here has nothing whatsoever to do with the kill/don't kill false dichotomy. As others have pointed out, PURPOSE is critical here. Indeed, if you spend any time watching court cases, you find that intent and purpose are nearly always decisive. If you have a stroke while driving, lose control of your car and kill a pedestrian, did you commit murder? Well, no question you killed someone. If you are attacked and defend yourself, and in the process your attacker dies, is that murder? If a police officer or soldier is required to shoot someone in the line of duty, is that murder?

First it’s not “kill/don't kill false dichotomy”. Go back and look at my original question. You have the option to drop or not drop the bomb on Hiroshima. We have already established that you knowingly will kill unborn babies. The intent is clear. Your analogy of a driver losing control is a poor one and not germane. We know what we are doing and we know the result of that action. Defending ourselves from an attacker does not have the INTENT to kill the attacker necessarily. Again, dropping the bomb does have the INTENT to kill.
If the police officer kills someone in the line of duty he is justifying his actions through a social system. The person he kills is still dead. If the society the police officer abides to forbids his killing anyone then it is murder!

In the case of the anti-abortionist who believes his or her God states killing an unborn baby is never justified then dropping the bomb and killing pregnant women is murder as defined by their religious system.

You can not simply use your system to evaluate the killing. That’s what anti-abortion is all about. Using a specific religious system to evaluate others actions that aren’t a part of that system.

What we as a society have decided is, there are justifiable and non-justifiable reasons for taking lives. And these reasons rest entirely on the nature of your intent. What were you trying to do? The "cutoff" isn't a number, it's entirely a matter of your purpose. If society decides your purpose is permissible, then it is.

Wrong!
You are interjecting you system in place of the anti-abortionists religious system. Yes, for you it is justified because you system justifies certain killing. His system does not! That’s what this is about. That’s why the question was stated the way it was. His system forbids the killing of unborn babies. PERIOD! He believes that and doesn’t kill unborn babies. So now he is confronted with the dilemma of killing unborn babies by dropping the bomb which he knows will happen. Geeze!

The abortion debate centers around exactly this issue. Should the justification for having an abortion meet some qualification of urgency (save the mother) or crime (pregnancy due to rape) or accident (birth control failed)? Or should abortion fall within the purview of personal freedoms generally, just like the decision as to what to study, where to work, whether to join the military, whom to marry, etc.? .

The generic religious position, as far as I can tell, is that THIER faith defines abortion as murder and therefore abortion IS murder, and YOUR faith doesn't matter, adequate justification doesn't matter, the law doesn't matter, etc.

This is what I have been saying. Geeze! It doesn’t matter whether he kills with a knife or drops a bomb, he is killing the fetus and his religion bans it.

But I hope you can see that your approach is very closely related to the religioius approach - it frames the discussion in a completely self-serving and rather hopelessly inappropriate manner, forcing a foolish answer you've crammed into your set of bad assumptions.

Spare me this rubbish. I just went through and explained the whole premise to you again!

I see war as a matter of defending our freedoms. I see abortion as ONE of those freedoms to be defended. I have myself fought in wars nominally to defend preppiechick's right to bear children if she chooses, or abort if she chooses. I'd do it again. Those freedoms are that important to me.

It has nothing to do with war or freedom!!! It’s about consistency of action. I don’t give a fiddle what you think about war! Geeze, go back and read the initial premise.

[flourbug]

You are interjecting you system in place of the anti-abortionists religious system. Yes, for you it is justified because you system justifies certain killing. His system does not!

No, that statement is wrong. You have failed to do even cursory research and you are making wild claims that have absolutely no basis in truth.

The anti-abortionists religious system forbids the deliberate taking of an innocent life EXCEPT when it is the unintentional consequence of a necessary action.

Directly from the Vatican:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, regarding the Fifth Commandment, You shall not kill.

Read it, and be enlightened.

[Rob]

No, that statement is wrong. You have failed to do even cursory research and you are making wild claims that have absolutely no basis in truth.

The anti-abortionists religious system forbids the deliberate taking of an innocent life EXCEPT when it is the unintentional consequence of a necessary action.

Directly from the Vatican:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, regarding the Fifth Commandment, You shall not kill.

No! We just went through the fundamentalist’s religious system from your own source:

"Since Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked Palin as his running mate, much attention has been focused on her deeply conservative social views — including her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest and her attendance at a church that promotes the "transformation" of homosexuals through prayer."

That’s the fundamentalist perspective and anti-abortion is exactly that. If we say that it is the right of the mother to choose to abort to save her own life OR to die and let the baby survive then we are introducing CHOICE into the equation. It then becomes PRO-CHOICE the same as it becomes pro-choice if the mother decides to abort the fetus of her raped 12 year old daughter. Does your church allow that? No one is being killed except on the crippling emotional level that often lasts a life time.

Regardless, you are introducing your system which is not anti-abortion but pro-choice. AND the pro-choice is dependent upon your systems interpretations.

But you still haven’t answered the question.

Do you drop the bomb on Hiroshima and kill unborn babies?

Because it seems very obvious to me that someone here is talking out of both sides of her mouth. You just stated your religious perspective that “Thou shall not kill” but I see Catholics marching into war everyday.

How does that work? Does God say, ”OK, you can kill your enemies and people over a certain age but you can’t kill babies under a certain age”?

[flourbug]

Rob,

1) I am not expressing my personal opinion. I have never stated my religious perspective. You said the "anti-abortionists" believe, and I cited the anti-abortionists catechism, argumentum ad verecundiam, to prove you in error.

2) I am pointing out the errors in your initial assumption and backing up my statements with authoritative references.

3) I have asked you to do the same, and you have failed to cite any references for your claims.

4) When your syllogistic logic is proven to be meritless and your statements are proven to be in error, you resort to ad hominem attacks.

I DID answer your question. I will not answer it twice or engage in any further conversation on this thread. I call it:

:bsflag:

[Rob]

Rob,

1) I am not expressing my personal opinion. I have never stated my religious perspective. You said the "anti-abortionists" believe, and I cited the anti-abortionists catechism, argumentum ad verecundiam, to prove you in error.

2) I am pointing out the errors in your initial assumption and backing up my statements with authoritative references.

3) I have asked you to do the same, and you have failed to cite any references for your claims.

4) When your syllogistic logic is proven to be meritless and your statements are proven to be in error, you resort to ad hominem attacks.

I DID answer your question. I will not answer it twice or engage in any further conversation on this thread. I call it:



You did state your religious peerspective, you quoted your religion. Isn't that your religious perspective, seeing that you're a Catholic!

Then you say that :

I have never met "an individual who believes that we should never abort a fetus for any reason". I know of no religion or law that demands such a thing.

And I use your own source to disprove your statement:


"Since Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked Palin as his running mate, much attention has been focused on her deeply conservative social views — including her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest and her attendance at a church that promotes the "transformation" of homosexuals through prayer."

Then you tell me your church states “Thou shall not kill”

But Catholics do kill. They do go into wars, drop bombs and their intent is to kill.

I ask you if you would have dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and the answer I get from you is:

My answer is, your assumption is neither logical nor valid.

Again, I ask for the basis of your assumption. Back up your claim and we have a starting point for discussion.

So I answer:

“The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki invariably killed unborn babies.

This is a fact. Period!

If you believe for instance, that this was a justifiable action of war then you must also believe that there is a time when killing unborn babies is justified.

Now, what's your answer?”

You have not answered the question and I am not attacking you. I am confronting the inconsistency in your religion and thinking.

It’s a very simple question. Do you drop a bomb on Hiroshima, as Truman did and knowingly kill unborn babies or don’t you?

You can not have your cake and eat it too.

You either believe that killing all unborn babies is not acceptable or you believe that there are times when it is warranted.

The interesting thing is that only one person really answered the question. The pro-choice person.

None of the anti-abortion people could come up with an answer!

Maybe I should be the one raising the flag!

[free ranger]

PALIN: What I thiNk is that smaller democratic coUntries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to taKE over smaller democratic countries. "


I see it! I see where Palin said NUKE!

:lol:

[free ranger]

The moral dilemma of abortion and war.

An individual who believes that we should never abort a fetus for any reason must also agree that war is unacceptable.

Here is the question to those of you believing abortion is never an option :

Should we have dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and why or why not?

This is a question of ethics and logic, let's try to keep it in that domain.
Thank you

Let me ask you a question.

Should the US have entered into war against Nazi Germany and it's allies?

[Susan4]

She's not Catholic, she was quoting Catholic sources. You don't seem willing to accept that your argument is a logical fallacy. Being against abortion says nothing and proves nothing about a person's ability to be a leader at war.

[southerncross]

Rob let's find out what you would do? I'm just curious if you will answer the same question.

[Rob]

Let me ask you a question.

Should the US have entered into war against Nazi Germany and it's allies?

Sir;
Do you understand the question I posed?? At all? It's not about war!

You want to ask me a question? I started this thread and I didn't see you respond to the premise I posed.

Don't you think, that you have a responsibility to do that before you start asking questions yourself?

[Rob]

She's not Catholic, she was quoting Catholic sources. You don't seem willing to accept that your argument is a logical fallacy. Being against abortion says nothing and proves nothing about a person's ability to be a leader at war.

I don't care if she is a Catholic, it's not important. She is using it as a paradigm for her actions. Geeze!

Again, you can’t simply say, “your argument is a logical fallacy”. You MUST establish a valid premise of proof. Do you understand that? Do any of you?

And it has nothing to do with war, being a leader at war or being Truman. You’re failing to see the basic premise which I explained more then once. Because some of you keep repeating the same unsupported premise doesn’t prove my premise invalid. You must support you case!

Do you have an answer for the question?

Because I see a lot of people here making statements that have nothing to do with the question but they seem to have a lot to say about something that they think is not valid!

Or as Shakespeare said: ”I think the woman doth protest to much.”

And please before any of you go off on a tangent the above statement has nothing to do with women!

[southerncross]

Again, you can’t simply say, “your argument is a logical fallacy”. You MUST establish a valid premise of proof. Do you understand that? Do any of you?

And it has nothing to do with war, being a leader at war or being Truman. You’re failing to see the basic premise which I explained more then once. Because some of you keep repeating the same unsupported premise doesn’t prove my premise invalid. You must support you case!

Why??? you haven't. and you don't see that or fail to understand that.

[Rob]

Rob let's find out what you would do? I'm just curious if you will answer the same question.

You come to my thread and fail to answer the question I posed but you think you have the right to ask me my response?

That's Rich!

Do YOU plan on answering the question??

And yes I have an answer and a very logical concrete one at that!

[Rob]

Why??? you haven't

Please, I have and more then once!

But if you feel that it is preposterous, invalid and off little bearing then why are you here?

So either answer the question or show its lack of logic. So far you have offered nothing.

[Susan4]

Again, you can’t simply say, “your argument is a logical fallacy”. You MUST establish a valid premise of proof.

No, YOU must do that and we're telling you that you haven't. A circular argument is not a valid premise of proof.

[Rob]

No, YOU must do that and we're telling you that you haven't. A circular argument is not a valid premise of proof.


Circular reasoning? What on earth are you talking about??

Here once again is the premise:

The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki invariably killed unborn babies. Truman knew this as did the people who dropped the bombs.

This is a fact. Period!

Would you, as an individual who believes killing unborn babies is wrong, drop those bombs? Period!

Yes or no! Simple question.

[southerncross]

The moral dilemma of abortion and war.

An individual who believes that we should never abort a fetus for any reason must also agree that war is unacceptable.

Here is the question to those of you believing abortion is never an option :

Should we have dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and why or why not?

This is a question of ethics and logic, let's try to keep it in that domain.
Thank you

For me Rob the answer is yes ,WHY... the reason is that the dropping of Nukes saved a lot more lives on both sides than what would of been lost had the U.S and allies had to invade japan at the time.

The problem, I don't like abortion...I don't think anybody really does, your moral dilemma is just that YOURS. Although I do not like Abortion I realize that it is necessary in this day and age, like it or not. Just as using extreme measures to protect the citizens of your country are unpalatable to some people elected to protect and serve said country, so are minutiae day to day laws and regulations necessary needed to govern them, tax, fines, rates and road rules are but a few of them.
Contradictions are part of life.
So what is your answer Rob???

[free ranger]

Sir;
Do you understand the question I posed?? At all? It's not about war!

You want to ask me a question? I started this thread and I didn't see you respond to the premise I posed.

Don't you think, that you have a responsibility to do that before you start asking questions yourself?

No, actually - it is about war. You asked:

Should we have dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and why or why not?


So give some context to your original question: Do you think the the US should have entered into war against Nazi Gemany and it's allies? - then we can proceed onward.

And BTW - your assumptions about gender are incorrect, as well.

[Rob]

The moral dilemma of abortion and war.

An individual who believes that we should never abort a fetus for any reason must also agree that war is unacceptable.



For me Rob the answer is yes ,WHY... the reason is that the dropping of Nukes saved a lot more lives on both sides than what would of been lost had the U.S and allies had to invade japan at the time.

The problem, I don't like abortion...I don't think anybody really does, your moral dilemma is just that YOURS. Although I do not like Abortion I realize that it is necessary in this day and age, like it or not. Just as using extreme measures to protect the citizens of your country are unpalatable to some people elected to protect and serve said country, so are minutiae day to day laws and regulations necessary needed to govern them, tax, fines, rates and road rules are but a few of them.
Contradictions are part of life.
So what is your answer Rob???

First that’s not true. Japan was negotiating a surrender with Russia at the time. The reason we wouldn’t accept it was because the Japanese wanted to keep Hirohito as a figure head and we wouldn’t allow it BUT I don’t want to get into history here!


Secondly:
The dilemma is not mine, you simply can’t make this statement, there is no logic to support your assumption. You have no idea what my response to the premise is!


Finally from your statement you must accept the fact that you are pro-choice.

Your answer indicated that you find it acceptable, however distasteful, to kill unborn babies IF the ends justify the action. In this case:

“WHY... the reason is that the dropping of Nukes saved a lot more lives on both sides than what would of been lost had the U.S and allies had to invade japan at the time.”

The reason in itself is unimportant. What is important is the fact that there exists a point where you knowingly will kill unborn babies.

Again, this is not an issue of quantity. Because the instant you say “a lot more lives” we must ask how many lives is the breaking point when you will decide not to kill unborn babies? One, seven, one hundred? Whatever.

[Rob]

No, actually - it is about war. You asked:



So give some context to your original question: Do you think the the US should have entered into war against Nazi Gemany and it's allies? - then we can proceed onward.

And BTW - your assumptions about gender are incorrect, as well.

You took the statement out of context! It’s not about war and I have said this more then once. Go look back!

[free ranger]

You took the statement out of context! It’s not about war and I have said this more then once. Go look back!

So you ask a question about whether it was right to bomb the cities of a country that the US is at war with - but you refuse to answer the question of whether you feel it was right for the US to go to war with Japan.

That's rather illogical.

[DryHeat]

"cognitive dissonance"... likely manifesting by both sides from what I've looked at in this exchange. What things would reduce to, imo, is a reliance on "faith" by most "pro-life" advocates. Reduce it to, "How do you know there's a soul there at all, or for that matter, a god?" and it's "I have faith." Throw as many rational arguments up against that as you care to, and you very seldom make any headway, against any believer.

While a key factor truly is whether one gives primacy to the concept of separation of church and state, there can come a threshold-passing at which frantic proselytizing by a religious faction honestly shifts democratic vote results to allow institutionalization of their beliefs (or via stealth as in continued appointments of Supreme Court justices leaning toward "pro-life" interpretations of extant laws.)

[free ranger]

This is interesting about abortion and government policies: (http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-catholic-vote-and-the-counterbalance-to-abortion/)

War is a struggle between two evolving powers over who will have dominance; whether just or unjust, it involves the murder of the innocent and the disruption of families. War introduces pain, fire, violence, savagery and torture into societies.

Abortion is a struggle between two evolving powers over who will have dominance; whether “justified” or not, it involves the murder of the innocent and the disruption of families. A vacuum abortion, saline abortion or a D&C introduces pain, fire, and a limb-shredding, relentless violence deep into the very being of a woman’s body, within her very womb. A partial birth abortion, which involves inserting a scissor into the base of the skull of a partially delivered fetus, then suctioning out its brain before fully withdrawing the fetus from the birth canal, embodies the sort of savagery and real torture which is the most abhorrent part of any war.

The death penalty is a legal execution of an individual judged guilty of heinous acts against the larger society; convicts are sometimes discovered to have been innocent of the charges made against them only after their lives have been taken. Many consider even the most “humane” means of execution to be cruel and inhuman, and even when the convict is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, it may be well-argued that killing a murderer does not bring back the victim and that “two wrongs do not make a right.”

In an abortion, the fetus is as subject to the death penalty as anyone ever so ordered by a jury; the fetus is always innocent. Even the most “humane” means of abortion — whatever that might be — involves cruel and inhuman measures. And even if the fetus — in its innocence — is the product of a violent and “guilty” conception, it may be well-argued that one merciless violation cannot be healed by a second — equally merciless — violation and that “two wrongs do not make a right.”

Poverty steals hope, exposes the helpless to political, sexual, and economic exploitation (from friend and foe) and defers dreams. It breaks rather than builds and reduces human beings to the status of mere “votes” or “workers” or “things.”

Abortion destroys a hopeful life, exposes the mother and fetus to political, sexual, and economic exploitation (from friend and foe) and defers dreams. It destroys what is being built and reduces a thriving being, species human, to the status of mere “products of conception” and “blobs of tissue.”

Racism is the superficial and unjust rejection and/or exploitation of another human being or group of people based on race. Racism works to suppress; it denies opportunity and feeds stereotypes (”your kind are not good enough!”) Racism has inspired exclusionary rhetoric and genocidal movements, as may be found in the supremacist literature of the KKK. Racism exists to diminish another human.

Abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood have been observed agreeing to a superficial and unjust request to apply donated money toward the destruction of fetuses of a specified race. Abortion works to suppress; it denies opportunity and feeds stereotypes (”your kind are too good/too poor/too promising to be “punished” with a baby!). Abortion has inspired exclusionary rhetoric and genocidal movements as may be found in the elitist literature of Margaret Sanger. Abortion exists to diminish another human.

Capitalism in the imperfect enterprise system by which free markets provide jobs, goods, and services in order to stir economic growth. Its excesses often result in — among other things — unlicensed or unscrupulous practices and the exploitation of the worker, in pursuit of maximum profit.

Abortion providers are capitalist enterprises that often indulge in — among other things — unlicensed and unscrupulous practices and the exploitation of women in difficult circumstances, in pursuit of maximum profit.

A Catholic conscience is a complex thing that must rely on more than bumper stickers and impassioned rhetoric. Catholicism does not reject reason for faith but demands integration of the two, and prayerful discernment, before taking any action. It serves both prayer and reason to consider that abortion is not separate from the evils of war, torture, poverty and the rest, but of a piece with them. In fact, abortion supersedes those issues by dint of its personal nature. Government policy affects war, poverty, and the rest, while abortion is — like the casting of a vote — a personal choice. But it is a personal choice for the physical and intellectual internalization of war, and of torture, and of the death penalty, and of poverty, and of racism, and of capitalistic exploitation.

Thus weighed, the only counterbalance is life.

[southerncross]

Secondly:
The dilemma is not mine, you simply can’t make this statement, there is no logic to support your assumption. You have no idea what my response to the premise is!


Finally from your statement you must accept the fact that you are pro-choice.

Your answer indicated that you find it acceptable, however distasteful, to kill unborn babies IF the ends justify the action. In this case:

“WHY... the reason is that the dropping of Nukes saved a lot more lives on both sides than what would of been lost had the U.S and allies had to invade japan at the time.”

The reason in itself is unimportant. What is important is the fact that there exists a point where you knowingly will kill unborn babies.

Again, this is not an issue of quantity. Because the instant you say “a lot more lives” we must ask how many lives is the breaking point when you will decide not to kill unborn babies? One, seven, one hundred? Whatever.
Reply With Quote

Firstly Rob you still avoid the question of what your response to your own proposal is, why is that? (it is still your dilemma )

What is important is the fact that there exists a point where you knowingly will kill unborn babies. Yes there is, but can you pin point that point? given a known set of circumstances to deal with I Might be able to give you a given time and date but until then that point will remain unknown, just as i guess it will be for those voted into power and also until they come to a point where they have to make that decision.

Secondly for me, personally just one life extra on either side saved would be enough to bring me to the decision to use any sort of force. I said a lot more lives in that sentence because as I stated in the prior post a LOT more lives were saved on either side by the use of nukes.
I personally don't have an issue with death, it comes to us all at one time or another be it sooner or later, what you are talking about is the existence of a society, the question is if that society is worth saving as it exists under those that rule it or if it needs help changing to exist without those that rule it. Also what sort of society would you want to born into?

Rob you really need to answer your own question to go any further with this.

[Rob]

So you ask a question about whether it was right to bomb the cities of a country that the US is at war with - but you refuse to answer the question of whether you feel it was right for the US to go to war with Japan.

That's rather illogical.

Madame:

Again, you’re out of context. The question is about knowingly killing unborn babies and being faced with the situation of dropping a bomb which will knowingly kill babies.

It’s not about war and I will not get into a war debate.!

If that’s what you want you’re on the wrong thread!

[Flint]

Well, I think everyone has rejected Rob's premise and syllogism as irrelevant. He has raised a false dichotomy, and when this is pointed out to him by everyone else, in as many different ways as everyone else can find to explain it, he just gets more fanatical about the correctness of his original false syllogism.

Apparently, we are not intelligent enough to play this game. I recommend we all concede our mutual stupidity and continue our rational lives in ignorant peace! Let's all agree that wasting money (for example) is always wrong, and therefore if we buy something Rob would not, WE are being inconsistent. We are very very stupid. We're trying to educate a fanatic. This is always stupid.

[Rob]

Firstly Rob you still avoid the question of what your response to your own proposal is, why is that? (it is still your dilemma )

Yes there is, but can you pin point that point? given a known set of circumstances to deal with I Might be able to give you a given time and date but until then that point will remain unknown, just as i guess it will be for those voted into power and also until they come to a point where they have to make that decision.

Secondly for me, personally just one life extra on either side saved would be enough to bring me to the decision to use any sort of force. I said a lot more lives in that sentence because as I stated in the prior post a LOT more lives were saved on either side by the use of nukes.
I personally don't have an issue with death, it comes to us all at one time or another be it sooner or later, what you are talking about is the existence of a society, the question is if that society is worth saving as it exists under those that rule it or if it needs help changing to exist without those that rule it. Also what sort of society would you want to born into?

Rob you really need to answer your own question to go any further with this.

No, it’s not my point. It’s your point. Do you understand that? You have accepted that you will, AT SOME POINT, kill unborn babies. Your point is one, fine. You are still in the realm of pro-choice regardless whether it is one or one million!

I don’t have to give my answer for you to establish yours. They are independent. I don’t need your answer to establish mine.

What you have established is that you are pro-choice, do you understand that?

Now is that your agenda or are you claiming anti-abortion?

[Rob]

Well, I think everyone has rejected Rob's premise and syllogism as irrelevant. He has raised a false dichotomy, and when this is pointed out to him by everyone else, in as many different ways as everyone else can find to explain it, he just gets more fanatical about the correctness of his original false syllogism.

Apparently, we are not intelligent enough to play this game. I recommend we all concede our mutual stupidity and continue our rational lives in ignorant peace! Let's all agree that wasting money (for example) is always wrong, and therefore if we buy something Rob would not, WE are being inconsistent. We are very very stupid. We're trying to educate a fanatic. This is always stupid.


You responded to my premise with misconceptions and false premises that I debunked. You never answered the question but had a lot of nothing to say that sounded good.

Now you want to come to my thread and tell people to leave as you continue with your insults.

You have violated the rules with your name calling and attacks.

Leave my thread and fast!!

[preppiechick]

Well, I think everyone has rejected Rob's premise and syllogism as irrelevant. He has raised a false dichotomy, and when this is pointed out to him by everyone else, in as many different ways as everyone else can find to explain it, he just gets more fanatical about the correctness of his original false syllogism.

Apparently, we are not intelligent enough to play this game. I recommend we all concede our mutual stupidity and continue our rational lives in ignorant peace! Let's all agree that wasting money (for example) is always wrong, and therefore if we buy something Rob would not, WE are being inconsistent. We are very very stupid. We're trying to educate a fanatic. This is always stupid.

I may not always agree with you, but at least you can debate using reason. This thread feels like a discussion of "it depends on what the definition of is is... :rolleyes:". I will not feed this thread any longer, as it is disintegrating.

Just to be clear:

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pro%20choice


Main Entry:
pro–choice Listen to the pronunciation of pro–choice
Pronunciation:
\(ˌ)prō-ˈchȯis\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1975

: favoring the legalization of abortion


http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pro%20life


Main Entry:
pro–life Listen to the pronunciation of pro–life
Pronunciation:
\(ˌ)prō-ˈlīf\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1971

: antiabortion
— pro–lif·er Listen to the pronunciation of pro–lifer \-ˈlī-fər\ noun

(and further clarification:

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antiabortion


Main Entry:
an·ti·abor·tion Listen to the pronunciation of antiabortion
Pronunciation:
\ˌan-tē-ə-ˈbȯr-shən, ˌan-ˌtī-\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1969

: opposed to abortion and especially to the legalization of abortion <antiabortion lobbyists>

[Flint]

Rob:

Ah, I see that you've been reduced to the essence of your argument.

But just to play the game, I'll try to make myself as clear as I can. Your basic syllogism is:

1) Anti-abortionists are opposed to killing fetuses under any and all conceivable circumstances.
2) There are circumstances where anti-abortionists are in fact willing to kill fetuses.
3) Therefore anti-abortionists are logically and morally inconsistent.

Now, the problem with this syllogism, as people are tiring of explaining to you, is that your first premise is incorrect, because it contains a logical error.

The error is, you have incorrectly equated aborting a fetus, with the death of a fetus for any other reason. But as everyone here keeps pointing out, dropping bombs as part of a military battle is not an abortion. An abortion is the deliberate, intentful, surgical process of terminating a pregnancy for no purpose other than to terminate that pregnancy.

The anti-abortionist position is that this is NOT a valid reason for terminating a pregnancy. And this leaves aside the variation of convictions of anti-abortionists. They are as variable as vegetarians deciding what should be eaten.

And so I will repeat: if the GOAL AND PURPOSE of killing a fetus is SOLELY AND EXCLUSIVELY to end an unwanted pregnancy, and has NO OTHER PURPOSE, then anti-abortionists oppose it strenuously. If the death of humans, animals, plants and whatever lives is a side-effect of fighting a military battle, then this is NOT an abortion performed to end a pregnancy. It falls into a logically different category.

Now, if you can't understand this, apparently nobody is going to be able to explain it to you. And we have all made the effort. If everyone seems illogical but you, and explains their thoughts in great detail but you simply reject them all, you might reflect on where the problem actually lies.

And now, like flourbug, I'll exit YOUR thread. Beam me up.

[Rob]

I may not always agree with you, but at least you can debate using reason. This thread feels like a discussion of "it depends on what the definition of is is... :rolleyes:". I will not feed this thread any longer, as it is disintegrating.

Just to be clear:

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pro%20choice


Main Entry:
pro–choice Listen to the pronunciation of pro–choice
Pronunciation:
\(ˌ)prō-ˈchȯis\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1975

: favoring the legalization of abortion


http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pro%20life


Main Entry:
pro–life Listen to the pronunciation of pro–life
Pronunciation:
\(ˌ)prō-ˈlīf\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1971

: antiabortion
— pro–lif·er Listen to the pronunciation of pro–lifer \-ˈlī-fər\ noun

(and further clarification:

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antiabortion


Main Entry:
an·ti·abor·tion Listen to the pronunciation of antiabortion
Pronunciation:
\ˌan-tē-ə-ˈbȯr-shən, ˌan-ˌtī-\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1969

: opposed to abortion and especially to the legalization of abortion <antiabortion lobbyists>

Please show me where I made a statement that didn't stand to reason.

Please show me where I forced you to continue with this thread.

Please show me where you responded to the question I posed.

[Ter]

I hesitate to reach into this hornet's nest of a thread, but reading it through, I saw Rob repeating the pro-choice mantra of the twelve-year old raped by her father and the desperately dying mum having an abortion to save her life. Helloooo ! This are the 0.0002 % of cases. It's John and Mary having a good time and Mary saying "Whooops, I missed my period ! I don't want to have a baby now, let's go and schedule an appointment with Dr. Wong".

Ter (not a hypocrite)

[free ranger]

Rob:

Ah, I see that you've been reduced to the essence of your argument.

But just to play the game, I'll try to make myself as clear as I can. Your basic syllogism is:

1) Anti-abortionists are opposed to killing fetuses under any and all conceivable circumstances.
2) There are circumstances where anti-abortionists are in fact willing to kill fetuses.
3) Therefore anti-abortionists are logically and morally inconsistent.

Now, the problem with this syllogism, as people are tiring of explaining to you, is that your first premise is incorrect, because it contains a logical error.

The error is, you have incorrectly equated aborting a fetus, with the death of a fetus for any other reason. But as everyone here keeps pointing out, dropping bombs as part of a military battle is not an abortion. An abortion is the deliberate, intentful, surgical process of terminating a pregnancy for no purpose other than to terminate that pregnancy.

The anti-abortionist position is that this is NOT a valid reason for terminating a pregnancy. And this leaves aside the variation of convictions of anti-abortionists. They are as variable as vegetarians deciding what should be eaten.

And so I will repeat: if the GOAL AND PURPOSE of killing a fetus is SOLELY AND EXCLUSIVELY to end an unwanted pregnancy, and has NO OTHER PURPOSE, then anti-abortionists oppose it strenuously. If the death of humans, animals, plants and whatever lives is a side-effect of fighting a military battle, then this is NOT an abortion performed to end a pregnancy. It falls into a logically different category.

Now, if you can't understand this, apparently nobody is going to be able to explain it to you. And we have all made the effort. If everyone seems illogical but you, and explains their thoughts in great detail but you simply reject them all, you might reflect on where the problem actually lies.

And now, like flourbug, I'll exit YOUR thread. Beam me up.

:thumbup1:

:allhail:

[Renegade]

Well Rob,
I asked a very simple question totally free of your circular logic and you failed to respond to it. So, I'll ask it one more time, as your answer to it might shed some light on your agenda this thread was intended to further.

As long as she is upholding the laws that she has pledged to, then why do you care about the situation between her and her God?

Are YOU going to hold her accountable for what she does or not do in relation to her religion...or her politics...

Simple question. Will you answer it truthfully?

[Rob]

Rob:

Ah, I see that you've been reduced to the essence of your argument.

But just to play the game, I'll try to make myself as clear as I can. Your basic syllogism is:

1) Anti-abortionists are opposed to killing fetuses under any and all conceivable circumstances.
2) There are circumstances where anti-abortionists are in fact willing to kill fetuses.
3) Therefore anti-abortionists are logically and morally inconsistent.

Now, the problem with this syllogism, as people are tiring of explaining to you, is that your first premise is incorrect, because it contains a logical error.

The error is, you have incorrectly equated aborting a fetus, with the death of a fetus for any other reason. But as everyone here keeps pointing out, dropping bombs as part of a military battle is not an abortion. An abortion is the deliberate, intentful, surgical process of terminating a pregnancy for no purpose other than to terminate that pregnancy.

Wrong!!

Go read my posts. I specifically stated “killing unborn babies” not abortion. Regardless, what’s the difference whether an unborn baby is killed through an abortion or a bomb that is the result of individual intent. The baby is still dead. The only difference is the method. Both situations acknowledge that there is a point when the unborn babies life is worth sacrificing. That is the salient point! The method is of no consequence. Your response is simply rhetorical.

The anti-abortionist position is that this is NOT a valid reason for terminating a pregnancy. And this leaves aside the variation of convictions of anti-abortionists. They are as variable as vegetarians deciding what should be eaten.

And so I will repeat: if the GOAL AND PURPOSE of killing a fetus is SOLELY AND EXCLUSIVELY to end an unwanted pregnancy, and has NO OTHER PURPOSE, then anti-abortionists oppose it strenuously. If the death of humans, animals, plants and whatever lives is a side-effect of fighting a military battle, then this is NOT an abortion performed to end a pregnancy. It falls into a logically different category.

Wrong!

More semantics!

It’s intent.

The bomb drops and kills the unborn baby. We know this for a fact and accept the result. Again, the procedure is not the issue. We can not separate the babies death from the others killed. We can not say we didn’t want to kill the unborn baby because if we had we wouldn’t have dropped the bomb in the first place! We had intent and that intent was reflected in the bomb that killed EVERYONE including the baby. We can not say we didn’t mean to or it wasn’t our intent, we only wanted to kill other innocent people. We dropped the bomb to kill everyone. The ONLY way we could avoid killing the baby was to not drop the bomb in the first place!

AND that was the question posed here in this thread!!

You have the decision to kill or not kill the baby. It is either your intent or you don’t drop the bomb. Period!
There is NO separation. It is not possible.

The premise is called a consistent life ethic and that is what we are inquiring into.


Now, if you can't understand this, apparently nobody is going to be able to explain it to you. And we have all made the effort. If everyone seems illogical but you, and explains their thoughts in great detail but you simply reject them all, you might reflect on where the problem actually lies.

And now, like flourbug, I'll exit YOUR thread. Beam me up.

And you expressed these thoughts, they are your opinion.

This is you standard operating procedure. You find your fragile position unsupportable and you go to insults innuendos and name calling.

Now get lost and I don’t want to see you on this thread again.

[Rob]

Well Rob,
I asked a very simple question totally free of your circular logic and you failed to respond to it. So, I'll ask it one more time, as your answer to it might shed some light on your agenda this thread was intended to further.



Simple question. Will you answer it truthfully?

Well Rob,
I asked a very simple question totally free of your circular logic and you failed to respond to it. So, I'll ask it one more time, as your answer to it might shed some light on your agenda this thread was intended to further.



Simple question. Will you answer it truthfully?

First it wasn’t the original intent it was a side issue.

Secondly.
Yes, this is the same mistake we made with GWB and Palin has stated that she believes she is directed by her God just as GWB said when he dragged us into Iraq.
People who think God is telling them how to run a country scare me. Along with the fact that her supreme court justices would reflect her fundamental religious perceptions and that’s not the supreme court I want to see. The damage from GWB in this area to our civil rights is enough.

Now, what is your answer to the premise I posted. Will you answer it truthfully?

[Renegade]

People who think God is telling them how to run a country scare me. Along with the fact that her supreme court justices would reflect her fundamental religious perceptions and that’s not the supreme court I want to see. The damage from GWB in this area to our civil rights is enough.

Ah..so irregardless of the fact that so far in her political career she has acted according to the laws of the land, in spite of and against her own religious beliefs, you have already judged her as a political enemy because of those beliefs, her actions be damned.

Thank you for admitting to your prejudice.

As to your question, I've already made my position clear in previous posts. Although I do not have a zero tolerance belief on abortion, I do believe that an innocent life is being taken. Regardless of how the scientists and politicos want to rationalize it all, there have been plenty of times in my life where I have butchered female critters of various sorts only to find out they were pregnant. And I've held those little balls of life in my hands and had no doubt that "life" was there. Why should humans be different? And yes, there is all sorts of legitimate reasons for having abortions. Personally, I detest the ones that do it for the "just don't want it" factor.

So, as I said early, I'd drop the bomb. Easy choice, since your question is moot as there is no comparison. Which is what everyone has been trying to get across to you. You are trying to take a many faceted issue and boil it down to "is-is not" statement.

Good luck with that....

[Auburn Boy]

The moral dilemma of abortion and war.

An individual who believes that we should never abort a fetus for any reason must also agree that war is unacceptable.

Here is the question to those of you believing abortion is never an option :

Should we have dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and why or why not?

This is a question of ethics and logic, let's try to keep it in that domain.
Thank you

There does not have to be a moral dilema here.

Each subject has it's own moral frame of reference.

Abortion is an individual choice, and not related to the framework in which killing during war is set.

Dropping a nuclear weapon, when the consequence will invariable include the killing of a number of unborn fetuses does not have to consider the issue in the same light. In the wartime frame of reference, killing the unborn is simply an additional collateral effect.

Remember, history records the righteousness of the victors not the vanquished.

And that's just for starters..,

[Auburn Boy]

Wrong!!

Go read my posts. I specifically stated “killing unborn babies” not abortion. Regardless, what’s the difference whether an unborn baby is killed through an abortion or a bomb that is the result of individual intent. The baby is still dead. The only difference is the method. Both situations acknowledge that there is a point when the unborn babies life is worth sacrificing. That is the salient point! The method is of no consequence. Your response is simply rhetorical.



Wrong!

More semantics!

It’s intent.

The bomb drops and kills the unborn baby. We know this for a fact and accept the result. Again, the procedure is not the issue. We can not separate the babies death from the others killed. We can not say we didn’t want to kill the unborn baby because if we had we wouldn’t have dropped the bomb in the first place! We had intent and that intent was reflected in the bomb that killed EVERYONE including the baby. We can not say we didn’t mean to or it wasn’t our intent, we only wanted to kill other innocent people. We dropped the bomb to kill everyone. The ONLY way we could avoid killing the baby was to not drop the bomb in the first place!

AND that was the question posed here in this thread!!

You have the decision to kill or not kill the baby. It is either your intent or you don’t drop the bomb. Period!
There is NO separation. It is not possible.

The premise is called a consistent life ethic and that is what we are inquiring into.



And you expressed these thoughts, they are your opinion.

This is you standard operating procedure. You find your fragile position unsupportable and you go to insults innuendos and name calling.

Now get lost and I don’t want to see you on this thread again.

Dear Rob,

The title of your thread contains the word abortion.

The first sentence of your premise contains the word abortion.

The second sentence caontains the word abort.

It seems that the topic of your debate is abortion.

[Rob]

People who think God is telling them how to run a country scare me. Along with the fact that her supreme court justices would reflect her fundamental religious perceptions and that’s not the supreme court I want to see. The damage from GWB in this area to our civil rights is enough.

Ah..so irregardless of the fact that so far in her political career she has acted according to the laws of the land, in spite of and against her own religious beliefs, you have already judged her as a political enemy because of those beliefs, her actions be damned.

Thank you for admitting to your prejudice.

As to your question, I've already made my position clear in previous posts. Although I do not have a zero tolerance belief on abortion, I do believe that an innocent life is being taken. Regardless of how the scientists and politicos want to rationalize it all, there have been plenty of times in my life where I have butchered female critters of various sorts only to find out they were pregnant. And I've held those little balls of life in my hands and had no doubt that "life" was there. Why should humans be different? And yes, there is all sorts of legitimate reasons for having abortions. Personally, I detest the ones that do it for the "just don't want it" factor.

So, as I said early, I'd drop the bomb. Easy choice, since your question is moot as there is no comparison. Which is what everyone has been trying to get across to you. You are trying to take a many faceted issue and boil it down to "is-is not" statement.

Good luck with that....

We all have biases, that’s why we vote for different individuals. Many people support Palin because of her stance on abortion. It’s their right. Not supporting an individual because they are biased to a specific side is valid. An individual might not want biased judges on the Supreme Court that don’t share their views. Not voting for a specific individual is hopefully how we all make political decisions.

The point is that your decision is cohesive. You would drop the bomb and abort if the mother’s life was in danger.

This makes you pro-choice. Do you understand the reasoning?

And please don’t give me the we “have all been trying to get it across” argument. I have stated my case very clearly. Many of you have misconstrued that position and not understood the basic question. It is a completely valid question that is support by consistency of ethics.

This I what we are exploring here. I am not anyone’s enemy here and I’m not judging anyone. Nor am I so obtuse that I don’t see the different perspectives.

If ‘A’ = ‘B’ and ‘B’ = ‘C’ then ‘A’ = ‘C’.

So again, in your case there is a logical consistency of actions. That is what has been determined here. It is objective reasoning.

Go back and read my last few posts.

[Rob]

Dear Rob,

The title of your thread contains the word abortion.

The first sentence of your premise contains the word abortion.

The second sentence caontains the word abort.

It seems that the topic of your debate is abortion.

I agree I have used both.


Did you read my response?

"Regardless, what’s the difference whether an unborn baby is killed through an abortion or a bomb that is the result of individual intent."

I suggest you go back and read it in it completely. It is logical.

[Rob]

There does not have to be a moral dilema here.

Each subject has it's own moral frame of reference.

Abortion is an individual choice, and not related to the framework in which killing during war is set.

Dropping a nuclear weapon, when the consequence will invariable include the killing of a number of unborn fetuses does not have to consider the issue in the same light. In the wartime frame of reference, killing the unborn is simply an additional collateral effect.

Remember, history records the righteousness of the victors not the vanquished.

And that's just for starters..,


This is the argument Flint attempted to put forth. I suggest you go back and read my responses.

It has nothing to do with the righteous, victors or vanquished.

[Flint]

"Regardless, what’s the difference whether an unborn baby is killed through an abortion or a bomb that is the result of individual intent."I suppose, if one stretches hard enough, one can notice that aborting a pregnancy and waging a war have at least one side-effect in common.

NOW, all we have to do is agree that this side-effect makes war and abortion the exact same thing, done for the exact same purpose, and we can agree with Rob.

I respectfully submit that to at least some people these are very different purposes, with very different goals in mind. I suggest it's a legitimate position that this (among about a million other differences) make them not the same thing at all.

I suggest you go back and read my responses.In fact, just for simplicity, I'll do it for you:

Wrong!! Go read my posts...Wrong! More semantics!...Now get lost and I don’t want to see you on this thread again.

Meanwhile, abortion is commonly understood as the deliberate termination of a pregnancy, for the purpose of terminating a pregnancy. It is the INTENT TO TERMINATE A PREGNANCY that offends abortion foes. They feel that the life of the potential child outweighs the convenience of the woman. War does not. (Indeed, pregnant women drive cars knowing there's a risk of fatal accident. But they are not morally inconsistent to drive cars, because the INTENT (Rob's word) of driving a car is not to terminate a pregnancy.)

This is all so stone obvious I can hardly believe anyone would try to claim otherwise, unless the purpose is to argue for the sake of arguing.

[theoryman]

This is all so stone obvious I can hardly believe anyone would try to claim otherwise, unless the purpose is to argue for the sake of arguing.

I think you hit the nail on the head...

:beer:

[flourbug]

I moved the post that was in this spot to a non-member area, as it was in violation of the forum rules. The poster has been warned.

[Rob]

Unfortunately Flint seems to be failing to grasp the most rudimentary concepts of logic here despite his flowery rhetoric.

It is quite obvious that war and abortion are two entirely different things. We already know this! No one is denying it!

Here’s the problem. When we, as individuals, agree to drop a bomb on thousands of innocent people we must invariably accept that we are killing unborn babies.

It’s not rocket science. It is simply a fact.

We can say, “ It is not my intention to kill unborn babies, just innocent people.” BUT we can not separate the two.

The only way we can not kill unborn babies it to NOT drop the bomb. There is no other solution.

We can say for example that abortion targets only unborn babies and not innocent people but all we are doing is fragmenting our intentions. We have the option to isolate the unborn babies from the rest of the innocent people when we perform an abortion.

The only difference in dropping the bomb is that we can not fragment our intentions. We can not isolate the unborn babies from the innocent people.

The intent is still there. We know we are killing unborn babies and we accept this when we drop the bomb.

The method we use to kill those babies is a non issue. Again, it goes to intent and we INTENTIONALLY kill the unborn babies when we drop the bomb.



What is the “exact same thing”? It is that we have dead babies AND we intentionally have decided to kill them.

Try to understand this. It is not about war. We are not attempting to establish war and abortion as the same thing or different things. This is simply not the issue.

Agreeing with Flint is fine IF his opinion can be supported with logic. He has not done this so far, again, despite his name calling and flowery rhetoric.

Each of you must defend your premise and with logic.

His constant ridicule does not establish truth.

Let’s understand this, I have made a case based on logic and you must disprove the logic.

Rhetoric, semantics and popularity of opinion don’t help. Popularity doesn’t establish truth. Truth is a product of reason and logic.

IF popularity of opinion established truth then most of you would be praying to Barabus!

Make your cases and don’t be fooled by anyone’s insults.

Insults in a debate are intellectual bankruptcy.

Thank you.