gadgetlady

Where there is life, there is hope. We can certainly catch/punish/rehabilitate (or attempt to) any evil or criminal person, but we can't "un-kill" Einstein or Beethoven.

:cry Please do encourage her as much as you can to get help. Healing and forgiveness is so, so important for long-term recovery. Without it, a lot of women end up in a spiral of bad decisions and bad relationships, alcoholism, depression, self-hatred, etc. If you need any more resources please ask or PM me and I can get you whatever you need.

Can you provide her with some resources to get some counseling? There are a lot of organizations that deal with post-abortion syndrome because it is so prevalent now -- and so often overlooked. Try these: Victims of Choice http://www.noparh.org/ Or you can find a good list of local resources here: Silent No More Awareness Campaign > Resources for Help After Abortion My first personal experience with abortion was in college, when one of my best friends asked me to drive her to the abortion clinic. She knew I was very pro-life, so I have to assume this was a cry for help. Her son just turned 21. But I have had good friends choose abortion as well, one of them recently who regretted it the moment she did it and has suffered incredible emotional pain since then.

Any luck finding any early feminists who were in favor of abortion?

Do you really believe that? Because if you do, you're seriously misjudging the pro-life movement. I know these people, many of them the strongest leaders in the movement, and they have no desire to tell women they can't wear pants or work away from home. Their goal is to guarantee the right to life to all human beings and to help pregnant mothers through times of crisis. No one thinks dealing with an unplanned pregnancy is easy; we just don't think one of the solutions should be killing another human being.

The problem is no one is polling the unborn. Since they obviously can't speak for themselves (and generally won't be able to cohesively form opinions about the issue for 8-15 years depending on intelligence -- assuming they survive those 8-15 years), many of us are choosing to speak for them. This is a legal hot button issue these days. There have been many cases where hospitals have tried to force medical personnel to participate in abortions against their will. Some states have enacted or attempted to enact laws to require that the facilities allow pro-lifers to opt out of such procedures. So I don't think anyone should glibly say they can opt out -- it has not always been that easy.

The feeling's mutual, green. I always appreciate your thoughtful and honest opinions. You are willing to tackle difficult issues and really look at both sides without a knee-jerk, unthinking response.

No, actually I'm not all that surprised. I've been watching the polls trending to this over the past decades. Slowly, the public is becoming more and more pro-life. Of course, there is also the issue of how the questions are worded. You can skew a lot in a poll by using different language. Both of these polls were very well put together. What I've always found interesting is the polls that indicate a large percentage of people believe abortion is "murder" or "killing" (depending on the wording of the poll) and yet also believe it should be legal. How does anyone reconcile these two beliefs? Can you imagine, "I personally believe the killing of redheads is murder, but I also think everyone should have the right to make that choice"? I personally believe that the acceptance of such illogic is the result of the brainwashing of the abortion lobby.

Now that I have a little more time to go back and review the posts from the day, I wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS to you, Jodie! Blessings to you and your precious cargo.

Are you saying we can't know anything about the opinions of historical figures? I disagree. We can know a lot about those who expressed their opinions in writing. And I think you agree -- otherwise, you wouldn't have quoted them in the first place! Try me. I will either take them or find someone who will. Any day of the week.

It's virtually impossible to find someone without a bias in the abortion debate. To effectively navigate the issue, one has to learn to distinguish between fact and opinion.

Here's a good link; you can do all sorts of research about early and current feminists here: Feminists for Life - Women Deserve Better

THANK YOU FOR POINTING THIS OUT, JODI. I have said the same thing many times over on this board and don't ever use Wikipedia as a source. The only reason I used it this time is because SSDiva used it to somehow indicate Elizabeth Cady Stanton was in favor of abortion, and it says in her own Wikipedia source that she was not. I'm not at all surprised. In the few times I've used Wikipedia, I've found often blatant misinformation provided. It is often a re-write of history itself. Some people believe if they read it, it must be true. And some people believe if they can't find it on the internet, it must not be true.

You have to look at what she said vs. what this person writing about her said. What this "Pulizter prize winner" is missing is that Susan B. Anthony called abortion infanticide and the practice of abortion a crime against the innocent unborn. Her opinion about abortion was not based on whether the procedure was life-threatening or contraception was primitive. It was based on the undeniable humanity of the unborn. While the medical procedure becomes more safe and contraception becomes less primitive, the humanity of the unborn doesn't change. Stacy Schiff is way off base on this one.

IT'S YOUR LINK! As I said, it's the Wikipedia article that YOU posted a link to!

Oh, and in the link that you posted from the Wikipedia article about Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it says (emphasis mine), In 1868, Stanton together with Susan B. Anthony and Parker Pillsbury, a leading male feminist of his day, began publishing a weekly periodical, Revolution, with editorials by Stanton that focussed on a wide array of women's issues.[72] In a view different from many modern feminists, Stanton, who supported birth control and likely used it herself,[73] believed that abortion was infanticide, a position she discussed in Revolution.[74]

Elizabeth Cady Stanton classified abortion as a form of "infanticide." The Revolution, 1(5):1, February 5, 1868 "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit." Letter to Julia Ward Howe, October 16, 1873, recorded in Howe's diary at Harvard University Library "There must be a remedy even for such a crying evil as this. But where shall it be found, at least where begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of women?" The Revolution, 1(10):146-7 March 12, 1868 I think her perspective on abortion is pretty clear, too.

Read this carefully. Susan B. Anthony said no matter what the motive, the woman who commits the deed (abortion) is guilty and it will burden her for life. She had stronger words for the men who pushed women into it, calling them thrice guilty, but she nevertheless CLEARLY believed that the "unborn innocent" shouldn't be killed. Thank you for posting this quote from Susan B. Anthony which demonstrates she was pro-life.

Can you name some who weren't? I can name a lot who were. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Susan B. Anthony. Mary Wollstonecraft. Alice Paul. I could go on. Can you name one early feminist who was in favor of abortion?

Again, short on time today, but I wanted to comment on this because it is such a GROSS misrepresentation of what pro-lifers believe. We are not anti-women by ANY stretch of the imagination. Our rejection of abortion is simply predicated on the humanity of the unborn. After all, about 50% of the babies being killed are little girls, too! You have to understand -- adults did not COME FROM fetuses. They were fetuses. They did not COME FROM newborns. They were newborns. They did not COME FROM adolescents. They were adolescents. Life is a continuum and doesn't start at birth or an arbitrary assessment of medical technology (aka "viability"). Women facing unplanned pregnancies are sold a bill of goods that they have to kill their babies to be functioning members of society. All of the early feminists were pro-life.

The tide of public opinion is turning. The source is a pro-life one, but the surveys it cites are decidedly NOT. Highlights are mine. Second New Poll Shows Majority of Americans are Pro-Life on Abortion A second poll in as many weeks is showing that a majority of Americans are pro-life when it comes to abortion. Last week, a CBS News survey showed over half of the public opposes most or all abortions and now a new poll from Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times has found the same thing. The new media survey asked respondents which of four positions "comes closest to your view on abortion." Some 40 percent of those polled said abortion should be illegal 98 percent of the time -- "except in cases of rape, incest and to save the mother’s life." Another 10 percent took a pro-life position that "abortion should be made illegal without any exceptions." Only 44 percent of Americans favor legal abortions, according to the survey, with 31 percent saying they should be "always legal" and just 13 percent saying they should be legal "most of the time." The two media outlets interviewed 1,209 American adults from Oct. 19 to Oct. 22 and their poll has a three percent margin of error. As LifeNews.com reported last week, a CBS News poll found 54 percent of Americans take one of three pro-life positions opposing all or almost all abortions and another 16 percent want more restrictions on it. The October 12-16 poll asked Americans to tell CBS News their "personal feelings" on abortion. The survey found that 16 percent of the public only favors allowing abortions "only to save woman's life" and another 34 percent think abortions should just be allowed in the very rare cases of rape, incest or to save the mother's life. Another four percent of Americans want all abortions to be made illegal. With the Planned Parenthood-affiliated Alan Guttmacher Institute showing that less than two percent of all abortions are done in cases of rape, incest or to save the mother's life, the CBS News poll shows 54 percent of Americans oppose 98 percent of all abortions. According to the survey, just 26 percent of the public wants abortions permitted in all cases. Another 16 percent want abortions to remain legal but to be subject to greater restrictions than they currently face. In total, 70 percent of those polled want abortions illegal in most or all cases or subject to greater restrictions. The CBS News poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,282 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone October 12-16, 2007. It has a three percentage point margin of error.

Alternately, if you ARE going to loan out ther money, why don't you ACT like a bank? Tell them, "No problem, I charge 1.5% per month interest and you need to start repaying principal + interest beginning on the 2nd month." Then have them sign a simple IOU with the terms on it.

Hit the button that says "quote" just below the post you want to quote. The original poster's text will come up in between two bracketed character sets. I'm going to replace the brackets [] with a different type of brackets {} so it doesn't put quotes all over this post, making it weird. The first bracketed character set will say {quote=(person you're quoting);(number of the post)} and the last one will say simply {/quote}. Anything in between these two bracketed character sets will show up as a quote. I hope that made sense. Once you've figured it out, you can split up someone's quote by copying and pasting the first and last bracketed sets wherever you want them. HTH!

It's because we Californians have our priorities right. Without Starbucks, massages, and pet care, we'd be like fish out of Water. :biggrin1: (Before I get flamed, this is a JOKE. What the New Orleans people went through was truly awful. Being a Californian, though, I couldn't resist.)

How about, "I'm still recovering financially from the last time I loaned someone money."