Ok, by popular demand I will try to get something to Les this week.  I can’t believe how much time I’ve been spending on this site lately.  I need to try and cut back and get some homework done.

Originally posted by shana:
you’d be indirectly responsible when the electricity was cut off for their hurt and then for all the hurting that resulted from the hospital closing.

I don’t believe the doctors would be indirectly responsible for the hurt when the power was cut off because they had no way of getting the money needed to begin with.  A third world country hospital is likely going to run more by charity than by collecting on doctor bills.  Maybe its a point of view issue.  I might not have been clear enough or I’m misunderstanding.

Originally posted by deadscot:
What I was trying to get at was that by taking your logic one step further, they shouldn’t have gone to see a doctor in the first place and given god every opportunity to perform a miracle.

One of the most popular illustrations I have heard from the pulpit goes like this.  A man is in his house when his neighborhood begins to flood.  He’s looking at the street as the water begins to rise and his neighbors drive by in their truck.  They ask him if he would like a ride to safety.  He replies, “Nope.  God’s gonna save me.”
Awhile later the waters are beginning to cover the main floor.  A rescue boat comes by asking if he would like help escaping.  Once again he replies, “Nope.  God’s gonna save me.”
Much later he is on his roof and the waters have nearly engulfed his house.  A rescue chopper comes by and tells him he needs to grab the ladder before he drowns.  He refuses saying, “Nope.  God’s gonna save me.”
The man eventually drowns and upon reaching Heaven he asks God why He didn’t save him.  God replies, “I sent you a truck, boat and helicopter!  What more did you want?”

Moral of the story being that things we often see as normal can in fact be a miracle themselves.  In particular with this hospital it very likely is a “miracle” the patients are getting treated to begin with seeing as it is a third world country.

Originally posted by deadscot:
I’m sure god wouldn’t hold anyone in a coma responsible for not having been ‘saved’ if a doctor had to take them off life support, would she?

Romans 1:18-20 God’s anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known.  (19)  God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God himself made it plain.  (20)  Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all!

I’m assuming you are asking something to the extent of how can someone who has never heard of God go to hell if they have not had the chance.  If I am wrong correct me and I will find a more applicable verse for your question.

Originally posted by deadscot:
Have you not read through this monstrosity of a thread?!?

Most of it.  I skipped the parts that turned into bickering and accusing between ellie and the rest.  I skimmed over the quotes for the most part.  That would be tedious to read.  The few quotes I happened to glance at though certainly seem to disprove the idea the FFs were Christian and some even make me wonder if they were deists.  Nonetheless the point that was trying to be made about the FFs I’m sure has been made as well as convincingly proven.

(shana) Really, if we’re going by the Hippocratic Oath, then we need to think about amounts of hurt caused…

Surgery?

By the way, it seems to me that “do no harm” is catchy summary instead of an actual part of the Hippocratic Oath itself.

(theocrat)And because you honestly believe it was morally acceptable we must agree to disagree because this conversation serves no further purpose than to create enmity between us.  You will not convince me otherwise and vice versa.  End of thread.

Interesting choice of words there. Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to rephrase the original question from:

“Was the hospital’s choice morally acceptable?”

to:

“In my opinion, the hospital’s choice was immoral. Tell me why.”

Then again, if the amended scenario admits the possibility of miracles, anything can happen and there’s nothing left to discuss.

Originally posted by elwedriddsche:
Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to rephrase the original question from:

“Was the hospital’s choice morally acceptable?�

to:

“In my opinion, the hospital’s choice was immoral. Tell me why.�

No.  I didn’t want someone to tell me why I thought the act was immoral.  I wanted to know someone else’s opinion of the act committed.

Originally posted by elwedriddsche:
Then again, if the amended scenario admits the possibility of miracles, anything can happen and there’s nothing left to discuss.

Agreed.

The rest of you, continue on…

people who have never been trapped by a pregnancy.  ... the young girl who couldn’t handle the pressure from her boyfriend.  ... the woman with four kids whose birth control inexplicably failed.  ellie, I get the strong impression that you really don’t know much of life beyond your own limited borders, and you have no desire even to understand, much less empathize with, anyone who has had a different life from yours.  ...  “I would never do that, so it’s their own fault if they do.â€? “They’re to blame for their situation.â€? “I’ve never experienced that, so it must not be important/valid.â€?

GM: Screw you.  all you have is an impression based on broad discussion of societal issues.  You don’t know ANYTHING about my life, my past or my friends, which explains why you would describe my mother’s, then most of my friends’ lives & insenuate that I would make those asanine responses rather than sacrifice with them to find the beauty in it.  I don’t have to justify anything to you, but you pissed me the fuck off.  You would have no clue the strength it takes to deal becuase your “compassionate” response to feeling “trapped” is to give up.

As for OB

If you were having to explain homosexuality to your kids because they were being required to recite “homosexuality is just as valid as heterosexuality,� every day at school; or their teacher was distributing flyers discussing “Gays throughout history,� you’d have a point.

Uh, well then I guess I do.  Have you SEEN Health hs health/history textbooks lately?

the minority of those aborted children who would’ve been healthy and white

Once again, trouble w/ statistics.  Not that I care because I consider all races valuable, but http://www.abortiontv.com/AbortionStatistics.htm#United States

she’s now 13 and smart enough to understand that Jesus freaks are everywhere…and understands how very un-Christ-like most of those people who call themselves Christians really are.

I laugh my ass off every time pathetically brainwashed children like yours (who were lucky? enough not to be considered uterine parsites) when I finally tell them my background near the end of the year & they say things like “You’re a Christian?! (picture I had inserted the word terrorist)  But you’re so…smart…& undertanding!?”  But then her mommy is taking the time to pay read all of her health textbooks & notice what they teach, or is it just that you ignore things you agree with?

You know what probably really got to me the most is that unplanned pregnancies aren’t even something I’m unfortunate enough to have to deal with in my personal past with friends & family, but it’s a part of my weekly life to have some student or neighbor come to me frightened & upset because her parents, friends, even boyfriend are preaching at her that “things are so irrevocably screwed up; abortion is the only smart option because she’s trapped, there is no other hope, all is lost.”  No wonder y’all wanna surrender to the terrorists.

Guess I’m feeling a little Sharon Rocha…

No wonder y’all wanna surrender to the terrorists.

no wonder we’re wondering if there’s any point at all talking to you…

No Wonder y’all wanna surrendur to the terrorists - Ellie

Yeah, that one got me, too.  Ellie, and everyone else in the whole overwrought political world, no one has - ever - suggested surrendering to the terrorists.  That’s an idiotic, false dichotomy. 

Here’s a summary of the abortion debate in America:

1. Pro-Lifer: “They’re murdering babies!!!”
2. Pro-Choicer: “You don’t care about people in dire circumstances made worse by pregnancy!”
3. Return to 1. and repeat with variations

If it seems like P-L and P-C are talking about different things, it’s because they are.

Let’s be crystal clear about one thing: abortions are going to happen regardless.  By making them illegal all the law can accomplish is making sad situations even worse.  The most that P-L can hope to do is reduce abortions and for that you’d think they’d be lining up to support Planned Parenthood instead of vilifying it.  PP has prevented more abortions than any sign-waving protester ever dreamed of preventing.

Yes, I know PP provides abortions too but there’d be less of that if their front-end operation, which is compassionate education and prevention, received more broad-based support.  But as someone said - maybe in this thread, maybe another - the P-L protesters seem to be more bothered by intercourse than anything else.

One thing the pro-lifers seem to have got right is the focus on whether the developing fetus is a person.  Then they want to answer the question in two equally illogical ways: “My religion says it is,” and “Well, it may not be a person yet but it will eventually become a person.” (Or if you want to ratchet up the emotional load you can substitute the word, “baby,” which is another word for person.)

The pro-choicers, on the whole, want no part of the question “when does the fetus become a person” because it immediately gets them compared to Nazis and no one likes that.  (In fact, I wish everyone would be a little more careful playing the Hitler card.  Spend some time studying that regime and realize just how long a rope is needed to make the rhetorical connection.)

We may not be able to tell “when someone becomes a person” but we can tell when the frontal cortex develops and begins producing identifiable higher brain wave activity. First trimester? Nope.  Second trimester?  A little bit.  Third trimester frontal cortex development kicks into high gear and then maybe you have the basis for some restrictions that would be scientifically supportable. 

After that you get into value judgements and I have a fully debateable value-preference for living, breathing, talking people over almost-people.  Yeah, it sucks to be the third-trimester fetus but I wouldn’t sacrifice the life or even the health of the woman carrying it.  “Your results may vary” as that’s sort of a triage jugdement and every answer to it will have its constituents.

Which segues into the hospital discussion - you guys are talking about triage.  Under really overwhelming (but less contrived) conditions doctors have to make decisions like that all the time. 

As for “Miracles,” forget it; there aren’t any, at least not the “violating physical law” kind.  If you want to call everyday actions by humans a miracle then you should admit - it’s a “small-m” miracle; as in “It’s not a Miracle but I felt like elevating it for rhetorical purposes.”

OK, the ibuprofen has kicked in so I’m going to try going back to bed. Sleep well, everyone.

No wonder y’all wanna surrender to the terrorists.

Oh, you got me!! I admit that my copy of the collected writings of Ayman az-Zawahiri are siting right next to my copies of Mein Kampf and The Manifesto of the Communist Party. Sheikh Osama emails me every night and we swap ideas of how to get rid of the mushrikun and the kafirun! Once we are done doing our evil planning stuff (and swapping recipes for falafel, hummus and babaganoush), he goes off and does Muslim things, and I, the godless Communist that I am, go off and rape women and steals things because morality only comes from the Bible and well, I’m a godless commie! Of course, I only steal from Jews and rape Jewish women because all us lefties are anti-Semites and Nazi wannabes, like you always tell us, even though 85-90% of America’s Jewish voters are left leaning and vote Democratic! (Oh no! That must mean there is something wrong in Judeo-Christian happy-happy good land!) Well, it is almost time for Salat al-Fajr, which I do willingly because my new Salafi overlords command me to do it; I will pray that Allah (Subhanna wa Taala) open your heart to accepting rule by the abd as-Shaitan in al-Qaeda.

I admit that my copy of the collected writings of Ayman az-Zawahiri are sitting right next to my copies of Mein Kampf and The Manifesto of the Communist Party.

Trotsky-  you forgot “My Life” by Bill Clinton and “The Origin of Species” by the Devil himself…

(zilch) no wonder we’re wondering if there’s any point at all talking to you…

Only if you also enjoy shooting fish in a barrel.

E consistently portrays disagreement with her opinions as a personal attack, while not being shy about dishing out bona-fide insults herself. To make matters worse, she also consistently refuses to present a factual argument.

If all she did was to say “this is my opinion, take it or leave it” we’d all be fine…

Only if you also enjoy shooting fish in a barrel.

Shooting fish in a barrel is not as much fun as a barrel of monkeys, especially when the fish offer nothing but fishy arguments with no bones.  Monkeys at keyboards would at least give us Hamlet, given enough time.

We may not be able to tell “when someone becomes a personâ€? but we can tell when the frontal cortex develops and begins producing identifiable higher brain wave activity. First trimester? Nope.  Second trimester?  A little bit.  Third trimester frontal cortex development kicks into high gear and then maybe you have the basis for some restrictions that would be scientifically supportable.

This is exactly, as Zappa would say, the crux of the biscuit.  It’s a SPECTRUM, and fundamentalists don’t like that.  It’s got to be black or white, right or wrong, bad or good.  And life just isn’t like that.  When most people aren’t boxed into a religious corner, they’ll admit that they wouldn’t feel as bad about thawing out and discarding a three-day-old zygote, but everyone pretty much agrees that it would be heinous to abort a baby the day before it’s due to be born.  In between is this whole gray area.

Personally, I think more pro-choice advocates should just take the bull by the horns and say, “Yeah, it’s killing a baby—and that’s the mother’s right to do, nobody else’s.”  After all, the fundies seem to have a lot of cases where it’s okay to kill too ...

Of course, they could always just “surrender to the terrorists.”  The religious ones, that is.

Damn this thread moves fast.  Just wanted to throw this out for consideration.

While abortion is more common within the ranks of the economically depressed and the minorities, adoption statistics are quite the opposite.  So, how would increased adoption (but not by those evil homosexuals) realistically assist in the lowering of the abortion rate?

You don’t know ANYTHING about my life, my past or my friends, which explains why you would describe my mother’s, then most of my friends’ lives & insenuate that I would make those asanine responses rather than sacrifice with them to find the beauty in it.

The only character reflection you have on this site is what you post, and I must say that given your comments thus far I would have to agree with Geekmom.

capcha = ‘close’ as in close-minded.

Moral of the story being that things we often see as normal can in fact be a miracle themselves.  In particular with this hospital it very likely is a “miracleâ€? the patients are getting treated to begin with seeing as it is a third world country.

Miracles are subjective to interpretation by Christian followers and are not subjected to any sort of authentication, true?

So, the real miracle could be cutting off the power so they could save more patients and give cause to more miracles.

no one has - ever - suggested surrendering to the terrorists

I apologize for that statement in reference to anyone on this site.  I was thinking of
http://www.iht.com/articles/540741.html
http://english.people.com.cn/200404/21/eng20040421_141097.shtml
& a recent LA area radio host who found several UCLA professors that were actually saying we could solve the terrorists’ anger if we “treated them with the respect of a political entity & being realistic about their threat by proposing terms of surrender.”  None of you have ever mentioned such a thing, again, I’m sorry.

Not as an excuse, but so that you can expect better of me in the future, when I am that bone tired, & in a very foul mood because of dwelling on something like how devastated a recent student was because of being told to give up because her pregnancy was going to ruin her life…plus a recent personal experience, I will simply save it for later.

that was my opinion, take it or leave it, as is this…that was excellent, DOF, thank you.  I just get worked up when I see comparisons to a parasite, when an embryo/fetus is clearly closer to a symbiosite…& yes the judgement could be heartbeat, major organs, brain activity, whatever, I completely agree that it’s two different arguments.

Anyway, this is my opinion, take it or leave it: I was mulling over (a little more calmly) about the 40 million abortion figure, & wondering, how many of them do you think could/would have voted Kerry?  I have heard jokingly around church that we shouldn’t worry about abortion because it just means the rest of the world will kill itself off (if Europe’s population is any indicator).  But in reality, doesn’t that make some kind of sense?  The comment about P-L being against intercourse seems funny to me, because I’ve honestly never been around people who have/talk about sex more.  & they’re having 3-5 kids average…who grow up like me to vote & have the same…

Well, a lot of kids raised in religious P-L families end up rejecting the whole thing altogether.  So I don’t see P-Lers as taking over the world because us P-Cers have less kids and like to ‘kill ourselves off’.  The truth that you’re missing is that a lot of P-C people wouldn’t have abortions themselves unless they were in a really desperate situation.  But we have compassion and respect for each other enough to allow that decision to be personal.

Not to mention that I don’t think abortion really makes a huge difference in population figures. You could say the same for the pill and condoms.  Any time someone uses contraception, they prevent pregnancy, birth, and an increase in population.
I, for one, am all for less people with a higher standard of living than a whole ton of people with nothing to eat…

I also find it really offensive that you keep referring to abortion as giving up.  Giving up would be to do nothing and give birth in a toilet.  Abortion is a difficult choice that takes a lot of consideration, effort, and money.  It’s an active decision on the part of the woman.  In the case of danger to the mother, abortion is choosing to live and be healthy.  Giving up would be to just have the baby without proper medical care and possibly die. 
In the case of a woman who was raped and impregnated, having an abortion is taking her body back for herself.  For a pregnant teenager, abortion is choosing career and a better life for future children over the one life inside her now.  Giving up is doing nothing. Abortion is not doing nothing.

As for the comment about brain-washing, a liberal teacher could make the same comment about a conservative student.  Frankly, that’s a useless characterization.
And about the whole being tired business, well, we’re all tired at times.  Maybe you should wait to post when you’re not tired.

You know now that I think about it, none of the people I know who are pro-choice have ever had an abortion.  I know people who have had abortions, but they’re fairly uninvolved/apathetic when it comes to political debate and activism.  In fact several of the most pro-choice people I know have lots of kids.  Pro-choice doesn’t mean pro-abortion, it means simply pro-choice.  We want people to be able to choose what is right for them, not be forced to live a certain way by the government.  Indeed, as much as I was reluctant to get involved in this topic earlier I would like join in now and describe my views regarding this issue.

Personally I am very much against abortion.  I do think it is something that is horrible, not only for the embryo being aborted, but for the woman who has to make the choice as well.  However, I also recognize that while I find abortion wrong, there are some people for whom it is right for.  Some people do feel that they have no other choice but to get an abortion, and these people will get an abortion even if they are illegal (in the past when abortions were illegal there were still substantial numbers of them being performed).  If the government keeps abortions legal it prevents people who are unqualified from performing them and leading to greater harm.  I do think that counselling should be made available for those women who want abortions, and I think that they should be presented with various options before they commit themselves to the choice of having an abortion.  However, if they want an abortion after all that I think that option should be available for them.

We all have to make the choices that our conscience dictates, I just think that we should be free to make those choices.  Now that isn’t to say that we should be free to do anything.  Indeed, I don’t think that we do, I just think that in the case of abortion, the wishes of a conscious sentient human being has some precedence to those of a human being who has yet become able to make choices.  It’s similar to my opinion of the right of attorney for family members of those who are too ill or injured to make choices for themselves.

(this is my opinion, take it or leave it) I actually mean that *if* (it’s only a guess) most of the abortions were either (as I feel is most likely) elite white democrats or (as most others seem to say) impoverished families, either way, they vote democrat…

As for the giving up, all the figures I’ve ever seen in the case of health or rape, abortions were performed even before Roe vs. Wade & no one thought twice.  I don’t, that’s a no-brainer. (unless the woman really wants it, has anyone seen “In America?”)

I’ve seen teenagers in that situation everyday, & usually the abortion “choice” is forced on them & they’re not allowed a say because everyone else has given up on her…that’s just my experience (& once again, opinion, take it or leave it).

I’m sure liberal teachers do hear the same things in the midwest & south if there are any who teach there.  This country is becoming very regional…

It’s been so encouraging how offended y’all were regarding my commment about “surrendering to terrorists.”  I am sorry that I basically did the same thing I’ve accused y’all of in regard to Christians: take some opinions I’ve seen from exrtremists of the same political leanings, & plastered them onto y’all.  If I weren’t as tired I probably would have posed it as a question rather than an accusation, & I will try to post what I understand to have actually been written.

From what I’ve seen of polls, Socialist Swine’s opinion is about a 90% majority.  I think/hope (& it’s just my opinion, take it or leave it) that over time, with the pleathora of contraception, counseling, adoption & foster care improvements, programs to support education & single moms, it will make abortion obsolete.

ellie,

One difference is that no-one assumed that you held extremist views simply because of your religion.  This is not to say that none of us have unfairly read into some of the things that you have said.  That is true, I think that there are moments in which some of us have attributed a more extreme interpretation to something that you have said then you intended.  However, you do from time to time say some quite extremist things (and I’m sure that we do as well).  The difference though is that I don’t think any of us have accused you of siding with evil.  I think that at our most unfair we’ve only accused you of being deluded, unreasonable, and/or disingenuous.  Not very nice things to accuse someone of for sure, but no where near as bad as claiming that they want to give in to terrorism and let the antithesis of all that we hold dear win.

I think/hope (& it’s just my opinion, take it or leave it) that over time, with the pleathora of contraception, counseling, adoption & foster care improvements, programs to support education & single moms, it will make abortion obsolete.

Agreed

I never intended the comment to mean that even those who propose surrender are “siding with evil,” but are merely so fatalistic as to give up, because they don’t hold the same things (if anything) dear…I am TERRIBLY sorry it was taken that way!

Anyway, this is my opinion, take it or leave it: (Ellie)

This thread may actually end eventually

none of the people I know who are pro-choice have ever had an abortion. I know people who have had abortions…(Socialist Swine)

Many of our closest friends may have had had an abortion and we don’t know about it.  They may have had to go through an abortion and resolve never to tell anyone.  This sad, isolating, depressing situation is due largely to P-L rhetoric that defines them as cruel, awful, terrible, lazy, people who surrendered and murdered their defenseless babies.  I truly believe this is a large part of the vaunted “post-abortion syndrome” many P-L’s endlessly yap on about.