h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You want me to come up with an individual murder case of a pro-choicer murdering a pro-lifer? Well, it may be very hard because I don't believe that a pro-choice murdering a pro-lifer would get anywhere near as much media coverage as a pro-lifer murdering a pro-choicer.

hi Nerd42,

In my opinion, 'violence' from both sides of people participating in demonstrations is quite a different thing than a bunch of anti-abortionists lying in wait to attack one person walking into an abortion clinic (and already in quite a vulnerable emotional state) and shoving offensive photos into her face and screaming at her that she is a murderer. I've seen this being done - it wasn't something I saw on tv. And it was quite horrible and unfair. Ten people being abusive and nasty to one lone and frightened person.

az

Fine then:

A. Who has commited murder *in the name of* the *pro-choice* movement?


B. When has a logical look at the legalities and medical facts produced a *crazed madman*?


C. The organisations you are a member of are irrelevant here, only your beliefs, opinions, and proofs. Say it now, do you believe that abortion is murder or not?

Please note that I have put *pro-choice* and *pro-life* in parentheses because I do not agree with either title.

And I've seen pro-choicers yelling obscentities at kids. What does this have to do with the debate?

And I've seen pro-choicers yelling obscentities at kids. What does this have to do with the debate?

yikes, i'm double posting again

A. Who has commited murder *in the name of* the *pro-choice* movement?

I'll answer that one later. Gotta do some research....

B. When has a logical look at the legalities and medical facts produced a *crazed madman*?

You are contradicting yourself there. Madmen do not look at the legalities or medical facts. What's your point? How did we even get on this subject???

C. The organisations you are a member of are irrelevant here, only your beliefs, opinions, and proofs.

Aha, you're contradicting yourself again. If only my beliefs, opinions, and proofs

"Say it now, do you believe that abortion is murder or not?"

Yeah, that's the whole point. If you believe in preserving human life, which is actually what governments and legal systems are set up to do, (ironic though it sometimes seems) and that life begins at conception, which is what my look at the medical facts so far has told me, then that abortion is murder is the only logical conclusion.

Oops, the end of that line got erased somehow. It said:

Aha, you're contradicting yourself again. If only my beliefs, opinions, and proofs are relevant, than talking about your first two points is irrelevant.

Nerd42:

"A. you cannot reasonably claim that I or any pro-life organization I support supports voilence of any kind
and
B. both sides are not responsible for the actions of individual crazed madmen."

*sigh*

The FIRST words of the FIRST link I gave you read: "Anti-abortionists in the United States have won the right to publish on the internet what amounts to a hit list of doctors who provide terminations for pregnant women. The site, known as the Nuremberg Files, describes abortions as "Satan's food source". It prints "wanted" posters of the "baby butchers" and in some cases lists their addresses, car licence plate numbers and relatives' names. Seven doctors providing abortions in the US have been murdered in the past ten years."

How can you POSSIBLY say that no pro-life organisation supports violence of any kind in the light of that?

Let me carry on through those links - which you have obviously chosen to ignore:

From the Guardian link: ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4162194,00.html )

"The ruling arose out of a 1999 case in Portland, Oregon where a jury awarded $107m (then worth £66.5m) in mainly punitive damages against the American Coalition of Life Activists, the Advocates for Life Ministries and 13 individuals who had put wanted posters of doctors on the web and described them as baby butchers."

"The identities of three of the seven doctors murdered in the past 10 years were listed on websites; there have been a further 17 attempted murders. Many such doctors now wear disguises and bullet-proof vests, live in fortified houses and vary their journeys to work."

From the Washington Post link: ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/abortviolence/stories/kopp.htm )

"Kopp was jailed in Atlanta in 1988 along with scores of other activists who belonged to the group Operation Rescue. While he was in jail, he became friends with several prominent members of the extreme fringe of the antiabortion movement, according to "Wrath of Angels," a new book by James Risen and Judy L. Thomas."

"It was in Atlanta that Kopp got his nickname "Atomic Dog," which was later featured in the acknowledgments of a manual showing antiabortionists how to build bombs, make explosives and cut off the thumbs of abortion doctors. The manual was circulated by a loose association of extremists who called themselves the Army of God.

The first of the two BBC links is about anti-abortionist activism in Australia, the second tells of Kopps eventual conviction for murdering an abortion doctor.

Nerd42. Do you accept that some parts of the anti-abortion movement encourage violent attacks and the murder of abortion-clinic staff? I accept that you do not subscribe to this level of activism, but you are denying that there are such extremists, when plainly there are, and I want to hear your views.

Incidentally, you never responded to my question about your post that animals are put on the earth to serve humans, and I would like to know if that is what you meant, or if you meant something else.

Ben

I've never heard those organization names, and I said that no pro-life organization that I SUPPORT encourages violence of any kind. Much to the opposite in fact.

Fair point about saying no pro-life organisation that you support.

On the subject of when human lives begin their humanity, let me repost much of the text of post 273:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I select some exerpts from pages 176-180 of my paperback copy of "Billions and Billions" by Carl Sagan:

"To date, murder uniquely applies to killing human beings. Therefore, the question of when personhood (or, if we like, ensoulment) arises is the key to the abortion debate. When does the fetus become human? ...

"... Our one great advantage, the secret of our success, is thought - characteristically human thought ...

"Thinking occurs, of course, in the brain - principally in the top layers of the convoluted 'gray matter' called the cerebral cortex... large scale linking up of neurons doesn't begin until the twenty-fourth to twenty-seventh week - the sixth month...

"... brain wives with regular patters typical of adult human brains do not appear in the fetus until about the thirtieth week of pregnancy - near the beginnining of the third trimester. Fetuses younger than this - however alive and active they may be - lack the necessary brain architecture. They cannot yet think.

"... If we wanted to make the criterion still more stringent, to allow for occasional precocious fetal brain development, we might draw the line at six months. This, it so happens, is where the Supreme Court drew it in 1973 - although for completely different reasons."

I follow Carl Sagan's view because I find his argument is rational, and it is based on first principals. He cuts through the crap.

Before six months what you are doing when you terminate a pregnancy is killing something which is *not yet a human being*. I accept that you are killing something which probably would *become* a human being. But up until that time it isn't.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ben

Funny thing Nerd, in Europe the American news channels are quite widely regarded as being heavily nationalist and generally right-wing, not to mention very narrow in their coverage.

Nerd:

I will answer your last post first. Are you saying you have no beliefs, opinions or proofs of those *beliefs and opinions* in your own posts? You were the person who compared violence on both sides, ignoring the level of violence on one side or providing any proof of serious violence on the other.

Clearly you have your own agenda and are unwilling to back up statements like *I don't believe that a pro-choice murdering a pro-lifer would get anywhere near as much media coverage as a pro-lifer murdering a pro-choicer*. You know that the reverse has been shown any number of times, are you saying there is a vast conspiracy to conceal or denigrate your beliefs?

As to your belief that abortion is murder, the definition of murder is a legal one, ergo it is your opinion that abortion is illegal even though in your democracy it is legal. Secondly murder is a medical decision and you have not provided any medical proof that is acceptable by your own laws. That being said your arguments are specious and driven by belief rather than logic, legality, or proof.

Show me a doctor's report accepted by your own government that proves that abortion is murder, or even that a person is a person at conception. Show me a report of murder of a *pro-life* individual by a *pro-choice* one for their beliefs. Show me where the logic of the Supreme Court is flawed. If you are nothing more than someone who is wrapped up in their beliefs with nothing more than belief to drive them, then I have no time for you or any other demagogue.

Sorry, lots of posts while I wrote that.

>Funny thing Nerd, in Europe the American news channels are quite widely regarded as being heavily nationalist and generally right-wing, not to mention very narrow in their coverage.

Well, Euopeans are genrally far off to the left on the American political spectrum. It's well established that most journalism in the United States is dominated by liberals. FoxNews and talk radio is an exception.

Our news is shallow and nationalistic.

I thought all the liberal news outlets backed down for the duration?

Please explain to Nerd that there is not a giant conspiracy to hide his point of view.

"Our news is shallow and nationalistic."
I second that. It's difficult to tell there is a "rest of the world" from watching US news.

hi Nerd 42,

I wasn't 'mud-slinging' by reporting the things I have seen with my own eyes. Just reporting them here. Okay, you say this isn't 'debate' but since these things were 'facts' I was reporting them as such. If you question these facts then you are questioning my ability to see things with my own eyes, which would indeed be mud-slinging.

As for debate, I've read that the Japanese (in terms of what people 'believe') truly believe that a foetus is not a 'human' (only a possible human) for the first two months of its existence. This has no scientific basis of course, just like none of what anyone believes about abortion can claim. It is such a highly emotional debate because people believe many different things.

I mantain, Nerd, that if you feel so strongly against abortion then you truly have the right to express this and not to ever help anyone ever have an abortion. What I don't believe you have the right to do is try to make anyone else have to live by your beliefs. To try and hinder anyone just because you believe you are so right. I mean, what if you are wrong? So totally wrong in what you believe at present - and then you discover this later on.

My 'stance' about abortion affects nobody but myself, though I will always stand up for the rights of a woman to make this very difficult choice for herself. I personally don't go in for marches and demonstrations, but if a friend came to me tomorrow with this particular dilemma I would comfort her and try to help her feel that whatever choice she makes is the right one for her. And after she had made her choice I would back her up 100%.

I truly don't believe this issue belongs in the political arena. It's much too personal for that. Though, having said that, I *am* very pleased to see that the abortion laws have become more humane for living women over the past 30 years. Because before that, too many women died having back-street unsafe abortions in their desperation.

Nerd, abortions are never going to stop, no matter what you and yours attempt to do to prevent them. Why can't you accept that very basic and true fact and try to help the real lives that are now in distress rather than worrying about every *possible* human that may or may not ever come to fruition?

az

>I thought all the liberal news outlets backed down for the duration?

They're still out there and they're just as stupid as ever.

I seemed to remember that in January was the 30th anniversary of Rowe vs Wade in the USA, and that around the time National Public Radio was running a series of reports on the issue of abortion. I particularly remember one fascinating piece where they interviewed an pro-life woman that, when it came down to it, chose to have an abortion; and another with a pro-choice woman that could not go through with an abortion when faced with the choice.

I tried to find this online and found a whole section devoted to the topic: http://www.npr.org/news/specials/roevwade/ It's fantastic.

It's got lots of articles and audio reports, and goes in depth. It's looks like a good read (I'm going to settle down with a cup of right now). Though I'm not sure the thing I was originally looking for is in there .

Cheers,

Ste