quote:Originally posted by lobo: Umm - I want people to take personal responsibility for their actions...
Right! Because everyone knows that newborns are fully capable of being fully responsible for themselves from the first breath. Tell those babies to get a job! They're just pretending they can't even hold their own heads up -- they're just lazy and we have to stop coddling them.
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posted
If there were a way to take care of babies without paying for their parents who had a kid without being to take care of it, I'm sure lots more people would be on board.
I imagine very few are not in favor of giving up some of their own income in order to make sure babies are safe and warm and fed. More resent giving up some of their own security and warmth in order to house and feed and take care of their perceived-as-irresponsible adults who are the babies' parents.
Note: This is an observation and not a representation of what I think should happen.
quote:Originally posted by katharina: If there were a way to take care of babies without paying for their parents who had a kid without being to take care of it, I'm sure lots more people would be on board.
There is. It's called teaching the parents about birth control, the morning after pill, and condoms.
But strangely a lot of pro-life people also seem to be anti-sex-education.
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quote: Umm - I want people to take personal responsibility for their actions...
Right! Because everyone knows that newborns are fully capable of being fully responsible for themselves from the first breath. Tell those babies to get a job! They're just pretending they can't even hold their own heads up -- they're just lazy and we have to stop coddling them.
You know that "people" did not refer to newborns, Rabbit.
quote:I am confused.
Clearly. Too bad you've decided to wield your confusion as a weapon rather than seek to end it.
quote:I imagine very few are in favor of giving up some of their own income in order to make sure babies are safe and warm and fed.
Actually, very many are in favor of giving up some of their own income in order to make sure babies are safe and warm and fed, as evidenced by the fact that very many actually do give up some of their income to do so.
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quote:I imagine very few are in favor of giving up some of their own income in order to make sure babies are safe and warm and fed. More resent giving up some of their own security and warmth in order to house and feed and take care of their perceived-as-irresponsible adults who are the babies' parents.
Not very Christian is it?
The Bible says an awful lot more about our moral obligation to care for children, the poor, the sick and the elderly than it does about protecting the rights of the unborn.
quote:If there were a way to take care of babies without paying for their parents who had a kid without being to take care of it, I'm sure lots more people would be on board.
Poverty is the number one reason women seek abortions. Ironic isn't it.
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posted
Oh, it looks like there's enough unChristian feelings to go around. I'd leave the sifting of people's righteousness up to the one is able to know everyone's heart. Self-righteous judgment is a poor political tool.
--
Dag: Whoops - I left out a "not".
----
Javert: And lots of pro-life people ARE in favor of sex education and birth control. You are not doing yourself any favors with the careless stereotypes and issue-mixing.
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quote:Poverty is the number one reason women seek abortions. Ironic isn't it.
Can you cite this? It doesn't match with my recollection of the research.
First example I found (it's 20 years old), which states that in the United States, "cannot afford a baby" is the second-most common "main reason" for having an abortion, and the second most-cited reason where multiple reasons are given. Note that "cannot afford a child" is not co-extensive with "poverty."
quote:Dag: Whoops - I left out a "not".
Thanks for clarifying. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: Umm - I want people to take personal responsibility for their actions...
Right! Because everyone knows that newborns are fully capable of being fully responsible for themselves from the first breath. Tell those babies to get a job! They're just pretending they can't even hold their own heads up -- they're just lazy and we have to stop coddling them.
You know that "people" did not refer to newborns, Rabbit.
Yup, I recognize that lobo was most likely referring to adults and likely parents and not children. My sarcastic comment was just intended to emphasize how ridiculous it is to talk about personal responsibility when you are dealing with people who are not capable of it.
We all need to feel a personal responsibility for the welfare of the children in our community and part of that personal responsibility includes a responsibility to support community programs, including government programs, that will promote child welfare. The government is the only organization in our society that has resources and authority needed to ensure that all children are well cared for and not just those with able parents, families and churchs.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Javert: And lots of pro-life people ARE in favor of sex education and birth control. You are not doing yourself any favors with the careless stereotypes and issue-mixing.
I'm not stereotyping. I would be stereotyping if I said "all pro-life people believe such-and-such". I didn't.
And how is it issue-mixing? Comprehensive sex-education leads to less unwanted pregnancies, which leads to less abortions.
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posted
Plus socialism plus welfare. That's too many issues mixed together to have a productive discussion, so dragging in the beliefs of some on an entirely different issue just to cast aspersions on a particular point of view is muddying things up.
Especially as one who is against abortion but gung ho for sex edcuation, it seems less than helpful. ---
Rabbit, at least some of the people they were talking about ARE capable of responsibility for themselves. Your comment ignored that in a disrespectful way.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Plus socialism plus welfare. That's too many issues mixed together to have a productive discussion, so dragging in the beliefs of some on an entirely different issue just to cast aspersions on a particular point of view is muddying things up.
Especially as one who is against abortion but gung ho for sex edcuation, it seems less than helpful. ---
My point was that if you educate these people, they don't have kids that you, in turn, don't have to give money for.
Just because it isn't helpful to you personally doesn't mean it's not helpful to the issue or the discussion.
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quote:Poverty is the number one reason women seek abortions. Ironic isn't it.
Actually, I live in a city where the going trend among the poverty stricken is to have more children and therefore receive more goverment assistance. I deal with children whose parents have told them the only reason they and their siblings were born was so "Mama, can get more money." In fact, the only people around here getting abortions are those who simply don't want to deal with a child messing up their life plan.
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If that was your point, it would have been better to say it that way rather than trying to discredit all pro-lifers by saying they were probably hypocrites.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Yup, I recognize that lobo was most likely referring to adults and likely parents and not children. My sarcastic comment was just intended to emphasize how ridiculous it is to talk about personal responsibility when you are dealing with people who are not capable of it.
We all need to feel a personal responsibility for the welfare of the children in our community and part of that personal responsibility includes a responsibility to support community programs, including government programs, that will promote child welfare. The government is the only organization in our society that has resources and authority needed to ensure that all children are well cared for and not just those with able parents, families and churchs.
How many people get abortions each year? Are you saying that ALL of them are "people who are not capable of [personal responsibility]? And that the government should have the "authority .. to ensure that all children are well cared for"?
Who decides what "well cared for" means?
It seems you hold with the thought that the Government is wiser than the individual...
This sounds alot more like European Socialism than American Democracy...
Let me guess, you support Obama?
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If that was your point, it would have been better to say it that way rather than trying to discredit all pro-lifers by saying they were probably hypocrites.
And it would be better for you not to present what I said inaccurately when anyone can go up and read what I actually wrote.
Saying "a lot of pro-life people" is not saying all pro-life people, nor was it an attempt to.
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posted
I have no problem with people being wanting others to carry their pregnancies to term. It's the same with people wanting others to have only heterosexual marriages, not have sex before marriage, go to therapy instead of getting divorces, only marry within their own faith, etc.
It's fitting with their world view and religious beliefs, and that's cool.
I DO have a problem with governments mandating any of the above things, and that's where things get sticky.
You can try to convince others to do those things, and you may disapprove if they don't. You can write opinion articles and take out advertising. You can shout from the rooftops or create webpages or blogs around it. That's great - freedom of expression. I can dig it.
Just don't try to force legislature down the throats of those who have differing beliefs. As my father always said, "Your right to swing your arm ends at my face."
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quote:Originally posted by lobo: Umm - I want people to take personal responsibility for their actions...
"Finish college," "Hang onto my job," "Care for my dying parent," and "Be able to take adequate care of the children I already have" all sound like taking personal responsibility to me.
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quote:Originally posted by lobo: ... This sounds alot more like European Socialism than American Democracy...
Well, technically both places have democracy. The real difference is the difference in socialism. Let's walk through it:
European socialism: Redistribute money to both the poor and the rich via banks. Canadian socialism: Redistribute money to the poor only. Chinese socialism: Say you're Communist, but redistribute money to no one. American socialism: Redistribute money to the rich only.
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quote: American socialism: Redistribute money to the rich only.
*wipes tear* Sorry, that just sounded so funny after my conversation with my husband today, where we had tallied up how much money we had received from the government that we never earned. A ballpark estimate, taking into consideration EIC, food stamps, free medical care (including pre-natal care, two deliveries, and two major surgeries), and the money we receive in excess of what we spend on college is somewhere around $50,000. In seven years.
I know it's anecdotal, but sometimes a little reality can help one refocus.
ETA: By the time he's done with school, it'll probably be over $100,000. It's astronomical to me, and frankly embarrassing.
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In Ontario, Canada you'd receive $20k per year as a couple with two children on welfare alone. Thats already $140k over seven years. Add on better free health care, free dental care, and generous government bursaries for university tuition, and you're looking at a much more substantial sum.
Still dinky stuff compared to a 700 billion bailout + billion dollar bailouts for each of Freddie Mac, Freddie Mae, and AIG though Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by lobo: ... This sounds alot more like European Socialism than American Democracy...
Well, technically both places have democracy. The real difference is the difference in socialism. Let's walk through it:
European socialism: Redistribute money to both the poor and the rich via banks. Canadian socialism: Redistribute money to the poor only. Chinese socialism: Say you're Communist, but redistribute money to no one. American socialism: Redistribute money to the rich only.
Inaccurate, 300 billions$ each year is redistributed to the poor provinces from the richer coastal provinces. Whether poor people actually get money probly not, but to some extant teach a man to fish feed him for a lifetime comes to mind. There are times that the worth of handouts becomes much much more when its aimed at infrastructure rather then people themselves.
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Is personal responsibility even an issue worth debating in relation to abortion? It doesn't address the primary reasons for supporting either side.
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posted
By personal responsibility, I mean taking responsibility for the act of making the baby. Don't just kill it to get out of dealing with it...
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quote: It sounds like a lot, but realize thats over 7 years or only roughly over $7k a year.
And yet that is $7000 directly out of the pocket of a fellow citizen. Sometimes I think like that to help me remember not to take it for granted; I imagine stealing a large sum of money out of the pocket of a more financially well-off friend or relative. It's hard. Plus, if I had ever received welfare, that amount would be doubled. The only thing that lets me sleep at night is knowing that we will be paying back more than our fair share when Jes is done with school. Hopefully.
I tried to open your link, but my old laptop doesn't do so well with pdf's. Sorry. I'll try it on my desktop when I get home.
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posted
Given that the terms in the first post mean what I think they do, I actually *can* explain. I hope that's what's desired here!
When you mix someone else's beliefs, which you don't hold ("abortion is wrong") with your own beliefs, which they don't hold ("socialism is an effective means, and the only effective means, of preventing child deprivation"), you are bound to get something neither you nor they will agree with ("child deprivation is A-OK").
I assume that the socialism belief is Unicorn's belief, because without it the post doesn't hold together. If not, Unicorn can state explicitly his assumptions -- and ask if they are shared by those he disagrees with about abortion.
It's insidious, because we all use assumptions, and you may not be aware which of yours aren't shared by others.
But think about how this sort of argument usually works when others you *don't* agree with start buliding a model of *you*. You get people proving that you believe all sorts of wild things you never even considered, and showing how "contradictory" your beliefs are -- but it's really how contradictory your beliefs are when mixed in with their own. (Or maybe you've never had that experience.)
If we start with the assumption that those we disagree with are not evil, stupid, or insane; we listen openly to their beliefs; and then ask, In what kind of world would their beliefs be true? we may get some inkling of how they perceive the world. If not, it's just a story we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel right. Which is sort of pointless.
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quote: I have no problem with people being wanting others to carry their pregnancies to term. It's the same with people wanting others to have only heterosexual marriages, not have sex before marriage, go to therapy instead of getting divorces, only marry within their own faith, etc.
It's fitting with their world view and religious beliefs, and that's cool.
I DO have a problem with governments mandating any of the above things, and that's where things get sticky.
You can try to convince others to do those things, and you may disapprove if they don't. You can write opinion articles and take out advertising. You can shout from the rooftops or create webpages or blogs around it. That's great - freedom of expression. I can dig it.
Just don't try to force legislature down the throats of those who have differing beliefs. As my father always said, "Your right to swing your arm ends at my face."
I believe I am now a fan of FlyingCow.
This was one of the few posts, concerning topics of a controversial nature, that I can truly say I support completely.
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Not only are the issues related, but the entire point of the thread was to point out how they were, so discussing the various issues together seems perfectly valid.
I do think Qaz's point is pretty relevant, as well as the people pointing out that not all Pro-Life people fit the entire "official" conservative stereotype. However, I have seen lots of Pro-Life people telling me that adoption is always the better choice, yet I have never seen a Pro-Life family actually adopt (not to say they don't ever, just that I haven't come across it yet). Likewise, opposition to birth control is a fairly common belief as well.
Unicorn was obviously referring specifically to socialism (given that it's in the title of the thread and all) but substitute adoption and you get a similar hypocrisy among a large number of Pro-Lifers (please note that I am saying "Large Number", not "All" or even "Most.") Likewise, many also seem to oppose sex education and birth control.
About 500,000 children get shuffled around in the US foster care system. To those who are opposed to abortion, birth control, sex education, and who STILL aren't willing to adopt children.... what exactly are we supposed to do?
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quote: I have never seen a Pro-Life family actually adopt (not to say they don't ever, just that I haven't come across it yet)
I'm willing to bet quite a few families who adopt are pro-life, at the very least inasmuch as their individual cases are concerned.
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quote:Unicorn was obviously referring specifically to socialism (given that it's in the title of the thread and all) but substitute adoption and you get a similar hypocrisy among a large number of Pro-Lifers (please note that I am saying "Large Number", not "All" or even "Most.")
"Hypocrisy" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.
There are a vanishingly small number of infants who cannot be placed for adoption at birth - which is the type of adoption that is at issue when one is discussing the decision to abort a child or place a child for adoption.
quote:About 500,000 children get shuffled around in the US foster care system.To those who are opposed to abortion, birth control, sex education, and who STILL aren't willing to adopt children.... what exactly are we supposed to do?
We could start by asking them "Would you prefer to not exist or to have gone through the foster care system?"
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Unicorn was obviously referring specifically to socialism (given that it's in the title of the thread and all) but substitute adoption and you get a similar hypocrisy among a large number of Pro-Lifers (please note that I am saying "Large Number", not "All" or even "Most.") Likewise, many also seem to oppose sex education and birth control.
I'm not sure it's entirely hypocrisy. Perhaps pro-lifers are trying to advocate *not having sex* before one is ready to accept the probable consequences of having sex. Naive, sure, but perhaps it would be hypocrisy to *them* if they decided to endorse birth control.
Me personally, I think that sex ed and wide acceptance and use of birth control is probably the only way to put an end to abortions. Rape victims can get the morning-after pill, which may (or may not, I'm just sayin' stuff) actually encourage them to come forward sooner.
People should actually be informed about sex, and parents seem to be disturbingly lax in doing their jobs to their growing children as far as this is concerned. I'm not sure if I'm for sex ed in schools just yet, but basically I think every adult capable of having sex should be able to know these things:
1. Sex makes babies if you're not careful. Yes, even your first time. 2. Several diseases are communicable by sex if you're not careful. 3. The only way to guarantee you won't make babies or get diseases from sex is to not have sex (call me a prude but the statistics back me up on this one). Here are some options available to you to up your odds if you decide to engage in sex anyway. 4. Anyone who has suffered abuse or rape has a right to get help and pursue criminal prosecution against their abuser.
As for abortion, I don't think there's really anyone who loves it. I think it's abominable, destructive, and wrong. But, ultimately, I think the government has no place regulating who can and cannot have one, because the line is so very blurry -- only the most out-there pro-lifers will deny the right to pursue an abortion when a mother's life is at great risk and/or the baby is unlikely to live (Then again, I've known several women [anecdotal I know, sorry] who continued their pregnancy after such warnings from their doctors and went on to raise beautiful, healthy children. Maybe this says something about how much we should trust our doctors. /tangent).
There are huge numbers of childless families who are waiting in line to adopt, and the financial and emotional costs can be very high. Just because some advocates cannot pay this price themselves does not make them hypocrites.
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quote:We could start by asking them "Would you prefer to not exist or to have gone through the foster care system?"
This *feels* like an argument that could also justify saying that everyone should have as many children as possible based on the implied premises that:
a) Their likely preference, once they are capable of expressing it, would almost always be that they exist in the resulting resource-constrained, overpopulated world rather than not exist at all.
and
b) That their hypothetical preference is a (the?) primary determinator of the correctness of the action.
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quote:We could start by asking them "Would you prefer to not exist or to have gone through the foster care system?"
This *feels* like an argument that could also justify saying that everyone should have as many children as possible based on the implied premises that:
a) Their likely preference, once they are capable of expressing it, would almost always be that they exist in the resulting resource-constrained, overpopulated world rather than not exist at all.
and
b) That their hypothetical preference is a (the?) primary determinator of the correctness of the action.
I thought that theoretically, the issue here is not that the babies did not exist, it is that they did exist at one time but were murdered.
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quote:I thought that theoretically, the issue here is not that the babies did not exist, it is that they did exist at one time but were murdered.
I don't object to *that* argument beyond disagreeing with it, but if you are going to argue about whether people should be permitted to have abortions based on the desire for life that non-aborted people eventually express, then it seems to follow that one could make the same argument about not conceiving as many of these eventually-valuing-their-lives people as possible.
If you acknowledge that this desire is not an overriding factor and that other considerations should come into play when deciding whether or not to conceive, then it follows that this applies to abortions as well because both actions (abortion, preventing conception) will result in preventing a person from existing who would have eventually wanted to be exist.
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quote:"Hypocrisy" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.
There are a vanishingly small number of infants who cannot be placed for adoption at birth - which is the type of adoption that is at issue when one is discussing the decision to abort a child or place a child for adoption.
We could start by asking them "Would you prefer to not exist or to have gone through the foster care system?"
I am aware that there is a waiting list for adopting infants (white infants anyway. I know that the length of the list is different for different races although I'm not sure by what degree. Anyone have any stats on that?) And I can see the point of view that "I'm specifically talking about adopting infants so it's not hypocritical of me to ignore the hundreds of thousands of post-infants who haven't been adopted." But it seems absurd to me to treat the two issues as unrelated. The world has finite resources and we can't even properly take care of the children that exist.
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I think this emotive term has to be misused in this case. Doesn't this term imply an illegal action, which an abortion is not (currently)?
And also, up until now this thread was staying so polite - think we can keep it that way?
I do have to say that this argument doesn't really help (and neither does the "You may not like abortion but you don't have a right to legislate it" one). If it was perfectly legal to kill an adult human would you sit around saying "Well, it's not illegal and even though I might think it's pretty bad I don't have a right to go around forcing my views on other people?"
When you believe mass murder is taking place, I think you're perfectly justified in doing what you can to stop it.
The core problem is as much as some people clearly see this as murder, others don't. I see no difference between an unfertilized egg and a first trimester fetus. I don't think there's a clear cut line we can draw, although I'm willing to draw it for legal reasons at the development of the brain. (Heartbeats and fingerprints don't impress me).
So I don't have a problem with pro-life people being pro-life. It just bugs me when they ignore the greater ramifications of the issue and tell other people they should be doing things that they themselves are not willing to do.
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quote:And also, up until now this thread was staying so polite - think we can keep it that way?
The thread where pro-lifers were accused of being hypocrites? Have we been reading the same thread? It has not remotely been polite.
If you meant to say that pro-lifers have not been returning in kind the actions and words hurled at them, then I completely agree.
However, using the phrase "murder" is not necessarily unkind. Taking that word off the table is the equivalent of silencing those who believe that ending the life of a person-not-yet-born is, in fact, murder.
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quote:The world has finite resources and we can't even properly take care of the children that exist.
And yet, I'm positive that you don't advocate killing (or allowing the parents to choose to kill) those children who do exist. Does that make you a hypocrite for not adopting one of them?
No. It doesn't.
We have different premises about whether abortion is killing a child. Before you call something hypocrisy, you need to account for all the ways the views in question differ from yours. My question was a pithy attempt to make it clear that you had failed to do that.
Hopefully this answer's MattP's post, too (as a matter of clarification, not refutation).
There's another way in which that question is relevant to the general abortion discussion. I've talked with many people who think abortion is kinder than allowing an unwanted child to be born - that is, people assert that their view on abortion is compassionate towards a large number of those aborted. That hasn't been brought up here, but my response is often the same question.
quote:And I can see the point of view that "I'm specifically talking about adopting infants so it's not hypocritical of me to ignore the hundreds of thousands of post-infants who haven't been adopted." But it seems absurd to me to treat the two issues as unrelated.
Even though they are related, there is a huge difference between them in the abortion argument. Convincing a mother to carry to term and place the child for adoption saves the child's life (from the perspective of the hypothetical pro-life adopter). Adopting a foster child has a good chance to improve the child's life and might actually save it (although we likely won't ever know that).
There are significant ways in which both you and I could dramatically improve the life of one or more individual, including creating a chance of saving a life. I'm assuming that you favor some law that will, at some time, save the life of a child. Does that mean your a hypocrite for not taking whatever step you could take in order to improve the life of an individual?
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: If it was perfectly legal to kill an adult human would you sit around saying "Well, it's not illegal and even though I might think it's pretty bad I don't have a right to go around forcing my views on other people?"
But that is perfectly legal, in certain circumstances. War, the death penalty, and self-defense, to name three.
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posted
Thank you, Katharina. In my ordinary life I am a mild-mannered reporter, but at night I become -- a random sequence of letters!
More to the point, I sometimes teach a class in which there's a component of critical thinking (it's not my usual topic), and on my own I'm exploring something called Nonviolent Communication, which is the art of talking to people on touchy topics without (you hope) pissing them off. We'll see how well it works.
[ October 23, 2008, 05:54 PM: Message edited by: Qaz ]
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