My conversation with a pro-life friend today...

[Big Orange Jeff]

If have a very close friend who is pro-life. Since he's non-doctrinaire and somewhat level-headed, I often discuss abortion issues with him to get a real point of view, not just the standard teahadist screed. For instance, he supports abortion if the life of the mother is in jeopardy and thinks that Akin's statements are ridiculous.. For some reason, we had never discussed abortion resulting from rape or incest. A couple of hours ago, I asked him about Ryan's comment that a rape-induced pregnancy is still "life" irrespective of the method of conception.

The following is a crude transcript of the conversation:

Me: So, do you agree with Ryan's belief that the fetus should still be protected if the pregnancy resulted from rape?

Friend: That's a tough one but, no, I don't feel that the government should force a woman to have her rapist's baby.

Me: Why not?

Friend: It's difficult for me, but that child would be a daily reminder - even during gestation - of a horrific attack that the victim would have to relive over and over again.

Me: Okay, I'm glad to hear that. What about after the baby is born? Would you support euthanasia of a living child that resulted from rape?

Friend: NO!! Of course not!

Me: So, what's the difference?

Friend: Because it's a human being! The baby has been born. You can't kill a living, breathing child, no matter what the reason!! Why are you even--

Me: Don't worry, I don't support euthanizing a living human either. So you draw a distinction between an embryo and a living child.

Friend: Of course.

Me: The difference is that the baby is alive, but the embryo isn't.

Friend: Yes.

Me: So, life does NOT begin at conception.

Friend: ...

Me: ...

Friend: Wow. I have some thinking to do.

[gateley]

1. Wow. Well done!

[silverweb]

2. Nice job!

[spanone]

3. thinking? what a concept.

[Big Orange Jeff]

5. I know...

Luckily, this friend actually thinks for himself. He does listen to Limbaugh, and he watches Fox "News" but also listens to NPR and watches Maddow on rare occasions.

He's genuinely torn as far as how to vote in November. I'm doing the soft sell, hoping to ease him toward Obama. At the very least, maybe I can get him to vote Libertarian. Anyone but Romney.

[freshwest]

22. I have Jewish friends who told me that life doesn't begin until its first breath outside the mother.

I'm not sure where that come from in their book, but they were quite definite on that matter. They said that was why Jewish doctors are willing to do abortions. Anything after that first breath - No way.

Someone may know where that comes from and could give you more to talk to your friend about. Since many Christians seem to feel they are heirs to Judaism no matter how Jews feel about it. They also told me that they don't believe in being saved, being born in sin, and the divinity of Jesus. We know that part, anyway.

I'm really glad that you had that talk with your friend and I hope he doesn't go the other way from your talk. It's possible he had heard of the concept above at church, but the conservative evangelical have twisted this all out of proportion.

[dflprincess]

24. It may come from Genesis 2:7

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

But I'm basing that on something I heard years ago & I can't remember if the source was reliable.

[freshwest]

25. That sounds like the beginning of it, but they have other books to go along with that set of books.

That sounds like that's where he got the idea. I wish the GOP would realize the separation of church and state is a good thing... for all faiths. Like the legislator in Louisiana who passed a bill to fund religious schools with public dollars and was appalled because Muslims applied for thousands of dollars. She assumed wrongly that only Christians would apply for the money. It's a bad mix when a government official applies their private dogma to someone else's private life. Thanks for the information and reply, dfl princess!

[aquart]

56. It's in one of the psalms, too. "Thou hast been my God since I was born."

But I don't remember which one.

[freshwest]

60. That's the one the fundies base their belief on:

Psalm 139:13-16 (NKJV)

13 For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

So they believe God is involved in the womb, too. That is their belief, not everyone's. And the fundie way of looking at this would have more credence if many did not support the death penalty, wars, starving and stigmatizing the poor and the immigrant. The Bible was very specific on that matter, but they pick and choose.

Their vehemence on abortion is irresponsible, but if they supported a social democracy which creates an equality of outcome for all the people they victimize now, they'd appear less hypocritical.

The other belief with breath, is also applied to stop people being kept alive on ventilators. Natural death, they call it, which sadly is how they see the death of the mother from pregnancy gone bad.

Many have returned to breathing by medical means that recovered to live long lives after accidents. I was brought back to life by CPR in my twenties from a work accident. My child and I would have died in birth without intervention. I've nearly died in surgery. I lived to work and parent and do many things that I would not have done without modern medicine.

I wouldn't be willing to kept alive in a vegetative state, and am not eager to ever be resuscitated again. People have brains to use and we've created the means to save lives but we are not applying them equally.

Fundies toss that to God, when it really is their responsibility. The charity aspect they use to absolve themselves of their duty is not honest when they advocate destroying social services for people they don't know, will never meet, and probably don't like at all.

The idea of government standing in the role of god comes in there. Social services administered without discrimination is more just and equal than people are.

[treestar]

37. That actually makes sense

Life beginning at conception is technical - it may be when that individual starts growing. But that fetus may not make it, could be miscarried - we don't engage in funerals for miscarriages.

Taking first breath outside is a good place to say it really starts in earnest. When you can survive as an individual.

I've run across other things I like in Jewish religious theories and I like this one too. I should have been Jewish, not Catholic!

[MatthewStLouis]

38. When you can survive outside the mother's womb is a good definition for life.

With medical science a fetus may be viable even earlier these days, but certainly not at conception.

I wish science and religion weren't so mutually exclusive to so many people. I suppose equating a person's anatomic heart with a person's soul is what confuses the issue...

[treestar]

39. Reminds me of their "abortion stops a beating heart"

Many times there may not be one yet.

The right has managed to get us to overlook entirely the difference between life outside the womb as an individual and being a genetic individual but yet can't survive as an individual and is entirely dependent on another.

[Qutzupalotl]

41. Also makes sense from the other end:

Life can be said to end at the last breath, rather than at the decomposition of the body, which would be the analogue to formation in the womb.

[Schema Thing]

44. I believe that life begins when you first throw-up on another human.

[fleur-de-lisa]

46. Sick . . . but funny!

[sweetloukillbot]

52. I'm not Jewish, but I believe it's in the Talmud.

The dean of my church mentioned something similar about Jewish law/custom regarding birth and life during a sermon on a completely different subject and I did a lot of research to find it in the Bible. Haven't found anything direct, but did see some references to rabbinical teachings to that effect. There is Biblical reference that if a man attacks a woman and causes her to miscarry, he must pay restitution, but if she dies, he must be killed that is used to justify abortions.

[proud patriot]

4. well done

[baldguy]

6. Now tell him about Rmoney's career as an abortion profiteer.

Last edited Fri Aug 24, 2012, 09:29 PM - Edit history (1)

www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/romney-bain-abortion-stericycle-sec?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_c

[avebury]

7. Good job! nt

[Bigmack]

8. I've never understood...

..how some pro-life people can be OK with abortion after rape or incest or to save the life of the mother.

It's intellectually inconsistent. If I can use the word "intellectually" here.

Hey... if you believe all that stuff about "souls" and life beginning at conception, you have to believe that God put a soul in that fetus, no matter the circumstances that led up to that event.

Saving the life of the mother..? Hey... God's Will and all that stuff.

[rebecca_herman]

28. I once knew someone like that.

He was against abortion except for rape and life of the mother. He believed the rapist should then be considered legally and morally responsible for the death of the fetus if the woman aborted.

Shrug. His belief system to rationalize, I guess. I don't think "life of the mother" is neccessarily inconsistant though. Self defense has always been legal, and morally acceptable to most, even if in results in someone's death.

[jeff47]

29. Save the life of the mother would still be fairly consistent

If Mom dies, baby dies too. So keeping Mom alive is the least-bad outcome in a bad situation.

But the rape exception is not at all consistent. Unfortunately, a lot of anti-abortion folks are solving that by demanding there be no rape exception.

[Th1onein]

66. I'm pro life and I agree with you. A rapist's child should not be aborted.

I'm not religious, either. I am simply pro life. I do think, though, that if it is a choice between the life of the mother and the life of the child, then the mother should make the decision.

This has nothing to do with souls or any of that nonsense. It's just simply believing that we should protect our own, and that life begins at conception.

[CatWoman]

9. lol

I have to admit, I hear his brain screech to a halt all the way thru my monitor

[Big Orange Jeff]

32. Good one, CatWoman...

I will hope the screeching sound was the tires peeling out as his brain slammed into gear. We shall see...

[A HERETIC I AM]

10. I've been thinking of an analogy for quite some time now: How many people are on this bus?

Here's the thing...

Lets say there is 34 people in that pic (pretty close, anyway)

Lets say that at least half of them are women.

How many people are on the bus?

Now, think about this;
The woman in the 3rd row back on the left, sitting on the aisle JUST had sex with her SO 20 minutes ago and ovulated last night.

Is she two people?

The woman two rows behind her suffered a date rape by a close friend 6 days ago and has a 36 hour old pregnancy.


Is she two people?

The woman way in the back that is 6 months along, but one week from a miscarriage.

Is she two people?

And every man on that bus that has enough semen in their next ejaculation to make a total of 4 million babies.......

Are they all one person each?


How many people are on this bus?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Perfect! Cognitive Dissonance in action.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Binary thinking is hardly thinking at all, but it is so prevalent

People yearn for simple answers, black & white answers, yes/no, binary answers. Bible and Quran fundamentalism is symptomatic of that, especially when followers listen slavishly to a religious 'leader'. People crave simple lines in the sand to divide groups of people (good vs bad) or points in time (person after / not-person before).

One of the first steps to getting people thinking is to wean them off binary thinking.

A symptom of binary thinking is extremism. When people characterize a center-left group as 'communist' or a center-right group as 'fascist', then they are thinking in binary mode.

Dichotomies are much used by leaders to divide and bully people. It's 'us versus them'.

Reality is not simple, not black & white, not binary.

The OP got their friend to pop the binary bubble.

[rocktivity]

13. Priest: "Life begins at conception."

Minister: "Life begins at birth."
Rabbi: "You're both wrong. Life begins when the youngest finishes college and the dog dies."


rocktivity

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. I'm old enough to remember when the Church used to teach that life didn't begin until,...

...the first breath.

Going back to the Bible verse that talks about "breathing the breath of life" into Adam.

But then,...that was before Republicans infiltrated the Church.

[treestar]

35. I read a book a long time ago, unfortunately don't remember it by now

But it could be verified - but it was about the history of the Catholic Church re abortion - and there was this concept of quickening, which is old fashioned now and inapplicable, but even the Church was OK with abortion - until medical science taught them when the life began and it was earlier than they'd thought.

The Church is just against the woman deciding anything. They will change about when life "begins" if science gives them the excuse.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

40. "The Church is just against the woman deciding anything."

It's sad that this:

[img][/img]

Is associated with the traditional treatment of women in the church.

[treestar]

42. What is that?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

43. Check the following link...

http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/

[Mnpaul]

15. Like him or hate him Jesse Ventura nails it on abortion

It’s not so much that I think abortion should be legal as it is that I don’t think it can be made illegal without abusing the Constitution. Unless the government barged in at the precise moment the woman was there in the operating room with her feet in the stirrups, how would the government know she was getting an abortion? How could they even know she is pregnant without infringing upon her rights? Ultimately, I have to support keeping it legal. The government has to stay out of this one.
Source: Do I Stand Alone, by Jesse Ventura, p.150 , Jul 2, 2000

I don’t support abortion. I could never participate in one. But I think it would be a mistake to make them illegal again. What criminalization will do is force women into garages and back alleys, and then you’re going to have two lives in jeopardy. My mom, who was a nurse, used to talk about the messes that would come in after back-alley abortions went wrong. The way to stop abortion is to deal, philosophically & spiritually, with the people who get them. And that’s not something government can touch
Source: Ain’t Got Time To Bleed, p. 42-3 , Jan 1, 1999

The decision of whether or not to have an abortion does not belong in politics. It belongs with the woman, her family, her physician and possibly her clergy. The choice is personal, not political, and should stay that way. We have too much governmental intrusion into peoples’ lives, we should decrease that intrusion, not impose it upon something that should be so personal.
Source: 1998 campaign web site, jesseVentura.org/98campaign , Nov 1, 1998

How can you argue with that?

[Booster]

20. I agree and the rapist should have no say in the decision making at all - he should be in jail.

[Mnpaul]

16. And here is one for the Ayn Rand fanboys

Rand spoke plainly and forcefully against state governments' bans on abortion. 'Abortion is a moral right--which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved,' she told an audience of 1,500 people at the Ford Hall Forum, five years before the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973 and in Massachusetts, in which abortion was then illegal. 'An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being,' she declared."
Source: "Ayn Rand and the World She Made" by Anne Heller, p.320-321 , Oct 27, 2009

[CrispyQ]

33. So Ryan cherry picks Rand just like he cherry picks the Bible.

No surprise there, huh?

Fucking hypocrite.

[AlbertCat]

17. Good one. I recommend....

2 small technicalities IMHO

An embryo is alive. But is not sentient early on... or maybe not at all (does anyone remember being born?)

and EVERYBODY is "Pro-life". When it comes to abortion, there is only "Pro-choice" or "Anti-choice".

[Cha]

18. Thanks for sharing this

conversation with us, Big Orange Jeff. I feel like your friend does..the gov should not force a women to have a baby from Rape. And, rape is rape..regardless of what some stupid men have to parse about it.

The republicons having nothing to offer but Wedge issues and this is one of their biggest..along with Racism and Hatin' on Gay People.

Their platform is a WEDGE.

[daybranch]

19. visitation

Did you forget to mention that 31 states permit visitation rights with the child to the rapist?

[geckosfeet]

21. the jedi truth trick - the smarter ones get it sometimes...

[Lucky Luciano]

23. Game-Set-Match. nt

[dkf]

26. If he really believes a fetus has a right to be born it doesn't make sense for exceptions.

It could go either way...you may have just created an "extremist".

[Big Orange Jeff]

27. That was exactly my concern...

I knew I had just knocked him off of the fence, I'm just not sure which side he'll come down on. Judging by his body language and facial expression, I think we have him. At the very least, I hope I created enough doubt to keep him from voting for Lurch and Eddie Munster.

[emsimon33]

30. Wow! Very well done!

[Flying Squirrel]

31. Anti-choice

I don't buy the term "pro-life".

[dbackjon]

50. I prefer forced birth

[treestar]

34. Cool

It's rare the right winger is willing to even do that. Now he may go to the PRyan position, but even so, he sees the issue without just calling you a baby killer. Reasonable right wingers are tough to find these days.

[Iris]

36. Thank you!

Nicely done.

What really stuck out to me with the Akins thing was how he totally eliminated the woman, who was also the victim, from his little equation. He went on to say the rapist should be punished but not the child. Where's the woman? It is clear the Republicans would be more comfortable returning to a system where women and children are considered chattle. This would all be so much easier if the the rapist could just be sentenced to paying rent to the woman's husband or father for the use of her womb for 9 months.

[DirkGently]

45. Bingo. That's why the "no pregnancy from rape" myth is so important.

Put in that context, everyone recognizes that a fertilized egg is not anything remotely like a little child, wearing sneakers, and carrying a lunchbox. But the anti-abortion echo-chamber has whipped up the idea eggs and fetuses are BABIES!!! for so long that it's a shock for some people to be forced to recognize this. You wouldn't save a cooler carrying 10,000 fertilized eggs or embryos from a burning building rather than saving one living child. It is insane to even contemplate forcing a rape or incest victim to bear out a pregnancy related to their attack.

And the same goes for every other contemplated abortion. Whatever happens at conception, a living human child with separate rights is not instantaneously "created." We know this. We ALL know this. We have always known it.

Abortion, on demand, is every woman's right. We need to stop dancing on pinheads with these other pinheads who are really simply trying to shame, punish, and control women's sexual and reproductive activity.

Woman > Egg.

Period.

[mmonk]

47. The problem with life sometimes is that black and white

isn't possible through current thinking. You only can do the best you can and not judge and certainly not create laws based on a certainty which may not be more than a delusion that one prefers.

[lunatica]

48. Your friend just proved he's Pro Choice.

A huge misconception that pro-lifers must have is that everyone who is Pro Choice must have had an abortion or something. There are millions of people who are Pro-Choice who would never personally have an abortion. Your friend stated the exact reason that Pro Choice people are Pro Choice. They think it's a woman's decision.

You might think about telling him that just because a person is Pro-Choice doesn't mean they would have an abortion themselves. That's the definition of Pro Choice. It's all about having the right to choose for oneself and not have the government choose for us.

[citizen blues]

49. You go!!!! Don't let pro-lifers have it both ways!

This is the sort of conversation I'm encouraging all of my friends to have! Stop the hypocrisy!

"If abortion is murder, then it's murder regardless of how the pregnancy began. The embryo doesn't have full rights in one situation and no rights in the next. It's not the baby's fault that it was conceived in circumstances of rape or incest, so if abortion is murder, why should the baby face execution for the father's crime?"

Most pro-lifers aren't willing to take this extreme position. The only alternative is for them to allow women to make their own choices. Leave the decision to the woman, her support system, and her doctor.
Period.

[99Forever]

51. I'm sorry to be a wet blanket, but...

.. I think your framing is way off. How about this instead?:

Why would a woman need to have "an exception" made in order to have a perfectly legal and private medical procedure?

[jeff47]

55. Because their goal is to make it not legal nor private.

Hanging your hat on the current state of abortion isn't a good idea, because that's what they're trying to change. Abortion becomes illegal and your argument goes away.

On the other hand, this forces the guy to think about where life begins from a philosophical perspective. That's not going to change if abortion laws change.

[99Forever]

57. Ceding the high moral ground from the start...

.. is a good place to "hang your hat?"

Really?

Oh yeah..

... wouldn't want to "offend" the control freaks, would we?

Cripes, no fucking wonder we keep losing ground.

[jeff47]

58. No, you aren't on the high ground.

Your position is the law currently says it's legal. There's no high ground there, just a statement of the status quo.

And that status quo is what anti-abortion people want to change. So the status quo carries no weight in the debate - they already reject the status quo.

You're just reinforcing their current position. You are making them more anti-abortion by effectively saying "nyah nyah nyah it's leeeeegaaaal".

Plus, if you declare law the "moral high ground", that means they have the moral high ground if they change the law.

"The moral high ground" would be something like "It is wrong to force a woman to go through an unwanted pregnancy". You'll note that this is the moral high ground regardless of whether or not abortion is legal.

[99Forever]

59. Nonsense.

YOU cede the high ground by IMMEDIATELY going on the defensive.

Surrender away.

[jeff47]

61. What, exactly, is defensive?

I'm saying pro-choice is right. Even in places and situations where the law disagrees.

What, exactly, is defensive about that?

What, exactly, is defensive about making an anti-abortion person rethink their position?

How 'bout this case? Abortion is illegal in the Dominican Republic. You defined the moral high ground as the law. Therefore, the people who killed this girl had the high ground, because they were following the law.

[99Forever]

63. Go back to my original post and figure it out for yourself.

[jeff47]

64. So....there's nothing "defensive" then?

I'm just gonna assume you've got nothing, since you can't bother to list anything.

[99Forever]

67. I can't teach the willfully blind to see.

That's you problem to solve, not mine. Now, run along and find another leg to hump.

[jeff47]

68. So still got nothing then?

Seriously, you showed up in a good thread and shat all over the place, start whining about others being defensive, but only if you have the super-secret decoder ring. Is "I know you are but what am I" coming next?

If you have a point, back it up.
If you no longer have a point, don't pretend you do.

[99Forever]

69. Just gotta have the last word, eh?

Fine, have it. I won't be seeing it. I know exactly how to deal with people like you.

Bye.

[shireen]

53. You mean "anti-abortion," not "pro-life," right?

They both mean different things.

I think almost all of us here would describe ourselves as pro-life because we value life. A large fraction of us also support a woman's right to control her reproductive health.

[Paka]

54. Awesome!

You're good. Keep up having those conversations.

[Revlon10]

65. Read this book When Abortion was a crime.

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97may/abortex.htm


Though professional issues underlay the medical campaign, gender, racial, and class anxieties pushed the criminalization of abortion forward. The visible use of abortion by middle-class married women, in conjunction with other challenges to gender norms and changes in the social makeup of the nation, generated anxieties among American men of the same class. Birth rates among the Yankee classes had declined by mid-century while immigrants poured into the country. Antiabortion activists pointed out that immigrant families, many of them Catholic, were larger and would soon outpopulate native-born white Yankees and threaten their political power. Dr. Horatio R Storer, the leader of the medical campaign against abortion, envisioned the spread of "civilization" west and south by native-born white Americans, not Mexicans, Chinese, Blacks, Indians, or Catholics. "Shall" these regions, he asked, "be filled by our own children or by those of aliens? This is a question our women must answer; upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation." Hostility to immigrants, Catholics, and people of color fueled this campaign to criminalize abortion. White male patriotism demanded that maternity be enforced among white Protestant women.