Sorry, I mistyped. I intended to say that you would love for abortion to be illegal but would love more for it to remain legal. You are an ageist who believes that the rights of those who are older and more mature are more important than the rights of those who are unable to speak for themselves.

You prefer to continue the status quo where a woman can unilatarally decide to kill another human being without legal consequence for any or no reason.

You are pro choice.

__________________
Rem tene, verba sequentur.

Your blanket defense of plagiarism as a practice notwithstanding (with the caveat that your readers are obligated to know which parts of your posts are original and which are plagiarized based on studying your patterned "syntax"), the answer to that question is yes. The forum rules require that, when you use someone else's words (nizkor's, a dictionary's, an encyclopedia's, the US constitution's, a doctoral thesis, etc) you attribute the words to that source.

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Good enough. It would be nice to see others held to the same standards but I will try to remember to post a link.

__________________
Rem tene, verba sequentur.

Rest assured that anytime I see it I take the same course of action, regardless of the source. If you see someone in violation of this, please report it. This is one of the rules where violations can actually land the site itself in hot water.

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Apology accepted. I'm not an "ageist". I'm a realist that doesn't believe that the rights of one are any more important than the other. I'm a realist because I don't believe that criminalizing abortion will solve the problem of women being irresponsible and then killing an unborn babies as a result. I'm a realist because I know that women will die trying to abort unwanted babies and putting those women that don't die in prison will accomplish nothing either.
Now, if you show me the road to Utopia where criminalizing abortions stops all abortions and attempts at abortions, I'll gladly take it.

__________________


"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

Criminalizing wife beating doesn't solve the problem of spousal abuse either, and it does't heal the bruises and broken bones of women who are battered. Show me a utopia where criminalizing spousal abuse, murder, armed robbery, child abuse, arson, theft, etc. actually stops the activity.

If you are going to argue that a thing need not be criminalized unless the law is going to prevent a thing from ever happening again, then you are arguing to strike all laws from the books. Criminalizing a behavior isn't about stopping it. It is about providing a means by which to punish those who disregard the rights of others and do it anyway.

I will say this in your favor. You are the first pro choicer I have encountered whose position is so repugnant to them that they claim to be pro life. That at least speaks well to your character.

__________________
Rem tene, verba sequentur.

No, criminalizing something doesn't prevent it from being done but if we know that the results are going to bring negative results, such as women dying from attempted abortions in a less than favorable environment, why would we encourage that?
I regard all life as a precious gift from God but I also wouldn't want a girl that has been raped by her father to be forced to bear the child. That may sound "pro-choice" to you, but it's not. I'm just not willing to risk the life (physical and mental health) of the victim in order to save the life of the unborn. This goes hand in hand with the "lesser of the two evils". In that perfect world, though there'd also be no rape, incest, etc. that would necessitate an abortion.

__________________


"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

All right, I understand, but when you make laws, you're not just making a decision affecting one person but a decision affecting many many persons, and what's necessary is to take the aggregate result into consideration as trumping any individual result.

With respect to abortion, suppose you have 1,000 pregnant women who would have abortions if abortion were legal. By pro-life beliefs, that represents 2,000 human lives, all those pregnant women and their fetuses.

If abortion is kept legal, then all 1,000 fetuses will die and all 1,000 women will live. That's a 50% mortality rate. After this I have to pick numbers out of the air, but this should still serve to illustrate the point even if (as is likely) the numbers aren't quite right.

Let's say, if you make abortion illegal, then 75% of the women will obey the law and bear the children, while 25% will seek an illegal abortion. Of those who seek an illegal abortion, let's further say that 10% suffer a fatal complication. Under this situation, you have 750 of the fetuses and 925 of the mothers live, while 250 of the fetuses are killed and so are 75 of the mothers. That's only a 16.25% mortality rate. Isn't a 16.25% mortality rate better than a 50% mortality rate, especially since 75 of those 325 fatalities were actually murderers, and since all of the innocent victims would have been killed the other way, too?

The only way that keeping abortion legal makes sense in these terms is if we regard the fetuses as not human beings, so that instead of 2,000 potential victims you have only 1,000 -- the mothers -- and so you go from 75 fatalities to none. Not to mention that the 750 who would obey the law are not victimized in a lesser, non-fatal, but still serious way by denying them control over their own bodies. OR -- it would also make sense if you expect ALL of these pregnant women to break the law. But realistically, I don't think that would happen.

It's not just the mortality rate. It's the lives curtailed and even ruined by unwanted pregnancies and children.

I absolutely agree, but I was playing Devil's advocate. If you believe that an embryo at conception is a human being with human rights, doesn't that person's right to life trump someone else's right to economic success or personal freedom? And if, as you seem to suggest, the children themselves will suffer through being unwanted, doesn't that place an obligation on society to take care of them, rather than a license to kill them?

My point is that very few people who claim to believe this really do.

Yes, it's rather similar to that saying, "put up, or shut up". Of course, I don't want anyone to shut up about this topic at all (as long as they remain civil), but it certainly provokes that thought.

__________________
I am an American. That's the way most of us put it, just matter of factly. They are plain words, those four: you could write them on your thumbnail, or sweep them clear across this bright autumn sky. But remember too, that they are more than just words. They are a way of life. So whenever you speak them; speak them firmly, speak them proudly, speak them gratefully. I am an American. ...a tradition

I understand what you're trying to illustrate here but it also goes back to what I said earlier, if mother or baby must be sacrificed, I'll opt for the baby as it is unknown. We know with almost 100% certainty that if abortions were illegal, women would still seek them. These women are someone's child, daughter, sister, aunt, etc., in other words, known to many, meaning many lives will be affected. The unborn baby is not really known and while I view it's life as precious, his death won't affect many people so I'd opt to lose him over the mother. As I've said several times already, ideally, we'd have no unwanted pregnancies thus no need for abortions. Thankfully, though, education is helping somewhat since the number of abortions has decreased yearly since it's peak in 1981.

__________________


"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

So why not simply step up and admit that you are pro choice?

I took a few minutes to look up the word pro choice in a few dictionaries. This is what I found:

oxford english - advocating the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion.

mirriam webster - favoring the legalization of abortion

cambridge international - supporting the belief that a pregnant woman should have the freedom to choose an abortion if she does not want to have a baby

american heritage - Favoring or supporting the legal right of women and girls to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy to term.

cambridge - supporting the belief that a pregnant woman should have the freedom to choose an abortion

Any way you slice it, you are pro choice. You are just a pro choicer with a conscience that is bothered by your position. I suppose that is a plus although I don't know what good it has done for any of the 40 million dead in this country alone.

__________________
Rem tene, verba sequentur.

If it makes you feel better to call me pro-choice, then by all means, do so....afterall, you'd be right in that I think the choices are "open your legs" or "keep your legs closed". THAT'S when the choice SHOULD be made, NOT after the fact.

__________________


"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"