The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

So now you're saying they don't have souls, so abortion is ok whenever?

You're a smart guy, Bob, you understand the idea of a hypothetical. The question at hand is if a foetus is a human life why does it matter how it was conceived. I believe later on you admit there's no logical reason and this is a contradiction.

Or do they just magically have a soul show up in the 24th week or whenever, so only after that is it wrong to dismember them? But, in that 23rd week, they're just a glob of tissue, or so the story goes.

This argument has nothing to do with time interval. The rape exception posits that it's OK to terminate a pregnancy at x weeks under some circumstances but not others. That takes the whole issue of development off the table.

It is inconsistent to say that some abortions are ok, but others aren't. But, that's where most people land, and find various ways to avoid addressing this glaring inconsistency.

That's right, and that's exactly my point. This is not strictly an either/or, life vs. cluster-of-cells issue, so presenting it that way (by either side) is either confused or knowingly false, and that's what makes so much of the so-called "pro-life" movement so transparently self-contradictory. Nobody is pro-abortion, that's the false dichotomy they've always put out there to rile up their supporters and keep the money flowing in. It's the same as when the CBC screeches "racism" whenever they need a wedge. It's naked politics, absent any real weighing of the important moral considerations, and worthy of nothing but scorn from ethical people.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

Nobody is pro-abortion.

Do you read anything that I post?

 

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

The alternative to legalized abortion is people having kids they don't want and are likely to neglect (read: criminals).

You forgot the traditional solution, which is to have a war every generation, have all the poor boys murder each other, and have all the poor girls die from horrible diseases (except the cute ones who become sex slaves, briefly). They still do this in Africa and 10,000 years is a helluva proof of concept.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

The alternative to legalized abortion is people having kids they don't want and are likely to neglect (read: criminals).

Clearly the only solution is the one I proposed: means test parents and only allow them to carry children to term if they have a sufficiently high net worth.

You think so though? I would think there are millions of parents looking for kids to adopt. I'm not saying the woman has to take care of the baby for her whole life, just that she needs to suck it up for 9 months. Is that really so much to ask?

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

Nobody is pro-abortion, that's the false dichotomy they've always put out there to rile up their supporters and keep the money flowing in. It's the same as when the CBC screeches "racism" whenever they need a wedge. It's naked politics, absent any real weighing of the important moral considerations, and worthy of nothing but scorn from ethical people.

This plays into the "safe legal and rare" concept I would think. That's a fair enough position to take, but then we have to define what "rare" is right? I mean, New York City now has a 41% abortion rate. Whatever definition of the word you have, I don't think that you can call 41% of people doing something rare. So that means that every single one of us should want that rate reduced, right?

 

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

You think so though? I would think there are millions of parents looking for kids to adopt.

Are there enough to absorb the million-plus babies that'd be born in the absence of abortion every year?

I'm not saying the woman has to take care of the baby for her whole life, just that she needs to suck it up for 9 months. Is that really so much to ask?

Prenatal care costs money. Going to a hospital and giving birth / staying a day after costs lots of money. Since many of those getting abortions ($400 procedure) are lacking money, who pays? And since *some* of these women are drug addicts / alcoholics, do you suggest they carry to term as well?

I want the abortion rate increased to 100%. It's a character-builder.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

I mean, New York City now has a 41% abortion rate. Whatever definition of the word you have, I don't think that you can call 41% of people doing something rare. So that means that every single one of us should want that rate reduced, right?

That seems very high, though I suspect the abortion rate among the poor has always been very high, legal or not. A lot of what we call "abortion" now was not even thought of as that through much of history, instead it was a matter of a woman restarting her period and getting back into "balance" or "normalcy." It wasn't a religious issue until the early 20th century when a lot of similar theories of "moral-public health" and "muscular Christianity" started cropping up. That was about the same time people started wholescale freaking out about sexual preference, too.

Paradoxically we really only started caring about abortion when women started having other things to do and their fertility rates started dropping. Since these privileges don't extend to the third world (whether somewhere else or right here in our cities or rural communities) one would still expect to see very high rates of conceptions not carried to term.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

Are there enough to absorb the million-plus babies that'd be born in the absence of abortion every year?

Prenatal care costs money. Going to a hospital and giving birth / staying a day after costs lots of money. Since many of those getting abortions ($400 procedure) are lacking money, who pays? And since *some* of these women are drug addicts / alcoholics, do you suggest they carry to term as well?

I would be more than willing to have my tax money go to that purpose.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

I would be more than willing to have my tax money go to that purpose.

That was called welfare and we killed it in the 80's. The problem was the people getting the money didn't look like the people giving the money.

This is the same problem with adoption. The people adopting are named Miles and Dorothy; the people giving up adoptees are named Tashamia and Shaniqua.

It used to work when the foundlings were Irish and the adopters were WASPs, but we hit a great divide about 90 years ago and it's all been depressingly demographic ever since.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

I would be more than willing to have my tax money go to that purpose.

The problem is our money already goes to this purpose via the medicaid subsidies to the poor and various state-run programs - all of which cost massive sums of money. If you eliminate abortions, the costs will only go up - and go up substantially. The last thing we need to be doing is adding to the government's costs these days, so to make this idea revenue-neutral, you'd have to raise taxes and/or slap a huge fee on prospective parents looking to adopt to cover the costs.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

Are there enough to absorb the million-plus babies that'd be born in the absence of abortion every year?

Prenatal care costs money. Going to a hospital and giving birth / staying a day after costs lots of money. Since many of those getting abortions ($400 procedure) are lacking money, who pays? And since *some* of these women are drug addicts / alcoholics, do you suggest they carry to term as well?

I want the abortion rate increased to 100%. It's a character-builder.

Um.........we just don't pay for it. No costs involved there. You don't have insurance or a means to pay? We don't give you care.

Next we work on this whole educating everyone thing.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

Costs: http://www.revolutionhealth.com/hea...inancial-planning/cost-prenatal-care-delivery

Depending on the type of delivery, the cost range is anywhere from $7000-17000 for prenatal care + birth + hospital stay.

Compare that to $400 for an abortion, or whatever it costs per year for a birth control prescription. End abortions? We're looking at more money having to be spent - either by insurance, by government, or by both. With the fiscal problems we have, do we really want to go this route?

And I have the following question for the religious who are opposed to abortion: if you truly believe all fetuses have souls and that abortion = infanticide, how do you handle miscarriages? Do you have a funeral for the fetal mass? If not, why not? It had a soul, and its death should be treated exactly the same as if it died during or after birth... right?

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

And I have the following question for the religious who are opposed to abortion: if you truly believe all fetuses have souls and that abortion = infanticide, how do you handle miscarriages? Do you have a funeral for the fetal mass? If not, why not? It had a soul, and its death should be treated exactly the same as if it died during or after birth... right?

I've had a couple of friends who had that happen to them or their families. I think 2 of them did have a funeral or some sort of small remembrance service, whille the other thought it would be too painful.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

Costs: http://www.revolutionhealth.com/hea...inancial-planning/cost-prenatal-care-delivery

Depending on the type of delivery, the cost range is anywhere from $7000-17000 for prenatal care + birth + hospital stay.

Compare that to $400 for an abortion, or whatever it costs per year for a birth control prescription. End abortions? We're looking at more money having to be spent - either by insurance, by government, or by both. With the fiscal problems we have, do we really want to go this route?

I think a lot of solutions may arise to this problem that aren't really being discussed right now. For instance, what if we said to the Catholic church "Put your money where your mouth is."

In other words, if the Catholic church is so stridently against abortion, have them birth babies that were to be aborted for free at their hospitals, and have them cover the cost. You know they're good for the money. And I think that's a trade off the church would take.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
42% of abortions are done for women under the poverty line. So, on a subsidized basis, over 400,000 births would have to be paid for annually by someone other than the mother who is unlikely to have sufficient insurance to cover it.

400,000 x $7000 = $2.8 billion
400,000x $17000 = $6.8 billion
Note: these costs were from several years ago, so they are undoubtedly higher now.

Would the Catholic church seriously want to pay out this much money annually (or provide this much money worth of care / service)? Then of course there's the issue of getting the women to carry to term *and* to show up for the necessary prenatal care... and to give up the kids for adoption (women are fickle, remember - and some might change their mind and want to keep it - and if they're poor, well there's more strain on taxpayers).

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

You're a smart guy, Bob, you understand the idea of a hypothetical. The question at hand is if a foetus is a human life why does it matter how it was conceived. I believe later on you admit there's no logical reason and this is a contradiction.

This argument has nothing to do with time interval. The rape exception posits that it's OK to terminate a pregnancy at x weeks under some circumstances but not others. That takes the whole issue of development off the table.

That's right, and that's exactly my point. This is not strictly an either/or, life vs. cluster-of-cells issue, so presenting it that way (by either side) is either confused or knowingly false, and that's what makes so much of the so-called "pro-life" movement so transparently self-contradictory. Nobody is pro-abortion, that's the false dichotomy they've always put out there to rile up their supporters and keep the money flowing in. It's the same as when the CBC screeches "racism" whenever they need a wedge. It's naked politics, absent any real weighing of the important moral considerations, and worthy of nothing but scorn from ethical people.

You ducked my question of what do you say?

 

[unofan]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

I think a lot of solutions may arise to this problem that aren't really being discussed right now. For instance, what if we said to the Catholic church "Put your money where your mouth is."

In other words, if the Catholic church is so stridently against abortion, have them birth babies that were to be aborted for free at their hospitals, and have them cover the cost. You know they're good for the money. And I think that's a trade off the church would take.

Can't speak for all Catholic systems, but I know most if not all Catholic universities basically do just that for their students. If you're on the university health plan, good luck getting any abortion/birth control funding or even prescriptions from the universities own doctors (though most will refer you to someone outside the system for the prescription when pressed). But **** if they don't have gold plated pre-natal coverage in their plans.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
42% of abortions are done for women under the poverty line. So, on a subsidized basis, over 400,000 births would have to be paid for annually by someone other than the mother who is unlikely to have sufficient insurance to cover it.

400,000 x $7000 = $2.8 billion
400,000x $17000 = $6.8 billion
Note: these costs were from several years ago, so they are undoubtedly higher now.

Would the Catholic church seriously want to pay out this much money annually (or provide this much money worth of care / service)? Then of course there's the issue of getting the women to carry to term *and* to show up for the necessary prenatal care... and to give up the kids for adoption (women are fickle, remember - and some might change their mind and want to keep it - and if they're poor, well there's more strain on taxpayers).

Right, I admit that was only about 75% serious as an idea. Still, the more general point is that there would be a variety of ways to deal with any issues of cost that arise, without having to involve the government.

 

[unofan]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

Right, I admit that was only about 75% serious as an idea. Still, the more general point is that there would be a variety of ways to deal with any issues of cost that arise, without having to involve the government.

Yeah, but reliance upon charity isn't exactly proper governance for a 1st world country. Charity should be a back-up to government support, not a solution in lieu of such.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The 112th Congress - A Congress divided shall not cry!

Yeah, but reliance upon charity isn't exactly proper governance for a 1st world country. Charity should be a back-up to government support, not a solution in lieu of such.

Charity works far better when it is not from the government. But, we've gotten so used to the government doing everything that we assume that the government takes care of whatever charity there needs to be. But the end product isn't nearly as good as when it comes from private organizations, IMHO.