That is indeed where the fire burns, but it is where the wingers have an argument, worse it conferred legitimacy to extremist religion that was and should be at the fringes. If the most extreme belief about life were the rule then the Jains would be that rule, but neither they nor any other religion should be the deciders.

In a secular (as in Religion has nothing to do with it) world there are 3 principals:
1 Once a mind has fully arrived, and before it has fully left you have a human.

2 Before it has begun to arrive and after it has left it is protoplasm/meat/whatever, and can be treated as such.

3 Between those points you have a valid argument that is heart rending at best, and very individual cases to decide at the least.

That a Houston hospital starved to death a quadriplegic child, with a real functioning mind, because he did not have enough money to live, even as they spent millions over Terri Schievo, puts the hard light on where winger priorities really are.

A mid term fetus that does not yet have the structure for a mind to exist, and a Karen Quinlin/Terry Schievo who no longer have a structure for the mind to exist are definitely option 2.

Clair does not say, but the acephallic child that is the majority of such cases is also option 2, and no more human than a cancer, no matter what anyone’s wishes for it was.

Any other child just before birth and even immediately after is option 3 and that such issues arise are genuine nightmares, but parental rights and responsibilities (and privacy) are the rule after birth. How can they not be before?

I will never allow you to lose your rights. (Not that I have much to do about it.) I would never dictate, nor advocate, that male & female should have different rights. I’m on your side lady. It’s your body, you decide!

Chuck

The only sane discussion is how do we have fewer abortions and how do we care for the children that are already here?
I won’t have my morality defined by people who claim to be religious and simultaneously hate, judge, threaten, support corruption, worship money and believe the fairy tales of Bush the Dictator.

The men here at the cafe have admitted that, for them, this issue is one of many. If this holds true for the majority of men, then it is even more important that we women be the deciders on this one. We can’t allow a few men, who pursue this because of political expediency (and fear of their “base”) to dictate the rights of women. That practice could lead them to decide that maybe women should lose other rights as well. I am still haunted by an Afghani women I saw interviewed on Oprah right after the war in Afghanistan. One woman refused to take off her burka. She said she would not take it off until she was certain she would never have to put it on again, it would be too painful. She said she remembers how surprised she was at how easily the men in her family had accepted the Taliban rules for women and had allowed her rights to be taken away.
I wonder if she still wears the burka?
And I wonder how easily our men would allow us to lose our rights.

Someone close to me interviewed to become Exec Director of his local Planned Parenthood organization. He impressed them and was called back for a second interview. At first he was excited but the more he thought about it the more he realized that he lacked the true passion it would require to hold that position. He politiely turned down the second interview because he had enough self-awareness to understand that he lacked the passion but he had the integrity to tell them the truth.

Great insight.

But I have no idea how to overcome it.

hizzhoner

It’s our rights and our bodies they’re talking about.

hmmmm - i guess, Claire is right. The thing about abortion which is hardly ever discussed is “remote-control” - with the interesting fact, that most of the deciders don’t belong to the group subjected to their decisions…

that sounds like Apartheid to me….

thought experiment (and i don’t talk about killing just for fun and money): how many people die because there are not enough donated organs available for transplantation?

if life of one person is precious enough to control the body of another - how about organ donations? Imagine that some day there might be a officer, ordering you to the next hospital to get your kidney…

honestly - i wouldn’t like that

thanks, Steve, for your courage to write about that - hope, you and your family are well and you don’t have a particular reason to discuss it…

As a man with a sense of fairness and justice, it has always bothered me the idea of men making rules for women, when a man can always walk away after doing his thing with a woman, and it is always a woman who has to carry a baby, and in some cases make an agonizing decision as to whether to keep or abort a baby.

On Democratic Underground there are some people who seem to think that, for instance, gay issues and gay marriage are matters that can be compromised with in order for Democrats to have a better shot at winning elections. Needless to say many gay people are very irate at such a suggestion. And the same with the abortion issue.