The pro-choice movement may be dead in your estimation, but the anti-pro-life movement is alive and well. I don't get lost in the trees on debating one issue when the overall plan for outlawing abortion is obviously death by a thousands cuts. This current law is just one of many Trojan Horses that enables the next one in the sequence. I am not cavalier about abortions. I just don't think it is any of my business, so I am inclined to support a woman's privacy. Obviously, I don't believe abortion is murder by definition, and courts agree, so spare me that argument.

What do you expect those of us who do believe that this is the taking of an innocent human life to do. Nothing? This is the preeminent civil rights issue of our times; worse than slavery. At least in the preCivil war South a person would be punished for killing their "property". We are treating unborn human life as the "property" of the mother. This reasoning leads to horrors such as partial birth abortion (infanticide).

If they were really pro-choice, they'd strongly support women getting access to as much information as possible prior to getting an abortion.

No. If they favored autonomous choice about any form of healthcare, they'd favor appropriate and relevant factual grounds for informed consent - which they do.

There is no medical reason why a woman making a decision about abortion needs to see an ultrasound picture of the fetus. The reason for such requirements is purely to discourage decisions in favor of abortion, both by raising the cost of the procedure by $100 or more in most cases, and by engaging in emotional manipulation of the patient. Information designed not to facilitate a patient's decision, but only to manipulate it in someone else's chosen direction, is not a part of informed consent, it is an attempt to undermine the patient's autonomy.

Pro-choicers rightly reject intrusions into medical decisionmaking of that kind, because they support the right of patients to make decisions based on relevant facts and their own values - not to be badgered into adopting someone else's values and decisions.

Would you consider calling the growing life inside the womb a clump of cells to be emotional manipulation? This legislation is designed to give women the OPTION to view the life inside the womb. She has the choice to make the autonomous decision to see what the abortion seeks to destroy. Considering the whole purpose of abortion, this would seem relevant information. The truth is a scary thing when you are wed to a lie. If all the pro-abortion movement had said about abortion was true, then this would not be nearly the threat you see it as.

So when is a fetus a child and not a clump of cells? When does it happen? When it is born? When the pumpkin fariy waves it's wand over mommy's tummy and poof?.. You can't abort!!
Maybe the utlrasound could better inform mommy to see if she has been visited by said fairy so she can make a healthy choice for her and her child..

God, I love liberal arguments. No where else can you encounter a "pumpkin fairy" which is supposed, I guess, to be a tool of intelligent debate. And, of course, the Rogue Apostrophe runs rampant.

A decision made without information is not a "choice" it is a "guess".

The pro abortion movement wants the freedome to represent an unborn child as a "clump of cells" and is terrified of having the pregnant woman learning that her "clump" has fingers and toes, a functioning brain, a heartbeat, and is sucking its thumb and responding to stimulation. If they are not trying to hide the truth and manipulate a woman into aborting her child, why are they so threatened by giving her information that is necessary for her to make a truly informed decision?

Abortion is Big Business, pure and simple. If it were not, if it did not further an agenda, the pressure would not be so intense to push women into terminating their pregnancies. How are they pushed? Well, there is the aforementioned claim that this active infant is really just a "clump of cells". There is the refusal to tell women of the emotional and psychological risks of taking such a radical and irreversible step while under great pressure. There is the determination that if a panicky woman of any age (down to twelve) comes through the door, she should be able to walk out un-pregnant,without benefit of a couple of days to think it over and consider options. Options? The very idea is horrifying to the pro-abortionists.

A woman's own business? In what other circumstances does the ending of a human life fall under "privacy"?

Only in LibLand can someone with (presumably) a straight face refer to the ability to choose an abortion as the ability to "make a healthy choice for .....her child". How healthy would that be, fred? Maybe you start by defining "health" as the absence of pain, disease, and illness. In which case "death" WOULD be the same as "health".

The more I read blogs, the more I realize that Lewis Carroll was writing about liberals when he had Alice fall down the rabbit hole.

Not a human being? Well, that argument has been made to excuse the worst abuses of human rights in history. Kill the Indians? It's Ok, because "they're not really humans, anyway". Have slaves? Ditto. Gas chambers in Germany? It was easy once it was determined that Jews were "not really human beings".

Pregnancy is a finite condition. It ends. No one is pregnant forever. It is a temporary state. Abortion is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It is chosen, almost every single time, for simple convenience. Yes, a woman could have taken precautions to avoid pregnacny. Yes, a woman could carry the child to term and have it adopted. But those options involve personal responsibility, and are inconvenient. It is so much easier to just suck out the little critter, pretend it wasn't a person anyway, and forget about it. Who can feel guilt for destroying a "clump of cells"---sounds a lot like a tumor, doesn't it? Bet that choice of words is just a coincidence though.

One of my favorites is the claim that a partial birth abortion should be kept legal when it is "necessary for the health of the mother". Hmmm.

When a woman's life or health is endangered by a pregnancy, or by childbirth, the solution is to do a C-section so the mother's body does not have to go through the stresses of labor. But that poses a problem for the woman determined that her child DIE---if it is lifted from her womb, it might actually take a breath, which would magically make it murder to kill it. So an elaborate process had to take place.

First, the woman has to take strong drugs to induce labor. Induced labor is stronger and more painful than natural labor, which takes place when the body has been prepared by hormonal changes. Then the fragile, endangered, woman has to endure having the pesky kid manually turned and twisted inside her, so it will come out feet first---also not the best position for the woman. Then it has to be guided out feet-first so just the head remains in the birth canal, keeping the kid from breathing. While holding the child in this position, the healing hands of the doctor reach in and shove scissors or a similar implement through the soft tissue at the base of the back of the head, swizzling it around as if he were scrambling eggs. This step requires a second person to hold the writhing baby in place, as this is excruciating and the child is fighting for its life. Only then is the child allowed to fully exit its "mother".

Tell me, apologists, how the life or health of the mother would have been in danger if she had already gone through all of this, and then the little head, following the larger body, had been allowed to slip out?

Hypocrisy is terrible. Viciousness is terrible. Wanton disregard for imposing suffering on a living creature is terrible. But combining all of these traits into a procedure which tortures an otherwise viable baby to death, under the guise of "protecting" the mother, is so vile it is beyond description.

Unless, of course, the mother claims she is making the decision "for the health of the child". Or that she can do this under the guise of "privacy". I guess fred and Kevin would find that OK.

Excellent entry, Mr. Margolis.

Almiranta,

That was great!!!!!

Almiranta wrote:
The pro abortion movement wants the freedome to represent an unborn child as a "clump of cells" and is terrified of having the pregnant woman learning that her "clump" has fingers and toes, a functioning brain, a heartbeat, and is sucking its thumb and responding to stimulation.

WOW, so this can happen in the first few weeks of pregnancy??? It's a good thing no one gets an abortion before a fetus can suck it's thumb.
correct me if I'm wrong, but you're a "it's alive at conception" sort of person aren't you? I fully agree, since your opinion is much better than everyone elses we should all agree with you and those who have the same OPINION. I think I must have sneezed while reading that section of that higly accredited scientific reivew that said life begins at conception. I'm sure glad I have you here to push your own beliefs on everyone else, God knows all those pro abortion heathens sure need to get thier act straight, Hey I know, since sperm is only life waiting to happen I'm going to write to congress and demand they outlaw masturbation, or at least make everyone look at a picture of a baby before they do it. Thanks Almiranta, I think I'll go to church now so I can get saved by those who know how everyone else should and must live. Oh first I'm going to have something to eat, is that allowed by YOUR moral compass, am I allowed to make my own informed choice on this or should I wait to see if you believe my steak is a living being and shouldn't be harmed?

I agree strongly that abortion is an abomination on many fronts. I would like to comment from an angle of the debate that doesn't get enough attention. The Judicial Branch has overstepped its bounds again and again by taking this debate out of the Voter's hands. Not only have the courts ignored the 'self-evident' right to life, they also ignored the constutional rights of individual states. The left really has no legal leg to stand on. They claim that the issue is settled, but if it was the issue would not still be dominating the headlines. Pro-lifers are not only frustrated with the horror of the issue itself, but also the fact that we have been disenfranchised by the courts. The constution is on our side, we just have to keep fighting. I am a bit upset with some Republicans about things like overspending (although I know the root cause is the liberal entitlement culture), but we can work through these issues. President Bush made good on his pledge to nomimate strong Judges. The bottom line is the right to be born is the most important issue of every day! Not only is the Lord Pro-life, so is our US Constitution!