Pro-life

• Micho wrote on 2012-03-24 06:00
  I found lovely rant on tumblr about pro-life, feel free to discuss.
  
  

  “Let me tell you some things. I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world. First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty.
  
  Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child.
  
  Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it? Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that?
  
  End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening?
  
  I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either? You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count?
  
  And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.)
  
  In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days.
  
  I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born! Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle.
  
  You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours.
  
  Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage? “Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.”

  
  
  http://desliz.tumblr.com/post/8944082875
• NomadTrooper wrote on 2012-03-24 07:37

  Quote from Micho;818586:

  In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days.

  
  
  I've seen those things, I know people who work in jobs taking care of people in such need. I looked into getting a job at a place that took care of people who couldn't take care of them selves. The interviewer outright told me the job is hell, and you have to be willing to sacrifice a lot for it to help these people. So, wile you might not have seen them, they exist. They're great people who you should think twice before dismissing. But yes, they're rare, and yes I know they're pro life.
• Sumpfkraut wrote on 2012-03-26 18:30
  That's why I don't use the term pro-life. It is pro-existence at best, because it's automatically forcing people to lead a life that can not be called a life, even if you personally don't like it to happen. The philosophical implications of allowing unborn fetuses to be killed weigh far less than that.
• Chiyuri wrote on 2012-03-26 18:48

  Quote from Sumpfkraut;821330:

  That's why I don't use the term pro-life. It is pro-existence at best, because it's automatically forcing people to lead a life that can not be called a life, even if you personally don't like it to happen. The philosophical implications of allowing unborn fetuses to be killed weigh far less than that.

  
  
  Not sure the term "existance" would be right either.
  
  Existance is the combination of body, memories and soul. A fetus has neither soul or memories, and barely enough to be called a body.. The only thing it really has is "life"
• paladin wrote on 2012-03-27 02:14
  Another view
  This is a good example of the
  Id rather not let the being experince a horrible life living and rather have them not come into living while they feel nothing
• NomadTrooper wrote on 2012-03-27 02:31
  You know, they may experience a horrible childhood far worse then we can possibly imagine. But children grow up (ones that live), and what they do with their life at that point is their choice. Killing them takes away that choice. They will have the ability to choose one day. Should we stop them from being able to choose even if they suffer now?
• Chiyuri wrote on 2012-03-27 02:44

  Quote from NomadTrooper;822065:

  You know, they may experience a horrible childhood far worse then we can possibly imagine. But children grow up (ones that live), and what they do with their life at that point is their choice. Killing them takes away that choice. They will have the ability to choose one day. Should we stop them from being able to choose even if they suffer now?

  
  
  Should their "possibility" be worth ruinning/damaging someone else's life?
• NomadTrooper wrote on 2012-03-27 20:16

  Quote from Chiyuri;822095:

  Should their "possibility" be worth ruinning/damaging someone else's life?

  
  
  Anyone can have their life ruined, or ruin someone else life. If you make decisions like this based on negative statistics, then where do you stop? Why not kill all prisoners (even for minor crime)? They've chosen to ruin others lives, and yet they live.
• Chiyuri wrote on 2012-03-27 20:22

  Quote from NomadTrooper;823134:

  Anyone can have their life ruined, or ruin someone else life. If you make decisions like this based on negative statistics, then where do you stop? Why not kill all prisoners (even for minor crime)? They've chosen to ruin others lives, and yet they live.

  
  
  Did I say I was against killing those who went against the universal rights of others?
  People who go against the universal rights of others lose access to their own rights. Lack of access to their right for life mean someone else can end it if they want to.
  If I catch a criminal, I will not think twice before executing him/her if guilty.
  Sadly because of some weird laws, the police will try to go against my universal rights meaning they will lose theirs as well, so I will have ot kill them to defend myself. and it really just goes down from there...
  
  been a moral person in an immoral society is really difficult..
• Juno wrote on 2012-03-27 21:41
  It's a nice rant, but little more. There're several contentions they don't even try to back up and numerous generalizations. Also, they clearly aren't even trying to address counter-arguments...just making the opposition look less appealing like any two-bit politician.
  
  So...good find, but I have nothing to discuss...
• Leopher wrote on 2012-03-28 20:36
  There are two main notions I got out of that. One, evident more near the end, is that people who don't actively help "the weak" on a regular basis have no right to speak out against abortions. This idea is obviously nonsense, since a person can be a hypocrite and still be right. I could be a "high-horsed" hypocrite who doesn't "babysit, scrub floors, bring over goods, etc., etc., insert more unnecessary text about all the things I don't do", but when I say the world is spherical it's no less true than when a saint who does do all those things says it. Likewise, if it is true that abortions are wrong, then it doesn't matter who's saying so.
  
  The other is a gruesome one, and pretty repulsive when stated plainly. It seems to be the idea that babies are better off dead, because the world is just that bad. I'm not quite sure how to respond to that, except by saying that while some parts of the world are really bad, others are really good, apparently good enough for billions of people to go on living without committing suicide.
  
  So, I would disagree that it was lovely or a good find.
• Leopher wrote on 2012-03-28 20:36
  There are two main notions I got out of that. One, evident more near the end, is that people who don't actively help "the weak" on a regular basis have no right to speak out against abortions. This idea is obviously nonsense, since a person can be a hypocrite and still be right. I could be a "high-horsed" hypocrite who doesn't "babysit, scrub floors, bring over goods, etc., etc., insert more unnecessary text about all the things I don't do", but when I say the world is spherical it's no less true than when a saint who does do all those things says it. Likewise, if it is true that abortions are wrong, then it doesn't matter who's saying so.
  
  The other is a gruesome one, and pretty repulsive when stated plainly. It seems to be the idea that babies are better off dead, because the world is just that bad. I'm not quite sure how to respond to that, except by saying that while some parts of the world are really bad, others are really good, apparently good enough for billions of people to go on living without committing suicide.
  
  So, I would disagree that it was lovely or a good find.
• Chiyuri wrote on 2012-03-28 21:51

  Quote from Leopher;824438:

  There are two main notions I got out of that. One, evident more near the end, is that people who don't actively help "the weak" on a regular basis have no right to speak out against abortions. This idea is obviously nonsense, since a person can be a hypocrite and still be right. I could be a "high-horsed" hypocrite who doesn't "babysit, scrub floors, bring over goods, etc., etc., insert more unnecessary text about all the things I don't do", but when I say the world is spherical it's no less true than when a saint who does do all those things says it. Likewise, if it is true that abortions are wrong, then it doesn't matter who's saying so.
  
  The other is a gruesome one, and pretty repulsive when stated plainly. It seems to be the idea that babies are better off dead, because the world is just that bad. I'm not quite sure how to respond to that, except by saying that while some parts of the world are really bad, others are really good, apparently good enough for billions of people to go on living without committing suicide.
  
  So, I would disagree that it was lovely or a good find.

  
  
  There is a difference inbetween facts and opinion.
  A fact can be true or false.
  While an opinion can be right or wrong or even stand in a neutral zone.
  
  There is a major difference inbetween the two..
  
  As fpr the second argument you bring forth.. Humans are scared of death. Many many people live because they are alive, it's not even a "choice" for them. The fear of death and pain keep people moving. Fear drives a lot of people in the world.. It's only when the world drive people to fear it more than they fear death that they often commit suicide..
• Hannah's Lover wrote on 2012-03-28 22:13

  Quote from Chiyuri;821362:

  Not sure the term "existance" would be right either.
  
  Existance is the combination of body, memories and soul. A fetus has neither soul or memories, and barely enough to be called a body.. The only thing it really has is "life"

  
  
  I'm just going to say a soul cannot be proven and fetuses at 20 weeks can recognition their mother's voice
  and babies typically don't retain memories until around 5 years of age.
  
  When we're born we're pretty much a fetus outside of the body for the first year of our lives.
• Ikezawa Hanako wrote on 2012-03-28 22:13
  1: It is hypocritical to be pro-life without accepting the implications of having children brought into this world who would be born to far less than ideal conditions (almost by definition, a child that would have been aborted is unwanted, or at least, being born to a mother who cannot care for the child in any fashion resembling optimal).
  
  2: With that said, the idea that a fetus or even an embryo is a person deserving of rights cannot be simply handwaved because under most standards of morals and ethics, killing a person as opposed to a mass of cells makes even the most well-intentioned decisions much more murky and gray. The one thing I am definitely against is partial-birth abortion, because in those cases we can be relatively sure that we are killing a person with the ability to feel, think (in the sense that newborns think), and such.
  
  Pretty much anything after 6-7 months (or pretty much the earliest where you can *reasonably* expect a premature baby to survive being born, barring complete medical miracles)