gadgetlady

Here's the problem. The child DIED. The child didn't have the opportunity to protest her lack of medical treatment, and you can't reverse death. I'm all for parents' rights, especially as it impacts religious freedom. Feed your children a wacky vegetarian diet, teach them they have to pray only while underwater, make them wear funny headdresses to honor your god, whatever. But I draw the line at death. If a wacky belief that you have causes your child to die, that is neglect at the very least.

I believe that the Catholic Church has exemptions for things like this, that would interfere with your health if you didn't take them. But I'm not sure because I'm not Catholic. In every case where abortion has been illegal, there has been an exception if the physical life of the mother is threatened. It is taking one life to save another.

How coincidental. I've been thinking about that joke since I started reading this discussion.

Wow. Just wow. I can't imagine such a scenario, so I can't logically answer the question. What a doctor does to a child can't damn a child to hell. But again, what if people had a weird religion that said God will provide all nourishment and therefore we don't have to feed our children? Would that fall under the free exercise of religion or would it fall under neglect. I place it under neglect.

You think schools in Texas are bad? You should see California! It's worse the a trainwreck. It's a trainwreck carrying nuclear waste through a suburban neighborhood on a Saturday during Little League championships. The bottom line is that for the most part, any student who's receiving one-on-one teaching from a parent, whether certified or not, is likely getting a better education than he would be sitting in a class with 29 other students being geared toward the lowest common denominator.

snuffy65, if you go back and perform historical revisions (changing your prior comments to add new arguments), I will likely miss them. If you have something new to say, please put it in a new post (that is, if you want me to respond. If, like in Congress, you just want the record to reflect something that didn't actually happen at the time of the discussion, continue editing away).

Prior to Roe v. Wade, in states where abortion was illegal, the charges were always enforced against the abortionist, not the mother. There's no reason to believe that would change if/when Roe is reversed, but I guess that's up to the courts and the legislators. Personally, I believe the culpability lies with those who take advantage of these mothers in their often emotional states, by convincing them that what's growing in the womb is a blob of tissue rather than a human being. Again, another question answered. Would you like to answer some of mine, or just throw more questions at me? I think those who have been reading this thread since it's inception will verify that I'm happy to answer every question posed. I cannot say the same for one single person on the pro-abortion side.

Thanks for the support, but how did you sign it? The petition was closed when 250,000 signatures were reached. Did you find another petition somewhere?

Suppose the family didn't feed the child, saying instead that their nourishment would come from God? That's not damage inflicted by another, but rather the withholding of something that would otherwise preserve the child's life.

I don't get what you don't get, but I'm also not understanding 100% because of your grammar and spelling. I'll try to make it really simple. Prevention of pregnancy: OK. Killing of a baby after conception by any means: Not OK.

Ok, let me try again. If the baby is already conceived, then I don't believe a mother should be able to take a drug and kill the baby. And I believe in harsh sentences for the abortionists.

You have your reasoning wrong. The view that black people were 3/5 of a person was the law as written into the US Constitution. It was also generally accepted among Southern states and slave owners that slaves were not fully deserving of the rights afforded whites because they were people of diminished capacity. Slavery wasn't abolished due to it's lack of popularity. There was this little thing called the Civil War; even though the North won, people still weren't convinced about the full humanness of blacks. In the end, however, it shouldn't matter who wins the popularity contest in any given year. Human life is not a nebulous theory swaying in the wind depending on current statistical analysis. Unique human individuals should be afforded the rights that all other unique human individuals have, regardless of their age or place of residence. And again I ask: if the became a popular view, would you accept the ban of abortion based on this popular view?

Nope, don't think so.

I never mentioned jail for mothers who abort. And I'm happy to answer about birth control and the morning after pill: I have no problem whatsoever with birth control or anything that prevents ovulation and therefore conception. In fact, I'm a big fan of anything that prevents pregnancy in those who do not want to be pregnant. Once a separate human life is conceived, however, I don't believe a second human being has a right to take that life. Now would you answer some of MY questions?

The thinking AT THE TIME and the LEGAL definition of a black person was 3/5 of a person. They believed genetically that a black person was less of a person than a white person. You and I know that definition is ludicrous NOW, but they didn't back THEN. I would be willing to venture a guess that the belief that blacks weren't fully human was at greater than 65% prior to the Civil War. We shouldn't define personhood based on public opinion polls. If opinion sways to where 65% of this country's population believes life begins at conception, would you be OK with the law changing to match that? I don't think so. The bottom line is we need to base the law on facts, not on what people believe.

People defended slavery by saying that a black person was 3/5 of a person. All we have to do to deny people rights is define them as something less than a person. We need to learn the lessons of history.

There's hope for you yet :smile: (please, please take that with the teasing nature it was intended)

The issue of partial birth abortion was brought up because a woman on this thread said she had a friend for whom a partial-birth abortion was medically indicated. She claimed that her friend didn't want to have the abortion and it broke her heart to do so. I asked her why, since partial-birth abortion is no different from delivering the baby alive, except for the fact that you stab the baby in the base of the skull and suction out the brains, why this woman didn't attempt to preserve the life of her baby -- especially if she was so opposed to the abortion. She never answered. You brought up the same issue using a quote from that discussion, claiming that it was less strenuous for a woman to have a partial-birth abortion than deliver normally because the baby's skull would be crushed. I then asked why we would deem it reasonable to take a life to prevent some vaginal stretching, and you didn't answer. As to your claim that all pro-lifers start at partial-birth abortion and work their way backwards, that's ludicrous. We have been fighting for the pro-life cause long before the partial-birth abortion procedure even existed. Our arguments are not contingent on what the gestational age of the baby is, but rather that the baby, from conception, is a human being separate from the mother. A sperm, left alone, will not eventually be an adult one day. An egg, left alone, will not eventually be an adult one day. A fertilized egg will. Therein lies the difference. At the time of conception, a separate being is created with separate DNA, a separate circulatory system and a separate heartbeat (at about 18 days), separate brain waves (at 42 days), etc. No other human being will ever have the same DNA as this tiny human being. (The crux of the matter is that I can't understand sarcasm?) While I did understand it to be sarcasm, there was also a point there, which is evidenced by your questioning above how a sperm alone and an egg alone are different from the result of their union. While you might have thought it cute and/or sarcastic to talk about men masturbating into tissues, clearly you also considered it a relevant argument. What someone believes spiritually is of no consequence. Not everyone believes in spiritual things, the presence of a soul, etc. These are not sound things on which to make a legal decision. What DOES matter is what MEDICALLY and SCIENTIFICALLY is the start of life. And the existence or lack of a social security number is equally inconsequential. I didn't have an SS # until I was 5 years old. Was I not a human being until that point? Heck, illegal aliens don't have an SS# as adults! Why? Why are they bad? Why shouldn't they be taken lightly? Fathers have ZERO rights in the abortion decision. If the father wants the baby and the mother doesn't, she can have an abortion anyway. If the mother wants the baby and the father doesn't, she can have the baby and he's still liable for child support. I don't understand why you don't understand this. It is for the same reason that the "If you don't believe in slavery, don't own a slave" argument doesn't hold Water. It is because we are talking about the fundamental right to life of a human being who doesn't have the opportunity to defend his or her own rights in a court of law.

laurend! Is this the first subject we've agreed 100% on? Yay for us!

I'm not sure I understand your point. I've made no secret of the fact that I want all abortions to be illegal. Talk about extremes! Um, no, sperm that has not been joined with an egg to create life is not life. It is a part of a man, containing all of his DNA and his alone. Just like the egg is a part of a woman. Once the are joined, they create a separate being with his or her own DNA, separate from both mom and dad. I hope you understand that; I can explain if you need me to.

I agree, but with a caveat: UNLESS the practice of their religion endangers the life or causes the death of another person (especially a child). This is an extreme example, but if satan-worshippers believe in child sacrifice, should we allow them to freely practice their religion? I don't believe this is a case of murder, but I do believe it is a case of neglect.

Another similar story posted today; parents were charged in the death of their 15-month old. She could have been saved with antibiotics. Faith-healing parents charged in child's death - Kids and parenting - MSNBC.com

They were neglectful, period. They had all the resources necessary to preserve the life of their daughter. That being said, I can't fathom the pain and heartbreak they're going through right now, much less the heartbreak of the 3 other children that have now been taken away from them (in addition to losing their sister, they don't even have the comfort of being with their parents). The whole thing is so very sad.

So for the sole purpose of lack of vaginal stretching, a life is taken (brutally, I might add, by stabbing a baby in the base of his or her neck and sucking out the brains)? Because all that's different is the circumference of the head. The limbs and body are delivered normally and everything else would be done the same way. Actually, in 2007 the US Supreme Court upheld a Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act which had been signed into law in 2003. A doctor.

Not sure what you mean here. I didn't get the information about partial-birth abortion from an evangelical site. Prior to partial-birth abortion as a method of late-term abortion, the other primary methods (prostaglandin and saline) had the "unfortunate" result of not always killing the baby. The mother went through labor and delivery just like in a regular delivery, but only after the chemical was introduced to the womb (it wasn't always successful at killing the baby; there are many abortion survivors -- children who had abortions attempted against them but survived -- alive today). Partial-birth abortion eliminated the existence of accidental survival. How do you resolve this against believing a woman should have the right to choose? Where would you draw that line?