1069

A reverse debate between Jerry and 1069.

Abortion is incompatible with women's equality.
Abortion pits women against their own bodies, and mothers against their own unborn children, making them enemies.
In our society, women still have not achieved true equality with men. The prochoice faction would have women believe that abortion is the way to achieve equality.
But it's a vicious, misogynistic lie.
In fact, abortion is more often an instrument of oppression, with women believing they have to abort, in order to achieve some semblance of social parity, some level of equality at work or in society in general.
The prochoice movement falsely identifies the woman's own body, her own child, as her "oppressors", and an abortionist as an ally who can save her from this oppression.
But in truth, her oppressors are these: men who want sex without responsibility (ie, "prochoice" men), abusive husbands and boyfriends, a society where empoyers are allowed to discriminate against pregnant women and where schools are allowed to discriminate against pregnant teens, where women with children are often reduced to poverty because the fathers of these children run out and refuse to help support them, while society sits by and does nothing. Why should it do anything? After all, the woman "could have had an abortion". In society's view, poverty and single motherhood are her punishments for choosing not to murder her child. She knew the consequences.

We live in a society where pregnancy and motherhood (especially single and/or teen motherhood) limits freedom and opportunity.
We live in an anti-woman society where open discrimination against pregnant women and mothers is permitted.
Many women feel they have no choice but to sacrifice their own unborn children in exchange for acceptance in this mother-hating society.
But subjugating oneself in this way- forfeiting the lifegiving and life-creating power that is women's alone- does not address (and in fact implicitly condones) this culture where women are not equal to men unless they are not pregnant, not equal unless they are not mothers.
What woman can hope for equality in the business world today, if she is pregnant or has small children?
Abortion does not solve the fact that society discriminates against women... in fact, it perpetuates discrimination.
We live in a society that oppresses women for being female, and abortion is an instrument of that oppression- one that women have been swindled into believing is actually "freedom".
In truth, it only provides "freedom" for men who want sex without strings and don't want to be forced to provide for their own offspring, for employers who don't want to bother providing extra benefits or making allowances and concessions for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and the mothers of small children. It provides "freedom" for society to claim that health insurance and affordable childcare are not rights (after all, the woman could've just gotten an abortion).
Abortion accepts and concedes to the sexist notion that women are not equal to men, not capable of contributing to society, not deserving of equal status, unless they are childless and nonprocreative.
Abortion protects and facilitates those who seek to oppress and discriminate against women.
It does nothing to address the inequities in society, the very inequities that drive desperate women to sacrifice their unborn children in the first place.

__________________
"I do love this idea that one can scream and scream and scream, with that utopia just one more scream away."
~ Scucca

Jerry

Assuming the Pro-Choice position, it is my goal to protect a woman’s right to medical privacy as decided in Roe-V-Wade.

For the purpose of this discussion I define victory as my opponent’s inability to provide an argument which could yield real, tangible results typical of the Pro-Life position, which would alter a woman’s current legal right to medical privacy.

***
Regardless of whether one is pro-choice or pro-life, in my opinion both camps should seek to minimize abortions, and perhaps both camps would even agree that everyone stands to benefit from a decrease in the number of abortions.

On the technicality of definitional differences:
Zygote, embryo, fetus, newborn, infant, toddler, pre-teen, teenager, adult and geriatric are different stages of growth, and hence we have different names for them.

In any event, it does little else but have both sides dig in their heels. It certainly doesn't address the problem.

On the issue of faith:
As a Christian I refer to the word of God:

John 3:6;
" Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit."

Obviously U.S. codified law only deals with the flesh, as the spirit has yet to be scientifically testable and thus legislatable.

Given what we can now see that only the flesh is acceptable to legislate on....

Leviticus 17:11;
" For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life."

The issue of sacrifices aside, "the life of a creature is in the blood", so a ZEF which has no blood, has no life.

Genesis 2:7;
" The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

This is a literal "breath", not figurative "breath".

This can not be accurately interpreted so as to include the reception of oxygen through the umbilical cord.

A ZEF which does not breath, has no life.
No ZEF breathes, therefore no ZEF is alive.
This means that terminating a ZEF is no different than terminating a hydatiform mole.

As to late term abortion:
Demagoguery such as "human life", "murder", "killing babies" and such represent the power of the emotional appeal of babies.

But as we all know, an appeal to emotion is a Logical Fallacy, so such arguments do not assist in solving the problem. In fact, they make things worse.

***
'At the end of the day' what each side wants is results. The only way to achieve such results is through the law.

The only way to impose upon a woman's current Constitutional right to medical privacy is to show a "compelling state interest" in the protection of a pre-viable ZEF.

As a Citizen of the U.S., a taxpayer and registered voter, it is my informed civil opinion that, pursuant to Roe-v-Wade section 10, paragraphs 3 and 4, there currently exists no well defined "compelling state interest" which could authorize the imposition on a woman's right to medical privacy, prior to the ZEF's "viability".

The rules to enact your desired change have been set by SCOTUS, so if you have such an argument, let it be known.

If you do not have such an argument, then let that be known, as you will receive credibility to your character for your objectiveness and honesty.

Never before have I seen such an astounding display of compassion and concern for women and the fundamental freedoms we all enjoy as Americans. I deeply appreciate the passion and selflessness you employ in your struggles to make the world a better place than it was when you entered it.

I can not say I dissent from the nature of the underlying moral messages in your argument. However, morality can not be legislated, so it can not give the desired results you seek.

I can only say that the truth of your claims must be so prevalent that evidence supporting them must truly be abundant, and so I invite you to give citation in Roe-V-Wade where SCOTUS addresses Roe's claim of being oppressed and discriminated against, and to also link to unbiased scientific studies regarding how women are oppressed by men when exorcizing ther right to medical privacy.

__________________
Palin/Miller 2012!

1069

What "does little else but have both sides dig in their heels"?
What "certainly doesn't address the problem"?

Well, I'm not a Christian; we have in this country a little thing called Separation of Church and State, which makes religion irrelevant when it comes to determining public policy.
What do I care if your God promotes abortion? The whole Bible is full of misogyny, which I can quote chapter and verse if you'd like, although I'd rather save that for another thread rather than derail this one.

Well, it's not exclusively about a "right to medical privacy" anymore; the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey emphasized the right to abortion as grounded in the general sense of liberty protected under the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, rather than being grounded exclusively in the "right to privacy".


Women's right to murder their unborn is currently protected not only under their "constitutional right to medical privacy", but also under their generalized right to "liberty", their right not to have any undue burdens placed on their access to abortion. Abortion has been recognized since PP vs Casey as not an exclusive "medical privacy" issue, but as a form of "liberty" protected by the due process clause.
Pfft. As if.

Anyway, the answer to this is a "Human Life Amendment", which has been proposed in different variations a number of times; more than 330 different proposals of a Human Life Amendment have been introduced in Congress over the years, in fact. All have been unsuccessful, but with the recent addition of several new conservative prolife judges to the Supreme Court, perhaps the time is ripe to try again.
Here's a version of a possible "Human Life Amendment" proposed by a group called the Ultimate Coalition for Unborn Children:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all persons are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are the Right to Life, that is, the Right to not have one’s life taken from them....
The word "person" shall apply to all human beings, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, citizenship, ancestry, national origin, sex, age, health, function, or condition of dependency, at all stages of biological development from conception until natural death.

No person shall deprive another person of life by assisting or aiding in their suicide. No person shall deprive an unborn person of life; provided, however, that nothing in this amendment shall prohibit a law allowing justification to be shown for only those medical procedures required to prevent the death of either the pregnant woman or her unborn offspring as long as such law requires every reasonable effort be made to preserve the life of each.

No designated funds are required to implement this amendment.

If this amendment to the Constitution were adopted, it would protect women as well as their unborn children from victimization by oppressive sexist, pro-abortion factions.
It should be noted that women were not initially considered citizens under the constitution either (nor were blacks of either gender), and still aren't; the 14th Amendment, passed in 1868 with the intent of redressing this wrong, guaranteed all "persons" the right to "equal protection under the law." However, the second section of the amendment used the words "male citizens," in describing who would be counted in determining how many representatives each state gets in Congress.
Similarly, the 15th Amendment in 1870 extended voting rights to all men, but not to any women (it calls for the rights of citizens not to abridged or denied "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude"; it still, to this day, permits voting rights to be denied on the basis of gender).
As women still battle to this day to be recognized as full citizens with equal rights and protections under the constitution, so must they seek equality for all citizens, especially their own children.
Real feminism ought to condemn all forms of discrimination and oppression- whether the oppression is against women, men, minorities, the handicapped, or the unborn.
Devaluing of one category of human life (the unborn) leads to the devaluing of all human life... starting with women, who are already held to be of lesser value than men.


Of course they don't "address it"; why should they give a crap if Norma McCorvey, age 21, was a ninth-grade dropout on her third pregnancy, an abused child who had spent time in reform school, was raped as a teenager and married an abusive husband at sixteen, had been homeless, drug- and alcohol-addicted, ultimately lost custody of all of her children, and was in the process of coming out as a lesbian?
It's so much easier for both SCOTUS and society at large to simply encourage Norma to kill her child, as if that's the solution to everything, rather than address and correct the real injustices that had battered and oppressed her from the moment she herself was born.
Norma did not, in fact, ever have an abortion, however. And today, she's glad.

Jerry

Word-wars.

Here are a few links on the Human Life Amendment for the casual reader.

NCHLA

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia;

PINN.net

From NCHLA's own website:
The evidential bias directing the thoughts behind the "Human Life Amendment" show through in the amendment's own violation of the first amendment:
...and as you said, here in America we have a separation of church and state, so nearly any such Human Life Amendment would inherently be unconstitutional.

The "Human Life Amendment" has failed to yield real, tangible results typical of the Pro-Life position, which would alter a woman’s current legal right to medical privacy, 330 times out of 330 attempts.

Therefore, your Human Life Amendment argument bears no merit.

***
-You have not shown how Roe-v-Wade suppresses any right of women;
--You effectively conceded that not even Roe herself thought that she was being oppressed by the ruling since oppression and discrimination of gender were not items addressed in Roe-v-Wade;
---You have failed to source even one link to unbiased scientific data supporting the notion that women are oppressed today because of Roe-v-Wade.

Therefore, your "abortion oppresses women" argument bears no merit.

***
I must commend you on having the courage and conviction to come out and discuss the issue of abortion, and though we do not agree on this subject, or at least we do not agree yet, it is clear to me that you are very intelligent and a genuine credit to the Pro-Life movement.

If you have another argument to present then please let it be known. If not, then we shall conclude this debate.

1069

Well, crud.
That didn't really go anywhere.

Admittedly, my angle turned out to be a little bit self-limiting.
I've no idea where else to go with it.
Well, I guess you win; thanks for a fun debate.

Felicity

That's lame. You certainly can do better than that...now have at him!

Otherwise it would appear that you won't stretch your understanding of the topic because you can't consider its merit. Roe is CHOCK full of specific things to address and you don't NEED a damned ammendment. Further, there can be established "state's interest" in preserving life. Go to, girl.

__________________
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die. ~*Leonardo Da Vinci*~

1069

No, I seriously can't think of anything else... but partly, I think the "lameness'" can be attributed to Jerry; he "won", if you can call it that, by refusing to play the game and merely saying "I'm right, and if you can't prove otherwise, then the debate's over" repeatedly. Of course he is right, and so neither I nor anybody else can prove otherwise, and so I guess the debate's over.
But, you know... he could've gotten into the spirit of it a bit more. He volunteered for this; it's not like anybody forced him.

On a brighter note, LeftyHenry did finally PM me back and say that yes, he did want to debate abortion tag-team style with me, but of course by the time I heard back from him it was already too late, so now he's ready, willing, and available to RD any one of you on abortion.
Have at it.

Jerry

Well dip me in chocolate and call me “Dessert”!

Your concession is evidence of your objectiveness and honesty in debate, and is witness to the substance of your character.

It has been a pleasure.

Jerry

Your just upset because you wanted Pro-Life to win

Felicity

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