Important distinction. I’m glad you could inform the girls of it. Nobody wants to have an abortion, as though it’s an enjoyable experience.

I wonder if the girls are too young to have political views much different from their parents. You said you’re in Utah? I expect most parents to be Republican. Most teenagers I know share the political party of their parents.

It’s not my definition, queuno, it was the perception of these girls. My point is that pro-choice doesn’t equal pro-abortion.

These girls are from all over the country, none from Utah,none Mormon.

Perception is important, I suppose. We need to clear up those misconceptions, especially in Utah. It’s a dangerous stance to take here, pro-choice. And you’re right, queuno, we should embrace it. But many ignorantly refuse to accept pro-choice for exactly what it is.

However, like those girls, how many Americans, especially, I guess, middle America, feel the Democratic party advocates abortion rather than choice. If they could find a way to make the distinction that, as you said, Brian, no one really wants an abortion, they might reach the more conservative voters. At least on that issue.

Dan: Huh?

I repeat: they are not from Utah. They are not Mormon. The school I work at is a private girls school.

annegb:

It is my understanding that in the following situations, many if not most, liberal Democrats are pro-abortion when:

1. the mother is under 16, or over 40.
2. the mother is unemployed and unmarried.
3. the mother has a promising career which would get sidetracked by having and raising a baby.
4. the mother already has 2 or more other children, whether or not she’s married, but especially if she’s already on welfare.
5. amniocentesis has shown that the baby has any birth defects, especially Down’s syndrome.

I’ve talked to some women who support groups such as NARAL. They _want_ women to have abortions in certain circumstances.

Sorry, but my observations are that “pro-choice” turns into “pro-abortion” in certain situations that go beyond the generally accepted reasons for abortion (rape, incest, or life/health of the mother is in jeopardy.)

The girls were not that far off the mark. Maybe the democrats whom you know in Utah (who likely aren’t far-left democrats to start with) are not “pro-abortion”, but many of the liberal dems outside of Utah are.

Pro-Choice = Anti-Neo-Natal-Rights

Neo-Natal might not be the right word, but I hope you understand what I mean. If developing humans are afforded any degree of rights then women will be constrained in what circumstances they can choose to kill them.

My take is that if a woman willingly consents to sex, an act that is biologically designed to create another human, then the rights of that developing human supercede the woman’s right to kill it unless she has to do so in self-defense.

Here is a link to a very good 90 minute debate on the topic.

On a recent visit to family members in the mid-west 8 and 12 year old relatives told me that democrats want to kill babies.

Abortion needs to be neutralized as a national issue.

For this reason, I would be in favor of simply overturning Roe v. Wade and throwing it back to the states to fight over. I’m just not convinced that this issue can be usefully addressed at the national level.

I worked as the director of a pro-life counseling center in the 1980s, and most of the people on the board were uncomfortable with Mormons because of our pro-choice stance.

The church had just come out and said that abortions might be okay in cases where a genetic defect would prevent the child from living, and along with previous exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mom were just too much on the “pro-choice” side for some of the prolife extremists.

Most LDS think of themselves as prolife, and don’t see that as a slippery slope….but many outside the church do not see us that way.

Seth,

Even pro-choice constituencies recognize the conceived fetus as a life. That is not an issue for modern pro-choice/pro-life debates at all. The question is whether the woman’s rights to eliminate the fetus trump the fetus’s right to live.

Thus the Church’s position only needs to articulate whether or not the woman has a right to terminate the fetus for reasons other than those extraneous reasons mentioned above. And that position is absolutely clear.

I have lived outside of Utah for 33 years, and wherever we have lived, LDS Church members I have known have equated Democrats with pro-abortion. However, most of my non-LDS friends have been Democrats, and I would consider most of them to be pro-life in the same way that I (as an active Mormon) am. Democrats are a very diverse group, with the NARAL people on one end of the spectrum and anti-abortion people on the other end, but, with the exception of those who profit from abortion (like Planned Parenthood), those I have known have only approved of abortion in extreme cases (health of mother or rape).

When we lived in Washington (the state), I had some activity in the local and state Right to Life organization, which was made up mainly of moderate Republicans. As a Mormon I was welcomed. However, when we moved to Montana seven years ago, the local Right to Life people considered me to be much too liberal. A few months ago petitions circulated here (even in the hallways of one of our wards) to put a measure on our November ballot that would give state constitutional rights to an unborn child. Thankfully, there were not enough supporters. Such a measure would pit the rights of a mother against the rights of the unborn child, even in the case of a natural abortion (miscarriage). This is a slippery slope indeed.

McCain’s VP choice is adamently pro-life, and has stated that she supports a pro-life ammendment to the constitution. Several versions of such an ammendment have circulated among the pro-lifers for the past 35 years, but some of them are similar to the proposal here in Montana, which would declare a fetus, from the moment of conception (some say implantation), as a human being and entitled to all constitutional rights. I don’t know which one Ms Palin supports, but any such ammendment would have considerably different concequences than just reversing Roe v Wade, which is what McCain has said he will support.

Regardless of whether we call ourselves Republican, Democrat, pro-life, pro-abortion rights, pro-choice, etc., I think we need to get beyond the retoric and semantics and really listen to all the sides. Many people want simple answers or clear doctrines, but there are none of either in the topic of abortion.

“in the following situations, many if not most, liberal Democrats are pro-abortion when”

Historically, there have been significant numbers of republicans who are “pro-choice” to the same extent, including many who are conservative on economic issues–see former mayor of NY and governor of CA.

I agree that many “pro-choice” individuals, whether they are otherwise “liberal” or “conservative” or democratic or republican, may well be “pro-abortion” in that they might encourage abortion in those situations. I would be interested if there is any statistical information of what percentage of “pro-choice” individuals would also be “pro-abortion” in any of those cases.

The problem is when people start trying to equate biological “life” with the legal notion of “life.”

Seth R,
The Bible tells us that the life of all flesh is the blood. The first heart beat is detectable three weeks after conception.

Steve M, #29, Your list is ludicrous. If you seriously believe that “many if not most, liberal Democrats” favor an abortion when “the mother has a promising career which would get sidetracked by having and raising a baby,” or when “the mother already has 2 or more other children,” I think you need to meet more Democrats.

You’ll note that I said liberal Democrats, not moderate or conservative. I stand by my statement. (Psst, I think you need to meet more liberal Democrats, and more Democrats who subscribe to the ‘any time, any reason, no questions asked, no counsel offered’ school of “abortion rights.”)

Here’s one that you apparently didn’t think of: post-viability elective abortions. Democrats are fine with this traditional restriction on the right to abortion. And lots of Democrats are totally cool with restricting access to “partial birth abortions,” so long as such laws include an exception for the mother’s health.

Maybe the average Democrat voter falls in the boundaries of the group you describe. But the leadership of the Democratic party, and most Democratic congressmen and senators in Washington, don’t. The leadership and the majority of Democrat politicans in Washington, by their voting record, seem to be quite in favor of partial-birth abortions, and abortions after the fetus reaches the point of viability outside the womb.

If the average rank-and-file Democrat voter is as restrictive towards abortion as you describe, and I acknowledge the possibility of that, then why are the Democratic party’s leadership and politicians toeing the line and voting according to the far-left-endorsed position? Maybe us conservatives aren’t so much anti-Democrat-rank-and-file-voter, as we are anti-Democrat-politician.

*_*_*_*_* Gross out alert. Don’t read the rest if you are squeamish. You have been warned. *_*_*_*_*

Moreover, and here’s the clincher that shows the depraved nature of those who are in favor of “partial-birth abortions”:

If a fetus needs to be removed from the mother in order to preserve the life of the mother, there is no need to puncture its skull and suck its brains out, which is what a partial-birth abortion procedure does. Just remove the fetus.

If a fetus needs to be removed from the mother in order to preserve the life of the mother, there is no need to inject concentrated saline into the womb or into the fetus in order to scald or kill the fetus prior to removing it, which is another abortion technique. Just remove the fetus.

If a fetus needs to be removed from the mother in order to preserve the life of the mother, there is no need to dissect (cut in pieces) the fetus in-utero prior to removing it, which is another abortion technique. Just remove the fetus.

It is possible to remove a fetus (either vaginally or via C-section) without taking active measures (such as brain-sucking or saline injection or slicing-and-dicing) to kill it. Just remove the fetus, if that is what is necessary to preserve the life of the mother.

The brain-sucking, the saline injection, and the slicing-and-dicing things were invented in order to make sure the fetus/baby is dead prior to extraction. Because if the fetus/baby comes out alive and breathing during an abortion procedure, that is what is called an “oopsie”, and the extracted fetus/baby must then be treated differently, because then you have what is medically termed a “live birth”, and what is probably in legal terms called a “living human being.”

Amazing what difference a few inches and a few seconds makes.

If only more republicans had supported abortion about 61 years ago. Just imagine the lives which would have been saved, if only Barbara Bush had chosen to have an abortion!

I shudder every time I see a comment from Nick.

Its been like that for a while now. One of those ‘used to be a decent, reasonable ex-mo’ types to a ‘I like making asinine comments ex-mo.’

So sad.

#32 Ha!

Nick, very true. Although they say that the spirit is just sent to another body so he could have become president anyway -as Romney’s twin brother!

#17 DKL, You’re my hero. Can I plagarize you?

#18 Naismith, I don’t think it matters what others think of Mormons as long as we’re true to ourselves. I think our burden is to behave in a Christ-like manner while being true to ourselves and we usually fall short of that mark.

#19 Seth, I completely disagree with you. But I still like you.

#22 Catharine, thanks for sharing. You’re my hero now. DKL is chopped liver. Can I plagarize you?

#23 Carlos, that concerns me about Palin. I think rabid conservatives are more dangerous than liberals. No offense to anybody here.

#24 David: durn good point. I’d be interested, also.

“#25 Howard, gag a maggot. I love the Savior, but I’m sort of tired of that WWJD question.

#29 Steve, are you a lawyer? I think a lot of the posters here are Democrats LOL.

#30 You know, I hear the terms “liberal” and “Democrat” as synonymous. I’ll have to think about that.

If I were Congress and the Supreme Court, I’d make a law making abortion illegal except in the case of danger to the mother, parenthetically listing rape, incest, etc. BUT I would make the issue of danger to the mother defined by the mother and her doctor. Period. And allow laxity in the definition to allow for mental health issues as well.

I have it all outlined in a more organized matter in that file in my head that I can’t find.

I would make late term abortion (as Bookslinger so colorfully described, geez, louise) illegal. And punishable by law unless the mother’s life is in imminent danger.

I don’t like the rape/incest exception for late term abortions because a woman who’s raped surely can be watching for pregnancy before she gets that far along.

And I believe that very few cases of pregnancy via incest are reported, let alone terminated. Usually incest occurs over a period of years and the victim keeps the secret out of fear and shame. Those circumstances would be extremely rare.

I’m glad to learn about NARAL and to hear clarification on Pro-Choice stances. However, I’m pro-choice and I don’t believe the things many of you have attributed to pro-choice individuals. Pro-choice isn’t all bad.

I suppose, also, neither are Pro-Lifers. They just seem so angry and mean. They seem the antithesis of pro life to me.

Good point. And another issue is that in these days when birth control is so cheap and readily available and people in America so educated on the subject, unwanted pregnancies should be very very rare.

A law student.

I’m not going to put myself up as one who can speak for Christ.

But if there are conditions warranting abortion, He’d be the one to know.

What a great discussion! Thank you annegb for starting it.

Annegb: “If I were Congress and the Supreme Court, I’d make a law making abortion illegal except in the case of danger to the mother, parenthetically listing rape, incest, etc.”

That’s the stance of the vast majority of pro-lifers as I understand it. I’m a bit confused why you call that stance pro-choice. Only a small minority of those who call themselves pro-life want to ban abortion in _all_ instances without exception.

DKL is right, there is a lot of mis-use and confusion about the labels “pro life” and “pro choice”.

Steve M: Ah, law student. And admittedly left-leaning, to boot. That explains it. You’ll get the bigger picture after you’ve been out in the real world a few years. And, as a left-leaning lawyer, you’ll likely be even more adept at describing far left positions as centrist.

“You will find Democratic legislators who voted against a ban on partial-birth abortions for various reasons, but you will be hard-pressed to find any that are actually “in favor of partial-birth abortions” (or any other type of abortion, for that matter).”

For a legislator to vote against a law that would make vacuuming the brains out of viable fetuses (or chopping them up in-utero) illegal, it’s hard not to conclude that they are in favor of that activity. By not voting to ban it, they give it tacit approval.

It’s pretty much the job of a legislature, to decide to enact, or not enact laws that uphold our societal standards.

Partial birth abortion was not something that was envisioned by the Supreme Court or legislators back in the 1960′s and 1970′s. That is a more recent development.

One of the jobs or purposes of legislators is to create new laws or adjust existing laws so that they cover new circumstances that develop.

Nick, #47: A good example of lawyerly misdirection there. No one described or even hinted that your comment about Bush was anti-mormon. And you’ve previously self-identified as ex-mo.

Howard, I guess it’s that “things that are wrong in one circumstance can be and often are right in another.” God understands life so much better than we do and there have to be times when abortion—completely aside from rape and incest—-is the right thing to do.

Bookslinger, very well then, I contradict myself.

It’s the exceptions that I think would allow for choice, allowing the woman and the doctor to determine the issue of danger to mother. It’s the “escape clause.”

As usual, your comments are wise and right on.

Howard,

Nobody is stating that having an abortion is Christ-like, but it might be that allowing women to choose for themselves is Christ-like. Personally I think we should combat abortion through preaching, effective sex education, and promotion of adoption as an alternative. I think that is what Jesus would do. You are free to think differently.

Layne,

Sad experience proves you wrong, but it is always good to dream.

Howard,

In general, most people, Jesus included, opt to not have an abortion.

Just because some numbers of the male population are less than stellar examples does not mean you should treat them all the same. Those men deserve a chance to have a say. Not an outright veto, but some kind of say. Otherwise, that “doofus” might well argue that since he has no responsibility for the life or death of the fetus, then he doesn’t owe any kind of child support, either.

Equal rights means equal responsibility, people. It takes two to tango. I believe most people would agree that no one person should bear all the responsibility for the consequences of the dance.

Agency insures choice. But choice may involve repentance and penalty.

Annegb:

How do you relate or correllate your view on freedom-to-choose and agency in regards to other moral things that are against the law in this country, such as narcotic drug use and prostitution? Those are moral issues, and generally don’t directly involve hurting anyone else.

For instance, prostitution isn’t much different than two people (married or not) meeting at a bar and going to a motel without the exchange of money. And if neither party is married, and both are consenting, it generally doesn’t hurt others. So why does the exchange of money make having sex illegal, whereas doing it for free isn’t illegal?

Buying state-sponsored lottery tickets at the store is legal. But going to a privately-run “pea shake” or “numbers” operation is illegal. Same form of gambling, just that one is licensed by the state, and the other is not. (I’m against state-run gambling, by the way. Because what lotteries have done is tacitly declare that gambling isn’t immoral any more, it’s just “unlicensed” when someone beside the state does it.)

Getting drunk with alchohol in the privacy of your home is legal. Getting high on marijuana is not.

How about the right to drive on the wrong side of the road, or to drive 100 miles per hour? If no one else is on the road at the time, and no one gets hurt, what’s the problem?

The point is that we make all sorts of non-hurtful behavior illegal. We deny people the freedom of choice in those areas. (Well, technically, they could do it until they get caught, that is. Most of it is not “prevented” beforehand in a literal sense.)

Personally, I think the genie is out of the bottle. I don’t think it’s possible or wise to overturn Roe v Wade or criminalize all abortion (even with rape/incest/life of the mother exceptions). What I do hope for is tighter restrictions on abortion.

I’m for waiting periods, parental notification, banning late term abortions (but with the 3 standard exceptions), and banning the active killing of a 3rd trimester fetus when it must be removed for the sake of the health of the mother.

Is it wrong for men to comment and opine like this? Or should this be something only women should decide? Should there be a national referendum on it where only women can vote?

Dear Friends,

I am a 51 year old mother of 3 and grandmother of 2. I am also a returned Lady missionary. Please be aware that the Republican Party is not authentically pro-life. George W. Bush has one of the worst records in recent political history on children’s welfare, children’s healthcare, and prenatal care and maternal health.

Whether it be being opposed to the increase in minimum wage (mothers with young children are the #1 group living below poverty) or proudly vetoing the bill to extend health coverage to more poor children, Bush is a failure. Under Bush’s watch, child mortality is up, child poverty has increased, more children suffer from hunger, more children lack basic health insurance, more are homeless and the number of abortions have actually increased in many states.

Under Bill Clinton, the eight years he was in offer, abortion decreased by one-third. Statistics has held steady at about 24 abortions per 1000 women years, women ages 15-44. Bill Clinton went to work immediately to make abortion (as he promised, legal, safe and RARE|). Each year Clinton was in office, child poverty decreased, more young children had health insurance, less went hungry and abortion went down to 16 abortions per 1000 women years, women ages 15-44. The election of George W. Bush reversed this promising trend.

Please, dear voters. DON’T BE IGNORANT. Get the FACTS. All politicians who want the conservative vote will say they are pro-life. Ask what they will do to help women in poverty. Ask how they will educate women and make reproductive and prenatal healthcare affordable. ASK HOW THEY WILL HELP POOR PARENTS PAY FOR DAYCARE, PRESCHOOL EDUCATION, AND HEALTHCARE.

By their fruits you shall know them. Democrats beat Republicans by miles and miles. John F. Kennedy sponsored the eradication of the small pox virus. Other Democrats worked to eradicate polio in the Western Hemisphere. Democrats have given us far better packages for womens reproductive health, funding women’s clinics nationwide. Democrats brought us the “Family Leave Act”, increases in minimum wage, decreases in childhood poverty, better daycare and preschool affordability and much, much better child consumer product safety.

VOTE WITH YOUR BRAIN, NOT WITH YOUR HEART.

Sincerely,

Melinda Wallace