Delaware Politics suffers a schism.
Earlier this evening, FrankKnotts, a new (to me) contributor over at Delaware Politics posted a rather graphic and yet false description of abortion procedures. It has since been deleted by Burris, but I was able to save it from my Google Reader. But I won’t post it here. Suffice it to say, here is Joanne Christian’s response to it over there:
The graphic depiction you erroneously describe on multiple levels, does nothing to further a pro-life stance. You want emotion, you got emotion. You want the truth, you get Planned Parenthood, and unwanted, abused, neglected, babies, and children. Choose the crime we all have a hand in. Nobody walks away guiltless.
Here is RSmitty’s reaction:
I never wanted us to cover this here, ever. […] Despite your graphic details, my final stance is to be pro-choice, although not the final trimester, yet I would much, much rather women CHOOSE to go full-term.
Why am I pro-choice? First, you should hopefully know by now that I am not a government interventionist, but that’s not the top reason. A friend of mine, whom I grew up with, would not have even had a chance to have even been conceived had his mother not had one. Sounds odd, yes, but two years prior to his birth, his mother became pregnant, but it was a tubal pregnancy (I forget the technical-medical term). Not only would that had left his mother barren from the damage (mid-to-late 60’s medicine here), but very possibly she would have died from that kind of rupture. That’s a co-top-reason. The other is I do not ever want to see a return to back-alley procedures.
All that said, anyone that uses it as an option of birth-control (on the same level as the pill, for example) has woefully missed the point.
And from the “morally superior yet superiorly delusional” contingent, David Anderson:
Abortion of human offspring is an abomination to God and any part of civilized society. I lot of people have been indoctrinated to avoid the truth. Statistics show that when people understand the reality of abortion, they don’t have them or encourage there partner to get one. […] We have to speak up. Good post.
I am not going to criticize or praise Burris for deleting a post from one of his writers. It is his blog and he must run it as he sees fit. But I will comment on the larger issue: that the Republican Party has to grow up. And Dave Burris has shown a much welcome willingness to do just that recently, in his reactions to the defection of Arlen Specter and his push back on Rush Limbaugh’s idiocy. A child makes demands for what they want in absolute terms, and screams when they don’t get what they want immediately. That is David Anderson. That is FrankKnotts. That is the religious right. A faction of the party that has made the Republican Party so toxic that it just lost two elections in two years, each in landslide. A faction that made its most promising Presidential candidate, Jon Huntsman, so unwelcome that he has gone to work for a Democratic Administration. A faction that believes that Christine O’Donnell is a far superior candidate than Mike Castle.
It is fine to oppose abortion. It is fine to be pro-life. What makes you a child is how you go about achieving your goal in eliminating abortion. If you demand a litmus test, if you call those who are pro-choice immoral and evil, and if you do nothing else to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and in fact embrace policies like abstinence only that only increase unwanted pregnancies, then you are a child.
Indeed, such childish behavior alienates a potential partner in me. I am pro-choice but anti-abortion. I want to reduce abortions. I just don’t want to make it illegal. But David and Frank would rather call me a killer than work with me to reduce abortions.
A grown up realizes compromises must be reached to achieve any goal in life. We all make compromises in our everyday lives. So why is that not true in politics? You want to reduce abortions, then work with those you would oppose to do so. That is what grown ups do. Increase adoption funding. Allow gays to adopt unwanted children. Provide safe sex education to our teenagers. The rate of abortions fell the last time we pursued those policies, and increased when we abandoned them.
We are seeing the battle for the soul of the Republican Party over at DP. It will be interesting.
\today I suggested that one of the big problems with the pro-life position is that often “… male legislators and politicians demanding in the name of God to restrict what women can do with their own bodies.”
http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2009/05/president-obama-goes-to-notre-dame.html
Call you a killer? When? What offer are you making to reduce abortions? The number of abortions peaked under Clinton at about 1.6 million and fell under Bush.
I don’t take seriously your concern for the GOP. You believe that it should abandon the majority opinion and fight with the Democrats over a minority opinion. We don’t need an echo, we need a choice. We all know why the GOP had problems in 2006 and it had nothing to do with these issues. In fact the Democrats went out of their way to get candidates who claimed to share the cultural conservative point of view.
If you demand a litmus test, if you call those who are pro-choice immoral and evil, and if you do nothing else to prevent unwanted pregnancies….
Strawdog.
Chasity and fidelity are the solution to a lot of ills in our society.
What offer are you making to reduce abortions?
Responsibility.
Worked for my wife and I. We didn’t abstain during our 5 years of engagement, but somehow refrained from an unplanned pregnancy. We were responsible enough to make sure it didn’t happen.
It is not like it is unknown technology. Sheesh, drop $5 and get a pack of rubbers. How hard is it?
weird how abortion has been creeping into the discourse lately with a Supreme court pick on the way….
sheeple are so predictable.
War is fine
killing unwanted zygotes bad
gotta love it.
enjoy church today ladies
Hey, no one is “hooray for abortion.” It’s a choice some women have to make for horrific reasons. I certainly don’t like the idea of third trimester abortions, but these are done for horrific reasons. If a woman has carried a pregnancy for 6+ months, it’s because it is a wanted pregnancy. Those abortions occur because of terrible birth defects, normally ones incompatible with life. And no matter what anti-abortion foes try to tell you, carrying a pregnancy to term is not without risk.
The abortion debate, IMO, shows the problem with social conservatism. It’s all about absolutes and judgments without acknowledging circumstances. Social conservatism seems to be about demonizing without understanding. Plus, the infantilization of women with the laws they try to pass – making them wait, look at sonograms, etc. That’s treating a woman like she’s stupid, and just causing further delays and harassment (she has to take 2 days off of work and walk the protest line twice).
Right now, it doesn’t look like conservatives want to reduce abortion. Many of them demonize birth control too, conflating it with abortion. The way to reduce abortion is to increase access to contraception for women, including emergency contraception. Another way is to increase funding to help women after they give birth, like subsidized child care.
KILLING zygotes fine.
Pouring water on a bad guys face bad.
Wow UI, I guess we should abort all the retards too?
How the hell you take away such nonsense from UI’s comment, h., is beyond me. This is the problem with the anti-legalized abortion (I won’t call them pro-life, because they aren’t) crowd. They are incapable of intelligent discussion. Why not research late term abortions – tragic, heart-breaking situations. But, you won’t do that because dealing with complexity of issues doesn’t suit your good and evil mentality. You guys give new meaning to the phrase… Keep it simple.
Exactly.
And they still haven’t gotten the clue that if you have to lie about the issue, you’ve lost the argument right out of the gate. For people who call themselves for liberty and freedom and responsibility, they work overtime to make sure all of that gets limited for women and their families. Solutions for reducing the number of abortions are plentiful and start with Brian’s idea of responsibility. But for kids, that has to be accompanied with real information about how to prevent pregnancy. Tell them to Just Say No all you want, but don’t send them out in the world unequipped to take some responsibility for their actions.
And UIs post @6 is on the money.
Thank you pandora and Cassandra.
And H, for the record – yes your moral outrage rings hollow when you support torture.
No country or civilization prior to the founding of the United States said that cruel and degrading punishment was out of bounds simply because each human being had certain inalienable (or God given if you prefer) rights. That was the revolutionary part about 1776.
Whatever else waterboarding is (effective, ineffective, torture, not torture) it is unAmerican. I’ve never understood why conservatives don’t get that. I guess they’ve used their sham moral outrage up on being upset about abortion.
No thanks needed, UI. You wrote a thoughtful, intelligent comment and h. responded by completely ignoring what you wrote. Typical.
As the mother of a 15 and 12 year old this topic is front and center in our household. And I deeply resent the implication that because I’m pro-choice that I’m somehow encouraging my children to have sex. And, make no mistake, that is the message from the anti-legalized abortion crowd – pro-choice = advocates promiscuity.
Brian Shields: Many of the most committed anti-abortion warriors are staunch Catholics who, when pressed, will not support birth control.
h.: Zygotes have no nervous system, and therefore cannot experience pain. Murderers can.
BTW, DD, Frank Knotts is perhaps the stupidest voice in the Delaware blogosphere, and along with our pal the Ignorant Man, the biggest reason I stopped reading that blog.
A lot of anti-abortion arguments come down to pregnancy = punishment. It boils down to control of women’s bodies, because the only sex they’re allowed to have is patriarchy-approved sex that may lead to pregnancy. Funny how it’s only the women who are punished with pregnancy, isn’t it?
So true, UI. My favorite is the 24 hour waiting period. It’s as if conservatives view having an abortion as an impulse buy – as if a pregnant woman was walking down a street, picked up a pair of earrings and then saw an abortion clinic and said, “Oooh, I think I’ll get one of those too!”
It’s beyond insulting. A woman arrives for an abortion and is told to go home and think about it. Of course, this assumes she hasn’t thought about it and, in most cases, agonized over it. I can almost picture the scenario conservatives create with this nonsense.
Woman: I’m here for an abortion.
Doctor: You need to go home and think about this for 24 hours.
Woman: Holy cow! Think about it? I never thought about thinking because I’m such a stupid ninny. Thanks, Doc.
Just for the record I ‘m much like DD pro-choice, anti abortion. I am also a very non-religious person. Anti-catholic even. What I don’t understand is how most liberals can be pro abortion, anti death penalty, etc. Or how many liberals value the life of an animal over that of a human being.
I say what I say because it’s easy to rattle you guy’s. It’s kinda fun.
Hre’s one that will make you think …..
What if the so called gay gene could be detected before birth, say within the term for a legal abortion, and all the pregnant conservatives started lining up for abortions because they were afraid junior was going to be queer. Would that change your feelings about abortion?
No. It would confirm my feelings about conservatives.
Good answer, Jason. Same for me.
Hmmm… our motto: Better gay than the KKK! 😉
Unstable Isotope WROTE: Hey, no one is “hooray for abortion.”
ME: Oh, yes, they are. The polls consistently show (though censored by the liberal “Views Media”) that it is MEN who support abortion, while WOMEN are PRO-LIFE.
Men want to have sex without responsibility. most abortions with a young women or girl invovle her being pressured into it by a man.
Most men want easy abortion so they can do their thang without consequences. Most women are Pro-Life.
However, it is amazing at how good liberals are at describing themselves while trying to pin their foibles on conservatives.
It is in fact liberals especially liberal Republicans who childishly demand to have everything their way, wile being unwilling to compromise or give anything in return.
Apparently liberals know themselves very well and speak of what they know.
You do raise that interesting gender angle. Heck, it wasn’t even until Viagra was out and covered by prescription insurance, that BCP’s on most plans fell into “coverage” area, of least co-pay. Most plans did not cover, or had a separate co-pay column for prescribed contraception. Talk about a pound of cure…….!!!!! But that’s another topic. Back to you UI…
most abortions with a young women or girl invovle her being pressured into it by a man.
What century are you living in?
h.
You pro-torturers hate the presumption of innocence, don’t you?
Don’t get me started on the Viagra/contraception disparity. I notice Jon doesn’t have any actual data, but he’s certainly continuing the “women are children incapable of making decisions” talking point.
Good point, A1. We have tortured innocent people. Just read the story of Dilawar, featured in the documentary Taxi to the Dark Side.
There certainly can be more than one Jon Moseley, but just check out this page one of a Google search of that name.
LOL, Smitty. Is he from World Nut Daily?
When someone is caught on the battle field there is no presumption of innocence.
But when they are turned in for a $10K reward they should be treated as such.
wooohoooo
Geezer // May 17, 2009 at 9:33 am
BTW, DD, Frank Knotts is perhaps the stupidest voice in the Delaware blogosphere, and along with our pal the Ignorant Man, the biggest reason I stopped reading that blog.
I’m not number 1…..aaaaaaaalllllllrrrriiiigggghhhttttttt