gadgetlady

Do you know this for a fact or is this just a guess? It's not something I've ever searched for information on, but I certainly could try. I'm just wondering where you got the information that there aren't enough people looking for donated embryos. I think it might be tough to figure out, because you'd have to find out how many couples were seeking donated embryos and didn't find any available, not how many embryos were destroyed or otherwise disposed of (because not everyone donates them). I don't know if these types of numbers are kept, or even if once the programs became more widely known those numbers would see significant change. :w00t: Now I'm curious!

So first there was no solution for the embryos that weren't implanted. Now you just don't like the solution. I don't completely understand your question about "the couples that don't qualify." That don't qualify to be an adoptive couple? That doesn't affect the embryo; it only affects the couple.

LOL! That's like apologizing to someone by saying "I'm sorry you misunderstood what I said." I do believe in steering the debate clear from personal accusations. But I also believe that people* can personally attack someone while simultaneously trying to make it look like they're* not. I'm sorry people"* don't understand (or claim they* don't understand) the subtlety of the matter. *by people and they, I mean you. Does that make it a little clearer how one can make a personally directed statement while simultaneously trying to maintain the illusion of neutrality? I do try. I also fail sometimes. I apologized last time I allowed someone to drag me into a personal attack, because I believe my response was petty. This time, however, I have tried to direct my response to be more illustrative of veiled attack on me.

Embryo donations or adoptions. Embryo Adoption & Donation Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program

The only thing I have a problem with is the throwing out or sending for research purposes. I don't have a problem with in vitro at all (in fact I have several friends and family members who have done it). Don't you remember? You changed my mind on this issue. I agreed with you and said we should throw the book at women who abort. See? This thread DOES change minds!

I don't think this is a personality contest, and I absolutely do not like getting personal (sometimes I get drawn in but I do try very hard to avoid it). But I also don't like thinly (or thickly) veiled personal attacks, and when they keep happening I call them as I see them. You got it! I won't -- and don't -- expect anything different from you. I will be very careful in the future to clarify when I quote you why I perceive your nebulous attacks to be personal.

Are you saying a hunk of skin sitting on a table meets the criteria for life? That it grows and reproduces, matures, etc.?

I assume you mean because of natural miscarriages and/or lack of implantation? There's a big difference between natural death and surgical death. Do you seriously believe that? Because that's not what the Bible teaches. As a Christian I think you would know that. Why?

I'm not surprised. Anyone else who's a Christian and pro-abortion want to answer?

So 1% of 1,300,000 abortions every year is 13,000 viable babies killed every year. And that's an ethically valid choice? If it were anything other than the sacred right to abortion, any situation where 35 innocent people were being killed daily against their will through an elective surgical procedure, the US populace would be literally up in arms! Are you saying this isn't currently available? Because it is. And yet, the high abortion rate persists. IMO, that means it's not working. I never said I "get to decide". Whether someone is a Christian is between them and their God. However, I think it's perfectly reasonable to question the statistics about the quantities of people who profess Christianity vs. those who actually follow it. If I told you I was an atheist, but you saw me praying before every meal, wouldn't you have the right to question my commitment to atheism? On the one hand, I think this just solidifies the claim that abortion isn't a religious issue. On the other hand, as a Christian myself I do think it's fair to ask Christians who are pro-abortion how they reconcile some very specific things in the Bible with their belief that killing the unborn is acceptable. I've asked those questions on this thread before and no one's ever answered, but I'd be willing to ask again if anyone who's both Christian and in favor of abortion wants to take a stab at it.

Do you believe I am "someone" who puts conditions on Christianity, makes judgments about how or why women become pregnant, and wants to tell they what the must do in that situation? I have to assume you do, although you're using nebulous language and are not clear about it. Operating under the assumption, since you weren't 100% clear, that you are lumping me in with the group that meets the conditions above: I don't put conditions on Christianity, other than the obvious that if one don't even make an attempt to follow Christ or his teachings, one would be hard-pressed to call oneself a Christian. I have a lot of Christian friends who aren't the dreaded fundamentalist breed that you so often cite, and I consider them Christians. I know many on the opposing side of the abortion issue like to paint pro-lifers as black-and-white fundamentalists who have no capacity for compromise or a complete inability to understand anything outside of their personal beliefs, but that's just not the case -- at least not with me. I also don't make judgments on how or why women become pregnant. I personally believe there are some sexual activities that are (or can be) damaging emotionally and physically, but I have never, ever stood in judgment of a pregnant mother. Finally, I believe it is acceptable for anyone to tell another person that it is wrong to kill another human being -- despite their being in a situation where they don't want to have a live child

The problem is that by not addressing me directly, but rather only addressing the ideas that I have just stated, you can hide behind the fact that you "aren't addressing me" when you call the "ideas" narrow-minded, angry, etc. That's the problem I have. I don't have a problem at all with your stating your beliefs and backing them up with facts. But I believe you circumvent the "don't attack the person" model by cleverly not mentioning the person but only the beliefs they just espoused, and then calling those beliefs and the people who espouse them all sorts of derogatory names. It would be like my knowing you were a cat-lover because you just said it, and then saying "you know, those dirty SOB cat-lovers, blah blah blah", and then when you called me on it I said angelically, "But I wasn't talking about you! I was just talking about the idea of cat-lovers!" Just because the subject of religion has come up on the thread doesn't mean abortion is a religious issue. I don't believe that either. But why is this the core of the issue?

Here's the problem. If you are wrong and abortion is the taking of a human life, then we as a society are responsible for genocide. So shouldn't we get beyond just plain beliefs and look at scientific fact? Because individual beliefs don't determine when life begins -- if you allow them to, you get situations where infanticide becomes OK in the eyes of some, because they don't believe human life has begun yet. I know you may scoff at this correlation, but it's a reality. People really believe it. And if belief is all we go by to determine the inception of human life, there's nothing really wrong with what they believe and how they choose to act on that belief. After all, if you don't know if a person's dead, you don't bury them. You figure it out first.

I'm out of time now but I do want to say you are patently wrong. I do not believe I am good and others are wrong and bad (I believe people are wrong on this issue -- just like you believe I am wrong on this issue -- but that doesn't make them bad people). I don't wish to control others. I don't wish to tell others what they can and cannot do unless they are interfering with the life of another person. And I do not think I have the corner on goodness and light. I am a sinner and a sinful person and I try to do my best; I am certainly in no position to judge others who are sinners and sinful people as well.

Thank you for correcting my spelling. I try to proof everything I write but I missed that one. Heresay is definitely different then hearsay, both of which are different from heresy! I will edit my post above. That being said, given that this was House Oversight and Government Reform Committee meeting, I'm sure what was said was documented in writing, making it not hearsay. The government does things like that specifically to counteract hearsay.

As if those who are in favor of abortion on this thread don't think they're right and I'm wrong?

three of the four "health experts" who testified against it said they would oppose abstinence even if scientific evaluation showed it to be as or more effective than so-called comprehensive sex ed. Dr. Harvey Fineberg of the Institute of Medicine was the only one in this anti-abstinence group to maintain a sense of scientific integrity by quietly answering yes. is hearsay?

I beg to differ. She has a pattern of addressing something I said within the past 3-10 posts, but making it a generalized comment and then attacking the nebulous people who hold to the belief that I just addressed. Be that as it may, I think I explained it well above and will drop the issue now, hoping that in the future when BJean has issue with a comment I make, she directly addresses the comment rather than the nebulous group of people who have those types of beliefs.

Interestingly, this just arrived in my inbox: Yesterday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held an extremely one-sided hearing to assess the effectiveness of authentic abstinence education. It took just one look at the witness list to see how Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) had stacked the deck against abstinence proponents. When asked by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) if they would support abstinence education, three of the four "health experts" who testified against it said they would oppose abstinence even if scientific evaluation showed it to be as or more effective than so-called comprehensive sex ed. Dr. Harvey Fineberg of the Institute of Medicine was the only one in this anti-abstinence group to maintain a sense of scientific integrity by quietly answering yes. On the positive side, Dr. Stan Weed, the lone pro-abstinence health expert at the hearing, testified solidly on behalf of the positive impact of abstinence-centered education. He presented research that demonstrates the effectiveness of abstinence programs across the country, including two of his own studies that showed decreases in rates of sexual initiation by 45 and 50 percent in youth when compared to non-program groups. Missing from the discussion was the fact that the Chairman's own state has never accepted federally allocated Title V money for abstinence education--and its teens are suffering greatly for it. California is a tragic example of what can happen in today's culture in the absence of strong abstinence-centered education. Since rejecting the abstinence funds in the first year they were offered to states, the rates of STIs in California youth exploded at an estimated 1.1 million new cases per year in 2005. Congressman Waxman should recognize the dire need of young people in his own state and stop protecting entities that promote high-risk behavior to youth. Again, statistics can prove anything you want them to prove. But the fact that 3 out of the 4 "experts" on the panel would oppose abstinence education even if it proved effective should tell us something about their motivation.The reason I don't want anyone other than me teaching my kids about sex is because I don't know their motives, their philosophy, their background, or their goals.

BJean, the reason I called you passive-aggressive is because you wait a few posts after something I say and then you make a snide comment that you attempt to pass off as unrealted -- about the very same thing I just addressed. For example, I made a comment about how asking someone if they're a Christian in America is like asking them if they're American. You know as well as I do that people identify themselves as Christian who are not Christ-followers and don't even try to be. There are some pretty standard core beliefs that define Christianity and a lot of people who call themselves Christians don't believe these things. Look, I can call myself Hispanic but if I have no Hispanic blood in my ancestry, you would call "foul". So anyway, I make a comment about people who call themselves Christians and aren't, and you come back a few posts later with Now you can try to pretend that what you said wasn't directed at what I said, but I don't think you're pulling the wool over anyone's eyes. If you have a problem with something I'm saying, then say it! Don't pretend like you're making an unrelated comment or had an inspiration about something that wasn't addressed in the past. I'm not saying we should attack each other, but if you have a problem with my saying that not all people who classify themselves as Christians are really Christians, discuss the issue! Don't come back a few posts later with something you try to make sound like an unrelated post in which you really attack ME -- "I find that classification to be very self-serving and narrow minded and I figure they must be very angry people . . ." -- in other words calling me self-serving, narrow minded, and angry. In doing so, you are attempting to veil your personal attack with generalizations. Ergo, I called you on it. Really? This is sensible and reasonable -- and trying to keep the peace?:

BJean, you are one of the most passive-aggressive people I know.

Wow! That's quite a statement. Sex education is a part of our homeschooling and our kids are very well educated at age-appropriate levels. To paint homeschoolers and "religious people" as people who avoid talking about sex to their kids is wholly inappropriate. Doesn't passing out condoms and teaching kids about sex techniques at very early ages condone and promote sex before marriage? If not, what does it promote? What would handing out bongs promote?

Why must one have serial abortions to have used abortion as birth control? If the use of abortion prevents live birth, which has precisely the same effect as birth control, then it is a form of birth control -- most especially when no other form was used. At the times in my life when I haven't wanted to be pregnant (like now), I'm awfully darn serious about birth control because abortion is not an option. There are a lot of women who aren't terribly serious about it because abortion IS an option.

I think the stigma of being pregnant and unmarried is pretty much gone in today's society. Be that as it may, I agree with you -- we are entirely too judgmental and drive some mothers who might not otherwise abort directly to the clinic because of what others might say. It's very sad. It's equally sad that we often punish the mothers with our judgment, but not the fathers. I have raised my daughters to know that no matter what their circumstance they can always come to me for support. They not only hear the words from me, but also see it backed up in my actions of supporting unwed pregnant mothers unconditionally.

What I am saying is that laws may not stop everyone from unlawful behavior, but they do curtail some -- and I would say most -- people from that behavior. Yes, people do speed on the way to Vegas. But they would go faster if there were no speed limit law. You are absolutely right. And the statistics take us away from the issue at hand, which is not who is having abortions or why they are having them, but whether abortion is the taking of a human life. If it is, then it doesn't really matter who is having them or why.