"Abortion Doctor" Murdered

Cleon said:
The Civil Rights Act, passed in 1964, caused the Civil War, which started in 1861? Call me skeptical.
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haha. I misread. I was thinking of the Act prohibiting further slavery that was passed before the Civil War.
 
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skeptigirl said:
:id:
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You know...there is no way to enter into a discussion involving abortion without there being a whole lot of thoughtlessness and a whole lot of cruelty. Emotions run high, and they do so for many, many reasons--most of which people aren't able to necessarily articulate to the satisfaction of anyone who pigeonholes them into some arbitrary, pre-defined category. So let me elaborate here, if I may.

To understand where I am coming from, I have to go back many years in my life, back to when I was doing my best to be that good little Christian girl everyone expected me to be. When one lives according to "God's way", and does everything "right", one has a sort of naive expectation as to what life SHOULD bring.

After one miscarriage, it might be easy to belive that God decided it wasn't time yet. Everyone says the same things to you: oh, there'll be more. Oh, your baby is with God now. Blah blah blah blah blah. The emotional state that one is left in is only further complicated by trying to understand why God, for whom you've carefully constructed your life in a way to be pleasing toward, would feel a need to make you hate your body, and feel a need to take your child. The belief system, though, encourages a NEED to understand life in those terms.

After two miscarriages, it gets really easy, when the same people are telling you the same things, to become angry at people who are willingly "getting rid of" what God is, for some reason, seemingly happy to take away from you. The God people start looking at you differently, though...like something is wrong with you for not being happy and feeling blessed that God thought YOUR child was so damned special, he just had to have it in Heaven to amuse him.

After three miscarriages, something snaps. There is no longer any way to believe that God has anything at all to do with this. When you dare say it, and make it clear that you finally BELIEVE it, the God people no longer have ANYTHING to say. The decent God people respect your sorrow and pain, and they stop telling you the "God has your baby now" crap. The evil God people start telling you that you're obviously not good enough to be a mother, but maybe if you repent and apply yourself to being "better", you too can be blessed with a child late in life like so many women in the Bible.

You go home, and you think about these things constantly. And one day, out of the blue, it hits you. The evil God people think it is okay for God to take a child from the womb, because if God does it, it MUST be okay. Yet...why, then, am I encouraged to be angry with women who choose to "get rid of" the same thing God can for whatever reason just take away?

I am not a stupid person. In fact, though I rarely compliment myself, I'm quite intelligent, thank you very much...and I see absolutely no irony in anything I have said. I do NOT need to read the Bible to understand why anyone would find God, or Jesus, cruel. I have lived it. But it wasn't God, or Jesus, being cruel. It was the God people, some of them, in their misguided need to be his voice.

Any person can take anything they wish to take from the Bible. One person's interpretation is of no more meaning to me than another's. At no point in time does anyone's interpretation address the realities of pregnancy and loss (by choice or circumstance). I have never met a woman that chose to have an abortion that wasn't as absolutely confused and in pain as myself, who did not make that choice. For myself, I can say that I WISH I'd had a "choice". I envy those that do, in fact. Part of disengaging with religion, for me, had a lot to do with this very topic. Not the idea that some people presume to speak for God, because many, many others were very kind and freely admitted they could not answer my many questions about the many contradictions inherent in the many interpretations of the faith I held dear.

But those answers also didn't come from the equally unfeeling non-believers that dismissed my losses as nothing more than "science". So if I seem to fall in the middle of this debate...well...you're damned right I do. Pregnancy (planned or unplanned) and loss (chosen or not chosen) deserves more dignity than these debates offer. It is not helpful to women to be told they are evil murderers. But it is also not helpful to ignore the reality of the life they are making a very, very difficult choice to end. And the debate has lost ALL dignity, for the women involved, because of both extremes. It IS a life, it IS a choice (often made because of no alternatives), and frankly, no one should EVER have to explain, to anyone, the "whys" about something so personal.

Yet we harp and harp and fight and fight and both sides insult and imply things about the other...and we seem to act like the women actually affected by the issue, the women who for whatever reason have to make these choices, are totally unaffected by the words we say, and how we say them. To tell a woman who chose to have an abortion ten years ago that what she aborted wasn't "really" a life, when she may be having terrible regrets, is just as cruel as the people who told ME that I should get over my loss and be happy God had my babies.

If I get upset, or seem to contradict myself, at least, hopefully, someone will understand where I am coming from now. This is a serious issue, and it affects many, many women. Not only those who have had abortions...but any woman that has lost a much wanted pregnancy. It is worthy of more dignity than many are offering it. And if people can't see that, then I have to ask: what do their opinions matter, anyway? They obviously really don't care. If it matters more to attack Christianity, for example, than focus on what amounts to a hate group that is trying to affect the choice women have...well, then it isn't about the women, it's about having someone or something to attack. You've fallen into exactly the trap that was laid for you, because if it stays a religious issue, the rights of demonstrators will always be protected. And women going through very hard times will always be persecuted and made to feel...there are no words for it.

If the religious extremists don't realize what they are saying about their own God when they say that ending pregnancy is murder, then I guess that's their own stupidity or ignorance...but it's willful ignorance and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Except offer a little more thought and dignity than that.

I hope that doesn't trip your irony meter again.
 
oldhat said:
Shorter A Christian Skeptic: Since taking away choices is bad, giving women a choice to have an abortion or not takes away the choice of others to take away that choice.

Strong argument!
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Many Pro-Lifers are seeing this as a States Rights issue which is being forced upon them by the Federal Government (and those in other Pro-Choicers in other states).

If you miss that you'll be missing a large component of the friction happening between the two sides.
 
A Christian Sceptic said:
Many Pro-Lifers are seeing this as a States Rights issue which is being forced upon them by the Federal Government (and those in other Pro-Choicers in other states).
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Yeah, right.

More accurately, many pro-lifers are hiding behind the state's rights issue claim in their desparate attempt to legitimize themselves.

It's like the morons who claim that the Civil War was about state's rights and not slavery.
 
MattusMaximus said:
Understood. And I also note that still no one here has been able to find one single example of "pro-choice" violence oriented towards "pro-lifers" for the views they hold on these issues.

'Nuff said.
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Unfortunately, MattusMaximus, there has been some, but I'm too tired to search for better sources than those that come up quickly in google. I don't trust pro-life sites enough to use them as a source...sorry, been a long day. But it has happened. Mostly kicking and hitting, I think, but I seem to recall one knife brandishing. Again, extremists, as with the pro-life violence.
 
Cleon said:
If you have to ask, you've proven his point.
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No - sorry - I haven't proven his point.

Because to him he might think only killing is violence.

He might also think that pushing someone over is violence.

He might think spitting on someone is violence.

He might think yelling at someone is violence.

I don't know what he thinks.
 
A Christian Sceptic said:
No - sorry - I haven't proven his point.

Because to him he might think only killing is violence.

He might also think that pushing someone over is violence.

He might think spitting on someone is violence.

He might think yelling at someone is violence.

I don't know what he thinks.
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It doesn't matter.

We have documented examples of members of the "pro-life" movement assassinating doctors and escorts, bombing clinics, and other acts of good old-fashioned terrorism.

There is no corresponding level of violence on the pro-choice side. Even if you can find someone who was pushed, kicked, or shoved, it just doesn't compare with "pro-life" terrorism.

The fact that you have to ask what's meant by "violence" essentially concedes this point.

So, yeah, by asking, you've proven his point. Sorry.
 
Cleon said:
It doesn't matter.

We have documented examples of members of the "pro-life" movement assassinating doctors and escorts, bombing clinics, and other acts of good old-fashioned terrorism.

There is no corresponding level of violence on the pro-choice side. Even if you can find someone who was pushed, kicked, or shoved, it just doesn't compare with "pro-life" terrorism.

The fact that you have to ask what's meant by "violence" essentially concedes this point.

So, yeah, by asking, you've proven his point. Sorry.
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Nope. Sorry - you're wrong. He never used the phrase "corresponding level of violence". He just said violence - so me asking him to clarify what he actually meant is highly appropriate - because he very well may have meant "corresponding level of violence " or he may have meant "grabbing someone in a headlock and slamming them to the ground."

So MattusMaximus - what's your definition of violence?
 
A Christian Sceptic said:
Nope. Sorry - you're wrong. He never used the phrase "corresponding level of violence". He just said violence - so me asking him to clarify what he actually meant is highly appropriate - because he very well may have meant "corresponding level of violence " or he may have meant "grabbing someone in a headlock and slamming them to the ground."
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It doesn't matter how many nits you pick. You still don't have a point, here.

So MattusMaximus - what's your definition of violence?
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It still doesn't matter, but this - again - seems like just an attempt to derail. Please stop.
 
Cleon said:
It doesn't matter how many nits you pick. You still don't have a point, here.
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He wants someone to post some sort of proof of violence against a Pro-Lifer by a Pro-Choicer. How can someone do that if he doesn't first clarify what he means by violence?


It still doesn't matter, but this - again - seems like just an attempt to derail. Please stop.
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Please stop asking me to please stop when I'm asking someone else a question. You've done that multiple times.
 
Does anyone else see a pattern amongst people who don have have reasonable arguments to support their positions? It seems to me that such people start to debate the semantics of words of which they would know the definition of in any other situation. In this thread, "violence", has become the "ambiguous word" that someone doesn't understand. In another thread, "torture", is hard to define. Hmmmm. I guess if one cannot have a discussion using reasonable assertions and arguments, one must try to win by being obtuse, eh?
 
A Christian Sceptic said:
Many Pro-Lifers are seeing this as a States Rights issue which is being forced upon them by the Federal Government (and those in other Pro-Choicers in other states).

If you miss that you'll be missing a large component of the friction happening between the two sides.
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Gee, that's funny, because I never see those nuts outside clinics with placards that say anything about Plessy v. Ferguson or quotes from the Federalist Papers.
 
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