i am *so* going to write him a fan(atic) letter. in fact, i’ll go invent 42 new fakey emails solely for this purpose. (i tried emailing him once in all sincerity asking him why genocide was altogether a good thing and he simply replied “you need serious help”. very chatty, he.) i can’t quite contain how much i despise this man.

If God really did see Skeleton Key, shouldn’t the there be a smoking crater where the director’s house once stood?

If God really did see Skeleton Key, shouldn’t the there be a smoking crater where the director’s house once stood?

One would hope.

But Iain Softley also directed ‘Hackers’! Shouldn’t that give him some leeway?

Oh, wait…

So many columns, so little snark.

How about “Do not rebuild New Orleans”? Mind you, the farmers from Midwest who are loosing their best port for exporting grain are sinners too — isn’t there something in the Bible agaist meth? I bet there is.

First of all, I refuse to believe that he has more than two fans.

We’re his fans! Maybe it’s time to start writing letters.

Oh wait, you just said that.

But Iain Softley also directed ‘Hackers’! Shouldn’t that give him some leeway?

Hardley.

Speaking of this topic, do any of you have the stomach for a song or two from your favorite right-wing song blogger, Dr. BLT?

Both of these songs are free if you’ve donated to hurricane Katrina charity, and both songs (words music, and performance) are by yours truly, aka Dr. BLT ConservaTUNES/Right-wing Records(c) 2005

Pro-Life Punk
http://www.drblt.com/music/ProLifePunk4.mp3
Womb Tomb
http://www.drblt.com/music/WombTomb3.mp3

Although my heart goes out to the people, it is a wake up call to all of them.

Well, except for the ones who are, you know, dead.

I’ve heard of voodoo and grisgris, but what the heck is a hoodoo (that you do so well)? Voodoo in the hood?

http://www.drblt.com/music/WombTomb3.mp3

Dr. BLT is to music as Pastor Swank is to rational thought.

“I’ve heard of voodoo and grisgris, but what the heck is a hoodoo (that you do so well)? Voodoo in the hood?”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodoo

[Sending this today]

Dear Pastor Swank,

New Orleans was once full of voodoo,
And gris-gris, and even hoodoo.
But God got upset,
And made the town wet,
Filled with bodies, and oil, and poo-poo.

Keep up the good work!

Yours In Christ,
Mr. Nate Higgers

Karl, and exactly how many songs of mine have you heard? Have you done your homework, or are you simply jumping on the diss-the-doc bandwagon so that your liberal friends will invite you to their parties?

are you simply jumping on the diss-the-doc bandwagon so that your liberal friends will invite you to their parties?
Sadly, No! sex orgies! Hooray!

“sex orgies! Hooray!”
To paraphrase Grouch Marx:
I wouldn’t want to attend a sex orgy that would invite me to participate in it.

“Jerri, my patience is infinite, but you are really testing the limits of infinity!”

I have sent 2 emails already to Pastor Swank about the New Orleans business. Both asked absurd questions which he took seriously and answered in detail. However, he didn’t publish my emails. Perhaps I should have added some horrible grammatical errors. But I published his answers. Does that count??
Anyway, the rapidity of his detailed answers to my emails kind of skeeved me out. I thought he was likely to send me one soon asking me to, you know, “meet.” So I broke off our little relationship before it veered out of control.

OMG Clif, that’s hilarious:

sometimes when the lord disciplines the wicked the innocent suffer. there are many examples. for instance, there is the innocent child having to live with a mean alcoholic parent, etc. etc.

Exactly how is the mean parent suffering???

Say, that gives me an idea for a contest.
I gave it a shot – will my fanmail swank or swim?

*And* a Stephen Colbert quote! I’d drunken orgyfest maximum with you guys and gals any time.

You know, my baseline of theological musings is this: My god is not an an asshole. It’s the “given” in any theological logic puzzle: any hypothesis that leads to the conclusion that god is an asshole is, by definition, false.

So, to apply logic to Pastor Swank (I know, I know–how?):

Hypothesis: God sent Hurricane Katrina because of the “homo debauchery” (or other debauchery) in New Orleans.
1) Most of the people who were killed during Katrina were the poor, elderly, and handicapped.
2) I’m not going to hunt down statistics, but I feel it’s safe to guess that the elderly and handicapped were not physically capable of participating in much debauchery, homo or otherwise.
3) The poor do not have disposable income, so any kind of debauchery that requires money is not readily available to them.
4) New Orleans reputation as a “come here and get plastered” tourist destination indicates that a significant percentage of the debauchers did not live in New Orleans but rather came there for that purpose (right, Mr. President?).
5) New Orleans would not be a gathering place for homo debauchers without the approval and support of the local government.
6) The poor, elderly, and handicapped don’t have a significant voice in local (or any) politics, so they would not have the opportunity to put a stop to any sort of debauching.

Summing up:
— Most of those killed in Katrina were not participants in homo debauchery.
— Most of those killed in Katrina had no ability to prevent “tourist debauchery”.

This leads us to conclude that God killed thousands of people for something they didn’t do and/or could not be held responsible for.

What an ASSHOLE!
Q.E.D.

God dammit- this is always one of my pet peves;
Most abortions are done before fetal stage- they’re blastocyst thingies, which St.s Augustine and Th. Aquinus both said were likely not sufficiently human to qualify under the “murder” sin.
The whole deal of Abortion= Murder wasnt’ the policy of the Catholic Church until the mid-late 19th century, and without the Catholics, the Pro-lifers quickly become a “small minority” in the grand scheme, instead of a sizable minority.
Swank is an asshat.

what a fucking freak.

a buck that he likes to touch little boys.

When will a fetus ever be enough of a baby to be considered a life worth living? The fact is, all of our declarations about when a human being begins to be a human being and when a life is really a life worth living are simply arbitrary. So why put ourselves in the role of playing God? Why not give life the benefit of the doubt and err on the side of being as conservative as possible?

Well, BLT, let me spell it out for you, since no one else has. Most liberals are not pro-choice because we like the idea of abortion. The problem is the alternative. Forcing a woman to bear a child against her will is simply barbaric. Moreover, some women will not do so, but rather endanger themselves by taking dangerous medicines and going to untrained people to terminate the pregnancy. In the absense of even these dubious options, some women will kill themselves. These women are your fellow citizens, and it should not be your place to decide their personal medical decisions. Abortion is a terrible thing. Forced pregnancy is simply worse. That’s it.

What Allienne said.

As a side point, I have noticed that many anti-choicers have no concept of illness or death caused by pregnancy — many think no one dies of childbirth anymore. I had a discussion on LJ once with someone like that. When numerous people pointed out to her that women DO die in childbirth, and others listed reasons why they are too unhealthy to be pregnant, she dismissed it and essentially said that if they get pregnant, they should just die, because it was better for them to die than terminate a pregnancy.

Of course, there’s still the crowd who believes that women simply don’t have rights to their own bodies, no matter what.

Anne, most abortions are not committed on the basis of a woman’s life being threatened. Also, you refer to pro-life folks as anti-choicers, but many women who demand that nobody tell them what to do with their bodies have abortions without much consideration for the growing bodies inside of them. They are denying all future choices for those new, living, breathing beings. Now that’s what I call anti-choice! You say that because fetuses are wholly dependent on the woman, they are inferior, so you render them second-class citizens. Well if you go by the standard of dependency, then I suppose Clifford Reeve’s wife was superior to Cliffort Reeves because without her constant assistance, he would have died much sooner than he did. Equating dependency with inferiority sounds like something Hitler would approve of.

Please note typo above: The above entry should read “Christopher Reeves.”

Voodoo (or Vodun) is a religion composed of several African religions and Catholicism.

And Allienne, you took the words outta my mouth.

[M]ost abortions are not committed on the basis of a woman’s life being threatened.

Source, please?

(As an added bonus, pick up George Carlin’s Napalm & Silly Putty book. I can’t find any complete quotes through Google, but he makes an interesting point on the pro-life and pro-death penatly issue.)

Christopher Reeves could have been cared for by anyone; his wife Dana (and God bless her, btw) loved him enough to care for him until his death. The day that a pregnant woman can hand her three-week blastocyst to someone else who can take care of it, your comparison will apply.

Also, I don’t recall that Dana Reeve’s life or livelihood was threatened by her caring for her husband. She wasn’t going to die from caring for a quad, her parents weren’t going to kick her out of the house for her husband getting into a riding accident, she wasn’t going to have to quit school or lose her job because she had a paralyzed husband at home. Nice try, though.

I think that men like BLT are pissed about abortions because they can’t prevent a woman from getting them.

It just makes them so angry that a woman can make choices. That’s why they scream the loudest. Their control is being taken away from them.

For what it’s worth, scientific evidence supports the notion that a fetus does not develop brainwaves or a functioning nervous system until the last trimester. I have allways been interested in the debate about late term abortion, and i can see the case against it, but before that, it’s just dangerously stupid to deny a woman rights to her own body.Nobody *likes* going out and getting an abortion, but removing a early stage mass of undifferentiated cells is a small price to pay in the face of world hunger, poverty, overpopulation, and dwindling resources. What about the people dying every 3 seconds due to hunger? Why don’t those goddam dead baby poster wavers make themselves useful for once instead of guaranteeing a spot for themselves in the crustiest part of satan’s asshole? People who do shit like that deserve a full magnum abortion.

ACG said it better than I could.

Not falling for the Nazi-bait, by the way, but nice try. Have you forgotten that the Nazis banned abortion and contraception because they wanted good German women to focus only on home and family? I guess you wouldn’t want to point that out yourself, though…. Might make your side look bad.

Alliene: Forcing a woman to bear children against her own will barbaric? How barbaric is it for a woman to force her will on an innocent life, ensuring that the would-be infant will never have a will and never possess the ability to exercise either free will, or, choice.

Granted, greater resources should be made available for women so desperate to abort their fetuses that they will go to any length to achieve the abortion. By the way, the “forced pregnancy” label simply doesn’t apply to pro-life folks. It only applies to cases of rape.

I wasn’t sure this was possible, but Dr. BLT is making less and less sense.

Anne, if it appears that I’m making less and less sense, then maybe its because, in your case, its a matter of the heart, and not the intellect. Maybe its time to Stop Making Sense (reference to title of Talking Heads video) and start making music. My songs on the subject matter may help open your heart:
Womb Tomb
words and music by Dr. BLT (c)2005
http://www.drblt.com/music/WombTomb3.mp3

Pro-Life Punk:
http://www.drblt.com/music/ProLifePunk4.mp3

Then again, like the vocal minority at this site, you may despise my songs, or, at the very least, have a love/hate relationship with them. I am grateful, Anne, that you have had the class and self-control to be more polite and respectful in your comments than many of the others at this site. Furthermore, I agree that the group you refer to as “anti-choicers” need to be sensitive to cases in which the mother’s life is at risk. Also, cases involving incest and rape present a moral conundrum, and so, these must be considered on a case by case basis, and it is much more difficult to set the standard on these ones.

You won’t find me being vocal about abortion on cases such as these because they are ethically complicated and there are more questions than answers. What I object to are folks that fit into the “It’s my body” crowd. These are women who have typcially had more than one abortion, in which the issue is not rape, incest, or a life-threatening situation, but a matter of inconvenience, and a matter of “I’ll live out the lifestyle that pleases me–baby be damned!” It is this kind of attitude that threatens a culture of life in our society. It is part and parcel of the “me-first” generation, in which there is no consideration for the fetus, the father, the community, or for a higher moral authority, namely, God. A song that might work for the “It’s my body” crowd would be a re-make of the song, “It’s my Party,” in which the words would go something like this:

It’s my body
and she’ll (he’ll) die if I want to
die if I want to
die if I want to
you would kill too if it happened to you…

BLT, I beg you not to make a song out of that. That would be a very bad song, in the sense of being a song that’s bad.

ACG, your begging is not required. I have no intention of recording such a song. I’m hoping that Anne will get one of her musical friends (or, herself, if she happens to have the necessary musical talent), to take the idea and run with it. I hear Death Row Records is looking for some new material.

From what we’ve heard said round the lap,
It seems N’Awlins has had a bad rap.
But now we’ve read Swank
We’ve got Heaven to thank
That the Superdome’s less full of crap.

If the fetus has no will, it is all the same to him or her whether he or she lives or dies.

You might like to explain why it is okay for people who support the culture of life with such passion to eat dessert instead of using the money to pay for some kid’s life-saving vaccination, or pay for their next meal. Death by starvation is one of the most painful deaths there are.

No, actually, don’t bother replying.

It’s clear enough you haven’t read even the most basic texts on any of these subjects. You can’t argue against the ‘liberal’ position because you don’t even know what it is.

This isn’t a classroom where a bunch of random passers-by can be expected to teach you the ABCs of geology, philosophy and economics. So until you get your own column at Renew America — which shouldn’t be too difficult — I refuse to bore the other visitors by encouraging you to fill the comment threads with off-topic material. Sorry.

What I object to are folks that fit into the “It’s my body” crowd. These are women who have typcially had more than one abortion, in which the issue is not rape, incest, or a life-threatening situation, but a matter of inconvenience, and a matter of “I’ll live out the lifestyle that pleases me–baby be damned!”

But… it IS my body. It’s not yours. It’s not a fetus’s. It’s MINE.

What’s your source on your “typically had more than one abortion” comment? I haven’t had an abortion or been pregnant, and it’s STILL “my body, my choice,” as they say.

I wonder how many anti-choicers are also pro-forced organ donation (something which I think was declared unconstitutional, incidentally…).

We’re going around in circles here. The bottom line is this: If you believe that man, or woman is the measure of all things, that the individual is an island to him/her self and answers to nobody but him/herself, then you will believe in abortion, and there’s no talking you out of it. If you believe that we were created by God, in the image of God, and that we do not own anything, including our bodies–that it is all a gift from God, then you will likely be pro-life. That’s all I can say as a believer in God. As a psychologist, I can only say that there is a psychological cost associated with abortion, and it is a high one. I’m not trying to scare anyone, this is simply a fact. I have seen it first hand in many of my patients. The psychological consequences can be devastating for the woman who has had an abortion. It doesn’t matter whether the woman grew up in a conservative or liberal home envioronment, the psychological cost is the same. A woman who has an abortion goes through a similar grieving process, and all of the same stages of the grieving process as someone who has lost a fully developed loved one. Some women are initially in denial about it, but it eventually catches up with them. In addition, there are most often guilt feelings associated with the act of abortion, not all of it brought on my religion, or conservative ideology, some of it inherent, coming from within. There is an innate sense of having violated a basic law of nature. Of course in my religion of Christianity, forgiveness is offered. In addition, nobody should ever condemn a woman for having an abortion because we are all sinners. It is possible to be against abortion, and still not be condemning of those who opt for abortions. I hope I have not come across as condemning, and if I have, I apologize.

Oh, Christ, not the “high emotional cost of abortion” shit again.

Tell it to these women, why don’tcha?

It’s absolutely false to say or imply that all women regret their abortions.

Hey, Dr. Sandwich–abortions are ALWAYS considered on a case by case basis. The pregnant woman is the one who gets to do the considering. I guess it’s just going too far to think that a woman should be able to make her own medical and ethical decisions privately, though…

Possibly the women who do not regret having abortions, and who do not suffer any psychological aftereffects, simply don’t turn up in your practice? Or mention it to you? Because, you know, it’s not something that bothers them?
That’s like a podiatrist saying “Man, everybody ends up with foot problems! I see them every day!”

I’m very fond of the “in denial” argument, btw. It basically allows you to say “I told you so” in advance to people who may, in fact, never prove your point. Nifty!
How’s this: all religious people are atheists in denial!
Now, doesn’t that seem like a genuinely stupid argument? Try displaying some self-awareness here.

Sidhe, of course not all women who have abortions suffer in exactly the same way, or to the same degree. And it’s true, I cannot generalize onto the whole population of women who have had abortions, based upon my caseload. However, other psychologists that I interact with seem to report similar findings. and studies also support the notion that abortion is often followed by intense psychological suffering on the part of the woman who has an abortion. On the other hand, not feeling a thing after an abortion may be more a sign of psychological dysfunction than being effected emotionally in some significant way. Victimice, medical and ethical decisions are rarely made privately. We all end up listening to someone else’s advice, even if we use it to justify bad decisions. It’s a matter of if a pregnant woman surrounds herself with folks who support life, or those who value the personal freedom of the individual adult more than life itself.

So if you *don’t* let a particularly loud segment of society guilt you into psychological trauma, then clearly you are mentally ill anyway.
Tell you what, Doc. Find yourself some ovaries, and get back to me when you’ve had an abortion. Then we can compare psychological responses, and I’ll consider taking your responses as anything other than facile excuses to justify your religious beliefs.
By the way, given that I don’t share your belief in your particular deity, and mine really doesn’t have anything to say on the subject, your application of your morality to me is just as invalid as mine would be to you.
The funny thing is, I’m not interested in trying.

The link I posted above goes to a site called “I’m Not Sorry”. It’s a collection of first person narratives from women who got abortions and don’t regret anything at all about the decision they made. Reading through the stories there can be a real eye opener for people on occasion.

And confusing a fetus with a person is a sign of pretty severe mental disturbance.

Ooh…here’s a particularly relevant quote:

“I bled for 3 days and it was over. The morning sickness stopped immediately. I thought I?d have a lot of emotional trauma from this. But I have to say that this was one of the most sound, and best decisions I?ve ever made.”

http://www.imnotsorry.net/brady.htm

And confusing a fetus with a person is a sign of pretty severe mental disturbance.

Word.

In fact, let me see if I can explain something.
Like many people, religious or otherwise, Christian or non, I have a basic code of morality.
I’ve spent a lot of years putting mine together, and here’s what it essentially comes down to:

I consider it immoral, possibly even a sin, if you will, to treat another person as less than human.

That includes treating them as less valuable than any particular clump of cells attached to them, be it their genitals, a cancerous growth, their breasts, any form of disfigurement or disability, or a blastocyst.
Just as one should not address all their remarks to my tits, nor refer to me as a “cunt”, nor demand that I cure my hypothyroidism with prayer, I should not be treated as a “vessel” for a fetus.

It likewise includes suggesting that “all normal people” react a certain way to certain experiences, and that anyone who doesn’t is “emotionally dysfunctional”. Stripping away the individuality of response to an experience is at base dehumanizing. I’d consider it immoral.

Ignoring actual live human beings. Those who are pro-life but also pro-death penalty or support the war in Iraq, or indeed any war, are not people whose advice I would listen to. If I want logically muddled, ideological advice, I can get that anywhere. In very rare cases, there are people who can justify this stance. They’d probably be worth listening to.

Which brings us to freewill. Your deity supposedly gave us freewill. Why is it that his followers are most interested in taking it away? If something is legal, then it is up to each of us to determine if it is moral.

And, let’s go one step beyond that. It also seems to me to be quite immoral to assume that all people are Just Like Me, or should be. You’re Christian, and you’re apparently conservative. Not everybody is. It does not make you inherently wrong, nor does it make anyone else inherently wrong. We won’t know who’s right or wrong, even assuming there is such a thing, until we’re dead.
So it’s a little early to be smug about it. This goes back to that “in denial” thing. Why the emphasis on pre-emptive “I Told You Sos”? Does it do *anybody* any good? Or does it just seem sort of insecure.

My apologies to anybody still reading this thread looking for typical S,N! fare.

It’s a matter of if a pregnant woman surrounds herself with folks who support life, or those who value the personal freedom of the individual adult more than life itself.

Interestingly loaded, coded statement. Why can’t personal freedom = life? Or isn’t “life” just code for “fetus” here?

There seems to be a great deal of disdain for the fetus in some of your statements. A fetus is not some kind of a cancerous cyst. It is the beautiful product of what was designed to be an intimate act between two people. It is potentially the next Einstein, the next Mother Theresa, the next John Lennon, the next Billy Graham.

As for the it’s-my-body argument, women are not the only ones who are told what they should do with “their” bodies. Does the government not tell me I must not do cocaine, or methamphetamines? Do I rise up in protest saying, “It’s my body, I can do what I want with it?” No. Maybe you do, and you have a right to protest anything you want, but don’t try to tell me that this is a matter of men telling women what they should do with their bodies. Lawmakers and those who enforce the law also include women and their always telling me what I should and shouldn’t do with my body. You say that I shouldn’t impose my religious beliefs on you, but when you try to push your “pro-choice” position on me, aren’t you being a hypocrite? Secular humanism is just like a form of religion. You are pushing your “humans-are-their-own-gods” religion onto me. Furthermore, the pro-choice label is not only a misnomer because by the act of abortion the woman denies all future choices that her would-be baby could have made. Here’s another reason: Even if the government were to outlaw abortion, you would still have the choice as to whether or not to keep the law or break it. Sure there would be unpleasant consequences associated with breaking the law, but choice would not be taken away from you. As for turning back Roe vs. Wade, I don’t believe that will ever happen. I’m not even pushing for that. I’m just wanting to unite with as many folks as I can— whether they be right-wingers, left-wingers or somewhere in the middle, to reduce the numbers of abortions and to make more resources available to sustain life in cases where the woman feels that abortion is her only option. What’s so wrong with that goal?

Yes, it’s terrible to “push a pro-choice position”.

When you get pregnant, you shouldn’t have any choice about what to do with your body.

And “secular humanism is a form of religion” is yet another jaw-droppingly stupid comment to add to the list. We should start working on a greatest hits retrospective here.

Why do anti-choicers always make that argument? A fetus could grow up to be Einstein or Mother Theresa. Sure. It also could grow up to be Jeffrey Dahmer or good-Christian-boy Timothy McVeigh. Does that mean that we should automatically abort all fetuses, just to make sure they don’t grow up to be terrorists?

And that’s not even to say that I’m not Christian, or that I don’t have a great deal of respect for the act of creating another person. I was visiting a friend of mine a few weeks ago. She had just gotten home from the hospital with her four-day-old son, and as I watched them together, I thought, holy crap. Here’s a little baby who, nine months and four days ago, didn’t exist at all. Not even a twinkle in his daddy’s eye. And now he’s a person.

But I can also think about what would have happened if her situation had been different. What if she had a less supportive family that had been driven to violence by the fact that her baby’s father was white? What if she hadn’t been married, and her baby’s father had split when he found out about the baby, and suddenly she didn’t have a home or enough money to get proper prenatal care, much less take care of a baby? Or if the baby was anencephalic, and instead of a perfect little boy she’d had to go through the trauma of giving birth to a tiny body with little more than a brainstem? Or if the physical trauma of carrying a ten-pound baby on her 110-pound frame had left her husband a widower with a newborn?

The majority of abortions take place in the first trimester, when it’s just as common for a woman’s body to reject that tiny clump of recently-implanted cells as it is for them to grow. Does that mean that the blastocyst in question would never otherwise grow into something special? No, but we have laws about the cutting of 150-year-old oak trees that we don’t have about the roasting of acorns, we have laws about voting that apply to adults and not toddlers, and when the life or livelihood of a woman is at risk, the concern foremost in her mind shouldn’t be whether that little clump of cells is going to be John F. Kennedy or John Wayne Gacy.

You say that I shouldn’t impose my religious beliefs on you, but when you try to push your “pro-choice” position on me, aren’t you being a hypocrite?

Pushing it how? How are pro-choice women “pushing” you to do anything? It’s not hypocritical at all, but nice try. Someone having different beliefs from you doesn’t impose on you. Adoption and use of religion-based laws that I don’t agree with DO impose on me.

but don’t try to tell me that this is a matter of men telling women what they should do with their bodies. Lawmakers and those who enforce the law also include women

Certainly; there are plenty of misogynist, anti-choice women. Try again.

And by “adoption” I mean adoption of laws; I’m not saying that adoption of children imposes on me 😛

Does the government not tell me I must not do cocaine, or methamphetamines? Do I rise up in protest saying, “It’s my body, I can do what I want with it?” No. Maybe you do…

Completely irrelevant. (And a nice little “Druggie!” poke, too.) Abortion *is* legal. Meth and cocaine are not. The government gets to tell you which things you can’t do with your body when it makes laws. If you don’t agree with the laws, work from that end. But working outside the law, through intimidation or clinic bombing or lies about how all women who have abortions suffer greatly because of it, is not democracy. There’s words for that, in fact. “Oppression” is a pretty good place to start. “Telling women what to do with their bodies” covers it pretty well.

For the record: My statement about discussing the effects of abortion with women who have had them has nothing to do with some assessment that only women have any say in the matter. Men get to have an opinion, too. Men get to offer advice.
My point was that what you have, in the “It will ruin your life even if you don’t think it has yet” stakes, is a bunch of second- and third- hand anecdotal data. And an agenda.
A woman who has had an abortion has first hand anecdotal data, and probably an agenda. I consider that more reliable.
If you want to pretend I said that abortion is about men telling women what to do with their bodies, feel free.

But, hey, let’s go back to this:
The bottom line is this: If you believe that man, or woman is the measure of all things, that the individual is an island to him/her self and answers to nobody but him/herself, then you will believe in abortion, and there’s no talking you out of it. If you believe that we were created by God, in the image of God, and that we do not own anything, including our bodies–that it is all a gift from God, then you will likely be pro-life.

Okay. I don’t. And, by your definition, which seems pretty heavy on cell clumps that lack brains and nerves, I’m probably not, therefore, pro-life.

But let’s look at your first statement, which dehumanizes people who don’t think as you do, by assuming that they are inherently selfish in all things and incapable of empathy for anyone, including actual born people. Seems kind of biased on your part.
I would say that if you believe, as many non-Christians do, that each person is responsible for their own behavior and morality, and if your morality leads you to conclude there is nothing wrong with abortion, either in the abstract or in specific circumstances, then there isn’t.

This doesn’t automatically mean that that person “answers to nobody but him/herself”, or believes him or herself to be “the measure of all things”, or even “an island”.

It can mean that, I suppose. But there are certainly plenty of people wandering around who believe they answer only to God and therefore advocate the cold-blooded murder of millions. Non-Christians have not exactly cornered the market on vicious nutjobs, as evidence I offer Swank.

People can be answerable, morally, to many things: society, family, community, the ecosystem, genetics, the law, religion, a privately- or mutually- generated conduct code.

Your argument that people who don’t act like you want them to are engaging exclusively in some kind of unmitigatedly selfish act isn’t exactly compelling.

Anne, ACG, Jillian, I respect you all more than I can say. Too bad we’re beating our heads against a brick wall here.

Mr. BLT,
Please become informed about this topic before discussing it. Knowing what positions real people hold on the matter would be a good start. I would also recommend acquiring a grasp of the basic medical facts involved. Sadly, since everything you’ve said so far has been derived from false premises, you haven’t made any substantial contribution to the discussion whatever, but only aggravated and taken up the time of several commenters here.

Further, I recommend the Modern Literary Association’s style guide: those things that the kids call “source cites” are awfully handy in discussions which involve Facts!

Forcing a woman to bear a child she does not wish to carry is a form of slavery; it is saying that because she happened to be born with a functioning set of reproductive organs, that’s she’s stuck with any situation in which she finds herself. Chaining a woman to her uterus is a form of slavery, which, last I checked, had a whole entire Amendment in the Constitution outlawing it.

Ever notice, D. Sidhe, that the same sort of “selfishness” argument gets made in regards to gay sex? I.e., it’s “selfish” because it’s not procreative – it’s all about the hedonistic pleasure.

Modern Christianity resembles H.L. Mencken’s quote on puritanism more and more every day – it’s the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.

But it’s all okay in the end – the more I hear this “enjoying yourself is evil” bullshit, the stronger my desire to engage in exhibitionist lesbian sex becomes. I figure I can enjoy myself, and do the world a civil service, as the nasty puritan types amongst us will hopefully be driven to a fatal myocardial infarction upon witnessing such depravity. 😀

Oh, and as far as the notion that people who enjoy themselves are selfish goes, I can tell you that I’ve done volunteer work most of my adult life, up until the time I went back to school full time. Full time work and full time school made volunteer work temporarily untenable for me. But I will be going back to volunteer work as soon as I’ve graduated and made my career transition – which, ironically enough, will be into a lower paid helping field and not the private sector like I’m currently in.

Now then, who’s got the Crisco and the marshmallow fluff? Let’s all go be selfish hedonists!

Marshmallow fluff! Hooray!

Yeah, I’d noticed, Jillian. The “selfish hedonist” theme is somewhat prevalent recently. Man, Alan Keyes is a twit.

But, of course, he’s right. After all, it’s plainly apparent sex was absolutely *not* intended for pleasure. Otherwise there’d be, like, pleasurable sensations and friendly feelings towards one’s partners and maybe even orgasms.

I applaud your sense of community, Jillian. There are things that are more important than money, though it’s always seemed to me that in general, people should be paid based on how important they are to society. Teachers, for example, are clearly more important than CEOs, call me a commie if you like.

Me, though, I’m a filthy completely self-centered neo-pagan who’s never done a good turn for anybody in her life. After all, why should I? It’s not getting me into heaven. I expect it explains why I have no friends and no family and live alone and even animals and small children run from me on the streets and nobody ever bothers to ask me for money or favors or anything. Wow. It must really suck to be me.

Yeah, okay, so I admit, I tend towards excessive sarcasm. That probably does make me a bad person. Oh well.

Excessive sarcasm is like excessive marshmallow fluff orgies.

Ain’t no such thing!

Just for the record, I never said that sex was not intended for pleasure. But that pleasure is, ideally, purposive pleasure. One just has to study human anatomy to figure out that sex is designed with procreation as its ultimate end. Folks have it backwards today. They want sex strictly for its undeniably pleasurable feature. They are willing to sacrifice anything to put pleasure first. But putting pleasure first ultimately always leads to pain, initially for others, but also, in the end, for the pleasure- seeker. Most conservatives I know love sex and the pleasure it brings. None of us are perfect, or sexually pure for that matter, and all of us have, at times, had our priorities mixed up, keeping pleasure on the throne as reigning king when it comes to sexuality. The old Puritan label is simply a negative stereotype. Keeping the procreative aspect of sex first, regarding pleasure as important, but secondary, and putting the sex act in perspective will ultimately preserve life. If a woman is seeking an abortion because she’s been a victim of rape, or incest, or her life is in danger if the pregnancy continues, then compassion and care should be our primary responses. However, if a woman seeks to have abortions simply because a baby is inconvenient, or because having abortions preserves her pleasure-first-me-first philosophy/lifestyle, then that woman (and there are plenty of them out there) needs to re-examine her priorities. Since there is so much variability concerning when life begins, I suggest we err on the conservative side, rather than being presumptuous and heedlessly stepping into the role of playing God.