And the law of unintended consequences strikes again...

Both sides of this debate are absolutist: (1) Abortion at any time after conception is murder OR (2) Abortion at any time before a live-birth delivery is a constitutional right. The abortion rights folks who claim to be feminists will not be dissuaded by the abuses in India and China, nor will any facts or reason deter the pro-lifers. For both, its a matter of faith.

I think that you misunderstood ryan, JT, and I think that you were too hard on him.

Unless I was the one who misunderstood him, I got the impression that he was one of the good guys here, and that he was a pretty sharp guy, also.

But hey, what do I know? :)

One thing not mentioned is how many babies are aborted because of birth defects discovered through amniocentesis and ultrasound. This is why it seems that more pro-life parents end up with special needs children. They don't kill them before they are born.

By comparison, giving a woman a right to choose is a [relatively] benign issue.

When a government seizes that discretion, however, that opens a Pandora's Box of chilling and dangerous possibilities, obviously.

What's even more disturbing is that I suspect that 52%ers, including feminists, would be willing to give the Obama Administration that latitude and a broad range of other dangerous powers.

A loosely related issue that bothers me, also, is that sanctimoneous and self righteous groups like The Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Rights Union are now showing their true colors by acquiescing to the blatant abuses of power of The Department Of Justice, now under the direction of those two madmen, Obama and Holder, who are, with test cases, obviously probing to see how far they can go. (And don't underestimate the role that Hillary Clinton is playing in those blatent abuses of power.)

What are these countries India and China going to do when they upset nature and end up having so many more males than females. I mean are they committing genocide of their own people? Who are they going to mate with if there are no females?

Well, mag, since they're such skanks that they can't get laid in this country, perhaps feminists would volunteer to go to China and to India. It could give them a whole new outlook.

Bob you are correct, the extremes on both sides are extreme. Most people are not. The politicians use this issue as a wedge, just like many others. It's a political football and part of the reason is that the courts not the people decided it. I look at abortion just like I look at guns (1 minor exception gun ownership is spelled out in the constition) the extreme left wants no restrictions on abortion, the extreme right wants no restrictinos on guns. The extreme left would have us make guns illegal, the extreme right would make abortion illegal. The politicians who have no morals or character or real positions exploit these issues with great lust and joy. They try to frame the questions so that you have to choose a side, rather than take a resonable position.

The problem is that the most frequently used test for birth defects, the AFP, is highly unreliable and frequently is false for predicting defects. It is so notorious for this I know lab sales people who refuse to market the test for this purpose. Of course there is no data to demonstrate how many abortions are unnecessary because what doctor is going to order the pathology testing to demonstrate that his advice to get an abortion was wrong?

As for what China and India will do, Chinese men are already abducting women from the N Korean border so I think we already have our answer.

Wow. John.

Guns can kill or save people.

Abortion can kill or save people.

They are the same.

I never thought reductio ad absurdum could be so brutal.

So I guess one could have some fun with the next hardcore "feminist" one meets by saying there is a tendency to seriously consider abortion when fetal genetic problems such as trisomy and 'XX syndrome' are diagnosed prenatally.

For a Chinaman living in Beijing, that's a long way to go to get a date.

Those wacky Chinamen; what will they do next?

"Who are they going to mate with if there are no females?"

Well, there's always San Francisco.

Well, I don't know anyone that wants no restrictions on guns at all. Many gun folks might want to own a MG50 (they are FUN!!!), but understand that you can't and shouldn't be able to do whatever you want with one...

Think of how far science has come since 1974 especially in medicine and the practice of specialties. I think science has caught up to the vague debate about life and needs to be reviewed through the prism of science/medicine. If specialists say the fetus is a living being that feels pain, then that is it. The problem with abortion is like with aids, immigration,etc., once it enters the political realm, logic is tossed aside. ww

"Many gun folks might want to own a MG50 (they are FUN!!!), but understand that you can't and shouldn't be able to do whatever you want with one."

Besides, they're EXPENSIVE to keep fed!

I've always said that if something is a "right," then there shouldn't be any reason to justify why one is exercising it. Simply saying "because I felt like it" should be the only explanation one should ever be obligated to offer.

Jay,

You just summed up my reason for supporting Park 51.

"What are these countries India and China going to do when they upset nature and end up having so many more males than females."

War. They will go to war. With who, and when, are the questions.

When there are millions of young men who can't find wives idling around, bad things will happen.

Tina, there's a difference between acknowledging the builders' right, and questioning their motives.

I've never once called for any legal action to stop them. I never will.

But I'll be damned if I'll simply shut up about it. And those who attempt to shut me up about it by saying that "it's their right, and you have no business saying anything" is infringing on MY right to express my opinion on the matter.

You wouldn't want to deny me my right to speak, as a way of "protecting" their right to religion?

J.

For about 40 years, the left -- especially the feminists -- have insisted that abortion is a "right." And as such, any restrictions are simply intolerable.

It is my belief that one should always support the rights granted by constitution. The only time it gets sticky is when one persons constitutional rights conflict with another persons constitution rights. For instance, people that believe a fetus is a person are arguing that the right of the an unborn baby trumps the mothers right to control her body. In the absence of conflicting constitution rights, one should always support the rights granted to others by the constitution.

So, Tina, where in the Constitution is the right to an abortion?

Here's a hint: the legal reasoning behind Roe v. Wade is some of the shittiest ever committed to paper, right up there with Kelo and Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson. The fetus' right to life is a hell of a lot more constitutionally sound.

And remember, Tina, I'm "squishily pro-choice." I don't think abortion is a matter for the Constitution at all, but best left up to the several states as detailed under the 10th Amendment. Which it was, for most of our history.

J.

Well, JT, you might be right about ryan after all. I'm getting mixed messages from that guy.

Aw geezez, if I had known that Tina was here, I wouldn't have made that coarse wisecrack about feminists.

Well, yeah, I would have, but it would have been, um, more nuanced. ;)

"I mean are they [China and India] committing genocide of their own people?"

Damned shame that... Maybe some of our jobs will come back to the U.S.

So, for the express purpose of reducing the numbers of those whose hues suited them not, the Darwinist / Atheist / Agnostic / Progressive / Eugenicist / Margaret Higgins Sanger / Abortion-on-Demand Gang set up the manifestation of evil that prefers we call it by its stage name: "Planned Parenthood," -- and now wonders that (for decades already, by the way) the third world's pantheists, heathens and barbarians have caught on to their ways?

Ain't life grand?

Leaving aside abortion in China and India, can we address the abortion issue in the US?

Are those against abortion predicating their argument on a legal or a religious basis?

Do those who advocate pro choice do so as an excercise of individual freedom?

If a woman is denied/prohibited from having an abortion, is it a violation of right to freedom from/of religion?

Since mankind began exploring the uses of plants, flowers, seeds etc, abortion has been an option.

If one bases their decision on religion, then one is forcing their religious beliefs on another. If it is a transgression on the religious belief, then wouldn't the woman be accountable to God for her action? Would it not be arrogant and judgemental of a religious person to determine and presume to speak for God?

In his Post # 25, John S commenting (accurately, by the way) that the Chinese and (to a lesser extent) East Indians are perpetrating genocide upon their own people and that that's a damned shame -- wonders if maybe some of "our" jobs will "come back" home.

Makes a man wonder if perhaps John S would have preferred that instead of relocating our manufacturing offshore we'd have, Europeon Neo-Soviet-style, kept the jobs on-shore and imported Muslims to fill them?

Imagine having added fifty to a hundred million Muslim factory workers to the ranks of the already hostilely-colonizing Criminal-Alien Army incited and invited by our self-appointed former rulers to invade us for that purpose and to vote for them and your mind will have conjured a spiraling into a chaos that no mere tea party movement could reverse.

That way, come November, We, The People, will have already taken great strides toward unraveling and reversing our present woes!

Olsoljer says that if one bases his decision (regarding abortion) on religion, then one is forcing his religious beliefs on another and asks that, if it is a transgression on the religious belief, wouldn't the woman be accountable to God for her action? And would it not then be arrogant and judgmental was a religious person to determine and presume to speak for God?

Maybe -- but irrelevant. For no-one is speaking for God, here -- nor needs to.

Rather that we talk for our beloved fraternal republic's Founding Law, which both speaks for God -- and guarantees His gift -- of the Right to Life!