But then we do have our own War Zone on Northeast Central. Drugs, prostitutes, murderers, stabbings, violence, but they too have many who can only afford those areas and yet they provide for their children, they work, they care, they are alive! After focusing on the War Zone, drive down a few blocks and there are “normal” neighborhoods.

Wars are hell and each side has their reason to fight in that war. In their mind, their cause is legitimate and people supporting and legitimizing either side.

Carpet bombing? Luckily the United States and Israel are the only countries I know of that use LASER-GUIDED WEAPONS so they don’t use carpet bombing like what was used in Vietnam but Russia carpet bombed Georgia only two years ago not forty. They leveled villages they were there to save! Sometimes even these modern missiles go astray and kill innocents but those are accidents not purposeful. But, those same missiles bomb their target and innocents are killed but there are several factors involved like using human shields and safe houses. Back to Russia’s carpet bombing, you’re talking about them right since you weren’t even a thought during the Vietnam war but even with the disasters, suffering, wars, starving, your mother still had you.

Yes, children are used all over the world as slaves to make the things we, and the world, buys. The Chinese, who poison our children with lead-tainted toys and poison our pets, are the biggest abusers but I’m sure Obama brought that up in his recent meeting. His daughters are recipients of those toys too right? When we find out about child slaves anywhere in the world, we expose them. Sweatshops must also be exposed.

Speaking of video games. The inventor of PacMan came out with another more complicated game that will surely be out by Christmas and there will be people who will wait out in the cold for hours dying to buy one of them. Smart man and alive. Was this his destiny?

You, and those reading this, are alive to be all you can be. You are successful in something and strive to be more successful, to be smarter, to be happy. Rejoice. You woke up this morning alive. Rejoice! You were born alive! Rejoice!

If you fail and drop out of school, fall off a cliff, drive into a lake, don’t blame life! At least you were born to die!

Are you going to honestly sit up on your moral high horse and tell me that preventing unwanted children from being conceived is as bad as aborting a forming child? They still prevent the gametes from forming a child whose “destiny” could be to grow up to be a child molester, for all you know. Are we supposed to ban birth control, as well, or are we to do the “good Christian” thing, and use the rhythm method and pray for the best?

Your injecting rape and molestation is to divert from Chavez’s point that life’s events happen to the living, only the dead do not suffer or rejoice from life. You were a human being at fusion, even if it was rape that brought the egg and sperm together. Tossing the natural event of miscarriage into this is to disrespect the hurt women and men feel when their child is lost to miscarriage. That is a comment that should be beyond a uni student.

Rebecca, you said of Chavez, “[you are one] who refuses to listen to a rational argument against your beliefs” then you offer nothing other than asking him about birth control, which is not germain to the discussion. Personally, I do not care what birth control you use, although I hear my dad saying put your brain in gear before your mouth is in motion, which I take to think oral is probably a good idea for some people as it avoids pregnancy and prevents them from saying something foolish.

Now, to deal with Mr. Newman: you clearly failed to read the response that Chavez posted. He clearly states, right at the beginning: “They were born, living, that’s the main issue. Whatever happens to them after that is life!” He then makes a number of weak statements regarding people affected by war, child labor, and the inventor of Pac-Man. HOWEVER, the reason this discussion got kicked off at all was not necessarily the anti-choice argument that was being presented AGAIN, but the fact that Chavez chose to make his argument based both on the concept of destiny, and that he chose to argue so strongly about letting people be born but wanted nothing to do with the preservation of all human life.

You yourself make a number of mildly amusing accusations towards the people who don’t hold your point of view. If the story you cite is true, then I commend you for your actions. I do not, however, see how this gives you any authority to claim that I or anyone do not care about helping people. The reason, in fact, that I even bothered responding to the latest anti-choice nut who posted is because I care about the quality of life of people who are already living. I have stopped to render aid to several people this semester alone, but I do not feel a need to stand up and say “look at me! I did a good thing!” I’m happy to help people who need it, but I am also happy to let people practice their rights.

I have a question for Chavez, Phillip, and Mr. Newman, one that I’d actually appreciate an honest, straight answer to. What is your personal motivation for being anti-choice? If it’s a moral obligation, then what universal moral standard do you believe we must all follow?

Birth control is germaine to the discussion. Abortion is largely a religious and moral “issue”, and birth control tends to get lumped into the same category of “immorality”. I only want to know if he’s interested in preventing unwanted pregnancies as a more ethical option to aborting them, or whether he considers it just as cruel and immoral to prevent the conception of a child as it is to abort the child after it is conceived.

n.newman: I had a rather good childhood, and was baptised, raised, and confirmed Episcopalian, (in the Diocese of New Hampshire) and have come to have a great distaste for the blatant hypocrisy in an archaic religion that refuses to change its doctrine to better suit a changing modern world. I consider myself agnostic, despite having tried that “Christian thing”, and strive to be a good person despite a total lack of personal religious affiliation. That being said, I do not feel it necessary to take it upon myself to decry and demonize women for making a personal choice regarding their own bodies in their own situations. Don’t like abortion? Just don’t get one. But leave the option open for women who feel it necessary, whatever their reasons may be. Simply put, it’s none of your business, and it’s not affecting you any. Why do you care so much, and why not just live and let live?

The Bible places no value on fetuses or infants less than one month old.

“And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver.” — Leviticus 27:6
[and no value for an unborn child]

Fetuses and infants less than one month old are not considered persons.

“Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them. And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD.” — Numbers 3:15-16

God sometimes approves of killing fetuses.

“And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? … Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.” — Numbers 31:15-17
[Some of the non-virgin women must have been pregnant. They would have been killed along with their unborn fetuses.]

“Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.” — Hosea 9:14

“Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.” — Hosea 9:16

“Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.” — Hosea 13:16
[ooga-booga!]

God sometimes kills newborn babies to punish their parents.

“Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.” — 2 Samuel 12:14

God sometimes causes abortions by cursing unfaithful wives.

“The priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell. And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. … And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.” — Numbers 5:21-21, 27-28

God’s law sometimes requires the execution (by burning to death) of pregnant women.

“Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.” — Genesis 38:24

And for you Catholics who choose to believe whatever your religous leaders came up with since the Bible was written (what prevented the “Almighty, All-Knowing, All-Powerful God” from getting it right in the first place?) here’s a tasty treat from Conscience, a pro-choice Catholic publication:

“The campaign by Pope John Paul II to make his position on abortion the defining one at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 was just one leg of a long journey of shifting views within the Catholic church. In the fifth century a.d., St. Augustine expressed the mainstream view that early abortion required penance only for sexual sin. Eight centuries later, St. Thomas Aquinas agreed, saying abortion was not homicide unless the fetus was “ensouled,” and ensoulment, he was sure, occurred well after conception. [I’ve heard “three months.”] The position that abortion is a serious sin akin to murder and is grounds for excommunication only became established 150 years ago.”

Once again I’m thoroughly amazed at the way Christians just believe whatever they want with all certainty under the false and completely fictional auspices of “God.”

Please accept my apology for my “That is a comment that should be beyond a uni student.” I was unnecessarily harsh. My experience with those who have lost a child has helped me understand the loss and pain that lasts a life time. Miscarriage is a natural event not at all related to abortion and I believe has no place in a discussion of abortion, EXCEPT to acknowledge that women and men experience great emotional pain regardless of how their child came to die.

Austin, science, not I, has determined when we became a human. What I have offered is scientific fact. It is useful for the pro-abortion community to do everything to not acknowledge what an abortion is intended to do: Kill a human being and remove her remains from her mother’s womb. For money.

Using scientific terms to subtly deny the woman is pregnant with a baby is a way to change what the procedure is about. Are you old enough to remember when we were told “it’s just a blob of tissue?” I do. That is one of the many lies told by the forces who thrive on abortion: Planed Parenthood who earns about $80/million annually from abortion, MD’s who do 10-15 abortions a day at $1,000.00 per abortion, those who sell the organs and tissue of aborted babies and others.

Smiley, if it is OK to kill 1.2 million innocent children every year, why should a few thousand more matter?

Blah blah blah. Everyone is a hypocrite. Every single one. Do you honestly thing that people are just going to change their beliefs because you can refute them? That’s not how it works in this world…come on now.

And to those who believe they are religious: Why do you care so much? Why don’t you concern yourself with yourself and let people do their thing. Doesn’t that fit into your little schema of life anyhow? (The wicked will be punished, lake of fire, eternal damnation, yadda yadda yadda.)

Lets just agree to disagree because I’m tired of reading in circles because you people run in circles.

It just begs the question: why didn’t “God” come straight out and explain exactly what his stance is on abortion? If he’s truly omnipotent and all-knowing, why did he do such a piss-poor job of communicating his will for humanity? Why did you channel his word through fallible humans? His laws may be hard enough to follow, but if we can’t even understand them or agree on what they mean, and if we can find contradictory passages to support whatever arguement we want, then really, what good are they?

Don’t like burglary?

Don’t steal. Just leave the people who choose to steal alone.

Don’t like murder?

Don’t commit one. Just leave the people who choose to commit it alone.

Kinda puts the “Don’t like abortion don’t have one” arguement in perspective, doesn’t it?

Society determines its own morals and the time may actually come when society deems abortion to be illegal murder. But this whole debate may one day become moot when we come to depend on technology to reproduce instead of nature. Sperm count has substantially decreased over the last century. The day may come when all fertilization takes place in a lab. I guess at that point the Catholic church will see no reason to engage in sex whatsoever.

If they even exist: still waiting for a correction to the reference to the supposedly definitive study “Journal of the International Association for The Study of Pain, Volume XIV, No. 2, June 2006” which I have shown to be incorrect.

“Planed (sic) Parenthood who earns about $80/million annually from abortion, MD’s (sic) who do 10-15 abortions a day at $1,000.00 per abortion. . .”

Bull. Back up your claims, please. Given your track record of misleading and even false citations, it is incumbent upon you, Mr. Howell, to give a source for your “facts.”