Choice

[foxpaws]

Then prove it. This sounds to me like something overblown to promote a feminist agenda; likely based on a "recounting" of history from a Howard Zinn type source.

Prove it. Provide links, sources, whatever you need to. Simply making a rhetorical assertion doesn't cut it.

From Abortion in American History

Until the last third of the nineteenth century, when it was criminalized state by state across the land, abortion was legal before "quickening" (approximately the fourth month of pregnancy). Colonial home medical guides gave recipes for "bringing on the menses" with herbs that could be grown in one's garden or easily found in the woods. By the mid eighteenth century commercial preparations were so widely available that they had inspired their own euphemism ("taking the trade"). Unfortunately, these drugs were often fatal. The first statutes regulating abortion, passed in the 1820s and 1830s, were actually poison-control laws: the sale of commercial abortifacients was banned, but abortion per se was not. The laws made little difference. By the 1840s the abortion business -- including the sale of illegal drugs, which were widely advertised in the popular press -- was booming. The most famous practitioner, Madame Restell, openly provided abortion services for thirty-five years, with offices in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia and traveling salespeople touting her "Female Monthly Pills."​

What is a judge's expertise in?

Law

So the question becomes; who decides what qualifies as life? 9 unelected (and unqualified) judges? Scientists creating arbitrary standards? legislators creating politically motivated arbitrary standards?

So, if not judges - which are qualified only in law, and not legislators, then who?

So, by that logic, the framers wanted prostitution to be legal? They certainly didn't mention it in the constitution and I haven't run across any comment by them saying it should be illegal.

No shag, you said -

abortions of convenience are also a rather new occurrence​

they aren't. I never said that the framers wanted prostitution to be legal - I was only refuting your idea that abortions for convenience's sake was a 'rather new occurrence'. You were mistaken.

 

[Calabrio]

Cal - the idea that 'life' begins at some point before birth is a fairly new concept. Partially because of science, we can now see and monitor the fetus. However, for most of our history 'life' and all that it entails began at birth, our first breath.

And this is an argument for what?
Why would we disregard the fact that our scientific understand of life has expanded?

The bible doesn't really ever address abortion directly-however it does state that the penalty for causing a miscarriage was a monetary fine - not the penalty of 'eye for an eye'.

Well then, if we begin using the bible to legislate, abortion providers will simply be heavily fined and not executed.

The 14th amendment very clearly states that citizenship - and the protections of the constitution are afforded to those that are born in the US or naturalized. There are no constitutional protections to anything else - such as fetuses.

That is one of the constitutional stretches that judges have used in the past.
That and the "right to privacy."

The 14th amendment wasn't passed until late in the 19th century with the stated purpose of providing citizenship to African slaves who had been born on American soil.

And at glance,I'm inclined to say that this "loophole" in logic is the result of the Federal vs.National government shift we saw after the Civil War and accelerated in the 20th century. The language regarding citizenship prior to the 14th amendment was fairly vague- if I recall, the states really determined who was a resident of the state, and in doing so, an American citizen.

Even in that framework, I'd still argue that an unborn baby of two citizen parents within the United States is protected. And if the judges want to engage in such progressive legal contortions, the moment the any part of the fetus body has breached, it's been "born."

The first breath argument is silly. Using that logic, you baby choking on an umbilical chord that's been delivered isn't born yet.

 

[cammerfe]

Oh, S H I T!!! So now we go around in circles again. I started this by making a statement regarding my position in regard to being told what to do.

Within limits, you would all qualify as friends. Let's just agree to disagree.
KS

 

[foxpaws]

And this is an argument for what?
Why would we disregard the fact that our scientific understand of life has expanded?

Many people don't like 'expanding' beyond what the founding fathers stated. It has a tendency to leave what they said and wrote open to interpretation. Many people like to look at the constitution as 'verbatim'.

Well then, if we begin using the bible to legislate, abortion providers will simply be heavily fined and not executed.

I was trying to find out where we look for standards - some on this forum like using the bible as a reference point here, on this subject. Where does life get defined, and punishments enacted - many people here look to the bible for guidance.

That is one of the constitutional stretches that judges have used in the past.
That and the "right to privacy."

So here you don't want to leave anything open to interpretation, but earlier, you allowed for scientific interpretation to redefine the parameters of the constitution. It very specifically says 'born', are you willing to interpret that as 'life'?

Even in that framework, I'd still argue that an unborn baby of two citizen parents within the United States is protected. And if the judges want to engage in such progressive legal contortions, the moment the any part of the fetus body has breached, it's been "born."

So, that unborn baby/fetus has rights - only if conceived here of parents of 2 US citizens, or if it was 'on' US soil at some predetermined point during pregnancy. Does the baby/fetus have rights if the mother only became a citizen during the first month of pregnancy? What if later it is determined the father wasn't the one stated, but the pool boy, who wasn't a US citizen? You are really opening a legal nightmare here. Predetermining when, where and at what point you are during pregnancy is complicated and can only be precisely determined with a battery of tests. And then of course, you will need to use DNA testing to make sure that the father is who is stated on the birth certificate.

The first breath argument is silly. Using that logic, you baby choking on an umbilical chord that's been delivered isn't born yet.

But, in the case of the baby that has been delivered with the ability to live outside the womb, just needing the cord untangled, it still has the innate ability to breathe at that moment in time. Is a fetus that has been naturally expelled before it can survive outside the womb 'born'. It cannot breathe, but it has traveled down the birth canal...

 

[foxpaws]

Oh, S H I T!!! So now we go around in circles again. I started this by making a statement regarding my position in regard to being told what to do.

Within limits, you would all qualify as friends. Let's just agree to disagree.
KS

Oh, come on KS - you wanted to stir the pot...

 

[fossten]

So - 40 days Foss - you believe that an abortion that is performed within that window - from conception until 40 days - isn't taking a 'life'?

Tsk tsk, fox...there you go again, putting words in my mouth. Where did I say that? Please furnish a link.

And how do explain in the Bible we are born again in Christ - not conceived again. Wouldn't it be important to start at the beginning of life, not at some arbitrary point like 'birth', if life should be defined at starting at some point other than birth. However, throughout the Bible both birth and the taking of our first breath has special meaning - the beginning - 'life'.

You're demonstrating your gross misunderstanding of a very basic Biblical concept. You probably don't even know the reference of that one single verse.

But I can give you several that indicate that God is against abortion, and that life begins in the womb. Since you brought up the Bible...

Amos 1:13
Psalm 127:3
Gen. 4:1,17
Psalm 51:7, 139:13,15
Luke 1:41, 18:15
Psalm 22:10-11
Gal 1:15
Exodus 20:14
Matt 19:13-18
Psalm 106:35-38
2 Kings 17:17-18
Luke 6:36
Matthew 7:12
Ezekiel 23:36-39
Jeremiah 7:27-31
Jeremiah 1:4-8
Proverbs 6:16-19
2 Kings 24:1-4

I could furnish others.

And Cal - if we state 'life' to begin at some point before birth-don't we have to amend the constitution to reflect this?

It's already in the Constitution - right next to where it says women have the right to abortions.

 

[fossten]

From Abortion in American History

Until the last third of the nineteenth century, when it was criminalized state by state across the land, abortion was legal before "quickening" (approximately the fourth month of pregnancy). Colonial home medical guides gave recipes for "bringing on the menses" with herbs that could be grown in one's garden or easily found in the woods. By the mid eighteenth century commercial preparations were so widely available that they had inspired their own euphemism ("taking the trade"). Unfortunately, these drugs were often fatal. The first statutes regulating abortion, passed in the 1820s and 1830s, were actually poison-control laws: the sale of commercial abortifacients was banned, but abortion per se was not. The laws made little difference. By the 1840s the abortion business -- including the sale of illegal drugs, which were widely advertised in the popular press -- was booming. The most famous practitioner, Madame Restell, openly provided abortion services for thirty-five years, with offices in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia and traveling salespeople touting her "Female Monthly Pills."​

Nice source. But I digress.

Slavery was legal for a long time in this country too. Does that make it right? Income taxation is legalized theft. Does that make it right?

Is growing marijuana right or wrong? In some places it's legal, some places it's not. Same for prostitution.

 

[fossten]

But, in the case of the baby that has been delivered with the ability to live outside the womb, just needing the cord untangled, it still has the innate ability to breathe at that moment in time. Is a fetus that has been naturally expelled before it can survive outside the womb 'born'. It cannot breathe, but it has traveled down the birth canal...

What about a baby that is post-preemie age, and is perfectly healthy, but is delivered via C-section?

What about the same baby who is healthy and post preemie age, but instead has all its arms, legs, and brains sucked out by a metal suction device, and is then dumped into a hamper?

 

[cammerfe]

Stirring the Pot...

Oh, come on KS - you wanted to stir the pot...

My intent was to explore the individual rights area. Since I know we, as a group, don't come anywhere near agreeing viz-a-viz 'choice', I should have chosen another area to use as an example. My oops!

But the fact remains---my 'choice' would be to stay away from abortion in most circumstances. But if my rights are absolute--right to the end of your nose--I have absolutely NO right to try to impose my conclusions on you.
KS

 

[shagdrum]

From Abortion in American History

Until the last third of the nineteenth century, when it was criminalized state by state across the land, abortion was legal before "quickening" (approximately the fourth month of pregnancy). Colonial home medical guides gave recipes for "bringing on the menses" with herbs that could be grown in one's garden or easily found in the woods. By the mid eighteenth century commercial preparations were so widely available that they had inspired their own euphemism ("taking the trade"). Unfortunately, these drugs were often fatal. The first statutes regulating abortion, passed in the 1820s and 1830s, were actually poison-control laws: the sale of commercial abortifacients was banned, but abortion per se was not. The laws made little difference. By the 1840s the abortion business -- including the sale of illegal drugs, which were widely advertised in the popular press -- was booming. The most famous practitioner, Madame Restell, openly provided abortion services for thirty-five years, with offices in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia and traveling salespeople touting her "Female Monthly Pills."​

I figured you would use that book. James C. Mohr's Abortion in America is THE version of the history of abortion that has been promoted by the left since it was written. However, there are two points to be raised here...

1. If ever there was a politically charged issue, it is the issue of abortion. Considering the tendency of radical ideologues to distort reality in their myopic focus on ideology (removing any feedback from reality on the ideology in the process) there is likely to be competing narratives concerning the history of abortion. As they say, "He who controls the past controls the future", so rhetoric attempting to distort the past to fit an ideological agenda should be guarded against.
   
   Specifically, when it comes to this narrative, the history of that narrative can be telling. It was first articulated by Cyril Means, chief counsel for the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. That narrative was echoed by Justice Harry Blackmun in writing a ruling that explicitly distorted the Constitution; the Roe v. Wade decision. In the late 1970's, Mohr expanded on that narrative in Abortion in America.
   
   While those two points don't mean that the narrative is wrong, it does mean that the narrative should be given a higher level of scrutiny. That means that facts that logically support the argument should be provided and that it should be contrasted with opposing narratives. Which brings me to my next point...
   
2. You present this as THE version of history when it seems you have not considered alternative narratives. That comes across as wildly presumptuous. The specific verifiable facts in the example you cite are circumstantial evidence at best and don't prove anything. They involve a lot of logical leaps and assumptions to reach the conclusions drawn...
   
   A better example would be a narrative giving specific, verifiable facts that logically exclude other narratives while supporting the one it is telling. For example:
   As Marvin Olasky documents in his book Abortion Rites, abortion in Colonial America, even before quickening, was a criminal offense, and infanticide was a capital offense. Neonates conceived out of wedlock were the usual targets of abortion. This was rare, though. Typically a shotgun wedding was performed before a women started to “show.” Even though as many as 40 percent of children were conceived out of wedlock, only 1 to 3 percent were born illegitimate.12 Communities were small and rural; the pressures on a young man to do the right thing were heavy. A Massachusetts law passed in 1688 asked women to identify the father of her illegitimate child. If identified, he had to either marry the girl, or pay child support.13
   
   In the rare instance that a woman couldn’t get her lover to tie the knot, and did not want the stigma associated with illegitimacy, a crude abortion or infanticide was attempted. The penalty if caught was severe. Abortifacients such as tansy oil and savin were commonly used. Surgical abortions were rare before the nineteenth century. In 1652 a member of the Maryland governor’s council, Captain Will Mitchell, was brought up on murder charges for forcing an abortifacient on a young girl, Susan Warren, whom he impregnated. Along with “adultery and fornication,” the colony charged that Mitchell had “murtherously endeavored to destroy or murder the child by him begotten in the womb of Susan Warren.”14 The prosecutor couldn’t prove the case, but Mitchell was disgraced and dismissed from the council, nevertheless. In another case out of Maryland (1663), Jacob Luibrozo was charged with felony for administering an abortificent. The girl “was with child when John Luibrozo, he did give her physick to destroy it. . . .”15 He escaped punishment only after marrying the girl, thus disqualifying her as a witness against him.16 Between 1670-1807 there were fifty-one convictions for infanticide in Massachusetts. A woman named Mary Martin was executed in 1648 for infanticide. A famous ballad of the day was loosely based on her case, “The Cruel Mother”: “She took a pen-knife keen and sharp and pierced the baby’s tender heart.”17
   
   Without the testimony of the mother it was difficult to prosecute abortion cases in those days. And before the mid-nineteenth century a climate of legal minimalism existed. Nevertheless, despite slavery and dueling both being legal, abortion was not. The chief problem with early abortion laws was that unless it was a case of outright infanticide, the state didn’t know how to prosecute something that took place in the womb. Delaware’s early abortion statute (1719) was typical of most of the colonies: “If any person or persons shall counsel, advise or direct such women to kill the child she goes with, and after she is delivered, of such child, she kills it, every such person so advising or directing, shall be deemed accessory to murder, and shall have same punishment as the principle shall have.”18 Georgia’s Penal Code of 1811 is similar: “That if any person or persons advise or counsel another to kill a child before its birth, or the child be killed after its birth, in pursuance of such advice, such advisor is or are declared an accessory to murder.”19 New York enacted an ordinance (1716) that forbade midwives to “give counsel or administer any herb, medicine, or potion, or any other thing to any women being with child whereby she should destroy or miscarry. . .before her time.”20 None of these laws said anything about quickening, but they were too general and science was too inadequate for them to be effective.
   
   It was not until the nineteenth century that science could explain the process of pregnancy. Karl Ernst von Baer’s discovery of ova in dogs (1827) was a breakthrough. The Pre-Formation Doctrine was discarded, and conception, the union of sperm and the egg, was recognized as the beginning of life. It is precisely at this point in the 1820s that moral arguments started to demand better legislation to protect fetal life from the moment of conception. The quickening doctrine was heard no more.
   

   ***​

   James Mohr’s contention that abortion was mainstream is a lie. But conservatives are also wrong when they talk about the “good ‘ole days,” when abortions never happened. On the contrary, one of the reasons for the new, tougher anti-abortion statutes was to combat the increase of illicit abortions. Abortions, especially in the large cities of America, reached alarming proportions in the mid-nineteenth century, and better laws were needed to attack the growing problem...
   
   ...From start to finish, James Mohr’s thesis is a distortion. Marvin Olasky was right when he said Mohr went looking for history “with a handful of assumptions.”57 This is true of most Marxist historiography. Like any agenda-driven scholar, Mohr forced the facts to fit his preconceptions. First, if, as Mohr contends, abortion was widespread and accepted and the Doctors Crusade was simply a crass attempt by “regulars” to drive away their “irregular” competition, why didn’t the regulars simply ask the state legislature to make abortion a procedure that could only be performed by a licensed physician? By toughening the abortion laws they severely limited their ability to make money. If it was only about money, then why not monopolize abortion for themselves?
   
   Second, in those days surgery was still a specialized knowledge. Abortificants were the most common way abortionists performed their service. It was common for women poisoned by abortificants to then seek the help of a “regular.” Doctors who worked in large cities had to deal with shoddy abortions on occasion. If they were not going to monopolize abortion for themselves, why would they try to crack down on a practice that brought them more patients?
   
   Third, at no time before or during the mid-nineteenth century campaign for better abortion laws was there a “pro-choice” lobby. The pro-abortion position doesn’t show up until the twentieth century. The socialist, feminist, spiritist minority were the only people in the 1800s talking about tolerance for abortions. But there was no pro-choice agenda. Those who imbibed Marxist or spiritist thought did so in private. They never dared to carry this nonsense into the halls of Congress or the state legislatures. To have argued in public for abortion-on-demand would have been hazardous to your health, as evidenced by the treatment given Madame Restelle. Before the twentieth century abortion was practiced primarily by prostitutes in back alley whorehouses, by spiritists and Marxists behind closed doors. It was something the mainstream considered immoral and on the filthy edges of society. Those who performed abortions were disreputable doctors, snake oil salesman, and the dispensers of toxic abortificants. The only opposition to the statutes came from libertarian doctors worried about more regulation. When these bills were debated, no one stood up in the state legislatures and insisted upon a “women’s right to choose”; no one demanded that the state should “keep away from women’s bodies”; no one warned the state to “stay out of its citizens bedrooms.” These hollow arguments would emerge from the sewers later on.
   
   By 1880 every state in the Union had new statutes outlawing abortion at any stage of gestation. The Doctors Crusade was part of a larger reform movement of the nineteenth century. For the most part the anti-abortion effort was informed by the Christian ethic in the classical liberal tradition. Abortion and infanticide were never legal and acceptable in the West. But due to legal minimalism and the poverty of scientific knowledge, abortion had seeped through the cracks in American society. The Doctors Crusade was meant to push it back through, from which it would hopefully never return. Their hopes were overly optimistic. Things were changing fast. New perspectives were evolving. The anti-abortion legal regime would remain intact into the mid-twentieth century, when Roe v Wade overturned the Texas statute passed during Storer’s Crusade so many years before. ​
   
   There is much more at that link. That narrative adds some context that Mohr's narrative lacks. The source mentioned, Marvin Olasky's Abortion Rites, is a great counter to the narrative spelled out in Mohr's book.
   
   There is also the work of Joseph W. Dellapenna, a pro-choice law professor who pokes holes in the history recounted in Row v. Wade (which was the basis of Mohr's book).
   As a young professor, he was studying population policy when the Supreme Court decided Roe in 1973. Justice Harry Blackmun had relied on two articles by law professor Cyril C. Means, Jr., for his Roe history of abortion law, so Dellapenna read the Means articles. He found some of their claims to be "seriously deficient even based on the evidence Means himself presented." Dellapenna started researching and writing about the history of abortion law and eventually submitted friend-of-the-court briefs in major abortion cases.2 His criticism of Roe has been so strong that in the Fall 2005 issue of this Review, I mistakenly identified him as a right-to-lifer. He is not. As he explains in his huge new book, Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2006, $95), he believes abortion should be legal "up to eight weeks of gestation." He cites articles on "brain birth" to support his position, but does not actually argue for it in the book.
   
   His main focus is the history of abortion law in England and the United States. The English emphasis is important because English common lawthe customary law, based on cases and precedents rather than statutesoften was decisive in early U.S. history unless replaced by specific statutory law.4 American lawyers and judges had to know the common law. Dellapenna says there were no state anti-abortion laws until 1821, when Connecticut enacted the first. New York City, though, had passed a municipal ordinance in 1716 that barred midwives from administering "any Herb Medicine or Potion, or any other thing" in order to cause an abortion.5
   
   Dellapenna shows that the late Prof. Means, who taught at the New York Law School, was wrong in claiming there was a common-law liberty to have an abortion. (If there were such a liberty, there might be a strong argument that the Constitution's Ninth Amendment protects it as a right "retained by the people.") He says the "history embraced in Roe could not withstand careful examination even when Roe was written." Research since that time has shown the Roe version of history to be even worse than many critics had thought. Sir John Hamilton Baker, an expert on English legal history who teaches at the University of Cambridge, has found and translated early case records that previously were available only in Latin or "Law French" (a leftover from the Norman conquest of England). California attorney Philip Rafferty, with much assistance from Baker, has gone deeply into those common-law cases. Dellapenna has drawn on their work and has done much of his own research on the medical history of abortion.6
   
   In painstaking research, Baker and Rafferty uncovered early English abortion cases that the legal community-including the Supreme Court-did not know about in 1973. Rafferty, in his Roe v. Wade: The Birth of a Constitutional Right, documents over 100 English abortion-related cases that occurred before the American colonies declared their independence from England in 1776. His appendices, consisting mainly of verbatim case reports, provide an enormous amount of information on these and later cases.7 The information shows that Justice Blackmun was clearly wrong about the common law. Legally speaking, Roe v. Wade is already tottering on the edge of a cliff. The Baker-Rafferty-Dellapenna research should help push it over.
   
   Dellapenna calls Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History "an argumentative book." Indeed, it is. It's a book of ferocious intellectual combat in which he does not spare his adversaries. Prof. Means, he points out, was general counsel of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) when he wrote one of the articles cited by Justice Blackmun in Roe. Dellapenna charges that Means "designed his research to support the political task of changing the abortion laws," missed much key evidence, and distorted other evidence.8 Other scholars-including Linda Gordon, Angus McLaren, James C. Mohr, Leslie J. Reagan, John M. Riddle, and Laurence Tribe-come in for their share of criticism as well. ​
   So, you have alternative narratives in both Marvin Olasky's Abortion Rites and Joseph W. Dellapenna's Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History. For the narrative you claim to be accepted, you have to not only logically discount those narratives but logically PROVE your narrative. If you are not familiar with those alternative narratives, then you are ill-equipped to discount them at this time. To attempt to do so without a strong understanding of those opposing narratives would suggest that you are propagandizing. "Deceit is in haste, but honesty can wait a fair leisure".

 

[shagdrum]

My intent was to explore the individual rights area. Since I know we, as a group, don't come anywhere near agreeing viz-a-viz 'choice', I should have chosen another area to use as an example. My oops!

Barring any trolling, you have created a great "teachable moment".

But the fact remains---my 'choice' would be to stay away from abortion in most circumstances. But if my rights are absolute--right to the end of your nose--I have absolutely NO right to try to impose my conclusions on you.

NO rights are absolute. Also, you cannot simply claim something is a right. It has to actually be a right. However, there is no right to an abortion. There is nothing in the Constitution that suggests that. The entire constitutional argument for a "right to choose" is based on equivocation.

 

[shagdrum]

Many people don't like 'expanding' beyond what the founding fathers stated. It has a tendency to leave what they said and wrote open to interpretation. Many people like to look at the constitution as 'verbatim'.

Would you agree with that approach?

 

[Calabrio]

Many people don't like 'expanding' beyond what the founding fathers stated. It has a tendency to leave what they said and wrote open to interpretation. Many people like to look at the constitution as 'verbatim'.

This isn't necessarily an expansion of what the Founding Fathers said.
The principles are rules apply consistently.

This doesn't represent any kind of "evolution" of the constitution.

So here you don't want to leave anything open to interpretation, but earlier, you allowed for scientific interpretation to redefine the parameters of the constitution. It very specifically says 'born', are you willing to interpret that as 'life'?

As stated, I don't think that redefined the parameters of the constitution at all. I think it remains completely consistent with the sentiment of the constitution- that we are endowed by the creator with certain rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So, that unborn baby/fetus has rights - only if conceived here of parents of 2 US citizens, or if it was 'on' US soil at some predetermined point during pregnancy.....You are really opening a legal nightmare here.

Is this an argument about convenience?

If you would like to argue that the rights are self-evident and that all people within our country are protected by the constitution, then this distinction isn't necessary.

I can not murder a Mexican in this country under the guise that he has no rights here. Nor should we be able to kill an individual who has yet taken his first breath outside the womb.

Or, as I provided last time, when it's abundantly clear that one of the parents are a citizen of the United States, the rights granted to the offspring would protect it from being destroyed.

But, in the case of the baby that has been delivered with the ability to live outside the womb, just needing the cord untangled, it still has the innate ability to breathe at that moment in time. Is a fetus that has been naturally expelled before it can survive outside the womb 'born'. It cannot breathe, but it has traveled down the birth canal...

That's less important than the question- why is it alright to abort or kill a baby that has the ability to breathe?

Why is it o.k. to spin it around, pull it's feet out, and then puncture it's skull before it has the opportunity to take a breath?

 

[Joeys Lincoln]

Tsk tsk, fox...there you go again, putting words in my mouth. Where did I say that? Please furnish a link.


You're demonstrating your gross misunderstanding of a very basic Biblical concept. You probably don't even know the reference of that one single verse.

But I can give you several that indicate that God is against abortion, and that life begins in the womb. Since you brought up the Bible...

Amos 1:13
Psalm 127:3
Gen. 4:1,17
Psalm 51:7, 139:13,15
Luke 1:41, 18:15
Psalm 22:10-11
Gal 1:15
Exodus 20:14
Matt 19:13-18
Psalm 106:35-38
2 Kings 17:17-18
Luke 6:36
Matthew 7:12
Ezekiel 23:36-39
Jeremiah 7:27-31
Jeremiah 1:4-8
Proverbs 6:16-19
2 Kings 24:1-4

I could furnish others.
It's already in the Constitution - right next to where it says women have the right to abortions.

Doesn't the bible say a bit more about abortion and children's lives in general? http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/abortion.html

 

[fossten]

Doesn't the bible say a bit more about abortion and children's lives in general? http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/abortion.html

Congratulations, you know how to use google. Of course, the question being begged is, Do you understand what you're reading? In every case you 'cited,' God commanded this for a specific reason, not as a convenient method of birth control.

It's not my fault you don't understand context, or what you're reading. And I'm not going to explain the whole Bible to you.

Here's a response to that link.

And here's a general refutation of the SAB.

 

[foxpaws]

I figured you would use that book. James C. Mohr's Abortion in America is THE version of the history of abortion that has been promoted by the left since it was written. However, there are two points to be raised here...

1. If ever there was a politically charged issue, it is the issue of abortion. Considering the tendency of radical ideologues to distort reality in their myopic focus on ideology (removing any feedback from reality on the ideology in the process) there is likely to be competing narratives concerning the history of abortion. As they say, "He who controls the past controls the future", so rhetoric attempting to distort the past to fit an ideological agenda should be guarded against.
   
   Specifically, when it comes to this narrative, the history of that narrative can be telling. It was first articulated by Cyril Means, chief counsel for the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. That narrative was echoed by Justice Harry Blackmun in writing a ruling that explicitly distorted the Constitution; the Roe v. Wade decision. In the late 1970's, Mohr expanded on that narrative in Abortion in America.
   
   While those two points don't mean that the narrative is wrong, it does mean that the narrative should be given a higher level of scrutiny. That means that facts that logically support the argument should be provided and that it should be contrasted with opposing narratives. Which brings me to my next point...

1. 
   
   So, you have provided opposing narrative, we will get to Olasky's tirade shortly... And, of course you used Olasky - the go to guy when it comes to the 'right's' version of abortion history... I thought you might go there... Let's just deal with him first - OK - to make this a little less convulated - however much you like to go down that road shag
   
   

   [*]You present this as THE version of history when it seems you have not considered alternative narratives. That comes across as wildly presumptuous. The specific verifiable facts in the example you cite are circumstantial evidence at best and don't prove anything. They involve a lot of logical leaps and assumptions to reach the conclusions drawn...

   
   So - the two examples used where murder convictions were in play - during the 1600s
   

   In 1652 a member of the Maryland governor’s council, Captain Will Mitchell, was brought up on murder charges for forcing an abortifacient on a young girl, Susan Warren, whom he impregnated. Along with “adultery and fornication,” the colony charged that Mitchell had “murtherously endeavored to destroy or murder the child by him begotten in the womb of Susan Warren.”14 The prosecutor couldn’t prove the case, but Mitchell was disgraced and dismissed from the council, nevertheless. In another case out of Maryland (1663), Jacob Luibrozo was charged with felony for administering an abortificent. The girl “was with child when John Luibrozo, he did give her physick to destroy it. . . .”

   
   Well - first - rather silly - the time frame is wrong - we have been talking about the 1700s - the time during the founding fathers... but beyond that little error...
   
   In both of these cases another person was charged with murder - not the mother. And, it is interesting to point out - in both cases no convictions were handed down - apparently Olasky can't find a case where there is a conviction. Here is 'implies' that convictions would have been handed down - but, it is more telling that he can't find one case that got the coveted 'conviction' of murder.
   
   

   Between 1670-1807 there were fifty-one convictions for infanticide in Massachusetts. A woman named Mary Martin was executed in 1648 for infanticide. A famous ballad of the day was loosely based on her case, “The Cruel Mother”: “She took a pen-knife keen and sharp and pierced the baby’s tender heart.”

   
   Also, the case of Mary Martin - which he also eludes to as a self induced abortion. Actually the Martin case was a case of the mother killing a newborn, and then claiming it was stillborn - not abortion at all... Olasky is trying to equate infanticide to abortion - it isn't. I would say he is lying - but, he isn't, it is just a sneaky way to make us think that there were all these abortion cases... if you don't read closely...
   
   Then, lets look at the laws that Olasky so lovingly embraces...
   
   
   “If any person or persons shall counsel, advise or direct such women to kill the child she goes with, and after she is delivered, of such child, she kills it, every such person so advising or directing, shall be deemed accessory to murder, and shall have same punishment as the principle shall have.”​
   
   and
   
   
   “That if any person or persons advise or counsel another to kill a child before its birth, or the child be killed after its birth, in pursuance of such advice, such advisor is or are declared an accessory to murder.”​
   
   and
   
   
   “give counsel or administer any herb, medicine, or potion, or any other thing to any women being with child whereby she should destroy or miscarry. . .before her time.”​
   
   Shag - nothing in your long, and yes, rather boring cut and paste extravaganza, shows that abortion was illegal in the first 4 months of pregnancy during colonial times. The laws went after the people who would counsel women about abortions, but the actual act of abortion wasn't cited in law until the mid 1800s.
   
   

   It was not until the nineteenth century that science could explain the process of pregnancy. Karl Ernst von Baer’s discovery of ova in dogs (1827) was a breakthrough. The Pre-Formation Doctrine was discarded, and conception, the union of sperm and the egg, was recognized as the beginning of life. It is precisely at this point in the 1820s that moral arguments started to demand better legislation to protect fetal life from the moment of conception. The quickening doctrine was heard no more.

   
   I guess Olasky doesn't realize that the 'Practical Essays on the Management of Pregnancy and Labour' by Clark, and written in 1782 was 'the' physician's bible on pregnancy for many years before his 'dog' book. It even understands thing like tubal pregnancies. Physicians had been dissecting fetus since before Christ. They knew the
   progression, when the heart was developed, the brain, et al.
   
   

   James Mohr’s contention that abortion was mainstream is a lie. But conservatives are also wrong when they talk about the “good ‘ole days,” when abortions never happened. On the contrary, one of the reasons for the new, tougher anti-abortion statutes was to combat the increase of illicit abortions. Abortions, especially in the large cities of America, reached alarming proportions in the mid-nineteenth century, and better laws were needed to attack the growing problem...

   
   There were ads in newspapers for abortions, that isn't mainstream? Here, in this paragraph alone the author contradicts himself, abortions aren't 'mainstream' however they are reaching alarming proportions?
   
   

   First, if, as Mohr contends, abortion was widespread and accepted and the Doctors Crusade was simply a crass attempt by “regulars” to drive away their “irregular” competition, why didn’t the regulars simply ask the state legislature to make abortion a procedure that could only be performed by a licensed physician?

   
   Actually, if you read Mohr, this paragraph makes no sense. What Mohr contends is:
   That doctors wanted to prevent "untrained" practitioners, including midwives, apothecaries, and homeopaths, from competing with them for patients and for patient fees. Since surgery was a best 'iffy' at this time, abortion by surgical methods was often fatal, or at the very least very damaging to the woman. So the physicians had very little 'product' to compete with the practitioners, and they didn't want to see the populace's medical dollars directed away from them. They needed to gain 'respectability' while 'discrediting' alternative medicine. The best way to accomplish their goal was to eliminate one of the principle procedures that kept these competitors in business. By making abortions illegal, the men in the 'Doctors Crusades' lost no business on their own, however they marginalized midwives, etc. and drove them out of business, or underground.
   
   

   Third, at no time before or during the mid-nineteenth century campaign for better abortion laws was there a “pro-choice” lobby. The pro-abortion position doesn’t show up until the twentieth century. The socialist, feminist, spiritist minority were the only people in the 1800s talking about tolerance for abortions. But there was no pro-choice agenda.

   
   There was no pro choice agenda because women were second class citizens. No political voice Shag - no vote, no presence in government - duh...
   
   
   And can you actually even support an article that has this wonderful sentence in it -
   

   These hollow arguments would emerge from the sewers later on.

   Do you really think that the author at any point was being objective?
   
   

   The Doctors Crusade was meant to push it back through, from which it would hopefully never return. Their hopes were overly optimistic. Things were changing fast. New perspectives were evolving. The anti-abortion legal regime would remain intact into the mid-twentieth century, when Roe v Wade overturned the Texas statute passed during Storer’s Crusade so many years before.

   
   Odd- the Doctors Crusade was actually an arm of the AMA way back then... What does the 'current' Doctors Crusade (the current AMA) state about abortion now - now that they know a whole lot more about fetal development then they did in the 1800s...
   
   The Principles of Medical Ethics of the AMA do not prohibit a physician from performing an abortion in accordance with good medical practice and under circumstances that do not violate the law.​
   
   

   So, you have alternative narratives in both Marvin Olasky's Abortion Rites and Joseph W. Dellapenna's Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History. For the narrative you claim to be accepted, you have to not only logically discount those narratives but logically PROVE your narrative. If you are not familiar with those alternative narratives, then you are ill-equipped to discount them at this time. To attempt to do so without a strong understanding of those opposing narratives would suggest that you are propagandizing. "Deceit is in haste, but honesty can wait a fair leisure".

   
   Your claim that my source is favored by the left, however, your source is favored by the right. It is a 'flash point' issue, and both sides pull out their source over and over again. However, your source, Olasky, is on the record as stating 'To report, interpret, and illustrate the news in a timely, accurate, enjoyable, and arresting fashion from a perspective committed to the Bible as the inerrant Word of God.' So, he is isn't 'objectively' reporting, he is 'biblically objectively' reporting. He is putting his reporting under the lens of the Bible - we aren't seeing the 'facts', but the facts, distilled by a perspective that is guided by the Bible.
   
   OK - shag - support Olasky now... lets look at your 'facts' and don't just cut and paste - it wasn't hard to tear them apart, and support Mohr...

 

[foxpaws]

Tsk tsk, fox...there you go again, putting words in my mouth. Where did I say that? Please furnish a link.

You were the one that stated that perhaps we should start the definition of life at the onset of brain waves… 40 days.

Brain waves can be measured at 40 days.

Today we declare someone to be legally dead when his brain waves cease. So if the end of brain waves marks the legal end of life, the start of brain waves should mark the legal start of life.

Anybody who tries to deny that a fetus is a human life is merely trying to justify a murderous act and is not thinking rationally. It's so obvious. It takes mental gymnastics to think otherwise.

So, what did you mean by that statement… It appears that the legal ‘start of life’ has a set point – start of brain wave activity. Before that 40 day threshold – what is it – and should it be protected as well? Under what definition on days 0 to 40 do we protect a fetus?

You're demonstrating your gross misunderstanding of a very basic Biblical concept. You probably don't even know the reference of that one single verse.

John 3:3-6. Born of water – baptism. However not conceived of water… ‘Born’ has special meaning within the Bible – it is the beginning – not when the child is in the womb.

But I can give you several that indicate that God is against abortion, and that life begins in the womb. Since you brought up the Bible...

You can only quote verse that 'indicates' that God is against abortion and that life begins in the womb - there is no verse that actually supports either of those - only by some interpretation can you arrive at that...

Find the verse that does not need to be interpreted that God is against abortion - God was good at stating exactly what he meant - you shouldn't have to 'indicate' your point.

And here are mine foss – that life begins at first breath.

Genesis 2:7

Ezekiel 37:10

I Kings 17:17-21

Biblical penalties for causing a fetus to be miscarried

Exodus 21:22-25

Leviticus 24:17-21

An interesting case where even a 1 month old baby is ‘less’ a life than an adult

Leviticus 27:1-8

Numbers 3:15,28,34,39,40,43

I have more…

 

[foxpaws]

Would you agree with that approach?

Obviously you do - you want to get around the word 'born' - correct?

 

[foxpaws]

This isn't necessarily an expansion of what the Founding Fathers said.
The principles are rules apply consistently.

This doesn't represent any kind of "evolution" of the constitution.

Substituting 'life' for 'born' does expand the constitution Cal... you have to interpret to get to that point.

As stated, I don't think that redefined the parameters of the constitution at all. I think it remains completely consistent with the sentiment of the constitution- that we are endowed by the creator with certain rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Before you had argued that the DOI wasn't law - that is not in the constitution - our rights are spelled out a little more clearly in the constitution, and are defined as happening upon birth...

I can not murder a Mexican in this country under the guise that he has no rights here. Nor should we be able to kill an individual who has yet taken his first breath outside the womb.

You have to change the constitution to get beyond 'birth'. Are you killing an individual when you abort a 3 week old fetus? That is an argument among scientists and religious leaders, but in the constitution rights - and if you want to include life liberty and the pursuit - don't start until you are born...

Or, as I provided last time, when it's abundantly clear that one of the parents are a citizen of the United States, the rights granted to the offspring would protect it from being destroyed.

We are now down to one parent cal - what happened to two?

That's less important than the question- why is it alright to abort or kill a baby that has the ability to breathe?

Why is it o.k. to spin it around, pull it's feet out, and then puncture it's skull before it has the opportunity to take a breath?

It isn't OK - and anytime a fetus can live outside the womb on its own it should be allowed to live. It has been 'born' and now has rights. Same as your baby/cord around neck question.

 

[fossten]

John 3:3-6. Born of water – baptism. However not conceived of water… ‘Born’ has special meaning within the Bible – it is the beginning – not when the child is in the womb.

Nowhere in that verse does it say that that is the start of 'life.' Sorry, you fail.

You can only quote verse that 'indicates' that God is against abortion and that life begins in the womb - there is no verse that actually supports either of those - only by some interpretation can you arrive at that...

Find the verse that does not need to be interpreted that God is against abortion - God was good at stating exactly what he meant - you shouldn't have to 'indicate' your point.

And here are mine foss – that life begins at first breath.

Genesis 2:7

Ezekiel 37:10

I Kings 17:17-21

Fox, you're clever but you have no wisdom. You find verses with words in them but you have no idea what they mean. Seriously, you're using Adam's creation from dust as proof that abortion is endorsed by God? How was Adam supposed to have been born other than by God breathing life into him? And your other best example is a vision where God showed Ezekiel a valley of bones and where Elijah revives a dead child? How does any of this show that life begins AT birth? Tsk tsk, fox, context! Man you're ignorant. What's next, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is proof that God is pro-abortion? :bowrofl:

Biblical penalties for causing a fetus to be miscarried

Exodus 21:22-25

Leviticus 24:17-21

An interesting case where even a 1 month old baby is ‘less’ a life than an adult

Leviticus 27:1-8

Numbers 3:15,28,34,39,40,43

I have more…

You should really read that passage in Exodus more carefully. Thanks for admitting that there is a penalty for killing a baby. You make my point for me.

You cannot justify abortion on demand with any of those verses. And I've already furnished a link that refutes all of your 'interpretations.' I'm not going to explain the whole Bible to you. Bottom line is you CANNOT demonstrate that God is pro-abortion.

It's also instructive that you cannot explain the verses that I've furnished.

Here are a few others that you won't bother to read:

Psalm 51:5
Luke 1:41 - baby in womb referred to as a BABY
Judges 13:7
Job 31:15
Exodus 1:17 - midwives refused to kill baby boys out of FEAR OF GOD, AND GOD BLESSED THEM

Proverbs 8:36 - this one is especially for YOU, foxpaws...

 

[shagdrum]

Obviously you do - you want to get around the word 'born' - correct?

Dodging a reasonable question by asking a leading question is rude. It shows a lack of good faith and a lack of civility in the discussion.

 

[shagdrum]

Your claim that my source is favored by the left, however, your source is favored by the right. It is a 'flash point' issue, and both sides pull out their source over and over again. However, your source, Olasky, is on the record as stating 'To report, interpret, and illustrate the news in a timely, accurate, enjoyable, and arresting fashion from a perspective committed to the Bible as the inerrant Word of God.' So, he is isn't 'objectively' reporting, he is 'biblically objectively' reporting. He is putting his reporting under the lens of the Bible - we aren't seeing the 'facts', but the facts, distilled by a perspective that is guided by the Bible.

OK - shag - support Olasky now... lets look at your 'facts' and don't just cut and paste - it wasn't hard to tear them apart, and support Mohr...

You could simply admit you are not familiar with Olasky's argument and refrain from asserting either narrative is true because you are not familiar with, nor have critically analyzed both narratives enough to reasonable comment. Instead, you are attacking the messenger and distorting what little of his message has been presented. That demonstrates that you are not interested in an honest discussion but in propagandizing. Again, Deceit is in haste, but honesty can wait a fair leisure.

Frankly, I expected you to go into propaganda mode on this issue rather quick and you didn't disappoint. My only concern was in pointing out that the narrative you present should not be accepted without question; that Mohr's narrative should be honestly and critically considered against other narratives. Unfortunately, as you have demonstrated countless times on this forum and in this thread specifically, you don't possess the integrity or patience to do so.

There is no reason to waste any more time on you here specifically because you are in full propaganda mode so any further debate is simply a war of attrition where stubbornness replaces reasonable argumentation.

EDIT: It should also be noted that Fox didn't even acknowledge the work of Joseph W. Dellapenna who was mentioned in the last part of the post she was responding to (post #35). Dellapenna's work would seem to show that in fact there were plenty of laws in England and, through common law, in early America aimed at preventing abortions. As mentioned in post #35, Dellapenna's work would also strengthen some of the arguments that she is distorting and dismissing. Weather the laws Mohr cites were effective or not, the fact that they existed would poke a huge hole in Mohr's fundamental argument.

 

[shagdrum]

Betraying the Lie
by Erick Erickson

This Sunday the nation will be treated to a very controversial thirty second advertisement during the Super Bowl. It will be about a mother whose doctor told her she had to have an abortion because she was ill and her son would either die or be severely handicapped. She chose life instead and her son, Tim Tebow, grew up to quarterback for Florida.

There will also be a series of ads with scantily clad women and misogynistic men engaged in onscreen sexual perversion and debauchery akin to dogs in heat. NOW and Planned Parenthood have no problem with those commercials this year. Pam Tebow is enemy number one.

The wrath of the pro-choice organizations and feminists betray the lie that is pro-choice. Pam Tebow wants us to know about her choice, but these groups want to stop her. Had she instead filmed a commercial in which she praised her doctor’s advice and had an abortion, these groups would be fine. Subtract away the nonsense of the non sequitur and we’re left with an inescapable conclusion: pro-choice groups view only one choice as meritorious.

No one could be surprised if a pro-life group were upset by an advertisement in defense of abortion. Pro-life groups believe there is only one right choice — life. But it is a bit dumbfounding, assuming we accept pro-choice groups at their word, that a group whose existence revolves around the right of women to make a choice about their bodies would be enraged and threatening boycotts because one woman did make a choice about her body and her baby.

It becomes less dumbfounding if we stop taking pro-choice groups at their poll tested word and admit that pro-choice groups are pro-abortion groups. They do not want you to know that choosing life when your doctor tells you to choose death is legitimate.

NOW and Planned Parenthood could have taken out their own ad. They could have shown a woman praising her doctor for telling her to choose death and, but for taking her doctor’s advice, she might have died. “Might” is why the ad would fail and “I had an abortion, you should too” would probably persuade a lot of people … persuade them to choose life. Mrs. Tebow’s doctor told her Tim “might” die or be severely handicapped if she chose life. She did anyway and the results speak for themselves. The hypothetical never wins against reality.

As Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins pointed out today, one might think feminist groups would hold Tim Tebow up as the standard bearer for how men should behave. He spends his summers on mission trips, delivering medical supplies to impoverished countries. He does not hop into bed with every cheerleader — in fact, he has been upfront about his virginity, making a famously bawdy sports press embarrassed when Tebow mocked them for asking the question.

There’s not enough space in the sports pages for the serious weighing of values that constitutes this debate, but surely everyone in both camps, pro-choice or pro-life, wishes the “need” for abortions wasn’t so great. Which is precisely why NOW is so wrong to take aim at Tebow’s ad.

Here’s what we do need a lot more of: Tebows. Collegians who are selfless enough to choose not to spend summers poolside, but travel to impoverished countries to dispense medical care to children, as Tebow has every summer of his career. Athletes who believe in something other than themselves, and are willing to put their backbone where their mouth is. Celebrities who are self-possessed and self-controlled enough to use their wattage to advertise commitment over decadence.

You know what we really need more of? Famous guys who aren’t embarrassed to practice sexual restraint, and to say it out loud. If we had more of those, women might have fewer abortions. See, the best way to deal with unwanted pregnancy is to not get the sperm in the egg and the egg implanted to begin with, and that is an issue for men, too — and they should step up to that.​

But Tebow is the enemy. There are a number of reasons to hate Tim Tebow. More precisely, there are seven reasons: F, L, O, R, I, D and A. This commercial and Tebow’s scripture painted face are not in the list of reasons.

The beauty of Pam Tebow’s commercial extends beyond the message of her commercial. The commercial takes a position held by a majority of Americans and blows away the smoke and mirrors put up over a number of years by abortion advocates and feminists. The groups that run full page ads of women with duct tape on their mouths every time a Republican President nominates a judge want to put duct tape on Pam Tebow’s mouth. The groups that praise the poll tested phraseology of “pro-chioce” really do not want anyone to hear about the choice they deem illegitimate. God bless the Tebow family for taking the slings and arrows so the rest of us can revel in the hypocrisy of the advertisement’s opposition.

 

[fossten]

EDIT: It should also be noted that Fox didn't even acknowledge the work of Joseph W. Dellapenna who was mentioned in the last part of the post she was responding to (post #35).

Not surprising. Fox has routinely ignored points I've made in this discussion as well. She cherrypicks her talking points, clings bulldoggedly to false arguments for the purpose of distraction, and abandons all arguments by others.

In short, a propagandist and an Alinskyite.

See Matthew 7:15.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

 

[shagdrum]

Not surprising. Fox has routinely ignored points I've made in this discussion as well. She cherrypicks her talking points, clings bulldoggedly to false arguments for the purpose of distraction, and abandons all arguments by others.

In short, a propagandist and an Alinskyite.

As I said earlier, barring any trolling, this thread presents a great opportunity for a "teachable moment".

Unfortunately, we have the most insidious of all trolls on this forum making sure that is not possible.

BTW, nice scripture choice: Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.