You all know how I would vote. So lets see how many like me are out there.

Once again gadget you are very wrong. I do not have an attachment to abortion. I have an attachment to religious freedom. I have an attachment to women's rights to their own bodies. I have an attachment to not having Americans telling other Americans how to live their lives. I have an attachment to Democracy.

Abortion is a symbol. A very powerful symbol of things that are going terribly wrong in this country. Things that are utterly terrifiying. Things that continue to prove that our enemies might just be right about us. I want us to be a strong country and an example of religious freedom to the whole world. I want us to prove how well a democratic nation can work and to be an example for other countries to emulate. I want all the hate, bigotry, social injustice, name-calling and hatefulness to stop. I desperately want a new president and a better administration to lead this country. One that is not derisive and self-centered as this one has proven itself to be.

I want Americans to stop telling Americans that they are bad people because they do not share the same beliefs.

Abortion is not a religious issue. Yes, there are a lot of religious people that take a stand on the issue, but just because Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Baptist minister didn't make civil rights a religious issue. Just because in the 1920's religious people took a stand against eugenics laws that were on the books in 30 states (laws that, btw, Hitler studied and borrowed from when he came up with his "bright" ideas) doesn't make forced sterilization a religious issue.

If you want hate, bigotry, social injustice, name-calling and hatefulness to stop, then why don't you start with the least among us? I have no problem with religious freedom. What I have a problem with is people killing other people for their own convenience.

The pro-abortion response to this will be, "but it's OBVIOUS that THOSE things are wrong!" -- which is, of course, missing the point entirely, because it's not always obvious to those who commit the crimes. Just as it wasn't obvious to Hitler and the SS troops and it wasn't obvious to the slave owners and it isn't obvious to the "distinguished" men below who support infanticide:

“There is little evidence that termination of an infant’s life in the first few months following extraction from the womb could be looked upon as murder... It would seem to be more ‘inhumane’ to kill an adult chimpanzee than a newborn baby, since the chimpanzee has greater mental awareness. Murder cannot logically apply to a life form with less mental awareness than a primate.”

Winston L. Duke

Article: The New Biology

Reason magazine, August 1972

“No newborn infant should be declared human until it has passed certain tests regarding its genetic endowment and if it fails these tests, it forfeits the right to life.”

Dr. Francis Crick

Nobel Prize winner

Pacific News Service, January, 1978

“In our book, Should the Baby Live, my colleague Helga Kuhse and I suggested that a period of 28 days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others.”

Peter Singer

Professor of Bio-Ethics

Princeton University

“It is reasonable to describe infanticide as post-natal abortion... Infanticide is actually a very humane thing when you are dealing with misbegotten infants. We might have to encourage it under certain conditionalities of excess population especially when you’re dealing with defective children.”

Joseph Fletcher

Professor of Ethics

Harvard Divinity School

Infanticide and the Value of Life,

Prometheus Books, 1978

“Infanticide has a logical continuity with abortion and even with contraception.”

Edward Pohlman, Researcher

Planned Parenthood

Psychology of Birth Planning

Shankman Publishing

Cambridge MA, 1967

“If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice that only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so chose and save a lot of misery and suffering.”

Dr. James D. Watson

Nobel Prize winner

Time magazine, May 28, 1973

Moral relativism is, indeed, scary.

Woman, you are amazing. I would love to email you. You are intelligent, cogent and logical.

Sorry Daffodil, I didn't notice if you've posted how old you are. I was just wondering if you lived during the time when abortion was illegal?

Actually I'm on Central time and it's way past my bedtime. I've been anxiously awaiting my DH's return from the hospital where his mother may be dying. I have probably been way too tense to be involved in this discussion tonight.

You have pulled out all the stops and called women murderers and done all you can to pour on the guilt and disgust for them that you can muster. I find that very hateful and ugly and realize that you have no compassion for women who may have made the decision to have an abortion. You only have compassion for the little life you believe that they have MURDERED. You are obviously not someone with whom I need to be sharing a dialogue. You're very impassioned about your beliefs and I am dead set against the tone of your words against some women. I find you to be cruel and unattractive in your anger. I am sure you have worked hard to get the jargon down so that you can insult and direct hate toward women who have chosen to have abortions. If you sleep well at night, you have no conscience.

Don't bother posting additional insults and hate toward me tonight. I'm going to bed. I am going to have to try to not vomit after reading your words.

Once again gadget you are very wrong. I do not have an attachment to abortion. I have an attachment to religious freedom. I have an attachment to women's rights to their own bodies. I have an attachment to not having Americans telling other Americans how to live their lives. I have an attachment to Democracy.

Abortion is a symbol. A very powerful symbol of things that are going terribly wrong in this country. Things that are utterly terrifiying. Things that continue to prove that our enemies might just be right about us. I want us to be a strong country and an example of religious freedom to the whole world. I want us to prove how well a democratic nation can work and to be an example for other countries to emulate. I want all the hate, bigotry, social injustice, name-calling and hatefulness to stop. I desperately want a new president and a better administration to lead this country. One that is not derisive and self-centered as this one has proven itself to be.

I want Americans to stop telling Americans that they are bad people because they do not share the same beliefs. I want many things for this country. Making abortion illegal is not one of the things I want for us. I have lived through the age when abortion was illegal. It did not work. It was horrible. Making abortion illegal is not the answer to any problem.

If you work your heart out, as you've said you do, to counsel women, assist them in their decision making and helping them arrange adoptions, if absolutely necessary, then you are contributing to the greater good. Voting to make abortion illegal is contributing to what is wrong in America.

You're wrong. Making abortion illegal WILL lead to a great outcome...millions more developing people, almost 99.9% identical genetically to you and I, will live, breathe, have a first kiss, drive a car, get married, get divorced, watch baseball and QVC, and grow to their life expectancy...aren't you glad your mother didn't abort you?

Sorry Daffodil, I didn't notice if you've posted how old you are. I was just wondering if you lived during the time when abortion was illegal?

Actually I'm on Central time and it's way past my bedtime. I've been anxiously awaiting my DH's return from the hospital where his mother may be dying. I have probably been way too tense to be involved in this discussion tonight.

You have pulled out all the stops and called women murderers and done all you can to pour on the guilt and disgust for them that you can muster. I find that very hateful and ugly and realize that you have no compassion for women who may have made the decision to have an abortion. You only have compassion for the little life you believe that they have MURDERED. You are obviously not someone with whom I need to be sharing a dialogue. You're very impassioned about your beliefs and I am dead set against the tone of your words against some women. I find you to be cruel and unattractive in your anger. I am sure you have worked hard to get the jargon down so that you can insult and direct hate toward women who have chosen to have abortions. If you sleep well at night, you have no conscience.

Don't bother posting additional insults and hate toward me tonight. I'm going to bed. I am going to have to try to not vomit after reading your words.

Honey, it is murder, it is an evil act. I speak only the truth and I realize it is difficult to hear it.

Daffodil, were you around when Jane Roe was "discovered" by the pro-abortion movement? No one really knew who Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, was until Norma McCorvey surfaced. The pro-abortion movement latched onto her, parading her before large groups of people, so proud to have found their "hero". Then they put a microphone under her nose and asked her to speak. The first thing she said? "I just want to know where my baby is." It was amazing! They dropped her like a hot potato; you should have seen the looks on their faces. She wanted to meet the child she didn't abort (yes, Norma McCorvey didn't even have STANDING before the court when Roe was heard because she was no longer pregnant -- what a flawed legal decision that was!). As it turns out, as she began to reveal her story, she didn't even want an abortion. She was seized upon by a pro-abortion attorney and dragged through the system like some lost puppy, set up, and then dumped by the movement because, you see, she really was pro-life.

Incidentally, in the companion case to Roe, Doe v. Bolton, the decision that guaranteed abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy, Doe is also pro-life.

gadget, are you nuts? Abortion isn't a religious issue? Egad. We're really having fun here tonight, aren't we?

And one last word to Daffodil... no, I have never had an abortion. Not that it is any of your damn business. But I know your curiosity was getting the better of you.

Nitety-nite, you sweet people.

If you sleep well at night, you have no conscience.

If you can watch all the way through the video link I posted (here it is again: Abortion NO / The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform), see little hands and little feet, fully developed, being pulled out of a mother's womb, see little heads with little eyes and little mouths, see ribcages ripped apart, see little developed abdomens disemboweled, see fully formed babies burned to death through chemical abortion, and sleep well at night, YOU have no conscience.

gadget, are you nuts? Abortion isn't a religious issue? Egad. We're really having fun here tonight, aren't we?

Uh, yeah, no. It's a human rights issue. There are religious people on both sides of the fence, and even if most of them hover at one side of the fence, it still isn't a religious issue. As noted above, just because MLK Jr was a preacher doesn't make civil rights a religious issue.

Honey, it is murder, it is an evil act. I speak only the truth and I realize it is difficult to hear it.

And I feel sorry that your compassion is towards those who kill, rather than those who try to stop the killing and especially towards those who have no voice and will never have a voice because of what you wish to so strongly protect. Your posts reveal you as a person who speaks in the words of the pro-abortion movement, rather than knowlegdeable well-thought out positions. I sleep soundly every night knowing I don't support the abortionists and their supporters. In the 1940's the extermination of the Jews was wrong, just as the murder of the unborn human being in 2007 is wrong. This is not hate speech against women--it is a pronouncement that like Hitler, the modern-day extermination of life is morally, and most certainly, wrong. You are morally, and most certainly, misguided and wrong.

And one last word to Daffodil... no, I have never had an abortion. Not that it is any of your damn business. But I know your curiosity was getting the better of you.

Nitety-nite, you sweet people.

I never asked bacause I frankly don't care. That you support the murder of unborn human beings is your stain.

I am astonished by your view of moral relativity. In your view, NO act is inherently evil..after all, if it isn't evil to me, why should anyone make a law against what I want to do? Rape, murder, car theft, prostitution, drug dealing, child porn...hey, I don't think it's wrong so WHO ARE YOU TO STOP ME? No, dear, cooler heads have decided there ARE actions which are universally wrong and morally reprehensible & we codify those beliefs in a little something called "laws". Laws change...at one time in this country it was legal to enslave another person...imagine ! It was legal to disregard women's right to vote and own property. Segregation was legal. But we evolve and right those wrongs. But hey, ANY law is wrong, in your view. If it feels good to me, whatever the consequence is to any body else, including a developing human being---yes, human being !, then I should have a RIGHT to do it and not be judged by anyone else's moral code. You scare me.

I'm sorry to astonish you, but there is a key difference between all your examples and the example of abortion. People disagree about whether a dividing embryo is human life. That's the whole issue. You cannot simply assume that abortion is taking a life. That is the very issue in dispute. You have every right to believe what you want, but it is a hollow technique of argument to simply assume that you are correct and declare yourself the winner.

Many intelligent, compassionate people do not agree that an embryo consisting of 4 cells equals "human life." So that is why your comparison to slavery is completely off the mark. Slavery involves fully formed human beings who are walking the earth. Abortion involves a clump of cells that many people do not consider to be "human life."

That is the problem with having these debates about abortion. The pro-life camp always wants to assume that they are correct about the exact issue in dispute. There is no way to have a debate about abortion if every argument you make carries with it an assumption that is precisely what the other side does not assume.

I have absolutely no doubt that you sincerely believe that a dividing embryo with 4 cells equals a human life. I fully respect the sincerity of your belief. I know that you sincerely believe that abortion is taking a life and that it is an "evil" act. But I disagree with you. So now what do we do? Why do you get to decide? Why do you get to make laws that force me to live by your rules?

That is a question I keep asking gadget and, of course, she keeps refusing to answer. And that is the only question that matters to me. I don't have any need to change your mind. I just have a need to stop you from forcing me to live by your rules.

So can you please give me an answer to this question? If you believe an abortion is the killing of a human life, and if I disagree with you, why do you get to be the one to decide, and set the rules, about how I live my life? (I wonder if anyone will answer this time. Probably not).

The idea of moral relativism which is held by many is frightening. Hopefully the Court will decide this issue once and for all. I believe just as Americans in 2007 look back in repentence and astonishment at our country's endorsement of slavery and the denial of basic rights to minorities, we will someday look back at 2007 and say "how did we allow those 30 million developing human lives to be destroyed because they were inconvenient?" But how many million more must be killed before we issue that wail? These pro-abortion people are almost inhuman, ironically, while they glibly talk about their rights, while denying the right of life to a growing human person.

Or maybe they will look back at it in anger and frustration as the begining of the age of their rights being taken away one by one.

You're wrong. Making abortion illegal WILL lead to a great outcome...millions more developing people, almost 99.9% identical genetically to you and I, will live, breathe, have a first kiss, drive a car, get married, get divorced, watch baseball and QVC, and grow to their life expectancy...aren't you glad your mother didn't abort you?

Except with the millions and millions of extra people there might not be enough money left over to enjoy those things after being taxed to the bone to take care of all the extra "lives" that were "saved".

And to answer your question, yes I am pretty happy that my mother did not abort me. But then again I was very much planned and prepared for. I am also a healthy and happy 27 year old. Maybe if you could ask this question to someone who is extremely mentally retarded, disfigured to the point of daily agony and pain, or beaten and raped daily by a family member and maybe you would get a different answer.

Uh, yeah, no. It's a human rights issue. There are religious people on both sides of the fence, and even if most of them hover at one side of the fence, it still isn't a religious issue. As noted above, just because MLK Jr was a preacher doesn't make civil rights a religious issue.

I am a Christian - a practicing Catholic, in fact - and I am one of the people who "hover" on the fence regarding the issue of abortion.

I must say, you ladies (Gadget and BJ, in particular) have presented very logical, very sound, very convincing arguments. I still don't feel entirely comfortable with either camp.

I detest abortion. I have seen the videos and the photos and I know they don't lie. I believe that life begins at conception and that abortion causes the death of a human being as surely as a bullet to the brain of any adult. But I still can't bring myself to jump on the anti-abortion bandwagon. Because I am not the one who has to live with the consequences. And I have seen the consequences.

I know women who had abortions and wish they had not, and women who didn't abort, but wish they had (or could have, legally). But most of the women I know who have had abortions do not regret their decision. They thought at the time, and still think, it was not necessarily the ideal choice, but that it was the best choice. They all have said they regret the circumstances, but not the abortion.

I know only two women who have had multiple abortions. One of them terminated two pregnancies because her husband did not want any more children (they had two sons). When she fell pregnant once more, she refused to abort the child, and they now have a daughter. (She had her tubes tied, incidentally, when this last baby was born.) Kim says that it makes her sad to think of the two babies she aborted, but if she had delivered either of them, she would never have had Abby, so she is content with her decision. I think you have to consider that there are subsequent children walking around who would never have been born if their mothers had not had abortions. Who am I to say that those people should not exist?

I am not in danger of becoming pregnant again (thank God), nor is my daughter or my three daughters-in-law. I do, however, have four granddaughters. One of them was conceived out of wedlock and her other grandparents urged their daughter to have a secret abortion, rather than risk friends/relatives reaction to an illicit pregnancy. Those people are fundamentalist Christians, and a prime example of how your opinions can change when an issue "comes home to roost", as my mother would say.