“This is our first task: caring for our children. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how as a society we will be judged. And by that measure can we honestly say that we are doing enough to keep our children– all of them– safe from harm? … The answer is no.”… If there is even one step we can take to save another child, truly we have an obligation to try.”
They are not children upon conception. Neither legally, medically nor biblically. And if you want a biblical solution to forcibly ending a pregnancy (ie., against the mother’s wishes), that would be a fine.
What about all those poor babies that didn’t get born because they were never conceived in the first place? What a waste of potential talent! Everyone should have unprotected sex all the time, every woman should be pregnant as often as possible, so that all those the potential babies can be born. And it’s never too early — teenagers, do your duty, have sex, get pregnant, let’s get those potential babies born! Every unfertilized egg is a waste of human potential!!
Let’s put this into biological perspective. Of all fertilized eggs, about 40% do not implant correctly in the uterus and are expelled during the woman’s next menstrual cycle. Another 20% are miscarried, fatally malformed or still-born. So that’s 60% of all ‘souls’ aborted by God’s poor design of the human reproductive system. This is in industrialized nations. The percentages are far worse in developing nations.
Also, to the ignorant idea that since women miscarry, that abortion is no different, we can say the natural process includes people dying from disease, so by THAT logic, it’s o.k. to kill other people, because they die from other causes.
I suspect that “ODON” is MSNBC’s anti-Bible, anti-God Lawrence O’Donnell…..or his clone.Quote about the swearing in using a Bible in the Inauguration…(Coronation, actually)….he said “To swear an oath on a risible and racist book, suggests a lack of seriousness.” -If media like O’Donnell and if Obama believed the Bible, it would not be possible to be in favor of legal abortions.-IMO, God has begun rewarding Americans for accumulated sins, in open rebellion to God’s written code of Law….and the slaughter of the pre-born for the convenience of women is a sin of increasing magnitude.
Would you rather pay for their welfare and food stamps? Abortions are the result of poor economic support more than anything (look at Germany’s or The Netherlands’ abortion laws and rates).
All you Christians need to mind your own business. A great many people don’t share your preconceptions. If you believe in the Christian god you also believe in the concept of free will. It’s not your job to make ethical choices for others.
I am just always curious about how far those who preach the sanctity of life help those who have been born. The last small child I held was born addicted to drugs and too few step up to help bring about a good life to a child with one or more strikes against them. To Nos – I would like to see adoption easier and would encourage federal financial aid to assist families adopting “domestically produced” babies. My hope is that would create more loving homes and fewer long term problems.
55 million of those won´t a whole lot of things – but neither will a whole lot of actual alive people. Btw. just wondering if people who complain about this consider how many sperms are “wasted” in the process of fertilizing one egg, or how many eggs goes to waste in general – or for that matter how many are “wasted” in other types of fertilizating eggs? Plenty of “arguments” that can be added to this – that are actual valid compared to those people make in the gun control debate.
Biology 101:.1) Complex life only comes from life..The baby isn’t dead while in the womb and then instantaneously come to life when it is born. On the contrary, the child is alive prior to birth..2) Kinds produce like kinds..In other words (unless you believe there is a magical barrier transforming the child in the birth canal), a human being outside the mother is a human being inside the mother.
@boiler95 – Wow! You say that with such authority. I encourage you to look up the development of a fetus from zygot to baby. At what point can you point to it and say → “That’s alive”?
It’s easy to look at a fetus 1 day or even 1 week before term and say – “It could survive”. It’s quite another to look at a bundle of cells 5 days after conception and say the same thing.
Do any of you know how many children die every day of hunger, mistreatment, lack of medicine, lack of decent drinking water? Before complaining about the babies that didn’t make it to full term, how about concerning yourselves with those that did? OOPS! That might mean a raise in taxes… and PROPER sex ed in schools. And proper medical care for everyone. Hypocrites.
50% of fertilized eggs don’t implant in the uterus. Then add in those later miscarriages that occur “naturally”. Sooooo, as these are all “acts of God”, how many billions has God killed since “Roe v Wade”???
How many of those 55 million would have been cruelly treated, molested, and suffered. if a mother chooses to abort a fetus she must not love it very much and would not care for it if it were born. where would we put the 55 million that did not get born. the same people who want to ban abortion are the same ones who want to cut the funds welfare, health care and education for children. sometimes i think they only want the kids to be born to sent them off to fight our wars for us.
How many spare souls does God keep around heaven, anyway? Are they just in storage waiting to be born? Are they unhappy or just bored while they wait? Are they kept away from the souls of the deceased, or all they all gathered together? What about the souls of fetuses that have spontaneously aborted? Are they happier or unhappier than those that manage to get born? Does a fetus about to die in utero have to be baptized in order to get to heaven? What about an embryo that doesn’t implant — there’s no chance such an embryo would have a chance to be baptized, so I guess they don’t get to go to heaven. It seems to me if you’re going to talk about the souls of unborn babies, you ought to be able to answer questions like these.
18% of all potential births are aborted. 47% of abortions occur within 8 weeks, 80% within 12, 96% by 16 weekshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Embryo_-_Approximately_8_weeks_estimated_gestational_age.jpg By this point
1. There is no nervous system formed2. There is no cerebral cortex (I will concede that rough development starts at 14 weeks, between this and 16 weeks roughly 4% of abortions are performed3. between 10-25% of pregnancies ( depending on statistic, age) end in miscarriage, this happens 92% of cases within 12 weeks., taking a medium of 18% miscarriage you are literally as likely to die of miscarriage at this point as you are from abortion.
As for the late term pregnancy, defined as > 18 weeks, 97% of the very few abortions performed are for medical necessity defined as being a serious risk to the mother’s health, if you feel that this should be banned with the understanding that in many cases this will lead to the death of both the mother, and the baby so as in order to give the baby a chance then feel free. I cannot dispute it as it turns purely into opinion.
Then how come the law holds the father of the child equally responsible for the care of the child? The courts have judged cases where fathers have been responsible for childrens’ welfare, as well as child support, college costs, et cetera.
So many of you Liberals are saying, “What about AFTER they’re born? You don’t care about them after they’re born” To that I say BS! Just in my group of friends/family ALONE scores of babies and children have been adopted around the world, and we’re just ONE part of this great Nation. Groups like us are adopting all OVER this Nation. We’re DOING something. But by spouting off your toxic “gotcha” mentality from you libs, it’s your easy battle-cry to excuse and turn a blind eye to the true horror of what abortion is. The murder of the most innocent of us.
Let’s face it. Human life is cheap, easily reproducible and for the most part a scourge to the planet.the religious wingnuts, who think a zygote is a person they can play volleyball with, go to a hokey book, which they claim is the basis for all morality, that tells them they are made in the image of god. That god has ‘given’ them dominion over all the other creatures.they use this narcissistic notion – that they ARE god, and hunt animals to extinction. They use this notion and this book to hunt each other to extinction or to subjugate them. They use weapons of mass destruction to murder hundreds of thousands of their fellow living humans in ill-conceived wars, schoolrooms, movie theaters, public squares, etc… Their agents molest little boys and girls, and their leadership not only covers it up, but enables the molesters to move from church to church..and women should be subjugated and forced to live by their wacky beliefs. i’m not buying it.
and to mr varvel, we were all told that the murdered elementary schoolchildren from newtown were in a ‘better place’ up there in heaven. Isn’t that what your cartoon should show?
after all, the right to bear ar15’s with huge magazines is more important than the right to life of those humans that were born and lived the first 6 or 7 years of their lives before they were snuffed out by multiple bullets.
sorry with all the stds out there condoms should be used instead of abortions to prevent births. And some of you out there you can get STD with oral sex.
If those 55 million kids had been born, then that would mean no Roe v. Wade did not exist and therefore no anniversary to celebrate. Since Roe v. Wade does exist, the women who would have given birth to 55 million children they knew they didn’t have the resources, support system, and/or the proper mindset to bring them into the world made the logical choice. Talk about what the Bible says all you want, but quoting scripture at the store doesn’t pay for formula or diapers.
@boileri ususally don’t respond to posts like these, as is instructive of the deep mistrust between the sides. Ulterior motives believed by one side against the other. so against my better judgement here goesis sperm alive? is an egg alive?, if so then you end up with constraints against masturbation, which i’m fond of, and won’t have a bible thumper tell me what i can and can’t do with my own body. you will find this particular tension follows the abortion discussion.is a fertilized egg alive? in the same way that sperm and egg are not, neither is a fertilized egg. to continue on, a ferilized egg has no organs, no brain, and doesn’t do what living things do. It has the POTENTIAL to become a living human, if more things go right than wrong, but it is not. Some parts of the bible say that the life of the flesh begins in the blood, and many parts of judaism focus on the blood as the life force, as does RC communion when cannibalism is practiced by eating and drinking the transubstantiated flesh and blood of JC. So if the life force is in the blood, that forms in the fertilized egg at around 11-12 days.Genesis is pretty clear that god breathes life into the human through the nostrils (after birth).now for the legal aspect. there is a tension between the right to privacy, which nutz say is inivolatable when it comes to who owns guns, but apparently doesn’t exist when it comes to a woman, who has been born and lived a life, and her private organs.As for human living beings (and i’ll add the word INNOCENT to that) have the right to life, unfortunately we can not all agree. The supreme court has found that in the case off misapplied death penalties in texas (over 100 so far), so long as the trial seemed fair at the time, and innocent human can legally be put to death. Of course bin laden didn’t have a trial either, and he was put to death along with over 100,000 innocent iraqi civilians, and the american citizen who was making war from the mideast on our country was taken out by a drone without a trial first.so you see, many real people who have been born have been murdered with our tax dollars.but of course, we’re not even talking about our tax dollars here, we’re talking about a private decision between a woman and her doctor and what’s going on INSIDE her body, certainly no ones business but her own, not an overly reaching religion motivated government.and remember, god made abortion doctors, and made abortions before there were abortion doctors. Safe and legal Abortions save lives. certainly we should all be able to agree that the life of the mother must take priority over the right of the fertilized egg because if the mother dies, so does the fertized egg, or zygote, or fetus, and then she can’t try again.to quote nathan lane in the birdcage, he proposed the death penalty for women seeking abortions:"Oh, I know what you’re going to say. “If you kill the mother, the fetus dies, too.” But the fetus is going to be aborted anyway, so why not let it go down with the ship? "
^^then there is a chicken and an egg problem. is a chicken embryo in the egg, before it cracks itself out a living, breathing, clucking, eating, defecating, reproducing chicken? of course not.humans are no different.
^“probably”?! you don’t know what you’re talking about.during WW2 there were three kinds of germans.1. the nazi’s who knew exactly what was going on and were murdering races of people in cold blood, stealing their goods and their hair and skin and profiting off it.2. The victims of the nazi’s.3. The cvilian germans who had a choice. That choice was to look the other way and profit (suppliers of the nazi war machine) OR become one of the victims.
^I really have a problem with what you say about the mothers wishes ‘should be honored where her life is in jeopardy’this creates a few BIG problems:1. if you believe abortion is murder then your position can not be qualified, the mother must bear any and all risk. This is what the wingnutz want. Indeed in many states and hospitals a woman can not get a termination even until the situation has become dire and she will die unless an emergency termination is performed. It is crazy to let it go that far.2. Why should the mothers wishes be up to non-involved third parties at all? doesn’t a woman have a right to be ‘secure in her person’, as guaranteed by the fourth amendment?3. Since there are so many opinions and clearly there is a (large) religious component, this brings the 1st amendment in play as well. while you are free to practice your religion unimpeeded, you have no right to impose your religious beliefs on others. I suspect that’s why you want to make it a scientific argument. HOWEVER then my simple chicken and egg post above covers that. A chicken embryo in an egg is not a chicken.4. Childbirth is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do. I don’t see how a woman can be forced to carry a fetus to term. The reality of the situation is that if you illegalize abortion, women will still have abortions, but they will not be safe and legal. I find it interesting that many of the same people who say laws don’t work for guns, which kill children (real ones, that were born, are citizens and have lived a certain number of years) are the same people that want to make abortions dangerous and unsafe. If laws don’t work for guns, why do you think they’ll work for abortion?
@boilerthis just occurred to me. you said:“First, to answer your initial questions, a sperm or egg on its own will not develop into a human being. Therefore, it is not a human being.”if you substitute a zygote, embryo or fetus for sperm or egg, you have the same result. so you have an answer to your question.
@stratmani feel that as well about medical students. they actually let medical students opt out of doing a rotation that involves terminations of pregnancies. I think that’s outrageous. if a woman needs a termination to save her life, a doctor that opted out can’t help her. s/he shouldn’t be allowed to call himself a doctor.same thing about so called catholic hospitals that won’t perform terminations when the life of the mother is in danger, they should NOT be allowed to be accredited or call themselves hospitals.
For some wonderful (is that the right word here?) hypocrisy of the so-called pro-lifers, see:http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/catholics-argue-that-fetuses-are-people-unless-it-costs-the-church-money/
@boileryou said you wanted it scientific. babies are born. chickens are hatched. before that they are indeed fetus, or embryo’s or zygotes.as someone said earlier, there ain’t no such thing as an unborn baby.
^I notice that your webster definition says ‘usually after two months after conception. As to the other definitions, So what? religious wingnutz have a definition included in the dictionary.
have you looked up the definition of “SANTORUM”? we’d probably disagree about that too.
i never disputed that a human fetus/zygote/embryo was a human fetus/zygote or embryo. but it is not a child, not a baby – those terms are used to make a religious and emotional argument. neither an embryo nor fetus is the same as a breathing, crapping, crying, eating baby. and it’s certainly not anywhere near the same as one of the children slaughtered in newtown (or aurora, etc…..).
so since you SAID you were looking for a scientific reason, and you yourself used webster as a ‘scientific’ authority, you should have no problems with terminations up to two months after conception, eh?
now justify how you think you can impose your religious beliefs on woman that can’t carry, or do not want to carry to term.
laws can’t stop guns, is what you say, so laws can’t stop abortions, they can only make them unsafe and illegal. The morality is a decision between the woman and her doctors. It is not your business or mine.
“Today MSNBC’s Touré had his turn at The Cycle’s end-of-show commentary in which he chose to make the argument that America is a stronger nation without the millions of babies lost to abortion, even going so far as to thank God for the procedure”…..( 25 Jan 2013) from breitbart, a video…(proving why my decision to avoid MSNBC is justified…such wicked, evil quotes come from liberal media)-If life does not begin at the moment of conception, how does the baby grow and develop and be born always a human baby????? Too late, many people will discover that they took the wrong side on the slaughter of God’s preborns.(and the only source of info about God is the Bible, and it says man is born once, dies once and after that faces judgment by the Creator God who intended him/her to live and have the opportunity to put faith in God’s Son, Jesus, who was the sacrifice from eternity past, to shed holy blood that is accepted to cover human sins, and was resurrected and will come to earth again to judge the nations and reign as King with Satan and all evil persons unable to mess up life and peace in God’s promised blessing.
^Well that settles it, eh? Since most of the world doesn’t believe in jesus, we’re all going to hell anywayz, so it makes no difference. Let’s save born womens lives with safe, legal abortions!
^you’re being ‘cute’ with your defnition and semantic games, and you know it. i gave you my definition of a chicken / egg at the very beginning but you refuse to answer because it doesn’t fit your religious view.a pre-hatched chicken embryo is not yet a chicken. It doesn’t breathe at all, it doesn’t eat like a chicken, doesn’t excrete like a chicken, doesn’t cluck like a chicken, doesn’t strut like a chicken, and can not live outside it’s shell until it’s grown enough to hatch.it may be a chicken embryo, or chicken fetus and it has the potential to be a chicken, but it is NOT a chicken, by definition.
So, based on your statements, it becomes a human when it is capable of living outside the womb. Therefore, you should be opposed to late term abortion where the fetus is capable of breathing air, drinking formula, and excreting the same as any other baby..As for the chicken analogy, it is a developing chicken inside the egg. It has the full chicken DNA. It grows and develops with the passage of time. It consumes energy from the nutrients in the egg. By this definition it is a chicken. It is not something else that spontaneously turns into a chicken at the moment of hatching. Per my original statement from biology principles – chickens produce chickens, not something else that spontaneously becomes a chicken..Also, I find it hard to ignore that you keep trying to bring religious beliefs into this discussion. However, every one of my arguments have been based in science and logic. I have not once mentioned the bible, the torah, the koran or any other religious doctrine. I have simply stated facts defined by science which are unburdened by a religious belief system. I’m asking someone to provide an alternate definition of the fetus consistent with science and logic that would make it something other than a living human while inside the womb.
of course chickens produce chickens and humans produce humans, there is nothing spontaneous about it. biologically speaking a living being needs to be able to eat, excrete, reproduce and locomote (to do the first three). A fetus can do none of those things. surely you can not equate a fetus that has never drawn a breath, suckled milk, etc… with a soldier that has given his life for his country.The science is well established and your logic is twisted. A fetus is a step along the way to a living human being. another analogy would be to keep a cadaver’s heart beating and on a respirator to keep it breathing after the brain is dead in order to scavange organs.if you turn off the respirator the mechanics of life stop and total death ensues. but can you really say that “person” was still alive when they couldn’t support life on their own? Disconnect the fetus from the mother and there is pretty much no question. in that step of development it can not suppport life.your ‘science’ ignores the steps towards life, and therefore your logic is twisted or incomplete.
I have no problem with late term abortions. They are rare and performed to save the life of the mother. The fetus has not taken a breath. indeed once it does it is then a baby.different stages of development is what we’re talking about here. we do have some common ground.A self sustaining human being did indeed start out from something other than human. that is a basic scientific fact that neither one of us can change.You seem to be stuck on having a full set of human DNA defines something as a living human being, yet this is not the case, DNA is not alive nor is it human, it is a chemical mechansim.I notice you continue to ignore my chicken and egg argument, which is exactly what this is. A viable chicken fetus is not a chicken, and you’d send it back to the kitchen if they tried to serve it to you as a chicken. That is exactly where your logic is incomplete or obtuse.
there is clearly a time span between sperm / egg and first breath where this takes place. It is a matter of opinion, and your statement of ‘location’ is but one component. a ‘premie’ might be able to survive outside the womb; this is the viability argument. A zygote cleaerly couldn’t. that being said, i think roe has it pretty correctly, with exceptions. a third trimester fetus is likely viable. The exception is when something goes terribly wrong which makes a third trimester abortion necessary to save the mother. A first trimester fetus is not viable ‘outside’ and policing womens uteri is abhorrant to me.scientifically i’m fine that there is no blood, no heart, not viable outside therefore not a living human yet. Legally, i believe it’s necessary to leave the decision between the doctor and the pregnant woman, they know more about their situation than i do, you do, or any bureaucrat does.and yes, i do not accept your science that focuses on just a few components at a few points in time and getting stuck on it.
sw10mm about 11 years ago
Ouch
Dave Ferro about 11 years ago
The Truth hurts…
celestpuls about 11 years ago
“This is our first task: caring for our children. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how as a society we will be judged. And by that measure can we honestly say that we are doing enough to keep our children– all of them– safe from harm? … The answer is no.”… If there is even one step we can take to save another child, truly we have an obligation to try.”
Odon Premium Member about 11 years ago
So the above posters have each adopted how many children?
inkmanjb about 11 years ago
If ODon is implying that people who do not adopt are guilty of abortion, he is a MORon.
cdward about 11 years ago
They are not children upon conception. Neither legally, medically nor biblically. And if you want a biblical solution to forcibly ending a pregnancy (ie., against the mother’s wishes), that would be a fine.
lonecat about 11 years ago
What about all those poor babies that didn’t get born because they were never conceived in the first place? What a waste of potential talent! Everyone should have unprotected sex all the time, every woman should be pregnant as often as possible, so that all those the potential babies can be born. And it’s never too early — teenagers, do your duty, have sex, get pregnant, let’s get those potential babies born! Every unfertilized egg is a waste of human potential!!
tangent001 about 11 years ago
Let’s put this into biological perspective. Of all fertilized eggs, about 40% do not implant correctly in the uterus and are expelled during the woman’s next menstrual cycle. Another 20% are miscarried, fatally malformed or still-born. So that’s 60% of all ‘souls’ aborted by God’s poor design of the human reproductive system. This is in industrialized nations. The percentages are far worse in developing nations.
rogcbrand about 11 years ago
Also, to the ignorant idea that since women miscarry, that abortion is no different, we can say the natural process includes people dying from disease, so by THAT logic, it’s o.k. to kill other people, because they die from other causes.
You lefties sure have a sick view of things.
disgustedtaxpayer about 11 years ago
I suspect that “ODON” is MSNBC’s anti-Bible, anti-God Lawrence O’Donnell…..or his clone.Quote about the swearing in using a Bible in the Inauguration…(Coronation, actually)….he said “To swear an oath on a risible and racist book, suggests a lack of seriousness.” -If media like O’Donnell and if Obama believed the Bible, it would not be possible to be in favor of legal abortions.-IMO, God has begun rewarding Americans for accumulated sins, in open rebellion to God’s written code of Law….and the slaughter of the pre-born for the convenience of women is a sin of increasing magnitude.
Stormrider2112 about 11 years ago
Would you rather pay for their welfare and food stamps? Abortions are the result of poor economic support more than anything (look at Germany’s or The Netherlands’ abortion laws and rates).
Upton O'Goode about 11 years ago
All you Christians need to mind your own business. A great many people don’t share your preconceptions. If you believe in the Christian god you also believe in the concept of free will. It’s not your job to make ethical choices for others.
Odon Premium Member about 11 years ago
I am just always curious about how far those who preach the sanctity of life help those who have been born. The last small child I held was born addicted to drugs and too few step up to help bring about a good life to a child with one or more strikes against them. To Nos – I would like to see adoption easier and would encourage federal financial aid to assist families adopting “domestically produced” babies. My hope is that would create more loving homes and fewer long term problems.
Tue Elung-Jensen about 11 years ago
55 million of those won´t a whole lot of things – but neither will a whole lot of actual alive people. Btw. just wondering if people who complain about this consider how many sperms are “wasted” in the process of fertilizing one egg, or how many eggs goes to waste in general – or for that matter how many are “wasted” in other types of fertilizating eggs? Plenty of “arguments” that can be added to this – that are actual valid compared to those people make in the gun control debate.
DavidGBA about 11 years ago
Laws just make for more dead mothers.
boiler95 about 11 years ago
Biology 101:.1) Complex life only comes from life..The baby isn’t dead while in the womb and then instantaneously come to life when it is born. On the contrary, the child is alive prior to birth..2) Kinds produce like kinds..In other words (unless you believe there is a magical barrier transforming the child in the birth canal), a human being outside the mother is a human being inside the mother.
Mephistopheles about 11 years ago
@boiler95 – Wow! You say that with such authority. I encourage you to look up the development of a fetus from zygot to baby. At what point can you point to it and say → “That’s alive”?
It’s easy to look at a fetus 1 day or even 1 week before term and say – “It could survive”. It’s quite another to look at a bundle of cells 5 days after conception and say the same thing.
josefw about 11 years ago
How come nobody is talking about “Partial Birth Abortions?”
Pogostiks Premium Member about 11 years ago
Do any of you know how many children die every day of hunger, mistreatment, lack of medicine, lack of decent drinking water? Before complaining about the babies that didn’t make it to full term, how about concerning yourselves with those that did? OOPS! That might mean a raise in taxes… and PROPER sex ed in schools. And proper medical care for everyone. Hypocrites.
joe vignone about 11 years ago
To paraphrase the gun owners “It’s not about birth, it’s about control”
Dtroutma about 11 years ago
50% of fertilized eggs don’t implant in the uterus. Then add in those later miscarriages that occur “naturally”. Sooooo, as these are all “acts of God”, how many billions has God killed since “Roe v Wade”???
Gary Williams Premium Member about 11 years ago
How many of those 55 million would have been cruelly treated, molested, and suffered. if a mother chooses to abort a fetus she must not love it very much and would not care for it if it were born. where would we put the 55 million that did not get born. the same people who want to ban abortion are the same ones who want to cut the funds welfare, health care and education for children. sometimes i think they only want the kids to be born to sent them off to fight our wars for us.
pirate227 about 11 years ago
Against abortion?Don’t have one.
lonecat about 11 years ago
How many spare souls does God keep around heaven, anyway? Are they just in storage waiting to be born? Are they unhappy or just bored while they wait? Are they kept away from the souls of the deceased, or all they all gathered together? What about the souls of fetuses that have spontaneously aborted? Are they happier or unhappier than those that manage to get born? Does a fetus about to die in utero have to be baptized in order to get to heaven? What about an embryo that doesn’t implant — there’s no chance such an embryo would have a chance to be baptized, so I guess they don’t get to go to heaven. It seems to me if you’re going to talk about the souls of unborn babies, you ought to be able to answer questions like these.
7500edg about 11 years ago
=( sad
Quipss about 11 years ago
18% of all potential births are aborted. 47% of abortions occur within 8 weeks, 80% within 12, 96% by 16 weekshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Embryo_-_Approximately_8_weeks_estimated_gestational_age.jpg By this point
1. There is no nervous system formed2. There is no cerebral cortex (I will concede that rough development starts at 14 weeks, between this and 16 weeks roughly 4% of abortions are performed3. between 10-25% of pregnancies ( depending on statistic, age) end in miscarriage, this happens 92% of cases within 12 weeks., taking a medium of 18% miscarriage you are literally as likely to die of miscarriage at this point as you are from abortion.
As for the late term pregnancy, defined as > 18 weeks, 97% of the very few abortions performed are for medical necessity defined as being a serious risk to the mother’s health, if you feel that this should be banned with the understanding that in many cases this will lead to the death of both the mother, and the baby so as in order to give the baby a chance then feel free. I cannot dispute it as it turns purely into opinion.
USN1977 about 11 years ago
Then how come the law holds the father of the child equally responsible for the care of the child? The courts have judged cases where fathers have been responsible for childrens’ welfare, as well as child support, college costs, et cetera.
SusanCraig about 11 years ago
isn’t there something in Catholic doctrine that opposes masturbation because it spills potential souls?
lonecat about 11 years ago
The phrase is “reductio ad absurdum”.
Don Winchester Premium Member about 11 years ago
So many of you Liberals are saying, “What about AFTER they’re born? You don’t care about them after they’re born” To that I say BS! Just in my group of friends/family ALONE scores of babies and children have been adopted around the world, and we’re just ONE part of this great Nation. Groups like us are adopting all OVER this Nation. We’re DOING something. But by spouting off your toxic “gotcha” mentality from you libs, it’s your easy battle-cry to excuse and turn a blind eye to the true horror of what abortion is. The murder of the most innocent of us.
OmqR-IV.0 about 11 years ago
Yeah, oninmis…onanismusis…onanismy…oni, ah bugger, wanking.
Michael Peterson Premium Member about 11 years ago
… and why Gary Varvel will start doing cartoons supporting sex education, family planning and easy access to contraception.
Ha ha. Just kidding. Conservatives think pregnancy is Eve’s punishment for enjoying sex.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
Let’s face it. Human life is cheap, easily reproducible and for the most part a scourge to the planet.the religious wingnuts, who think a zygote is a person they can play volleyball with, go to a hokey book, which they claim is the basis for all morality, that tells them they are made in the image of god. That god has ‘given’ them dominion over all the other creatures.they use this narcissistic notion – that they ARE god, and hunt animals to extinction. They use this notion and this book to hunt each other to extinction or to subjugate them. They use weapons of mass destruction to murder hundreds of thousands of their fellow living humans in ill-conceived wars, schoolrooms, movie theaters, public squares, etc… Their agents molest little boys and girls, and their leadership not only covers it up, but enables the molesters to move from church to church..and women should be subjugated and forced to live by their wacky beliefs. i’m not buying it.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
and to mr varvel, we were all told that the murdered elementary schoolchildren from newtown were in a ‘better place’ up there in heaven. Isn’t that what your cartoon should show?
after all, the right to bear ar15’s with huge magazines is more important than the right to life of those humans that were born and lived the first 6 or 7 years of their lives before they were snuffed out by multiple bullets.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
^the united way extorts money from working people. I’ve been subjected to their tactics and it isn’t pretty.
rini1946 about 11 years ago
sorry with all the stds out there condoms should be used instead of abortions to prevent births. And some of you out there you can get STD with oral sex.
ObsiWan Premium Member about 11 years ago
If those 55 million kids had been born, then that would mean no Roe v. Wade did not exist and therefore no anniversary to celebrate. Since Roe v. Wade does exist, the women who would have given birth to 55 million children they knew they didn’t have the resources, support system, and/or the proper mindset to bring them into the world made the logical choice. Talk about what the Bible says all you want, but quoting scripture at the store doesn’t pay for formula or diapers.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
@boileri ususally don’t respond to posts like these, as is instructive of the deep mistrust between the sides. Ulterior motives believed by one side against the other. so against my better judgement here goesis sperm alive? is an egg alive?, if so then you end up with constraints against masturbation, which i’m fond of, and won’t have a bible thumper tell me what i can and can’t do with my own body. you will find this particular tension follows the abortion discussion.is a fertilized egg alive? in the same way that sperm and egg are not, neither is a fertilized egg. to continue on, a ferilized egg has no organs, no brain, and doesn’t do what living things do. It has the POTENTIAL to become a living human, if more things go right than wrong, but it is not. Some parts of the bible say that the life of the flesh begins in the blood, and many parts of judaism focus on the blood as the life force, as does RC communion when cannibalism is practiced by eating and drinking the transubstantiated flesh and blood of JC. So if the life force is in the blood, that forms in the fertilized egg at around 11-12 days.Genesis is pretty clear that god breathes life into the human through the nostrils (after birth).now for the legal aspect. there is a tension between the right to privacy, which nutz say is inivolatable when it comes to who owns guns, but apparently doesn’t exist when it comes to a woman, who has been born and lived a life, and her private organs.As for human living beings (and i’ll add the word INNOCENT to that) have the right to life, unfortunately we can not all agree. The supreme court has found that in the case off misapplied death penalties in texas (over 100 so far), so long as the trial seemed fair at the time, and innocent human can legally be put to death. Of course bin laden didn’t have a trial either, and he was put to death along with over 100,000 innocent iraqi civilians, and the american citizen who was making war from the mideast on our country was taken out by a drone without a trial first.so you see, many real people who have been born have been murdered with our tax dollars.but of course, we’re not even talking about our tax dollars here, we’re talking about a private decision between a woman and her doctor and what’s going on INSIDE her body, certainly no ones business but her own, not an overly reaching religion motivated government.and remember, god made abortion doctors, and made abortions before there were abortion doctors. Safe and legal Abortions save lives. certainly we should all be able to agree that the life of the mother must take priority over the right of the fertilized egg because if the mother dies, so does the fertized egg, or zygote, or fetus, and then she can’t try again.to quote nathan lane in the birdcage, he proposed the death penalty for women seeking abortions:"Oh, I know what you’re going to say. “If you kill the mother, the fetus dies, too.” But the fetus is going to be aborted anyway, so why not let it go down with the ship? "
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
^^then there is a chicken and an egg problem. is a chicken embryo in the egg, before it cracks itself out a living, breathing, clucking, eating, defecating, reproducing chicken? of course not.humans are no different.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
^“probably”?! you don’t know what you’re talking about.during WW2 there were three kinds of germans.1. the nazi’s who knew exactly what was going on and were murdering races of people in cold blood, stealing their goods and their hair and skin and profiting off it.2. The victims of the nazi’s.3. The cvilian germans who had a choice. That choice was to look the other way and profit (suppliers of the nazi war machine) OR become one of the victims.
nothing to do with this discussion.disgustedtaxpayer about 11 years ago
http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/former-fetuses-unite/printed 2 pages….FORMER FETUSES, UNITE!
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
^I really have a problem with what you say about the mothers wishes ‘should be honored where her life is in jeopardy’this creates a few BIG problems:1. if you believe abortion is murder then your position can not be qualified, the mother must bear any and all risk. This is what the wingnutz want. Indeed in many states and hospitals a woman can not get a termination even until the situation has become dire and she will die unless an emergency termination is performed. It is crazy to let it go that far.2. Why should the mothers wishes be up to non-involved third parties at all? doesn’t a woman have a right to be ‘secure in her person’, as guaranteed by the fourth amendment?3. Since there are so many opinions and clearly there is a (large) religious component, this brings the 1st amendment in play as well. while you are free to practice your religion unimpeeded, you have no right to impose your religious beliefs on others. I suspect that’s why you want to make it a scientific argument. HOWEVER then my simple chicken and egg post above covers that. A chicken embryo in an egg is not a chicken.4. Childbirth is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do. I don’t see how a woman can be forced to carry a fetus to term. The reality of the situation is that if you illegalize abortion, women will still have abortions, but they will not be safe and legal. I find it interesting that many of the same people who say laws don’t work for guns, which kill children (real ones, that were born, are citizens and have lived a certain number of years) are the same people that want to make abortions dangerous and unsafe. If laws don’t work for guns, why do you think they’ll work for abortion?
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
@boilerthis just occurred to me. you said:“First, to answer your initial questions, a sperm or egg on its own will not develop into a human being. Therefore, it is not a human being.”if you substitute a zygote, embryo or fetus for sperm or egg, you have the same result. so you have an answer to your question.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
@stratmani feel that as well about medical students. they actually let medical students opt out of doing a rotation that involves terminations of pregnancies. I think that’s outrageous. if a woman needs a termination to save her life, a doctor that opted out can’t help her. s/he shouldn’t be allowed to call himself a doctor.same thing about so called catholic hospitals that won’t perform terminations when the life of the mother is in danger, they should NOT be allowed to be accredited or call themselves hospitals.
markjoseph125 about 11 years ago
And we care about what the Catholic church teaches why…?
markjoseph125 about 11 years ago
“Liberalism is a perverted, malignant cancer growing on our nation.”
You mistyped the first word; it is spelled “right-wing nut kookery”.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
^i don’t know where you came from but i like you.
markjoseph125 about 11 years ago
For some wonderful (is that the right word here?) hypocrisy of the so-called pro-lifers, see:http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/catholics-argue-that-fetuses-are-people-unless-it-costs-the-church-money/
Michael Peterson Premium Member about 11 years ago
And going to heaven is SUCH a bad thing …
pirate227 about 11 years ago
LOL! I am a gun owner.Try again.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
@boileryou said you wanted it scientific. babies are born. chickens are hatched. before that they are indeed fetus, or embryo’s or zygotes.as someone said earlier, there ain’t no such thing as an unborn baby.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
^I notice that your webster definition says ‘usually after two months after conception. As to the other definitions, So what? religious wingnutz have a definition included in the dictionary.
have you looked up the definition of “SANTORUM”? we’d probably disagree about that too.
i never disputed that a human fetus/zygote/embryo was a human fetus/zygote or embryo. but it is not a child, not a baby – those terms are used to make a religious and emotional argument. neither an embryo nor fetus is the same as a breathing, crapping, crying, eating baby. and it’s certainly not anywhere near the same as one of the children slaughtered in newtown (or aurora, etc…..).
so since you SAID you were looking for a scientific reason, and you yourself used webster as a ‘scientific’ authority, you should have no problems with terminations up to two months after conception, eh?
now justify how you think you can impose your religious beliefs on woman that can’t carry, or do not want to carry to term.
laws can’t stop guns, is what you say, so laws can’t stop abortions, they can only make them unsafe and illegal. The morality is a decision between the woman and her doctors. It is not your business or mine.
disgustedtaxpayer about 11 years ago
“Today MSNBC’s Touré had his turn at The Cycle’s end-of-show commentary in which he chose to make the argument that America is a stronger nation without the millions of babies lost to abortion, even going so far as to thank God for the procedure”…..( 25 Jan 2013) from breitbart, a video…(proving why my decision to avoid MSNBC is justified…such wicked, evil quotes come from liberal media)-If life does not begin at the moment of conception, how does the baby grow and develop and be born always a human baby????? Too late, many people will discover that they took the wrong side on the slaughter of God’s preborns.(and the only source of info about God is the Bible, and it says man is born once, dies once and after that faces judgment by the Creator God who intended him/her to live and have the opportunity to put faith in God’s Son, Jesus, who was the sacrifice from eternity past, to shed holy blood that is accepted to cover human sins, and was resurrected and will come to earth again to judge the nations and reign as King with Satan and all evil persons unable to mess up life and peace in God’s promised blessing.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
^Well that settles it, eh? Since most of the world doesn’t believe in jesus, we’re all going to hell anywayz, so it makes no difference. Let’s save born womens lives with safe, legal abortions!
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
^you’re being ‘cute’ with your defnition and semantic games, and you know it. i gave you my definition of a chicken / egg at the very beginning but you refuse to answer because it doesn’t fit your religious view.a pre-hatched chicken embryo is not yet a chicken. It doesn’t breathe at all, it doesn’t eat like a chicken, doesn’t excrete like a chicken, doesn’t cluck like a chicken, doesn’t strut like a chicken, and can not live outside it’s shell until it’s grown enough to hatch.it may be a chicken embryo, or chicken fetus and it has the potential to be a chicken, but it is NOT a chicken, by definition.
boiler95 about 11 years ago
So, based on your statements, it becomes a human when it is capable of living outside the womb. Therefore, you should be opposed to late term abortion where the fetus is capable of breathing air, drinking formula, and excreting the same as any other baby..As for the chicken analogy, it is a developing chicken inside the egg. It has the full chicken DNA. It grows and develops with the passage of time. It consumes energy from the nutrients in the egg. By this definition it is a chicken. It is not something else that spontaneously turns into a chicken at the moment of hatching. Per my original statement from biology principles – chickens produce chickens, not something else that spontaneously becomes a chicken..Also, I find it hard to ignore that you keep trying to bring religious beliefs into this discussion. However, every one of my arguments have been based in science and logic. I have not once mentioned the bible, the torah, the koran or any other religious doctrine. I have simply stated facts defined by science which are unburdened by a religious belief system. I’m asking someone to provide an alternate definition of the fetus consistent with science and logic that would make it something other than a living human while inside the womb.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
of course chickens produce chickens and humans produce humans, there is nothing spontaneous about it. biologically speaking a living being needs to be able to eat, excrete, reproduce and locomote (to do the first three). A fetus can do none of those things. surely you can not equate a fetus that has never drawn a breath, suckled milk, etc… with a soldier that has given his life for his country.The science is well established and your logic is twisted. A fetus is a step along the way to a living human being. another analogy would be to keep a cadaver’s heart beating and on a respirator to keep it breathing after the brain is dead in order to scavange organs.if you turn off the respirator the mechanics of life stop and total death ensues. but can you really say that “person” was still alive when they couldn’t support life on their own? Disconnect the fetus from the mother and there is pretty much no question. in that step of development it can not suppport life.your ‘science’ ignores the steps towards life, and therefore your logic is twisted or incomplete.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
^are you in favor of keeping cadavers on respirators long after they can sustain life on their own?
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
I have no problem with late term abortions. They are rare and performed to save the life of the mother. The fetus has not taken a breath. indeed once it does it is then a baby.different stages of development is what we’re talking about here. we do have some common ground.A self sustaining human being did indeed start out from something other than human. that is a basic scientific fact that neither one of us can change.You seem to be stuck on having a full set of human DNA defines something as a living human being, yet this is not the case, DNA is not alive nor is it human, it is a chemical mechansim.I notice you continue to ignore my chicken and egg argument, which is exactly what this is. A viable chicken fetus is not a chicken, and you’d send it back to the kitchen if they tried to serve it to you as a chicken. That is exactly where your logic is incomplete or obtuse.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
there is clearly a time span between sperm / egg and first breath where this takes place. It is a matter of opinion, and your statement of ‘location’ is but one component. a ‘premie’ might be able to survive outside the womb; this is the viability argument. A zygote cleaerly couldn’t. that being said, i think roe has it pretty correctly, with exceptions. a third trimester fetus is likely viable. The exception is when something goes terribly wrong which makes a third trimester abortion necessary to save the mother. A first trimester fetus is not viable ‘outside’ and policing womens uteri is abhorrant to me.scientifically i’m fine that there is no blood, no heart, not viable outside therefore not a living human yet. Legally, i believe it’s necessary to leave the decision between the doctor and the pregnant woman, they know more about their situation than i do, you do, or any bureaucrat does.and yes, i do not accept your science that focuses on just a few components at a few points in time and getting stuck on it.
USN1977 about 11 years ago
Maybe the Civil War could have been averted with a simple statement: “Don’t like slavery? Do not own a slave.”