Windfall Profits Tax.

As long as he continues in his delusion that he can keep big companies from making money and not hurt anyone by trying, Obama will not have my vote.

I remember an episode of The West Wing (that’s where I gain my entire understanding of US politics) where Toby Zeigler tries to argue another nation’s leader out of copying the American system of two houses. That show was genius.

The only biblical mention of abortion says merely to fine somebody who causes an abortion that occurs as the inadvertent result of an assault. There is NO condemnation of causing one on purpose

Daniel H:

If an accidental abortion is punishable, I think it’s a fair inference that a purposeful abortion is that much more punishable.

I suppose, that makes sense, if you’re really, really, really bad at drawing inferences. It’s not an “accidental abortion” versus a “purposeful abortion,” as you put it. The Bible is referring to an accidentally causing a woman to have an abortion, when she doesn’t want one. That’s illegal today, and usually punished much more harshly than a fine.

You’re free to think that a fetus is a person, but there’s no support for that in the Bible.

However, judging by Doug Stanhope’s article to Bristol Palin (posted here a while back), eating a chocolate bar at the movies is exactly the kind of thing he thinks justifies abortion. Do you think abortion should be legal for ANY reason, including the freedom to have more fun? If so, your statement that “I’m really hoping that you’re not implying that abortions are ‘killing for fun’” holds no water. If not, why? Is the fetus a person that takes precedence over fun, or a mass of cells that really can’t be morally compared to a candy bar at the movies?

Well, let’s take a look at this. First off, Doug Stanhope isn’t a woman and will never have an abortion himself, and frankly I thought his article was in incredibly poor taste. Abortion is not a comfortable topic to begin with, and after speaking with many people, I’ve found that there’s quite a range of comfort zones. So… we shall start at the base.

I have found very few people who aren’t grinding a religious axe that believe abortion should be illegal in the case of incest, rape, if the health of the mother is at direct risk, or if the fetus is so extremely deformed that it will be incapable of surviving for more than a few days outside of the womb. When we’re talking health of the mother, if we’re going to assume that a fetus is a person, then we’re making the uncomfortable decision of ending the life of one to save the other, or simply letting them both die. When we’re talking rape and incest, frankly, I think anyone callous enough to force a woman to bear the child of someone who has done extreme violence to her if the woman doesn’t want to is in effect doing a second violence to someone who is a blameless victim. And In the final case, where the fetus is inviable, frankly, I think it’s base cruelty to force a woman to bear a child to term if she doesn’t want to and possibly put her health at risk doing so.

Outside of those cases are where the disagreement becomes much more severe. In all frankness, I have friends who have had abortions, and I watched them tear themselves apart over the decision. I have no doubt that there are women who do choose such an alternative frivolously; there are going to be people who respond with what others consider to be insufficient gravity to any serious life choice. But to boil the entire question of abortion down to “fun” does an extreme disservice to most women who face that decision and the circumstances that they are in. While I’m certain you and many others would disagree with me here, I feel that the current attitude often in effect makes an unplanned and unwanted child into a punishment, and I think that is so incredibly unfair to the child and the life that they will eventually have that I cannot even begin to express my utter distress at the thought. Even further since the government of America has little interest in the welfare of its most vulnerable citizens once they are born.

So then this is the problem. I believe that we should have the right to control what goes on with our own bodies when medically possible. And I believe that for the most part, women are adult human beings who are capable of making their own decisions, and understanding what they must do to keep themselves and their families in a healthy state. Again, there will be exceptions for this. But unless we’re proposing to set up some kind of review board to decide if a woman’s thought about her decision enough and isn’t just doing it for fun (and boy, let’s talk about undue burdens) then one will be forced to accept that either there will be some thoughtless jerks doing things that many of us find morally reprehensible, or we will, as a society, be making victims of a lot of women and children.

All of that aside, from an ethical standpoint, I have yet to be convinced that a fetus has some special right of control over the body of a woman who has already been born.

I’d call killing rather abusive and neglectful, personally.

One problem with this whole ‘a few cells” argument is that pro-choicers rarely if ever actually stop there. Abortion rights generally extend to the time of birth and at least up to or beyond viability. Partial-Birth bills have had to be contended over because of this.

So, in your opinion, “the legal right of individual women to determine the fate of their own bodies” qualifies as “depraved and disgusting”? In that case, I consider your opinion to be depraved and disgusting.

When “fate of their own bodies” means “killing a baby who has no say in the matter”, then yes, that’s what I’m saying. I still fail to see how relative comfort and convenience takes precedence over life, no matter how many euphemisms you spin it with.

It is reprehensible that, in an advanced western nation in the 21st century, some people still hold the insane notion that the personal physical rights of a citizen should be suppressed in favor of her fetus (not “baby,” not “child,” but fetus), which has NO legal rights, and does not qualify for any.

Actually they do have legal rights – in many states (perhaps all, I’m not sure), killing a pregnant woman can get someone 2 counts of murder. But that aside, a nation’s laws do not automatically reflect objective morality. See Nazi Germany, for instance. “Advanced” and “western” and “21st century” has as much to do with it as lawn clippings.

Heck, even the Bible does not condemn abortion as such, so it clearly does not consider abortion to qualify as murder (or “millions of babies … still being chopped up” as you so colorfully and mendaciously put it).

Actually the Bible does affirm the personhood of babies in the womb, on several occaisions, OT and NT. And it condemns murder. Most people can put two and two together. And “millions of babies…being chopped up” is perfectly accurate, colorful or not. Do you want statistics and pictures? because you will see numbers in the millions and pictures of severed limbs (which are perfectly recognizable as limbs).

The only biblical mention of abortion says merely to fine somebody who causes an abortion that occurs as the inadvertent result of an assault. There is NO condemnation of causing one on purpose

If an accidental abortion is punishable, I think it’s a fair inference that a purposeful abortion is that much more punishable.

The anti-choice movement has no biblical support whatsoever, no legal support whatsoever, and certainly no rational support whatsoever. Its goal is nothing less than a return of women to the status of breeding livestock who have no say in what happens to their own bodies. THAT, sir, is “depraved and disgusting.”

The issue is life an personhood, not “women”. Women happen to be the ones who give birth. Abortion would be just as awful if men were the ones having babies. You might as well say the goal of of the pro-choice movement is nothing less than to create a genderless society.

And if this whole thing is about “women” and equal opportunity, do you not find it at all disturbing/ironic that many more girls are aborted than boys?

Perhaps you should consider the fact that there are a lot of women out there (like, my mom…) who have neither killed their children nor are they “breeding livestock”. That whole dichotomy is, frankly, silly.