it's been 30 years

[speedracer]

Abortion is about a woman's right to privacy *and* the philosophical question of whether an embryo is human *and* the moral judgment of which side wins.

Personally I think that the embryo is a human life, or very possibly is, and that this possibility dictates that abortions be performed only in the most exceptional cases. Obviously a lot of people disagree.

In my opinion, the Supreme Court overstepped its authority in writing the Roe v. Wade opinion. It did not interpret the law, it wrote law. It effectively declared that the value of the embryo was such that it could be aborted for any reason during the first trimester, but perhaps not in later trimesters. The Supreme Court tried to make it look like it wasn't making arbitrary philosophical and moral judgments by framing its decision in terms of "the state's interest in protecting human life," but it was in fact making these arbitrary judgments.

The judgments mentioned above should not be made by the Court, but by the people (i.e. the individual states). The only way there should be a national judgment on abortion is if passes through Constitutional means, i.e. if three-fourths of the states of the Union decide to write an amendment on the issue. And if 38 states vote in favor of a Constitutional amendment making abortion legal nationwide, so be it.

 

[nbcrusader]

Okey, I guess I have misread something. sorry, English is not my mother?s tongue.

No apology necessary. I appreciate the exchange of ideas. FYM is an excellent mental workout at times.

 

[bonosloveslave]

bonosloveslave: did you mean that as an argument? Start to think again, before you type, please. You?re not only throwing Hitler, slavery and abortion in the same category of crimes...

but also implying that abortion has the negative effect of keeping horrible crimes like incest and rape a secret.

I don?t think that keeping it a secret has to do with abortion, but with the evil ill mind of the raper and the child molester, and with the fear of the raped woman/ molested child.

Or are you trying to say that your potential thirteen year old daughter should "carry out" (sorry no dictionary) her pregnancy from a rape because you value the life of the baby?

Sorry if you think I'm spouting these arguments off the top of my head. I have mulled over these comparisons for quite some time, and it scares me that people *do not* see how similar they are. Sadly, history so often repeats itself and we do not learn from our mistakes.

Again - with the rape/incest issue - it is a very rare occurence that this is the reason that a woman seeks an abortion. Again, these are violent acts that people somehow think will be lessened with a second violent act. The cases I have looked at re. incest is that those girls that continue the pregnancy are finally able to break free of the torture of their male relative because now mom knows, people see a young girl pregnant and realize there must be something terribly wrong. I don't necessarily think these girls should keep those babies, and there are plenty of open arms willing to take it. If they do get an abortion it is almost always their father, brother, uncle taking them to get that abortion so that no one will find out and the cycle continues.

 

[melon]

The judgments mentioned above should not be made by the Court, but by the people (i.e. the individual states). The only way there should be a national judgment on abortion is if passes through Constitutional means, i.e. if three-fourths of the states of the Union decide to write an amendment on the issue. And if 38 states vote in favor of a Constitutional amendment making abortion legal nationwide, so be it.

Most people are pro-choice statistically. If we went by the popular vote, abortion would remain legal.

But should all issues boil down to popular sentiment? If it were up to popular sentiment in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, black people would likely have remained marginalized. Just because it is the popular sentiment, does it make their will right?

(I ponder this question, as I see homophobic legislation and state amendments passed every year in several states.)

Melon

 

[martha]

The argument in favor of abortion is that the woman is a victim of the pregnancy and that denying her the ability to kill the unborn child is a form of indentured servitude.

Ok. I see where you've gotten the "victimization" thing now.

But I totally reject it. Completely. Abortion rights are about women having physical, emotional, and economic control of their bodies, making the decisions that are theirs alone, without interference from any other person or entity. No one else has the right to decide whether I remain pregnant, get pregnant, or stop a pregnancy before it starts. Only I make that decision. If you think you would make a different decision, you live in a country that allows you that right. I live here, too. My body is not controlled by you.

 

[pax]

RU486 should become easier to find. It provides a quick solution to a POSSIBLE pregnancy.

Are you sure about this? Even proponents of RU486 point out that it is not a quick fix. The process takes several days from what I understand, and although it gives the woman the option to abort privately and non-surgically, it still has the same result as a surgical abortion. Also, RU486 is an abortifacient, *not* the so-called "morning after pill." It can only be used if it is confirmed that the woman is actually pregnant. I think you may have your facts a bit confused.

 

[Danospano]

My thoughts on the issue:

The government should not control what women OR men do to their bodies. However, we can agree that another human creation is given no rights in the matter. I happen to think that abortion is the act of killing another human. All people realize this, but the value of life and sustaining our current way of living make people greedy and selfish.

Yes, it is government sponsored genocide, but I wonder why more Americans aren't protesting the ruthless killings of Iraqi women. men and children due to unethical sanctions. That's another subject, but I think it shoots a hole in those who argue that the government shouldn't support the taking of innocent human life. It's doesn't make sense to protest one and never mention the other.

Last point: Let's say we make abortion illegal. What will happen. Let's think realistically. There will be an extra...what 50,000 children in the country? I don't know how many abortions are performed per year, but either way that adds up to a lot of hungry mouths. There will be more people and the same number of jobs.....therefore the future generations will have higher unemployment. All those new people may be abandoned in orphanages (let's face it: most of them will be), and taxes will be raised to support all these unwanted (more or less) people.

My solution: Since we don't know God's plan. He hasn't told us personally for all I know. We should set a global limit on number of children per marriage. IF you can afford to have 20 kids, you should have the right, but if you can't even afford to support yourself you shouldn't be allowed to have children. In our political system there should be regulations on how many children a couple can have...otherwise the entire world is going to get so incrediblly overpopulated that it will be a LIVING HELL>

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

There will be an extra...what 50,000 children in the country?

i'm not sure that number is totally accurate. i too don't know the actual statistics, but i'm sure some of that is when a woman has multiple abortions in a year. essentially, she wouldn't have gotten the other abortions had she carried the first pregnancy to full term.

while i am pro-choice, i can't understand why women who have an abortion continue to be so careless. to me it would be a wake up call, telling me i need to be more careful.

anyway, i thought i should also state my opinion on whether the fetus is a human, citizen, whatever. i didn't say it in the other thread and didn't think it applied since it hadn't been discussed as much as it is here.

i think after three months, the fetus starts to become a human. for all intents and purposes, a three month old fetus is a human, we'll say that. after three months, i don't think any woman should have an abortion. if you couldn't make up your mind in that much time, it's too late. the worst is over. but as long as the fetus is inside of me, it's the property of me. no one else. it's not the government's or anyone else's. it's 50% mine, and 50% the father's.

therefore, i wouldn't appreciate having the government telling me what i could do with my fetus. it's a citizen of the country of me, and no one else. it has no social security number, no birth certificate, nothing.

 

[nbcrusader]

Ok. I see where you've gotten the "victimization" thing now.

But I totally reject it. Completely. Abortion rights are about women having physical, emotional, and economic control of their bodies, making the decisions that are theirs alone, without interference from any other person or entity. No one else has the right to decide whether I remain pregnant, get pregnant, or stop a pregnancy before it starts. Only I make that decision. If you think you would make a different decision, you live in a country that allows you that right. I live here, too. My body is not controlled by you.

Okay, so if you determine that another life adversely affects your physical, emotional or economic state of being, you can kill it.

 

[martha]

another life

If this is what you believe, you can think that. Once again, since you believe this is true, please do not assume that I do. If you believe this, and project your beliefs onto me, then you have imposed your beliefs on me. If you'd like to call this "victimization," then do so. Fortunately, we both live in a country where we are free to believe what we like. Even more fortunately, we both live in a state which has a constitution that guarantees that each of us has a right to privacy. I can't have any say in what you believe, and you can't have a say in what I do in my doctor's office to my own body.

 

[martha]

We should set a global limit on number of children per marriage. IF you can afford to have 20 kids, you should have the right, but if you can't even afford to support yourself you shouldn't be allowed to have children. In our political system there should be regulations on how many children a couple can have.

How did China do with your plan? Have you asked Chinese women about this?

It didn't work in India because the gender targeted for forced sterilization was men.

 

[hiphop]

Sorry if you think I'm spouting these arguments off the top of my head. I have mulled over these comparisons for quite some time, and it scares me that people *do not* see how similar they are. Sadly, history so often repeats itself and we do not learn from our mistakes.

Again - with the rape/incest issue - it is a very rare occurence that this is the reason that a woman seeks an abortion. Again, these are violent acts that people somehow think will be lessened with a second violent act. The cases I have looked at re. incest is that those girls that continue the pregnancy are finally able to break free of the torture of their male relative because now mom knows, people see a young girl pregnant and realize there must be something terribly wrong. I don't necessarily think these girls should keep those babies, and there are plenty of open arms willing to take it. If they do get an abortion it is almost always their father, brother, uncle taking them to get that abortion so that no one will find out and the cycle continues.

Ok, good arguments for the rape/ incest issue.

But still, I can?t understand how you can compare the decision of Hitler to send 6 millions of Jews (or others) into a concentraion camp, to put gas douches on,... I will not continue with that; anyway I don?t understand how you can compare this crime to an abortion. No way.

Have you been to Europe? If you go, please visit a concentration camp/ museum. There are still a very few survivors who will tell you stories like they got treated with a whip when they were not working fast enough, then in the evening they were sleeping on the cold floor, and the blood on their back was freezing onto the floor, so the next morning they had to be ripped off the floor in order to go to work again.

Have you seen the great, four hour long, film by Steven Spielberg? It gives you only a glimpse of what was going on.

I think, as cruel as an abortion may be, it can?t be equalled with the crimes that were committed to those who "lived" and were burned alive in concentration camps. This was one of the worst crimes in history, Beth.

Maybe abortion is killing, and maybe it is very cruel - but you can?t put those two in the same row.

 

[nbcrusader]

If this is what you believe, you can think that. Once again, since you believe this is true, please do not assume that I do. If you believe this, and project your beliefs onto me, then you have imposed your beliefs on me. If you'd like to call this "victimization," then do so. Fortunately, we both live in a country where we are free to believe what we like. Even more fortunately, we both live in a state which has a constitution that guarantees that each of us has a right to privacy. I can't have any say in what you believe, and you can't have a say in what I do in my doctor's office to my own body.

Okay. As always, it comes down to two questions:

1. "What is a human life?"

2. "Who gets to decide?"

And in dealing with these questions, why should anyone prevent a parent from killing a 3-year old?




On a separate note, I realize this subject can lead to very intense debate with great passions on both sides. No one has changed their position completely by these debates, but, hopefully, we all think a little more about the ideals and beliefs we hold.

Thank you all.

 

[YellowKite]

An interesting sidenote I heard on the radio recently: PETA is willing to pay a quarter of a million dollars to those who will use human embryos/fetuses to use scientifically for testing, rather than on ANIMALS.

HOW DID WE GET SO UPSIDE DOWN IN OUR VALUES? [/B]

Actually - I personally think that our treatment of animals illustrates how inhumane humans can be. Since even our closest genetic relations do not have the same reactions as we do, I find it appalling that we can continue to allow companies to 'practice' on animals as if they were expendable and without feeling. Anybody here have pets? Then you know that animals form relationships and feel emotions and pain.

As Ghandi said, ?"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

I personally could never have an abortion, but I also feel like I could never make that choice for anyone else. I think that anyone who feels some right to make a choice for someone else is seriously misguided. If you do not want to be involved in a decision regarding abortion, then do exactly what Disco suggested - abstinence is the only fail proof method. For men - if you have sex and use a condom, then you have already made your decision. The rest of the process falls on the woman.

If true progress is to be made in medicine and abortions are going to happen, then why not have some good come out of it? I hardly think that woman are going to run around getting pregnant, just so they can have an abortion, just so they can produce human cells for testing.

As far as genetic manipulation and cloning goes ? a natural process of evolution is the only way we can be sure that the strongest and fittest survive. In nature you will find that what is pretty is deadly and what is nice is usually weak.

Whatever supreme being you may subscribe to - the only thing you can count on is that we have free will and we have to excercise it with care.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei

 

[martha]

Ok, good arguments for the rape/ incest issue.

No, it really isn't. Destroying the village in order to save it shouldn't be applied to this situation. Does the girl have no say at all in what happens to her. Using the thought that the perpetrator may misuse the procedure doesn't mean that the choice should be taken away from the girl who is forced to carry the child.

Whenhiphop...I know this wasn't your arguement.

 

[hiphop]

No, martha, it wasn?t, but I?m getting tired of that thread.

Everybody knows my opinion and can reread it - especially in the other thread about the same topic - I don?t want to do ten hours of statistic research, another ten hours of posting here, I?m not going to waste my time.

The important thing is not when a child starts to live or how we interprete around what is and what isn?t in our opinion, the important thing is that the mother is the one who is in closest contact with the fetus and therefore has the right to make the decision she makes.

To transfer that right to the state is not fair. And as I pointed out, state?s laws can change easily, especially with the upcoming cloning, probably fooling around with the baby?s DNS, etc. This is what leads us to a brave new world, not the decision of the mother who naturally, in most cases, loves the fetus, even if she is going to abort.

I would like to note again that the "pro-life" demonstrations I heard about are held in front of clinics, where women who enter there to make an abortion get yelled and spit at, and are called murders. This is totally without class and without any respect. I think the decision is not easy most of the times.

And final note, to compare it with slavery is ridiculous too. A fetus, most of the time, is created out of making love. A relation between slave owner and slave never was created out of love. To compare the process of an abortion - also if it may be cruel and killing - to slavery, is de-humanizing in itself.

I?m outta here. Have fun, y?all.

 

[martha]

And in dealing with these questions, why should anyone prevent a parent from killing a 3-year old?

Excellent dodge and nice hotpoint! You guys really know how to avoid the issue of whether or not a woman can decide what happens with her body! Bring up child murder! Equate them!


I'm with whenhiphop...

I'm gone to go celebrate my rights as a living, breathing woman!

 

[nbcrusader]

Excellent dodge and nice hotpoint! You guys really know how to avoid the issue of whether or not a woman can decide what happens with her body! Bring up child murder! Equate them!


I'm with whenhiphop...

I'm gone to go celebrate my rights as a living, breathing woman!

No ne is disputing an individual's right to decide what happens to their body. The dodge is that the other life involved is ignored. Abortion affects at least two people.

 

[Blacksword]

The humanity of the fetus does matter. No one has the right to decide wether another huma deserves to live or die. Just because you are amother doesn't give you the right to decide if the human who is inside you lives or dies. Its not about control over a woman's body. A fetus is not part of a woman's body. It has its own genetic code which makes it not any part of the woman. This is a case of control of one human by another human. Once a life has been conceived it is inviolate for all but the most extreme circumstaces (such as the pregnacy being a threat to the mother's life). I accept there is quite abit or moral grey area around the issue of rape/incest but i do not believe that abortion is not the best or only solution to a rape induced pregnancy. A messy area but not teh majority of abortion cases and as such should be dealt with sperately.

It is unfortunate that many women see pregnancy as only a burden or atleast primarily as one, and this unfortunately is a product of societal attitudes in most cases perpetuated by men. Yes pregancy is not all smiles and happiness and in the later stages it places severe limitations on a woman but it is (from what I've been told) also a joyus occasion and creates a bond which we as men are not a part of. There are plusses and minuses. Women do have a burden in the creation of human life but it is also a gift. Wether the gift outweighs the burden I'll never know, but I would like to think the balance could be positive if societal attudes toward women were made better and that more care over how pregnacy affects a woman's life be given. A woman should not have her career hurt becuase she has a pregnacy. That is society's fault not the pregnancy. Many changes need to be made but this need for changes does not make abortions okay. Just becuase society makes a pregnancy and motherhood a burden doean't mean it is okay to terminate a life to ease it.

Women wouldn't be talking about control over their body over pregnancy if there were no constraining side effects. If babies popped out with no physical cost to the woman the control over the body issue would be mute. The control over the body statement to my interpretation is more about a woman's ability to control her life. Society exacts heavy indemnities from a woman when she has a baby and this is wrong. We need to change society so there are no indemnities to the woman except the physical discomforts. They are there but I don't think physical discforts no matter how severe (I know I'll never know the full pain of it but if I imagine getting kicked in the crotch continuously for an hour I think I might be getting close) are not justifiable cause for the killing of a human being.

Now I am not saying to women enjoy your gift of pregnancy and quit whining. Please don't think that is what I mean. Rather I am saying that this is not just a biological issue it is also a societal one. If the social penatlies of motherhood were removed and only the physical discomfort and limitations of being pregnant remained would you say those were enough to end a human life?

 

[bonosloveslave]

A fetus is not part of a woman's body. It has its own genetic code which makes it not any part of the woman. This is a case of control of one human by another human.

Precisely. And for those who say it is the woman's body, how do you explain a woman having a penis for 9 months?

 

[anitram]

The humanity of the fetus does matter. No one has the right to decide wether another huma deserves to live or die.

Well, isn't a large part of the debate centred on the discussion whether or not a fetus is actually a human being as such? Perhaps you think it is human from conception, but many others do not, so it certainly seems like the "humanity" of the fetus matters.

 

[bonosloveslave]

Why don't people weigh in on their definition of human? I know nbc didn't want to play the semantics game (neither do I really) but I'm interested to know how people define 'human'.

 

[Danospano]

What is humanity? I think humanity is anything that resembles a human. A fetus is a human-to-be, but not quite human. It doesn't look like a human, it doesn't act like a human, and it doesn't walk like a human. In my book that isn't a human.

I have a slight problem with abortion, because it's greedy and selfish. However, while a fetus may inhibit the soul or the spirit of someone it could probably care less about dying. I mean really! Think about the typical day of a fetus: constant bathes in warm, icky goo, no one to talk to, limited space to move your legs. It sounds like hell! And if that's all the fetus knows, why wouldn't they embrace death's sweet embrace? I'm sure that this God everyone is speaking of would understand their circumstance and would cut them some slack in getting through the front door of heaven. Don't ya think?

In fact, you might say we're doing those little tikes a favor by giving them a free pass from living in this hell-hole we call Earth. Additionally, those peanut-sized tots won't have to blush embarassingly when their "leader", George Dubya Bush gives another banal State of Union speech. (cough). ---Don't get me started!------

Okay, I'm joking......or am I?

 

[pax]

Completely unamusing. Please don't hijack threads like that.

 

[bonosloveslave]

But still, I can?t understand how you can compare the decision of Hitler to send 6 millions of Jews (or others) into a concentraion camp, to put gas douches on,... I will not continue with that; anyway I don?t understand how you can compare this crime to an abortion. No way.

Have you been to Europe? If you go, please visit a concentration camp/ museum. There are still a very few survivors who will tell you stories like they got treated with a whip when they were not working fast enough, then in the evening they were sleeping on the cold floor, and the blood on their back was freezing onto the floor, so the next morning they had to be ripped off the floor in order to go to work again.

Have you seen the great, four hour long, film by Steven Spielberg? It gives you only a glimpse of what was going on.

I think, as cruel as an abortion may be, it can?t be equalled with the crimes that were committed to those who "lived" and were burned alive in concentration camps. This was one of the worst crimes in history, Beth.

Maybe abortion is killing, and maybe it is very cruel - but you can?t put those two in the same row.

Alright, be forewarned: the following is lengthy (I'll be shocked if anyone actually reads this beginning to end), but perhaps it more clearly delineates the parallel I see. The article is by author Gregory Koukl, actually it's a transcipt of a radio talk:

_____________________

I have a piece here that I would like to read to you. It's not ordinary that I read a piece in its entirety, but in this particular case I think it is critical. It's not only a critical issue, but it is said so well and so effectively that I just want to pass on what columnist Mona Charen has written November 9 in a piece that is simply entitled "Harvesting Part for Sale."

If you have not heard anything about this, I suggest that you sit down. If you have younger children around the radio, they don't need to hear this. You're going to have a hard time hearing what I am about to read, to think that this is possible in our country.

Oftentimes we talk about casual slippery slopes and how one thing leads to another. I have talked and written in the past about moral velocitizing, the idea that when you take another step in moral decay for a few months or years it seems radical because it is such a change from what things have been like. Then we get used to it and it seems like normal. It's like when you go out on the freeway and you accelerate to 60 mph. You're moving pretty good until you get used to 60 mph and then it just seems like it's not fast enough. Then you accelerate to 80 mph and that's fast until you get used to it, and then it is just regular and you need to accelerate even faster. So you go faster, and faster, and faster at deadly speeds. It seems like you're safe.

Morally, we have become velocitized because every time we take another step for just a few moments we feel uncomfortable. Then we get used to it and it is ordinary. As Frances Shaeffer has said, "What is unthinkable yesterday is thinkable today, and ordinary and commonplace tomorrow."

We are witnessing a moral velocitizing in our culture. We have been witnessing it for some time. I have argued that one of the things that has contributed to this is the increasing death of humanness. The idea of being a human being is not something that makes one valuable or worthwhile in itself. We have been chipping away at the essential, inherent value of human beings, and we have been doing it with abortion, infanticide, doctor-assisted suicide. All of these things have chipped away.

In fact, twenty years ago when Dr. Frances Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop produced material that basically asked, What has happened to the human race, they warned that it would come to this. Everybody thought these people were like Chicken Little crying about the world coming to an end. But their sober warnings have come to pass as little by little we can see human dignity being chipped away, such that the unique value of humanness is dying.

And so, in 1973 when men of the Supreme Court consigned 1.3 million unborn human beings to the grave every year through the Roe v. Wade decision, it set aggressively in course a way of thinking about humanity that says, There is a life that is not worthy to be lived."

This, by the way, was a motto of the Third Reich. A few years back, I wrote a piece called "Nazi Doctors" and I talked about having read the book by Robert J. Lifton by the same title. He asked himself the question, How is it that a culture could have come to this point and had doctors committed to caring for life and saving lives actually participate in one of the greatest killing machines the world has ever seen? A part of the answer was in the first 90 pages of the book, which is all that I read. I didn't read the whole psychoanalytic position that he espoused and developed about how doctors get schizophrenic.

I read the first 90 pages that was really the sociological effort of the Nazi regime to encourage people to find this whole approach palatable. Ergo the slogan, there is a life that's not worthy of being lived. This is the pro-choice position, actually, in many ways. And we see the same thing happening now.

But you know when I use the term Nazi here, many people are offended because it is easy to conjure up the image of the Third Reich, this malevolent image, to kind of color your argument. All you have to do is cry "Nazi" and people will immediately be influenced in your favor because of this powerful term.

Some have argued whenever anyone cries "Nazi" this is a good reason to reject their whole point of view because nothing could really compare. Nothing in our country could be properly characterized by that kind of comparison. Well, I don't know. You be the judge. I've been to Auschwitz. I've been to Majdanek. I've been to some of these camps where you see blankets made of human hair, the lampshades made of human skin, and the piles of teeth that have been busted out for the gold that was in them, where human beings became a cash crop. I've seen it.

That is all a backdrop to what I am about to read to you, published here in the Daily News in Southern California, Thursday, November 11, 1999, by Mona Charen. She is a syndicated columnist with the Creators Syndicate and therefore, her piece is read nationwide. You might have read it in another publication. But let me just read it.

"Kelly" (a pseudonym) was a medical technician working for a firm that trafficked in baby body parts. This is not a bad joke. Nor is it the hysterical propaganda of an interest group. It was reported in the American Enterprise magazine?the intelligent, thought-provoking, and utterly trustworthy publication of the American Enterprise Institute.

The firm Kelly worked for collected fetuses from clinics that performed late-term abortions. She would dissect the aborted fetuses in order to obtain 'high-quality" parts for sale. They were interested in blood, eyes, livers, brains, and the thymuses, among other things.

"What we did was to have a contract with an abortion clinic that would allow us to go there on certain days. We would get a generated list each day to tell us what tissue researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and universities were looking for. Then we would examine the patient charts. We only wanted the most perfect specimens.' That didn't turn out to be difficult. Of the hundreds of late-term fetuses Kelly saw on a weekly basis, only about 2 percent had abnormalities. About 30 to 40 babies per week were around 30 weeks old?well past the point of viability.

Is this legal? Federal law makes it illegal to buy and sell human body parts. But there are loopholes in the law. Here's how one body parts company?Opening Lines Inc.?disguised the trade in a brochure for abortionists: "Turn your patient's decision into something wonderful."

For its buyers, Opening Lines offers "the highest quality, most affordable, freshest tissue prepared to your specifications and delivered in the quantities you need, when you need it." Eyes and ears go for $75, and brains for $999. An "intact trunk" fetches $500, a whole liver $150. To evade the law's prohibition, body-parts dealers like Opening Lines offer to lease space in the abortion clinic to "perform the harvesting," as well as to "offset the clinic's overhead." Opening Lines further boasted, "Our daily average case volume exceeds 1,500 and we serve clinics across the United States."

Kelly kept at her grisly task until something made her reconsider. One day, "a set of twins at 24 weeks gestation was brought to us in a pan. They were both alive. The doctor came back and said, 'Got you some good specimens?twins.' I looked at him and said: 'There's something wrong here. They are moving. I can't do this. This is not in my contract.' I told him I would not be part of taking their lives. So he took a bottle of sterile water and poured it in the pan until the fluid came up over their mouths and noses, letting them drown. I left the room because I could not watch this."

But she did go back and dissect them later. The twins were only the beginning. "It happened again and again. At 16 weeks, all the way up to sometimes even 30 weeks, we had live births come back to us. Then the doctor would either break the neck or take a pair of tongs and beat the fetus until it was dead."

American Enterprise asked Kelly if abortion procedures were ever altered to provide specific body parts. "Yes. Before the procedures they would want to see the list of what we wanted to procure. The (abortionist) would get us the most complete intact specimens that he could. They would be delivered to us completely intact. Sometimes the fetus appeared to be dead, but when we opened up the chest cavity, the heart was still beating."

The magazine pressed Kelly again. Was the type of abortion ever altered to provide an intact specimen, even if it meant producing a live baby? "Yes, that was so we could sell better tissue. At the end of the year, they would give the clinic back more money because we got good specimens."

Some practical souls will probably swallow hard and insist that, well, if these babies are going to be aborted anyway, isn't it better that medical research should benefit? No. This isn't like voluntary organ donation. This reduces human beings to the level of commodities. And it creates of doctors who swore an oath never to kill, the kind of people who can beat a breathing child to death with tongs.

That is the end of the article.

This ghastly practice is getting more press. One wonders why it isn't on the front page of every newspaper in this country. There is a massive industry for human body parts coming from unborn children whose lives are being taken, sometimes after they are delivered, so that we can have "the highest quality, most affordable, freshest tissue prepared to your specifications and delivered in the quantities you need, when you need it."

This kind of news absolutely boggles the imagination.

As I mentioned earlier, when you raise the issue of Nazi Germany, people scoff. That's just inflammatory rhetoric.

Well, how would you describe this?

Let's forget about Nazi Germany for just a moment. Let's just look at what we have come to. Again, it's hard to know how to respond because if people can read this and say, Well, I don't know what the problem is, then I don't know what to say to them. If this is not obviously barbaric, I don't know what to say. If you can't see it for yourself, then I say that you are desperately morally velocitized and the spirit of the age has overtaken you.

Sometimes there is what can be called "unbelievable unbelief." You know, in John 11 when Lazarus was raised from the dead, and those who were aware of the resurrection of Lazarus were so incensed at the powerful miracle that was done that was good evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, as He claimed, that they purposed to destroy Lazarus, as well as Jesus. They would kill Jesus, he was the troublemaker. But the problem was the proof was still walking around?Lazarus. They'd have to kill him too.

It's kind of wild. You think, Wake up, folks! You only want to kill this man because he is proof against your view. But they didn't get it. Sometimes people are so rebellious against authority that they can't see what is so obvious.

Matt Drudge recently lost his job on the Fox News Channel. As I understand it, the reason was that he had footage he wanted to show on the air that was about a quite amazing medical procedure. It was a procedure that allowed doctors to rectify pre-natal problems by doing surgery on the unborn before it was delivered. They could actually go in and do spina bifida surgery to rectify this problem. To be more precise, they didn't exactly go in, they brought the baby out. That is, they incised the mother's abdomen and moved her uterus out in a sense onto her belly, opened her uterus just enough to do the surgery, did the microsurgery on the little developing child inside, repaired the problem, sewed up the uterus, replaced it inside the woman, stitched her up, and then she continued with a normal pregnancy.

That is pretty amazing. What a story!

But you see, it is not just a story about technology, is it? It is also a story about little precious unborn human persons. There is also a problem with showing this on T.V. because it gives a much more graphic window into the womb. But there's more in this particular case because, not only was this a remarkable medical feat that obviously and visibly bore testimony to the humanity of the unborn, but in the course of these films being taken, that little baby that was being operated on while it was being filmed, reached up its little hand, and took hold of the finger of the surgeon. That was on film. Don't you wish you could have seen that?

Well, you can't because it won't be aired.

The powers that be on that station told Matt Drudge he could not air that segment. Why not? It is a case that they never show gore on T.V.? It is the case they never show medical procedures on T.V.?

It is because in this particular medical procedure there was a powerful, factual, and emotionally compelling representation of the true and genuine humanity of the unborn, such that anyone watching it would realize that abortion destroys a precious unborn human person.

They wouldn't let him show it. He was so incensed he walked off the set and, having walked off the set and not completing his show, he was in violation of his contract and so they fired him.

That's unbelievable unbelief. You know why? Because those very people could see that very hand reach out of that mom and grab the finger of the surgeon. That little life, that little human person grabbing hold. It should have been obvious to them, as much as it would be obvious to anyone else watching, that there was a human being in there. But they didn't want anybody else to see it. They just wanted it to be shut down so that abortion could go on.

Unbelievable unbelief.

I have the same feeling here about the harvesting of body parts at abortion clinics. There are some people who will read this and say, It doesn't bother me, man. It's okay. We're killing them anyway. What's the big deal? Might as well make some use out of it.

These folks would have fit in well at the killing camps peddling lampshades of human skin and blankets made of human hair.

_______________

Sidenote: I don't know if that surgery was ever eventually broadcast, but that picture with the baby's hand around the surgeon's finger was run in many major magazines that year (2001, I believe) - it's breathtaking.

 

[Blacksword]

Well I read the whole thing. I believe every word of it. I'd actually heard about that operation where the fetus grabbed the physican's finger elsewhere. Everything is about money. I mean what else can you expect from a medical sysytem where you don't get operated on if you don't have insurance, not matter how badly you need it. It's the rule of capitalism, if there's a market, product will be delivered.

 

[nbcrusader]

Why don't people weigh in on their definition of human? I know nbc didn't want to play the semantics game (neither do I really) but I'm interested to know how people define 'human'.

"Choice" is easier to talk about than "murder".

 

[Angela Harlem]

Viability is something that article touched on and I was hoping someone would raise before now. It sure seems more like killing a human being at that age doesn't it? It ends the argument at that age that the fetus cannot live without the mother before it is born. I dont think I'd even call it a fetus at that age. Its a little tiny baby that has a chance, if we give it.

 

[hiphop]

About 30 to 40 babies per week were around 30 weeks old?well past the point of viability.

Is this legal? Federal law makes it illegal to buy and sell human body parts. But there are loopholes in the law. Here's how one body parts company?Opening Lines Inc.?disguised the trade in a brochure for abortionists: "Turn your patient's decision into something wonderful."

For its buyers, Opening Lines offers "the highest quality, most affordable, freshest tissue prepared to your specifications and delivered in the quantities you need, when you need it." Eyes and ears go for $75, and brains for $999. An "intact trunk" fetches $500, a whole liver $150. To evade the law's prohibition, body-parts dealers like Opening Lines offer to lease space in the abortion clinic to "perform the harvesting," as well as to "offset the clinic's overhead." Opening Lines further boasted, "Our daily average case volume exceeds 1,500 and we serve clinics across the United States."

Kelly kept at her grisly task until something made her reconsider. One day, "a set of twins at 24 weeks gestation was brought to us in a pan. They were both alive. The doctor came back and said, 'Got you some good specimens?twins.' I looked at him and said: 'There's something wrong here. They are moving. I can't do this. This is not in my contract.' I told him I would not be part of taking their lives. So he took a bottle of sterile water and poured it in the pan until the fluid came up over their mouths and noses, letting them drown. I left the room because I could not watch this."

But she did go back and dissect them later. The twins were only the beginning. "It happened again and again. At 16 weeks, all the way up to sometimes even 30 weeks, we had live births come back to us. Then the doctor would either break the neck or take a pair of tongs and beat the fetus until it was dead."

American Enterprise asked Kelly if abortion procedures were ever altered to provide specific body parts. "Yes. Before the procedures they would want to see the list of what we wanted to procure. The (abortionist) would get us the most complete intact specimens that he could. They would be delivered to us completely intact. Sometimes the fetus appeared to be dead, but when we opened up the chest cavity, the heart was still beating."

The magazine pressed Kelly again. Was the type of abortion ever altered to provide an intact specimen, even if it meant producing a live baby? "Yes, that was so we could sell better tissue. At the end of the year, they would give the clinic back more money because we got good specimens."

Didn?t know that was possible in our world.

Thank you for your information, bonosloveslave.

There is no sense in asking for statistics how often this happened with the 1.3 (?) millions of abortions every year. Its the principle that counts, that sth. like that can happen.

So, actually, you want to know my opinion, I guess... I don?t know what to think anymore. I?m still pro-choice, in the sense that the mother has to decide, but look at that case, the doctors decide what happens to living human beings here. Thats not killing, like at a "normal" abortion (again, I have to question my set of standards here), thats murder, most brutal murder.

Hope that the company people and the doctors who make business out of that die a horrible, slow death, and if there is a hell...

How is that possible? Are you informed about the actual situation, BLS? Does that still go on? Could sth. like that happen in Europe? If this still goes on, why don?t politicians enable their police/ judges to persecute those who are responsible for those crimes, instead of playing the morality game and laying the fault on the mothers?

And how can it be that there were 30 weeks old babies? The border is 12 weeks here. And how?s it possible that those doctors are in charge? Does the mother know what happens? Does she "allow" it juridically by signing a paper which allows the fetus to be used for research?

The laws in America must be quite fucked up... but who knows, where else in the world...

 

[oliveu2cm]

This, of course, leaves one question unanswered - does an abortion "impose a theology" on the unborn child - a theology that deems the child a "non-life" or that permits the killing of a child.

This was an excellent point. No one answered it so far.

My problem comes that I am a woman and I grow infuriated at the thought of someone telling me what to do with my body. However, I then wonder what gives a person the right to kill an unborn baby? Who will be that baby's voice? And that is why I'm pro-life. It's a human being and b/c it cannot "speak for itself" it is subject to being slaughtered.

Also, how it has been mentioned a person can be charged with manslaughter if they kill an unborn second hand (sorry, i can't remember the scenario I read, I think in the other thread).. the only difference between this person killing the child and the mother killing a child is *want*. Should we base our morality on what we want? I certainly hope not.

Originally posted by hippy
I believe that education is the key to reducing the abortion rate. When women can openly discuss these issues, without being attacked for their curiousity and without being dismissed and denied information, then, and only then, will the abortion rate drop.

Good points Hippy. I've always believed we can't outreach to people by judging & condemning them. Who'd want to hear your side of the story if they are already damned in your eye?