Nobodies belittling things you think are important, the right certainly doesn't belittle the abortion issue, I'm talking about the media ironclad third party-documented tendency to pick the most fanatical and fringe members of right wing movements to interview as representative of the movement.



Thank you.





It's really not best to get most of us started on abortion. I am more relaxed than most, as the absolute victory of the pro-life cause is, to me, a foregone conclusion. If the goal is to decrease the occurrence of abortions, improvements in technology of birth control and raising babies to term in tubes, so to speak, makes it inevitable, so I'm calmer than most. I'd also question your sources on abortion rates in countries where it is illegal.



I don't agree, I refuse on principle not to consider an abortion a life or death situation, it is my opinion that only where urgency is required, as in self-defense, battle, or triage is it acceptable to make such decisions quickly. Even if I did not consider it life or death, I would consider it a major, massive decision with permanent life altering effect, I've known to many people who had them and regret it, or at least are very saddened or traumatized by it even if they'd do it again, to believe such a thing should be decided in haste or in isolation. No one should be doing this without talking to someone - their partner certainly if they're in the picture, or a family member or close friend or preferably a spiritual or psychological counselor - and giving it some time to percolate. Whether one believes a fetus is a human or not, one or two days will change nothing. I also absolutely reject the idea that women know if they want to have a kid, maybe you do, but what I lack in ovaries I make up for in eyes and ears and social relationships of my own. Sorry Jen, but that's just flat wrong, or a rare minority, even were it the majority it would still mean a sizable minority did not. You can not tell me a woman who just noticed she was missing her period, runs out and grabs a kit, and pops hot is instantly aware and fully rational to make that decision. Some, yes, I'm a level-headed pre-planner myself and I'm sure I would if female have given it much thought in advance, in general terms, but I do that for a lot of things and I know how often mental prep-work flies out the window when the real situation arrives. And I also know I do more of that than most people, I've that sort of mindset that prefers to pre-stress in hope of avoiding stress, most don't do much of that, especially younger people who account for most of these abortions.

I mean no insult, but I think on this point you are succumbing to wishful thinking. An unexpected pregnancy is a crisis by definition, possibly excluding people on their third or fourth kid or abortion, no one should ever act quickly in a crisis if circumstances do not require it, and doubly so if there is no advantage to rapid action. A few days should make no difference excluding possibly those who believe things change on brain or heart function, and then only those in that window would have cause for haste.




No, you hear what the liberal media wished you to hear. You hear the first inarticulate fanatic they can get on film. You are not present at sober discussion amongst conservatives where medical findings are discussed, under-reported incidents are racked up, counter-evidence presented. As I've mentioned earlier in the thread, we have a lot of non-religious folk in the party, and even more who are not swayed by religious arguments or who believe there are over-riding privacy and liberty concerns. We've also got metric tons of tapes and paper of clipped down speeches and reports where people on the right discuss these things in a forum and it gets edited down by the media to include only the brief portions where religion or heated words popped up. I feel obliged to remind that most Catholics vote democrat, not republican, they make up less than a fifth of the population and maybe a tenth of the GOP, they do not drive the primarily protestant and pro-birth control stance of the party. We merely happen to agree that abstinence is preferable to birth control in limiting unwanted pregnancies, disease, and emotional damage. We certainly encourage people to use protection if they are going to have sexual relations. That would be considered a no-brainer, and even most devout catholics would rather people used protection if they're doing it anyway, but I'm not a catholic, nor is most of the party and nor do most protestants take for granted that someone is going to rigidly follow church doctrine when they disagree as that's generally considered a core principal of most protestant denominations.