Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It boils down to abortion.

Anti abortion people are trying to get the camel's nose under the edge of the tent. Personhood laws are just a first step. If it's a person you can't abort it.

Same thing for the pill/IUD etc. If life begins when the sperm meets the egg, then you can't support interfering with implantation.

Religious people can't compromise on when life begins. They can't give any deadline when eliminating a zygote is OK. Because that would be admitting that there is some deadline where eliminating a zygote is OK.

Now, why this concern for the unborn in a society that shows so little regard for the living? That is another question. Of course there's the adorable little baby factor.

But if you ask many feminists, they will go back to power, specifically sexual power, specifically the awesome power of life that women possess, and me do not. Men's desire to own and control that power is what has defined gender roles and laws for millenia.

Basically I believe that allowing abortion acknowledges that females are the ultimate earthly arbiters of life and death. And no patriarchal religion, and no person indoctrinated by said religions, can tolerate that.

So how do you explain women who are pro-life? Are we all indoctrinated and incapable of coming to a pro-life conclusion without being pressured by men? If that is what you believe, you have a pretty dim view of the intelligence of hundreds of thousands of women.

I would say that you, like all women, are free to come to your own conclusions about abortion. No one should ever force you to have an abortion. Or to be pregnant.

I do believe that we are in part brainwashed by our patriarchal culture, yes. I was baptized and confirmed and went to Catholic school with nuns for 13 years. I know about indoctrination.

Liberal Catholic here. I am pro-choice because, though I personally would not have an abortion, I realize that not everyone is Catholic and I think it should be a matter of personal conscience, not law. I don't like the idea of legislating morality on an issue where there is not broad consensus. And I don't like the idea of giving the government power to weigh the rights of women vs. their unborn children. They're bound to screw it up. Just don't have an abortion if you're Catholic, leave government out of it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The larger issue is that Republicans don't want ANY EMPLOYER to be forced to provide insurance that covers birth control, period. They're just dressing it up as a matter of religious freedom when it is anything but. They don't want to pay for things they don't like. Fair enough. But let's not pretend that the government is persecuting Catholics. No one is forcing Catholics to take birth control.

RantingAtheist, I am a non-ranting atheist and I do not think religious employers should be forced to provide birth control through their insurance plan. This is not just the fringe issue you think it is.

Anonymous wrote:I think whole issue is bs being driven by the obama admin after they saw what happened with the fallout from susan g Komen. Pandering to weak minded women. And I support pro choice and easy access to BC. This is silly, political campaign posturing. Think it will back fire on them. My party keeps sending me moronic emails that are the hyperbolic bs they accuse the other side of engaging in. Contemptible.

you are not following. if someone is pro-life, that normally means they think with 100% certainty that the unborn baby is a separate living person. so saving a life is more important than a woman's right to "control". now, the only time it gets tricky is if the life of the mom is in danger if the pregnancy were to continue. in this case I don't think you can make one life more important than another life. but yes, a life > control.

Anonymous wrote:

you are not following. if someone is pro-life, that normally means they think with 100% certainty that the unborn baby is a separate living person. so saving a life is more important than a woman's right to "control". now, the only time it gets tricky is if the life of the mom is in danger if the pregnancy were to continue. in this case I don't think you can make one life more important than another life. but yes, a life > control.

You can think that a fetus is a separate living person and still have legal abortion. It's been held repeatedly that one person cannot compel another person to provide him/her with bodily resources, even if the first person is the only source of those resources, and even if the second person would die without them. Legally, you cannot compel someone to donate an organ, blood, etc. to another perosn. How is this different?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

you are not following. if someone is pro-life, that normally means they think with 100% certainty that the unborn baby is a separate living person. so saving a life is more important than a woman's right to "control". now, the only time it gets tricky is if the life of the mom is in danger if the pregnancy were to continue. in this case I don't think you can make one life more important than another life. but yes, a life > control.

You can think that a fetus is a separate living person and still have legal abortion. It's been held repeatedly that one person cannot compel another person to provide him/her with bodily resources, even if the first person is the only source of those resources, and even if the second person would die without them. Legally, you cannot compel someone to donate an organ, blood, etc. to another perosn. How is this different?

The difference is that the fetus isn't compelling anything. Most pregnancies are caused by voluntary actions of the woman. If involuntary because of rape, the fetus is still without fault.

I still think early abortion should be legal but I can't see how anyone thinks these questions are easy. They don't analogize to anything else. It is a unique state with unique moral questions.

Anonymous wrote:
What about the MAN? Oh, yeah the slutty woman argument.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What about the MAN? Oh, yeah the slutty woman argument.

I'm a woman you're responding to. Wtf does the man have to do with it. We all know it takes two to tango. Do I need to say that each time?

The quesiton at hand is whether you can ask one person (here, the woman) to give up something for another entity (here, the fetus). The man isn't being asked to do anything because he can't. Believe me, I'd like to force my husband to carry the next baby but I can't.

So the moral question is about whether the fetus can have any rights against the woman and when. Where exactly in that moral discussion do you want me to put the man?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What about the MAN? Oh, yeah the slutty woman argument.

I'm a woman you're responding to. Wtf does the man have to do with it. We all know it takes two to tango. Do I need to say that each time?

The quesiton at hand is whether you can ask one person (here, the woman) to give up something for another entity (here, the fetus). The man isn't being asked to do anything because he can't. Believe me, I'd like to force my husband to carry the next baby but I can't.

So the moral question is about whether the fetus can have any rights against the woman and when. Where exactly in that moral discussion do you want me to put the man?

Legally, you cannot compel another person to give up anything for another person, even if that means they'll die. It really is simple. Now, morally, you may CHOOSE to give up something for someone else, even your own life, but no one can force you. Just because a woman consents to have sex, doesn't mean she should have to support a life she created if she doesn't want to. The car accident analogy is a good one.

Anonymous wrote:It goes back to the Bible and what is right according to God's Law.

RantingAtheist wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love birth control and use it all the time.

However, I do not think that religious employers should be forced to pay for it, through insurance or not.

And I take as genuine some people's belief that life begins at conception. That makes some forms of birth control a difficult call for them. It doesn't have to be about hatred toward women or the desire to control them.

Not every person working for a Catholic institution is Catholic. Should we penalize them for having different beliefs?

are they being FORCED to work for a religious group? you want to make orthodox jews serve non-kosher food? come on, that is silly.

This actually a good analogy. It's my understanding that, while an orthodox Jew cannot cook meat and dairy, serving non-kosher food is perfectly acceptable. Obviously in the case of Catholic employers, they're not even forced to "serve" contraception. And now with the Obama compromise, Catholic employers are not even required to pay for health plans that cover contraception, but rather the health insurers themselves cover it.

So the whole tempest is essentially one group of very, very far-right wing, and extremely politically active group of Catholics (specifically the US Conference of Catholic Bishops), searching frantically for a wedge issue so they can cynically insert it into the upcoming presidential election.