Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Just so you know, I never mentioned sexual orientation. I don't think that that's really part of the pro-choice movement, though certainly many pro-choice people are also for equal rights for everybody. Also, I think a lot of Libertarians would take issue with you calling pro-choice a Libertarian outlook, but since I'm not a Libertarian I shouldn't try to speak for them.

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My bad; I guess I read that into...


Neither am I, so neither should I. I'm pretty hazy on just what Libertarianism is; doesn't it boil down to "laws should be as minimal as possible, and whatever doesn't hurt anyone and is a private consideration should be legal"? Libertarianism and pro-choice are obviously not the same thing--but wouldn't an anti-abortionist Libertarian be kind of a contradiction?

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"Good job, The Cheat! Now try harmonizing with the butternut squashes!" ... "Side effects include wine, women, and song."

Sorry, but could you clarify what that sentence meant? I'm really not sure.



Thats what I was talking about.

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Here's a very interesting article, written by a Christian Ethicist at Fuller Theological Seminary: "Pro-life? Look at the fruits.

It describes how after a 24-year low in abortion rates, and a 17% decline in the 1990s, this administration has seen abortion rates increase (if my math serves me correctly) by 5.15%. In 2002 alone, 52,000 more abortions occurred than would have been projected by the trends of the previous administration.

The author cites three factors, all results of Bush's economic and health care policies, in this new trend:



And in the comments you'll find the fourth factor, that I feel very strongly about: abstinence-only sex education, which not only fails to prevent high-risk teen pregnancy , but also (and this has nothing to do with the abortion debate) alienate -- and, if you ask me, discriminate against -- gay and lesbian youths.

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I like this part.

People who want to prevent abortion need to step up and give HELP, not ANSWERS.

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Kef (the man) said:


That's really strange (not that you being an illegitimate child is weird) it's just that when I first saw you, not only your picture but your writing style it remindes me of how one of my friends (who was a illegitimate child himself) writes, I think it has something to do with how your existance is unexpected that gives you guys a look on life that is unique, and I really admire that.

Enough about that on to the good stuff:

Mr. Jack Chick thinks abortion is wrong but I regard his vote as much as Nader's in the election. But if a woman is raped and impregnated it is almost the first choice because if she keeps the child not only does the kid grow up without a father but what does the mother say when the kid innocently asks "When is daddy coming home?" and personally that breaks my heart, I hate to see little kids cry and that tears me up inside.

In terms of a married couple getting an abortion I'm undecided. I know I'm the king of forgetting things and being irrresponsable but I think that there is no reason that a married couple has to do that, I know that if I am ever involved in a relationship and my partner is a bit short on cash for birth control pills that month I will give her the money without batting an eye, if my way of life costs $50 every now and then I will be happy to do it.

I'm sorry if this post looks a bit muddled, sometimes i have trouble getting my thoughts out straight and this is one of these aforementioned times.

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RIP Nathan "Buz" Buzdor

Sorry, I'm confused again. Is Mr. J. Chick a hypothetical person for an example, or a real person I don't know about?

Please don't draw any conclusions about what I might be saying from this, but I'd like to encourage you to think more about the implications of this paragraph:

So... you prevent their life? Don't get me wrong, there are very big objections to bearing and delivering children conceived by rape, but this is one I'm not really sold on. The implication is that life without a father, or with the knowledge that you were conceived by rape, is not worth living. If this assumption were true, keep in mind that there's always suicide as an option. And that one at least honors the child with a say in it. (Note: this is devil's advocate; I don't think suicide is the answer for anyone. Wait--then there's the issue of "dying with dignity" and Dr. Kevorkian and such. But if we want to get into that we should start another thread.)

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"Good job, The Cheat! Now try harmonizing with the butternut squashes!" ... "Side effects include wine, women, and song."

Jack Chick is an illustrator who writes comic book-style "Chick Tracts" advocating Christianity. His brand of Christianity, at least. He's basically the worst kind of Christian imaginable, on par with Pastor Fred Phelps. His "tracts" are full of hate, bigotry, and xenophobia.

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it's always good to hear a opinion vastly different than your own, even if the other guy is an old raceist(sp?) bible thumper.

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RIP Nathan "Buz" Buzdor

Meh... depends how much of it, and at what volume, you have to hear. The problem with belonging to any large group is that there'll always be somebody to make belonging to it look bad, be it a country, a philosophy, a movement, or a religion. Except for homestarrunner fans; I haven't really seen any shameful rogue homestarrunner fans.
(By the way:
Racism: I take exception to
Being old: I don't
Bible thumping: I'm not real sure of the technical definition, but I think maybe I do it myself!)

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"Good job, The Cheat! Now try harmonizing with the butternut squashes!" ... "Side effects include wine, women, and song."

Actually, having taken developmental psychology classes, I know that the brain is not significantly developed until somewhere between ages 1 and 2, and a mind is completely unable to abstract before age 5. The brain itself is not completely developed synaptically until about 25 years of age.

So, I guess that makes me an advocate of "post-natal abortions," and think we (that is, the mother, or legal guardian, or society) should be allowed to abort anyone under 2 years old for sure, and maybe up to 5.

Now, if you agree with my stand based upon my statement of brain development, then you are permitted to think abortion is OK. If you think anyone who would kill a 2-year-old child is a horrible person, then you need to be against abortion; because if the brain development is not your criterion for humanity, then your criterion for humanity does not allow abortion. Any other stand is hypocritical.

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Woot! I'm 90% there!

Anyway, your argument hinges on claiming that a fetus at two weeks is developmentally equivalent to a child at two years. I'm sure you were aware of the absurdity of that argument when you made it: "If you agree with A then you MUST agree with vaguely-related B." (IIRC, the Conversational Terrorism guide refers to this as "The Salesman's Close" -- don't worry, I'm guilty of half of the offenses therein as well.)

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No, I stand by it in this way: should "the legal right to not be killed" be based on brain development specifically? Your yes or no answer has direct implications that you must not deny unless you purposely want to hold onto a mild psychosis!

If brain development is the criterion, then my cousin who's 40 with severe cerebral palsey should be abortable. I have a friend who was born a month premature, could he have been aborted 2 weeks into life because of his brain development by your morals? A 2-day old is not more advanced in brain deveopment than a candidate for partial birth abortion. Brain development is a continuum. IJ, you must know the danger of putting arbitrary markers on a continuum when those markers have life-and-death consequences!

If brain development is not the criterion, what is? What difference is there between an unborn baby and a neonate? Since I've heard that babies born 4 months prematurely have been recorded to have survived, viability is obviously not the criterion. Is breathing oxygen? As someone who's been in the hospital and had to have oxygen administered through a tube, I hope not!

Advocates of abortion, name your criterion, or risk mild psychosis.

Since I'm in danger of being labeled a pro-lifer, let me say that there is an instance in which I always allow the mother (or family) to decide either way on abortion without consulting the fetus (there: I used the word!). That case is where the mother's life is in danger on account of the pregnancy. If the question is "kill one to save one," versus "let both die," that is a (very hard) real decision... and either selection I will abide by.

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Who said anything about arbitrary markers? Saying "before the third trimester", for example, is hardly arbitrary -- it is based on the fact that before the third trimester a fetus is not viable. Just because we don't have the knowledge to create a marker such as "on day X, hour Y, minute Z abortion is no longer okay" doesn't mean that placing any marker at all is "arbitrary".

We have very similar markers for all sorts of laws, etc. in our society. We say that on day A of Jane's life it's okay for her to have sex with Brad, we say that on day B Suzie can go out and get sloshed, and we say that on day C Jimmy can own and operate a firearm. We know that these markers could mean the difference between life or death, and we have to reconcile that with the fact that in the absence of these laws, if any of those events took place a week before day A, B, or C, the consequences really won't be any more dire than if they had happened a week after. That doesn't mean that those markers are arbitrary or that they're not sensible or don't have any worth at all.

And your argument could easily be applied in reverse. But I'm not about to argue "If you believe that it's okay to use emergency contraception to terminate a pregnancy 48 hours after conception, then you MUST also believe that it's okay 5 months later."

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I'm sorry, I must not have read the thread or the U.S. laws correctly... since in the U.S. it is (unfortunately) legal to do a partial-birth abortion 1 day before a baby is due, despite the fact that the baby is viable. There is no third-trimester law to the best of my knowledge. I wish there was.


For B, that's not life-and-death (directly) any more than a minimum voting age. For C, there is no such law: a 3-year old can own a rifle.


There's a difference between a rite of passage in our culture and legalized abortion. A Bar Mitzvah (forgive my misspelling) is a recognition of manhood, and part of the progression. I can hardly reconcile the right to drink with the right to be allowed to live.


Why not? I would. "Emergency contraception" is a euphemism since it's not contra-ception at all. It comes down to the requirement that someone must define his criteria for legalized termination of life. Is your criterion viability? Because if anyone in the U.S. requires medical help to stay alive and goes into a hospital emergency room, the hospital must by law provide it. For an American individual to disregard someone dying and in need of medical attention (or police intervention) is called "depraved indifference to human life" and is prosecutable. So I conclude that an individual's independant viability is not the law for life in the U.S. in general. And viability is not the abortion law either.

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You are alarmingly confused on this issue.

Firstly, a mantra for you; repeat after me: "there is no such thing as partial-birth abortion". No medical professional has ever performed a partial-birth abortion, nor will one ever, because it is not a medical procedure which exists, it's term fabricated by the pro-life movement. You might be thinking of "intact dilation and extraction", which is an actual medical procedure, but, contrary to what some people would like you to believe, does not directly imply an abortion in the third or even the second trimester.

Secondly, Wikipedia on Roe v. Wade:



If you can find me a state in which an abortion can be legally obtained by any pregnant woman one day before her due date, then I'll check myself into a mental institution.



I haven't mentioned my criterion, nor will I. Nor do I suppose any single criterion like viability or development alone could decide this issue.

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Perhaps. I can only know what I've been told or have read, I can't very easily know things which have been kept secret from me.


The law uses it as a valid term. The media recognizes the term. So, no matter who fabricated the term, or what euphemism it's known by in clinics, there is such a thing. At least it exists more so than global warming. Medical professionals use euphemisms such as bone marrow transplant, which actually means lethal-dose chemotherapy, all the time.


This Report on Abortion Procedures for Congress suggests you should at least begin looking into good funny farms near home.


I'm not asking you to make the law today, or to speak on behalf of physicians everywhere. Will you at least confirm that you have (one or more) criteria? If you have no criteria, I'd like to know! This would be a very different discussion indeed if I had even suspected that!

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There's no medical procedure referred to as partial-birth abortion. The fact that our President signed a bill which uses a fallacious term does not make the term any less fallacious. The fact that the media repeats the term (you'll notice that the article you linked to puts partial-birth in scare-quotes just like me) does not make it any less fallacious.

When George W. Bush signed the pro-life agenda into law with the "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act", he did not ban only abortions in the third trimester. He banned all abortions using a wide range of techniques that are performed at all stages of pregnancy. Not just late-term abortions. Not even chiefly late-term abortions. And he didn't include a provision to protect women whose lives are put in jeopardy by their pregnancy.




I don't know anything about bone marrow transplants, but regardless of what euphemisms doctors do use, "partial-birth abortion" is one they do not use. And the fact that the very term is, as you say, a euphemism (for nothing in particular), shows just how little sense there is in using it as a basis for law. We don't go making laws called "The Prevention of Underage Hanky-Panky Act". Euphemism has no place in law.



Here goes:



Certainly doesn't seem to fit the "any woman" criteria.

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"Non-elective?" Sorry guys, but I really don't have time to read said report right now--but what would that mean? I assume elective means the mother wanted to have the abortion. Would an abortion ever be performed without the mother's request?

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"Good job, The Cheat! Now try harmonizing with the butternut squashes!" ... "Side effects include wine, women, and song."

Generally speaking, an elective procedure is taken for a reason other than to save your life or general well-being, e.g. laser eye surgery, hip replacement, breast enhancement. Most abortions are elective. A non-elective procedure would be one that must be undertaken to save your life or livelihood (e.g. to save your eyesight or remove a brain tumor). Abortions undertaken to save the mother's life or health, or in the case of a child that has no chance of being carried to term, are considered non-elective.

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No, "non-elective" is when an abortion is medically necessary (e.g. the mother is diabetic). Like going to a dentist when you crack a tooth.

"Elective" abortions are where the mother (or often her boyfriend or parent) just chooses to have the abortion, but otherwise could have expected to deliver a healthy baby without uncommon complications. Like getting breast implants. It's still a medical procedure, but it's not necessary.

This is the sad thing, really. There are so many couples who want to have kids, and pay thousands to fertility doctors, and try to adopt, but there's no children for these people who would otherwise be winderful parents... and at the same time a healthy baby who could have been loved and grown up to be someone is instead removed from the population for convenience. I have friends who've had to adopt from Haiti and China because many of the adoptable babies in the U.S. are instead aborted.

When the fetus has a nonfatal medical condition but the mother is healthy (e.g. Down's syndrome, club feet, cleft palette), this falls into the grey area. Pro-lifers consider these elective abotions, the doctor cited in the above article considers them non-elective.

I hope this has cleared up the definition. We don't (yet) have forced abortions in the U.S.

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I wasn't exactly envisioning that; I thought maybe like if it were a life-threatening emergency and the mother were in a coma or something.

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"Good job, The Cheat! Now try harmonizing with the butternut squashes!" ... "Side effects include wine, women, and song."

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Not entirely accurate. While you have a point that the republicans in congress tend to both oppose abortion and cut social programs, that's not the population at large. In fact, go to all of the abortion alternatives in your town, battered women's shelters, and so forth... you'll find that most of those are run by churches or at least religious people, not by the government anyway. The poulation that wants to do away with abortion is the population that already helps young mothers. Those will almost always all be funded by churches. My church funds Lansing's Angel House, the City Resue Mission, Lansing Pregnancy Services, and more... and thats beside what the individuals in the church support.

What we want is not the abolition of young mothers' assistance, but what we do want is private, local control... not politicians' control, of those services. In order to maintain loving personal contact we have to fund it ourselves rather than have a beaurocrat fund it and administer it.


A fair opinion, given what information we have available in the newspapers. But if the programs are privately funded, and the children adopted by loving parents, then there won't be a need for the federal government to spend billions on those programs.

And, though I know I'm going to get lynched for saying this, if individual people wait for that kind of intimacy until they're married, this won't be nearly the issue it is, maybe 1% at most. I have, and so can each of you.

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I don't see any cause for a lynching, as what you posted is common sense (though I don't have any benchmark for your 1% figure). But it's also wishful thinking. Young people make unintelligent choices. This is a fact that falls in the "death and taxes" category -- it doesn't change. We can sort of nudge these trends back and forth, but it's not realistic to think that we will ever be able to eliminate or reasonably minimize it (that is, without severely damaging young peoples' civil rights, e.g. the right to leave the house). I believe the solution, or the closest thing we have to a solution, is to increase funding (and standards) for realistic sex education programs. Abstinence-only programs don't work, and as I mentioned earlier discriminiate against homosexual youths, and give young people negative associations to sexuality. We need to make sure young people know everything necessary to stay safe, no matter what happens. It's a lot easier to teach a teenager how to act responsibly in a situation where their impulses get the better of them then pretend that we can train all teenagers to never act on their impulses. We cannot eliminate the situations, but we can prepare them for those situations, something which we're doing a dismal job at right now.

I'm still waiting for the male contraceptive. We've been waiting 40 years. Grr (there's a rant in there somewhere).

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Ramrod:

Besides, I wouldn't trust the government to operate any assistance for teen pregnancy. They would be obligated to push the most "economical" choice on their clients, rather than try to help them through a very difficult and stressful experience in their lives. Only an organization operated by caring local people can really make the kind of difference that needs to be made, both for the sake of the young mother and her unborn child.

Do you hear that, people? Support your local crisis pregnancy centers, especially those that provide total care for teen mothers in this difficult time in their lives.

IJ:

I agree with your conclusion. We need to teach our children to make reasoned, responsible choices. I do not agree with your premise. You basically said that teens are too stupid to control their raging monkey lust, and any attempt to do so is just faerie dust. If this is true, then your conclusion is completely unattainable; we can't teach them to act responsibly at all.

Also, leaving the house is not a civil right. As long as parents have authority over (and responsibility for) their children, those parent must be allowed to hinder their children's self-destructive behavior.

Parents need to be proactive in helping their children to establish sexual boundaries. If they do not, then society will do it for them, and all you have to do is take a look at the latest "reality TV" show or the latest prime-time soap opera to see what kind of values our society offers. But that's where the problem is. Most parents aren't proactive. They don't take the time and effort to talk to their children heart to heart like that. Instead, they act like puritans, believing that if their children never see evil at home, then they will be isolated and protected from the outside world. That is unrealistic, and I think more along the lines of what IJ was trying to say. We are sexual beings, and we live in a sex-obsessed culture: you cannot isolate children nearly as well as you think, but you can help them to live with the reality, and hopefully to make some reasoned, informed decisions about sexuality.

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I concur with everything you say, Didymus, and I'm glad you got the jist of it. However, I still don't believe that as a society it's possible to stop young people (as a demographic) from making poor sexual choices, at least not within the next 50 years, for exactly the reasons you cite.

Yes, it's possible to raise a child to make good choices 99% of the time (this is a realistic and attainable goal), but it's not possible to raise all children that way in the current sociological climate. Maybe over a few generations, but not today.

So it's one thing to say to young people, "don't have sex!" or "if you respect yourself you won't have sex" (which are what abstinence-only sex education does). Even if every parent took a year-long effective parenting course before having a kid, that approach wouldn't work in the broader sense. It's quite another to inform young people about the dangers of sex, why they should consider waiting to have sex, how to protect themselves if they do choose to have sex, and how to have healthy ideas about sexuality.

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My statement that brought up this discussion was not a plea for social reform, it was a specific statement to any individual reading it. Not only do I think that societal control is impossible, I think it's wrong! We're not supposed to control society. Each of us is supposed to control himself (herself). Self-control is what's important, not control of others. This is my moral stance.


The "parents" problem in teenage misbehavior of any kind is almost never "they were uneducated" or "they were uninformed." From my developmental psychology reading, it's almost always laziness on the parents' part. It's not that they don't know what to do, it's that it just "reeks of effort" to raise a kid right. The exceptions I've read and watched are usually when the child has a somatic-based psychological problem. And because raising a kid is so hard (as we come full circle), we have legal elective abortions.

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This was from a movie review for the film Vera Drake:



What do you guys think of that? To me, it makes sense, but I'm not sure what the ramifications are to me personally.

It's a significant social consideration, but I don't think it should affect lawmaking in either country. For exampe (and I'm about to go out on a limb here since I don't know this for sure) I've heard sale of handguns was illegal in Britain (if someone who knows for sure can confirm or correct that I'd appreciate it). So a wealthy Englishman could still fly to America to get them. Should England legalize handguns for everyone for that reason?

It's a hugely imperfect analogy because a handgun is a product and an abortion is a medical procedure, and each is already a charged topic that carries specific connotations. But my point is a country has to make its own laws.

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"Good job, The Cheat! Now try harmonizing with the butternut squashes!" ... "Side effects include wine, women, and song."