Redstate

Leon H does excellent work.

I have to admit that I thought the overturning of Roe was a lost cause, but after reading the fine work Leon has done I am convinced that there's hope. With Roberts and possibly Alito, a court challenge might have half a chance. Of course, the greatest weapon against abortion is the truth.

Letting the democrats make the Alito confirmation solely about abortion seems to be a mistake. They want to make this a one-trick pony which is ornery and disobedient (and thus should be put down or at least beaten).

This nomination is about a lot more than just one issue and we should stress all of these positions as we go forward... lets not let them 'set the agenda'... something most R's whine (justly) that we let them do most of the time. Let that not be this time... lets talk about the spectrum of conservative and moderate positions* this will benefit.

1. 1st & 2nd admendment
   
   
2. Support of the Bill of Rights and existing amendments
   
   
3. Tough on criminals
   
   
4. Against Kelo
   
   
5. Against genocide of children (aka abortion on demand)
   
   
6. Not favorable of affirmative discrimination (action).
   
   
7. Wont invent weird stuff

*Not sure these are 100% true but they seem generally true.

superb work as usual, Leon

After reding that I have nothing else to comment on.

As a liberal Democrat who supports abortion rights, I've been considering authoring a diary on the subject--not to poke sticks at anyone, but to explain it from a liberal, pro-choice POV that comes from the heart instead of NOW's talking points so that hopefully the moderate majorities in the left and the right can find where their common ground is and move the issue forward instead of further entrenching.

There is much in this post that helps advance understanding in that way. But there is much that does not--that indeed, betrays a lack of understanding of the issue and how pro-choice Americans feel about it, a lack that is widespread in the Republican party.

Jesse Jackson is a demagogue. I feel embarassed when he is put forward as some kind of represenative face of the Democratic party, because he deals in vitriol and race-baiting to which I do not subscribe. And considering all of the derision that he rightfully incurs from Republicans when he spews nonsense and hyperbole in the service of notionally liberal agendas, I find it disappointing that you would deem his words credible only when they comport with your notion of the way things are. It is, to put it mildly, something of a double standard.

It is true that abortions are disproportionately had by black women. It is also true that the vast majority of elective abortions are had for economic reasons. Given the disproportionate poverty of black Americans, the cause and effect here seems so self-evident as to scarcely need explanation--as do the solutions that present themselves. You cannot stop people from wanting to have sex. You cannot stop people from doing so. What you can do is educate people about the consequences of their actions, and increase the resources they have available to make responsible choices and take effective precautions so as to reduce the chances of getting pregnant in the first place.

Abortion is, primarily, a symptom of poverty and a combination of lack of responsibility and lack of access to and education about effective birth control methods. You do not treat the symptom, you treat the disease--and in this case, that means making sure all children have comprehensive sex education that goes beyond the painfully naive admonition to "just wait for marriage". It means supporting and expanding the access that poor people have to condoms, birth control pills, and other forms of contraception, and encouraging employers and insurance companies to cover birth control instead of Viagra. It means taking concrete, affirmative steps to address the state of poverty itself, a subject on which--whether rightly or wrongly--the GOP is widely regarded as uncaring or even hostile.

I know that there are many fine conservatives who support all of those things. But there is a sizable bloc of social conservatives in the Republican party which is quite hostile to anything that seems to encourage sex between consenting, unmarried adults, and a smaller bloc within that which is deeply hostile to contraception on a religious basis.

If we want to make real progress on reducing abortions, those two blocs, along with their exremist counterparts on the left, both need to take a back seat to the people who are willing to address the reasons why people get abortions instead of simply calling them murderers.

It is also true that the vast majority of elective abortions are had for economic reasons.

Abortion is, primarily, a symptom of poverty

lack of access to and education about effective birth control methods.

An abortion cost about $300 from what I understand (someone can correct me if the number is wrong, and I don't know if insurance would cover it either), that is considerably more than $2.99 for a pack of condoms. I find it difficult to believe that 1,100,000 abortions happen each year because of a lack of knowledge about birth control, or being able to afford the abortion and not the pill (or condoms).

Does anyone remember the Negro Project proposed by Margaret Sanger?

Alarmed by the numbers of southern blacks who were migrating to northern
cities, Sanger and her associates created the Negro Project. They believed
that, by convincing black people to limit the size of their families, they
would prevent the black population's numbers from overwhelming those of the
white population. It was assumed that blacks - they especially worried about
the men - would look suspiciously on any white effort to meddle with their
fertility, so a clever fiction was created. Black elites - doctors, educators
and even ministers - were enlisted to preach contraception and, later, abortion.
Black people were told that, if they just learned to limit the size of their
families, whites would come to respect them for their self-control. One day,
this fiction said, this respect would lead to greater civil rights for blacks.
In other words, fewer black children would equal more freedom.

Source

An abortion cost about $300 from what I understand (someone can correct me if the number is wrong, and I don't know if insurance would cover it either), that is considerably more than $2.99 for a pack of condoms. I find it difficult to believe that 1,100,000 abortions happen each year because of a lack of knowledge about birth control, or being able to afford the abortion and not the pill (or condoms).

Faced with the impending reality of what a child will cost them, I imagine many of them find a way to muster that $300, whether it be from friends, family, or going without on basic needs. The most desperate might opt for unprescribed use of misoprostol, which is dangerous when used without a doctor's direction but also quite cheap on the black market. There are always options, and people in desperate straits will find them.

Certainly none of these options are cheaper than a pack of condoms, and I wouldn't dream of suggesting that they are. But they are comparable in expense to the pill over the long term. And this is where the education part comes in. It's not just enough to tell people what their options are--it's necessary to re-engineer, with a wholesale and dramatic shift of focus on all levels, how people think about condom use and sexual responsibility. I grew up as the liberal son of an even more liberal father who was trained as a nurse and active in the gay community--and with all of that information in my head, I still to this day have a deep-seated antipathy towards using condoms. This attitude must be overcome.

That it must be maintained seperate and above parental rights, all regulation, all law, and any other kind of due process is so strange.

Capital punishment, getting tatoos, driving licenses, are all under more regulation than aboriotn in America.

And it exists this without one law to make it so.

Modern unregulated abortion is a construct and imposition of the courts. It will be a polarizing point in American life until a majoritarian ethic can be applied to it.

For a sanctimoniuos failed President like carter or clinton to weigh in at all after all they have done to take the democratic party down the path of hanging its power on this peculiar institution is frankly disgusting.

I hope and pray we do get the judicial leadership  to unwind this far enough to permit the people in their wisdom to resolve it with reason that only demcoracy - not appointed judges - can apply.

that I'm aware of ... that a woman can change from just a lump of tissue, to a living human being, and then back again to a lump of tissue, with just a moment's thought, an idea, depending on whether she prefers abortion that moment, or motherhood at that moment. That's quite a magic trick. Evil magic I'd say.

But it won't be solved by overturning Roe v. Wade. The unfortunate fact is that the United States was well on its way to "normalizing" abortion, without the Court's interference, in 1973. If Roe is overturned, by my guess, abortion would be illegal in just a handful of states. In most states, including the major popoulation centers, it would remain legal in varying degrees.

In other words, if Roe goes down, you're still looking at a million abortions a year. And in many ways, the job of stopping the practice will be 50 times more difficult, because the fight will have to be conducted in 50 capitals, not just one.

Some people regard Roe as an abomination because the Court hijacked the law. To others, it was a symbol of depravity. In the latter case, the depravity didn't originate in court, and the fight against it won't end there.

Saying that liberals have advocated the killing of millions upon millions is disingenous. Everyone knows that people for abortion to not inherently believe the unborn children (up to a certain stage) to be children.

Tree-huggers might as well put up statistics on how many deaths conservatives have caused through pollution and the eating of meat. It would have about the same comparable merit as pretending that a mass genocide has been purposefully committed by those for abortion.

without also mentioning that she was the founder of Planned Parenthood. Few people make the connection unless you do it for them.

Yeah I get it, poverty -its the easy way out, the catch all, the excuse for all social problems. Well, poverty is not about to go anywhere and abortion is not alleviating anything in the long run. You imply that abortion is not a good thing, but you just won't come out and say it's wrong. Your implication, or lack of moral acceptance of abortion makes me think you agree with the fact that it literally kills babies.  Yet you are willing to defend such a vile act by making excuses for those affected by poverty.  Abortion is wholly because of a lack of responsibility, poverty has nothing to do with chosing death over adoption. Quit side-stepping the real underlying issue: murder or it is not.

I understand the youths for wanting sex, and I also understand the value of abstinence.  But because some or many decide to do it anyway, is no excuse for abortion.

If liberals don't think abortion is murder, then why did they object to Bill Bennett?

And why didn't they object when John Edwards claimed to be speaking for an unborn baby as a trial lawyer?

and they mirror mine closely.  If I believed the government should be interventionist on the issue of abortion, I would push for a ban on all abortions except in the case of danger to the mother's life, which is the only pro-life position I find to be ethically consistent.  However, as I don't believe the government (state or federal) should be that interventionist, I support laws requiring parental consent and spousal notification, as well as bans on the more heinous procedures like partial-birth abortion, whose existence relies in loopsholes in the law dealing with when a baby is considered "alive."  In lieu of federal or state regulation, I would prefer to re-energize the churches and other pro-life groups to win the debate on the grassroots level, where real democracy occurs.  The benefit of this solution is that it doesn't require any sort of government intervention to alleviate "poverty" or "hopelessness," which history tells us will turn into a bloated mess, nor does it require moral views to be pushed by the full coercive powers of the state.  Instead, we could encourage citizens to help each other, which is the whole idea of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and nearly every other religious tradition on Earth.  It is only in the 20th Century that the role of the citizen in helping his neighbor was usurped by government.

So, we are not so far off.  I have no problems funding better education about contraception, although for ethical consistency I am also against the "morning-after pill."  However, these approaches do need to be combined with a strong message of abstinence and monogamy.  Those are as much related to health issues like STDs and premature pregnancies as they are related to issues of sexual morality.  Certainly, we can't prevent everyone from having sex outside of marriage relationships or even one-woman dating relationships, but that doesn't mean we can't persuade people that it is probably in their best interests both physically and spiritually to do so.  Again, these are jobs for citizens, not the monolithic bureaucracies of government.  

Abortion is, primarily, a symptom of poverty...You do not treat the symptom, you treat the disease


This goes perfectly with Leon's first quote:

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic


I wouldn't classify the murder on an unborn child simply a 'symptom'.  I can't imagine that you looked at the L.E.A.R.N. site, nor the pictures contained within, and still penned those words.

Abortion is the disease that has infected this country, and has lead to a complete lack of respect for life and family.  As the site states, the left has crafted the discussion in such a way as to make it palatable to the American public. It's a 'fetus', and it's an 'abortion', instead of the truth, which is that it is a baby and it's being killed.  If the majority of the American public saw those pictures, they would quickly come to the understanding that this is not some clump of cells, or inanimate glob that we're talking about.  It's a baby.

My mother was born in 1949, and was only 6 months along in the pregnancy at birth.  Currently, you can have an abortion at this stage.  Even with the limited technology available in 1949, she not only survived, but lived a full life, with no complications from her premature birth.  

The solution is not education about how to have safe sex.  Every adult in the country knows what a condom is and what it's for. The problem is that abortions are too easy to get, so there's no incentive for people to abstain, or use proper precautions.  If abortions were not so readily available, people would think twice before having sex, and would have to face the consequences if they chose to do so.

I also don't find the poverty line to be credible - putting a child up for adoption costs nothing.  Most states will give you more welfare when you have a child, and most will pay for the cost of having the child in the first place.  So poverty does not really wash here.  If you're poor, it's actually better to keep the child, as the state will give you more money.  

I don't see how Bill Bennett ties into the debate over whether abortion is murder, and I'm not particularly suited to explain their position on that specific case as it is.

And on John Edwards: if I remember correctly, he made those statements in the mid-80s. Besides being over 20 years ago, he is a candidate who is for abortion rights as of current. In addition, I'm not so sure that you can really interpret this sort of thing as easily as it seems on the surface. Just as the argument was made during the appointment of John Roberts, a lawyer may very well argue a case for a client without having the same personal opinions.

The obvious answer is: if liberals thought abortion was murder, they wouldn't advocate it. Then again, I always thought the term "pro-choice" was incredibly stupid myself, because it implies that murder is a valid choice, which it is obviously not in any situation. (Not exactly the best slogan to stand behind.)

you know that you are living in absurd times when a fetus is not considered to be a person under the law, but a corporation, which is an entity contrived by men existing on paper only, is considered a person under the law.  yes, think about how absurd this is:  corporations are considered people, yet fetuses are not.  seems like the extremists on both sides, in their "wisdom" have created a society completely backwards from the way it naturally should be.

There is also... dumping an an alley, smothering with a pillow, leaving in a car on a hot day, shaking too hard, refusal to feed, failure to pay the heating bill and not having enough blankets... all of which can be done to babies and toddlers, and some can even be done to pre-teens, teens, and adults.

You imply that abortion is not a good thing, but you just won't come out and say it's wrong. Your implication, or lack of moral acceptance of abortion makes me think you agree with the fact that it literally kills babies.

I don't wish to get into a debate on the merits or wrongs of abortion; my purpose in posting my original comment was to attempt to find areas of middle ground. But you have made some assumptions about my positions that are wrong, so I feel I need to make them clear: I do not think that abortion is murder, or even per se wrong in any way. A pre-viability embryo or fetus, while possessing no personhood, has the ability to eventually become a person. But potential is not being, and an acorn is not an oak tree. To me, unequivocally, early-term abortions are not murder and attempts to paint pro-choicers as mass-murderers are blood libel that borders on lunacy.

Or to put it more clearly: a newly-fertilized egg is not a person to me, it is a lump of human cells. So is my fingernail. Wheras, a 9-month fetus in utero is by every rational standard a viable human baby deserving every protection of the law. Somewhere in between one becomes the other, but the further you get to the middle, the grayer that question becomes.

I say this not to argue the point, because I will respond no further on the matter, but so that you understand with crystal clarity where I stand and do not attempt further to ascribe to me positions I do not hold. I do not expect to convince you of the wrongness of your first principles and fundamental assumptions and am not here at Redstate to do so; do not expect to convince me of the wrongness of mine.

I do not believe that abortion is without harm, which is likely where you got the wrongful impression of what I thought. Its easy availability reduces the incentive for people to be sexually responsible and diligent about the use of birth control. Because of, among other things, the stigma attached to it, many women experience depression and regret after having an abortion. It is also, while cheaper than childbirth and child-rearing, much more expensive than using most birth control options responsibly, and generally indicative of an increasing lack of personal responsibility in our society. Finally, it is a tremendous wedge issue between conservatives and liberals who might otherwise find much on which to agree, and the source of a great deal of needless acrimony in politics. It is for these reasons, and not out of some unconsciously repressed notion that it constitutes murder, that I think a reduction in abortions is a to which we should aspire. But the route to that goal does not pass through the criminalization of abortions any more than it passes through the absolutist positions of NOW and other extreme pro-choice groups. And it certainly does not pass through the demonization of a majority of Americans as accomplices to mass murder.

Quit side-stepping the real underlying issue: murder or it is not.

I will most certainly sidestep the question of whether or not it is murder. I do so not because I lack a clear position on the matter, but because arguing that point is like arguing the existence of God. We will not convince each other of the rightness or wrongness of our arguments, and focusing on this area of fundamental disagreement will ensure only that we remain entrenched in our respective positions and make no real progress on the issue besides continuing a stalemate of deep and abiding acrimony.

I do not want that. I want to move the issue forward. The way to do that is by finding areas of agreement and compromise.

My point with Bennett is, if you don't think a fetus is a person, then why get enraged about talking about mass abortions?  The way people reacted to his out-of-context quotes would only make sense if he were talking about mass murder.

As for Edwards, you seem to be missing a point.  Are you suggesting he wasn't in the Democratic Party mainstream on abortion back when he claimed to be speaking for that unborn baby?

As for your "obvious answer," how do we know that "if liberals thought abortion was murder, they wouldn't advocate it," I think it's only that obvious if you're starting with that assumption.  But, given Leon's recently-shown evidence of a fundamental dishonesty in the pro-abortion side, I'm not inclined to make such a charitable assumption about the people that Rush Limbaugh so aptly named Feminazis.

I have no problems funding better education about contraception, although for ethical consistency I am also against the "morning-after pill."

I've been looking for you.  So are you also against the (standard) pill?

Bennet's comments were racist if one were to be foolish enough to take them literally. The outrage wasn't over murder, it was over the racist implications that came with it.

He just picked very poor wording as he could have accomplished the same thing by saying you can reduce crime by refusing to allow poor people to breed, etc. It's a no-brainer: Less densly populated poor areas results in lower crime rates (not absense of crime of course, just lower crime).

Abortion is the disease that has infected this country, and has lead to a complete lack of respect for life and family.

A disease that existed LONG before it was made legal in 1973. It was legal for the first few decades of US history, then made illegal, and then was made legal again when it was abundantly clear that they weren't going away and we were paying a heavy toll for it.

As the site states, the left has crafted the discussion in such a way as to make it palatable to the American public.

You know what? So what. The same tactics are being used to make wars (including our current one) more palatable to the American public. If someone shows the images of 5 year olds missing limbs and burned over half their bodies due to the war, or have massive exit wounds in their heads due to accidental shootings, they are said to be in poor taste and disgusting for doing so.

Do you really think support for the war would continue if the public was face to face with the images of what happens everytime we "succeed" and fail in an action in the war?

If abortions were not so readily available, people would think twice before having sex, and would have to face the consequences if they chose to do so.

No, they just fine alternatives like they did before it was made legal. Leon fails to mention the rates of illegal abortions for a very good reason... it would show that the rate of abortions did not skyrocket once they were made legal... what it did is provide a safe place for it to occur that reduces the health problems that were problematic before.

While of course the sources I'm about to give are biased, it's just as biased as the numbers and facts that Leon is posting. If we want to talk about numbers, we have to ask, again, why Leon only mentions the rates after it was made legal.

http://www.cbctrust.com/history_law_religion.php#1

The reason of course, is because those abortions were still happening, at an estimated 1 million per year. They cite the source in the second one if you want to look further.

http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/history_abortion.html

I also don't find the poverty line to be credible - putting a child up for adoption costs nothing.

Sure, because adoption centers are having resounding success finding families for the children they already have.

If you're poor, it's actually better to keep the child, as the state will give you more money.

This is simply astounding. The amount a person receives from welfare doesn't come anywhere near covering an extra child. If it did... everyone would be on it because you'd have no need to work. I am disgusted by welfare, but I'm also very well aware that the financials do not actually work out to have more kids and increase your standard of living, despite the common jokes of that nature.

Unfortunately for you, liberals tend to be much more open-minded about their morals.  They think abortion is bad, but won't say it's wrong.  This makes total sense, because bad is easy to quantify in this case: there's really nothing good about the unpleasant procedure and its after-effects.  But "wrong"?  That's a case-by-case basis.

You should consider yourself lucky.  It's a lot easier to sleep at night after [WARNING: these two links are extremely graphic] blasting a 5-year old's brain out of his skull with a 500 lb bomb when you know it was the morally right thing to do.  Bleeding heart liberals agonize over that stuff just as much as Leon agonizes over abortion.

Similar agony, similar moral rationale from both sides.

poverty has nothing to do with chosing death over adoption

Because there's zero cost to bringing a child to term?

Quit side-stepping the real underlying issue: murder or it is not.

Yes.  No.  See how much difference my opinion makes?  Same as yours: none.  Let's ask the law what it thinks... looks like... "No, it's not murder."

Murder is not the real underlying issue at all.  All you are interested in is reducing the number of abortions.  Why beat around the bush with this talk of right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, murder vs. not?  Why not concentrate on solutions?

I think abstinence is an effective way of reducing abortions.  Can you think of other ways to reduce the number of abortions, or are you just going to take the high moral ground and stop there?  1M abortions per year... are you absolutely sure you don't want to bring more firepower to bear?

At the very least you could acknowledge that the original poster was suggesting ways to reduce the number of abortions.  Just like you want to do.  Don't look now, but a liberal is trying to reduce the number of abortions in this country!

Perhaps you are not so different after all.

The numbers that Leon quote show an increase of legal abortions to where we're almost twice now what we were in 1973. This is simple logic of two forces 1) It takes time to ramp up a dramatic shift such as that 2) people are willing to be that open about it 3) understand it's available and trust it and 4) Population increase.

Once settled down, the final figure of 1.1 million is right around what it was estimated to be before it was made legal. And that's only counting legal abortions... who knows how many illegal ones are still performed to this day? (I'm actually honestly asking)

I understand that Pro-life supporters feel that we as a nation shouldn't support it, even IF it's still going to happen at the same frequency without that support. But I feel that there is some perspective needed in regards to the numbers being put out there.

As with all statistics, it's all about which direction you're looking at them from. :)

I can completely empathize with pro-lifers feeling it is wrong, immoral, etc. and that being the driving force behind why it should be stopped (or at least not supported).

But I also think that if RvW were overturned, the rates would continue, we'd have the same problems we had before, but pro-lifers would feel better simply because it wasn't out in the open staring them in the face.

I can fully say with a straight face that yes, hearing the tragic tales of the cute babies being treated as they are tugs at my heart strings. But so too do many events that happen around me. Most comparible of course being war. But that doesn't stop me from supporting a war if it seems like the alternative is worse.

For myself, if I have to chose between 1 million illegal abortions and 1 million legal ones, I'll take the legal ones.

My take on abortion is that no one likes it. Not even the most strident pro-choice advocate likes it.

What I propose is that the debate regarding the issue be positioned differently.

Foremost is the fact that the federal government has no business being involved in the issue at all. Clearly, abortion is not a right protected by the constitution. It is not an extension of privacy rights, nor ought it fall under the "rights not enumerated" umbrella.

However, do we really want to criminalize it? Do we really believe that giving government more power over the individual is going to effect positive change?

What punishment would the strident pro-life camp like to see imposed upon pregnant women who abort? Death? Life in prison?

The problem here is that women will simply get back alley abortions. Or if the federal right is (correctly) deemed not a federal matter, pregnant women will seek abortions across state lines. This will mean later term abortions. And will the state in which abortion is illegal ask the state in which it is legal to extradite the offender to stand trial for, what? Murder?

It's important to think things through. My take is that we should all of us focus our attentions on providing meaningful alternatives to abortion, on preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place, and on diminishing rancor between the opposing camps.

Giving government more power, be it state or federal government, has yet to prove a good idea. This issue is no exception.

strauss

Its easy availability reduces the incentive for people to be sexually responsible and diligent about the use of birth control.

There is absolutely ZERO evidence to support this (I agree with you on the principle, btw).

There is no evidence anywhere that suggests legal abortions have made people become more apathetic about their sexual behavior. I challenge anyone here to show anything that suggests a person would rather have an abortion than use any of the currently viable and effective birth control options.

People have abortions for very complex reasons and although the ones who have a blase attitude towards it do exist, they are in the severe minority. Spending even a small amount of time in an abortion clinic talking to the people who go will show this.

The repeaters are often people in a lifestyle situation making it extremely difficult for them to have any other option. I have honestly lost track of the number of women I've seen my father calm down (he's a police officer) because they are in hysterics due to finding out they are pregnant and their husband or boyfriend will be furious when he finds out... yet the husband/boyfriend refuses to agree to any form of birth control, often reacting with violence.

Yes the woman should leave the relationship, many of them say they want to, but they have kids they are trying to raise, the meager amount of money the spouse does make is the only thing feeding them, so they try to stick it out, for the children.

I am not kidding when I say that I witnessed or been told about this happening to him hundreds of times. Hundreds. Women calling the police because they are pregnant. It's a truly insane and bizarre world. One I find myself exceptionally happy to not be a part of, but have gained a very strong empathy for due to those experiences.

But again, there is no evidence at all that suggests legalized abortions have increased the abortion rates.

Shortly after abortions are outlawed they do tend to plummit, at first, but that is because nobody knows where to go when that happens. Over time the rate builds back up to the average 1/6 to 1/4 rate again.

If a fetus isn't a person, how can it have a "race?"

... and assume you aren't being obtuse on purpose.

If I'm to answer the question using the logic of the people you are complaining about... it is a race issue because the fetus will become a black human being.

If one were to use your train of thought... it can be halted by asking "How can a human at a fetus stage contribute to the crime rate... and thus why would aborting them lower it?" But that would be stupid to ask because it's obviously all about the potential..

Look... if pro lifers really want to lower abortion rates... they need to start contributing funds to programs that help prevent unwanted pregnancies. ALL OF THEM. Beacause if those lives are so important to them... then something as simple as a disagreement over how a person chooses to avoid pregnancies is trivial compared to the DEATH of an innocent human child.

We have a much better chance in 50 state capitals than we have against one Supreme Court.

If this is your position

I don't wish to get into a debate on the merits or wrongs of abortion; my purpose in posting my original comment was to attempt to find areas of middle ground.

Then I don't see what you possibly have to contribute to the conversation. So snark here. If you view abortion as some kind of morally neutral act such as clipping your toenails I don't know why any pro-life person would bother having a discussion with you.

Hi.   I recognize you from an earlier conversation (is that the right word for it?)

Anyway, be careful to clarify this issue when you want to discuss it.  Many people do not know that there is a difference between RU-486 and the "morning after pill".  The pro-RU486 lobby was very careful to present their case as "morning after," though it is not.  Anyway, it has caused some confusion among people with whom I have had this discussion.

People who use poverty as a justification for abortion disgust me -- they would have aborted Abe Lincoln because he grew up with a dirt floor and without indoor plumbing.

And for all the people who grouse about the supposed unthinking "religious right," I've yet to see anyone offer a SCIENTIFIC answer to when someone becomes a "person."  It's always a political distinction, as in "when it can live outside the womb."  Does a baby become a "person" earlier as technology advances?  Give me a break.

If you're intellectually honest you have to agree that the life that is present at conception is human and doesn't all of a sudden become human somewhere along the way, even if it doesn't look like you.

I believe that the incidence of child abuse and abandonment is getting higher and will only increase as long as the abortion industry is allowed free reign.  God placed in each of his creation a certain level of instinct.  Some animals run, some chase, birds feed their babies, etc.  Humans have fewer instincts, but among the strongest (next to fear) is the maternal instinct.  It begins in pregnancy.  That is the reason a good mama begins to watch what she eats, drinks, does, medicines she takes, etc. as soon as she finds out she is pregnant.

To suppress that instinct to the point of being willing to kill/abort the thing that she instinctively knows is a baby takes an enormous effort.  Then in order to soothe her conscience, she must justify it with all the deceptive talk we hear about rights, acorns, fetuses, clump of cells, etc.  But instinct is deep and wide.  By the time she has suppressed it to the point she is not living in mental instability due to what she knows she has done, has she forever and permanently damaged the instinct itself?  I believe so.

When she does have a live child due to a subsequent pregnancy, she may yet recover her instinct, but if she does not, she becomes one of those women who lets her boyfriend have his way with her child.  She abandons it in search of drugs.  She leaves it in the car while she plays the slot machine, or chases men in a bar.  She beats the everloving life out of it.  She lets her boyfriend beat it to death because it cried.  

And we, who are yet normal, look at her with wonder and amazement, thinking to ourselves, "I would kill that SOB with my bare hands if he did that to my baby.  How could she?"  Well, she could because the enemy came to kill, steal and destroy.  He has destroyed her God given protective instinct, killed her child, and stolen the future God had in store for them all.  He said, "I know the plans I have for you.  Plans for a hope and a future.  Plans to prosper you and not harm you."  Abortion is evil and an act of the enemy of our souls.

states before 1973-it wasn't exactly legalized in 1973, it just became impossible to criminalize, restrict or prohibit abortion.

There is a difference.

she was a huge fan of eugenics, founded planned parenthood, and believed abortion was a good thing.

Just who want to look to as a hero-not.

didn't double between 1970 and 2001.

US population in 1970 was about 200 million people.  Right now it is about 300 million.

Also, you have to account for the aging of women in childbearing age.  This population is shrinking, not growing, and it will continue to shrink.

California's already passed pre-emptive abortion protection in the event Roe's overturned.

If Republicans want to gradually impose limits on abortions that de-facto make them virtually impossible to receive, they, and I use they because I will be honest and state I am not a Republican, can easily win this fight. A nip here, a tuck there and one day most women in America will wake up with the theoretical possibility to have an abortion but not with any feasible practicality.

If the far right manages to force the Republican party to overturn Roe, it will be a large tactical blunder. (Yes I will grant you that judges, not 'people' will overturn 'Roe', if you are willing to cede that politics is perception so in the average citizens mind it could be perfectly believable that the far right and their ancillary activists were the ones that caused the overturn)America doesn't support overturning Roe, and if framed as an either-or dichotomy, the numbers aren't particularly close. Now there are plenty of people who may rightly point out that more Americans lie between the two political party's positions, but force people into a binary either-or by killing Roe at your own risk.

Is never a bad thing, Streiff.  I would think pro-life folks would be most interested in speaking with someone who thought that way, not least.  

can be undone.

but in this case a useless thing. Abortion is wrong and it is evil. Why would I ever discuss cooperating with evil?

but punishable not sanctioned by the law.  

There is no race element to the action if there is no murder in the first place.  The former has to occur before the latter can occur.  

Or, rather, the latter has to occur before the former can occur.

Maybe...but what if someone looking for a conversation has a mind that's a little bit open?  One reason that I think discussions are important is for the sake of all the people for whom abortion isn't a number one issue or people who might not have their minds made up entirely.  Opinions are shifting on this and I think that could be helped along with discussions.  Just IMO.

I just find it a bit revolting to engage in a discussion about how to kill fewer babies and do it where the person proposing the discussion, on a decidedly and overwhelmingly pro-life board, refuses to even acknowledge that there are grave moral issues and tries to reduce it to some mechanistic trade-off of lives.

I disagree with you, but I appreciate your effort to put your point of view in a careful, civil respectful way.

Drop me a line sometime over at presidentaristotle at hotmail.com

Cordially,

GrenfellHunt

... only one factor I listed as the reasons the numbers increased at the rate they did.

Once people understood it was available to them, trusted it, and were comfortable with making use of it, the rates leveled off. Leon even mentions this in a sideways manner in his original article.

... said nothing about whether it was punishable or not. And the vast majority of cases (especially in poverty stricken areas) go unpunished as nobody has any idea who the baby belongs to that they found in the alley. Last I understood it, maybe 5% get resolved... on good days.

... everything is a choice. No matter what religion, government, or family rules there are on you... you still either choose to follow them or don't.

I understand your question, but at that moment where you either do or don't... all that matters is the choice the person makes based on all the factors that will affect them.

I was simply making the additional point that abortion isn't the only way that parents try to end unwanted pregnancies. There have been periods in history where the abandonment rate was something like 20% of all live births.

... Bennet just picked on one way to reduce the black population. They were upset because he was effectively saying "If there are less black people, there will be less crime". They would have just been as outraged if he had said "One way to reduce crime is sterilize all black men".

You can try to twist it however you want, but the liberals were not upset because of abortion... they were upset because he was saying "Black people cause crime"... to them at least.

Well written, as usual, Leon.  I am curious as to some of your numbers though.

First, the number of abortions.  Your estimate of about 1.1 million seems fair, but using the absolute numbers and ignoring population increases exagerates   your conclusions.  In absolute numbers, we have about a 60% increase in the number of abortions between 1970 and today.  During the same time, we also have a about a 38% increase in total population, meaning abortions have outgained population increases by about 22%.  "Almost double the abortions" makes it sound like abortions are twice as frequent now as they were in 1973-- in fact the overall trend is much more gradual, if still increased since 1973.  (And in fact, has been gradually declining for some time).

Whici is the second qualm I have with your numbers. You seem to be ignoring the short and medium term trends, and only focusing on now vs. 1973.  The CDC report you quoted says the total number of abortions peaked in 1990.  The number of abortions per 1000 women aged 15-44 peaked around 1980.  In fact, if you look at this chart you can see that abortions seem to have increased relatively dramatically in the years following Roe v. Wade, and have since been gradually on the decline.  (This even factors in California dropping out; there were 28% less abortions in 2001 vs. 1997-- 5% less than there would be had California stayed in, assuming a relatively consistent proportion.)

It seems a bit disingenuous to begin a diary about the "left wing lies" on abortion by presenting the statistics in such a misleading way.

The other part of your diary that jumped out at me  was in re: to multiple abortions.  Assuming your numbers are correct here, it's a very sad statistic.  But this sentence in particular:

"almost one out of every five women who is getting an abortion is apparently more inclined to visit the abortion clinic than use a prophylactic device"

stuck out.  You attribute this to a lack of personal responsibility.  Is it possible that it may in fact have to do with education about birth control and its availability, especially to low income teens?  Most of the abortions in 2000-2001 were given to women who were using contraception-- albiet in many cases improperly or inconsistently.  One wonders if they were forced to guess how birth control worked, after receiving "abstinence only education".

The final paragraph in the CDC report is telling:

"A reduction in the number of unintended pregnancies, and thus in the number of abortions, will require adapting complex strategies. In a study of abortion patients conducted during 2000--2001, a total of 54% of patients reported that they were using contraception during the month they became pregnant. However, their use of contraception might have been inconsistent or incorrect (18). In 1995, the year for which the most recent National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) data are available, approximately 29% of sexually active U.S. women who used only oral contraceptives for birth control reported that they had missed a birth-control pill more than once during the 3 months before their NSFG interview. In addition, approximately 33% of U.S. women who were using only coitus-dependent contraceptive methods†† during the 3 months before the interview used these methods inconsistently (9). Coverage of reversible contraception has increased substantially since 1993 (64) although gaps in coverage remain substantial. Education regarding abstinence and contraceptive use and practices, combined with access to and education regarding safe, effective, contraception and family planning services, might help reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancy and, therefore, the number of legal induced abortions in the United States (65--67)."

I think, if you will read my post, that I very specifically noted that abortion rates have been declining since 1990. I think I further said that most of the growth in question happened between 1973 and 1978, so no, I don't think I was being disingenuous whatsoever.

The point of this post was not to show that abortions are on some sort of dramatic rise within recent years - they aren't, and I never said that.

Incidentally, however, if you go back to 1970, the number of legal abortions is about 1500% what it was then - although I'll certainly grant that much of that may have been inaccurate or incomplete reporting.

The other part of your diary that jumped out at me  was in re: to multiple abortions.  Assuming your numbers are correct here, it's a very sad statistic.  But this sentence in particular:

"almost one out of every five women who is getting an abortion is apparently more inclined to visit the abortion clinic than use a prophylactic device"

stuck out.  You attribute this to a lack of personal responsibility.  Is it possible that it may in fact have to do with education about birth control and its availability, especially to low income teens?

See, that's at least plausible for the first abortion (although I'm still very skeptical - I've yet to find anyone in this entire country who doesn't know what a condom is - but, however much you might buy this for the first abortion, it's a hollow answer for the second. And the "one in five" were women who had admitted to having two or more abortions. Now, that's not a failure of education, that's a failure of responsibility.

Education regarding abstinence and contraceptive use and practices, combined with access to and education regarding safe, effective, contraception and family planning services, might help reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancy and, therefore, the number of legal induced abortions in the United States (65--67).

I am totally on board with all of this. Given the plurality of Catholic editors on this site, I can easily see how you'd confuse me with one, but I'm not.

Once a fetus or baby is outside the womb, the law treats it differently than if it is inside it.  Sure, a mother or another adult can make a choice to kill her child or another adult by the techniques he mentioned, but the law recognizes that a crime has occurred in those instances, whereas it does not when a mother chooses to end the life of the child within her.  This is not a distinction without a difference.

Sadly, you are probably correct, that most liberals don't care nearly as much about abortion as they do about racial inequality.  Still, Bennett's point was predicated on the killing of black children.  You conveniently avoid that salient point by bringing up hypothetical situations that did not occur.  There would be no basis for the "outrage" if abortion was not perceived as being the killing of black children.  That must be the consequence of abortion for the outrage to be justified.  

Don't know how I missed that sentence-- but you're absolutely right.  You did address those numbers, and I apoligize for misrepresenting your position there.

I'm glad to hear you're in favor of sex ed and easily available birth control as at least possible ways to reduce unwanted pregnancy.  I wasn't trying to characterize your position in particular there, just making a somewhat general statement.

There might be an impassible ditch between the two sides here, specifically in regards to the personhood status of an early fetus.  But there's plenty of middle ground that's not being covered as much as it should be, and in large part gets obscured by the philisophical questions.  Everyone wants to reduce the number of unintended and unwanted pregnancies-- if we can really tackle that issue effectively, the personhood question becomes mostly academic.

that feigned outrage at bennett are pro abortion.

in population among the age groups most likely to have an abortion.

The baby boom hit their teens/early twenties during the late 70's/80's, and the age cohort most likely to get an abortion has gradually been shrinking.

Although, I do remember stats that indicate the raw numbers of abortions have been going down, but the rates have also been going down, and a rate would to degree indicate the shifts in population.

Everything I have see on the subject has stated that the rates of abortion (per 1000 women of childbearing age for example) are also declining, notably among teenagers. There were some spurious claims by some Democrats last year that abortion rates had begun to climb again during the Bush presidency, but this data turned out to be false (though I think that the rate of the decline has slowed).

has expounded his "roe effect" theory that includes the phenomena of the post 1973 children being very anti abportion as they feel lucky to be here! Plus, the Reagan years were their formative years.

The other effect is that the liberals that have a lot of abortions didnt produce as many future voters, ie as in now and going forward.

Overturning Roe is a moral issue.  I don't know any real pro-life Republican who is willing to keep Roe on the books just for the sake of preventing a backlash at the polls.  

We want Roe overturned because Roe is the direct cause of over 1 million murdered babies each year in this country.  Who cares if it is a "tactical mistake."  Given the stakes, it is more important to do what is right than what is politically prudent.

(And by the way, if you want to remain on this board for long, drop the "far right" baloney.  Overturning Roe is plank in the Republican party platform and is the dominant position of Republicans.)

Just look at it from the perspective of your own life.  Would Catsy clai,s that when her mother was pregnant with her, that there was some point in the pregnancy when Catsy was not a human, was not alive?  What was she, then - an alarm clock?  A rabbit?  

Just referring to an embryo/fetus as a blob of cells isn't a logical answer.  You're still just a blob of cells today - just a bigger blob.  The terms embryo/fetus don't mean "not a human life," any more than "preemie" or "infant" or "toddler" means "not a human life."  These are all just stages of life.

I really don't understand how this is so hard for some people.

Why do you, personally, think abortion is wrong?  (feel free to add "wrong for you" to the question, if you need that caveat).  Please explain.

(I love asking this question to pro-choice folks who claim to personally be opposed to abortion.  Do tell, why are you personally against it?)

A disease that existed LONG before it was made legal in 1973. It was legal for the first few decades of US history

In what states was it legal?

Even if it was legal (i.e., not illegal) I find it hard to believe that it was legal because society approved of it.  Rather, it was probably so risky that no one in their right mind would undertake it.  We're talking about the practice of medicine two hundred years ago.  

An analogy, if you need one, is that it's not illegal to take a sharp pencil and jab yourself in the eye.  It's one of those things you don't need to make a law against, because no one in his right mind would do it.  Same with abortion in the 1700s - was probably so risky that almost no one would ever do it.

Tree-huggers might as well put up statistics on how many deaths conservatives have caused through pollution and the eating of meat. It would have about the same comparable merit as pretending that a mass genocide has been purposefully committed by those for abortion.

Well, after Roe is overturned, we will begin a long march toward restricting abortions in this country.  You will probably (I hope) eventually see monuments to all of those killed in abortions, and the tide will turn against those who supported this evil practice.  Don't get me wrong, it will take a while.  But in their own day, even human slavery - which is not as bad as abortion - had many advocates.  Today, who argues in favor of it?  Eventually, I believe abortion will go the same way, and people will wonder how anyone could have ever argued in favor of it.  The arguments being made in favor of it today will be studied in classes on genocide, as a sociological study of how the deepest of evils could infect the most superficial of moral minds.

I never really got the objection to "corporations as persons."  A corporation as a "person" is a fiction necessary for businesses to operate in our legal system, to sue, enter into contracts, and be sued.

Just ponder this for a moment - if a corporation is not a legal "person," but instead is merely property, how could the government ever file criminal charges against a wrongdoing corporation to hold it accountable?  

The government can't file criminal charges against property.  Good luck filing a criminal complaint against a tree, a rock, or a car.

You don't need to make the pregnant woman into a criminal.  All you need to do is make it a criminal act for a doctor, nurse, or other person to provide an abortion.  And take away their medical license.  

As I learned from reading redstate a few days ago, the Hippocratic Oath - taken by doctors for thousands of years (until it was changed in the 1960s - surprise, surprise) - specifically prohibited doctors from performing abortions.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_classical.html

Even though I do like to see fewer liberals, I don't think keeping abortion legal is a good tradeoff even if it reduces the number of liberal voters.  I would rather have less abortions and more liberals in our society.  Liberalism I can live with, but abortion I cannot.

"I never really got the objection to "corporations as persons."  A corporation as a "person" is a fiction necessary for businesses to operate in our legal system, to sue, enter into contracts, and be sued."

No it isn't.  You can sue a corporation as a legal entity.  You can sometimes pierce this entity and sue the owners.

"Just ponder this for a moment - if a corporation is not a legal "person," but instead is merely property, how could the government ever file criminal charges against a wrongdoing corporation to hold it accountable? "

They can allow criminal prosecution of a corporation as a legal entity and shield the actual owners and officers.

"The government can't file criminal charges against property.  Good luck filing a criminal complaint against a tree, a rock, or a car."

Ah, but they do - they call it civil asset forfeiture.

The whole theory that property can be guilty of illegal acts is of concern to professional gamblers.  Gamblers often carry large amounts of cash and law enforcement likes to "arrest" the cash.  Property however has no rights, so you will have to prove its innocence to get it back.  If you go through Louisiana and carry more than a thousand, I would go to some lengths to document it as legal.  Some gamblers carry notarized letters from their attorney.  And there are other methods.  But who knows what works.  I have my own methods.

Stanford

eschew the raising children is what may best define being a liberal. But yes, lets stop them and witness to them!! Mopre Libs in the population were created by libs on the court that  gave license to killing for copnvenience as law.

If abortion can be outlawed again, it will restore law to God's law to which men are created to be subjected to.\ Its illegality will; propduce conservatives as one is made to be responsible for one's conduct.\

"This statistic speaks to just how pervasive the use of abortion for birth control purposes really is."

That's why it should be allowed up till the point when the state has a compelling interest.  Roe is not different in kind than Griswold - Scalia's braying to the contrary.

Actually, you should define abortion.  If you mean at fetilization, the common birth control pill may be the biggest method of abortion.  A fertilized egg can be prevented from attaching by the common pill resulting in what many pro lifers call a chemical abortion. This would skew your statistics a great deal.

"Abortion has become a problem that affects black America so disproportionately - in terms of community, family, society, and politics - that many groups are beginning to see what Jesse Jackson pointed out so many years ago, that whatever the intention, the end result of pro-choice America is the weakening and disentigration of the black family "

Well surgical abortion is one method of birth control.  There are many others.  If what you say is true, then the birth rates of black america should be below that of white america.  Is it?

"40 Million. Approximately one-eighth of the current population of the United States - dead before they had the chance to contribute anything to their families, their communities, their country, or the world. Somehow, the madness must stop. "

Probably more than that as the aborted fetilized egg from use of birth control pills and IUDs are not counted.  I used to routinely put an end to any chance of millions of sperm reaching personhood.  

Roe has it right.  Life is a process and not an event.  For a rational discussion of where to draw the line in the process, I recommend Carl Sagan's essay.  From "Billions and Billions", it is here:

http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml

Stanford

What do you think will happen if Roe is overturned?

I am not very concerned about it.  I don't plan on having an abortion, and I doubt my daughter will need a surgical abortion - but if she did, she would get it regardless of what happens with Roe.  And not a single state will outlaw the birth control pill so aborted fertilized eggs will continue in every state.

My only concern is that it will signal a reversal of personal freedom protections from the courts.  Liberty should not be reliant on a popular vote.  Rather liberty is possessed by right of birth - even when it runs contrary to the popular fad or religion of the majority.

imho,

Stanford

"Overturning Roe is a moral issue...

We want Roe overturned because Roe is the direct cause of over 1 million murdered babies each year in this country."

Just change your terminology.  Try Roe is responsible for the removal of over 1 million tumors a year allowing woman.  I wouldn't invest a lot of emotional attachment to a fetus.

imho,

Stanford  

Try Roe is responsible for the removal of over 1 million tumors a year allowing woman.  I wouldn't invest a lot of emotional attachment to a fetus.

You've gotten a great deal of slack here -- too much, it would appear.. There are other ways to debate this particular issue. You picked the worst one. Farewell.

The gladder I am that I pulled the trigger.

Roe has it right.  Life is a process and not an event.  For a rational discussion of where to draw the line in the process, I recommend Carl Sagan's essay.  From "Billions and Billions", it is here:

You insulting cretin. You finally crapped in one sink too many.

Every constitutional right in the US constitution

 that protects all individuals no matter whether they be a part pf a majority group or a minority of one, was FIRST ratified by a super MAJORITY of the people, in congress and the states.

On what "should" rights be reliant? history shows they have been best protected in reliance on the US constitution.

To change the way you think rights should be protected will always require either persuasion in our system or violent seizure of power by a dictatorship, which is an oxymoron.

or 5 judges

I do not think abortion should be trivialized in any way, but the debate reminds me of something in a football video game with regard to fumbles: "just don't fumble, that's all." You can always come up with excuses and rationales, even for something as horrible as abortion, but at the end of the day, a moral person cannot support the practice.

Now, the moral status of abortion is not automatically what should be the legal status, but there are ways to limit its use as birth control. For instance, except in exceptional cases, I don't think a woman that has an abortion has a legal right to have children later on. I wouldn't throw women in jail, but kill one of your children, and that's it.

The fact that prosecutors can file charges against the fiction of a corporation INSTEAD OF AGAINST THOSE EMPLOYEES WHO MADE THE DESCISIONS is precisely why the fiction of a corporation as a person is so bad.  It flies in the face of "personal responsibility", which is a mainstay of conservative philosophy.  Why should executives and other employees be able to escape prosecution in favor of prosecution a ficticious entity that can't serve jail time and thus has absolutely no deterrent not to break the law?

Historically, the reason for the invention of the corporation was to avoid financial risk.  Today, the corporation is used to avoid all kinds of responsibility including financial and criminal (to wit: Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, et al).  Decisions are made all the time at corporations that demonstrate that incurring the prescibed fine for a crime is less expensive than to obey the law.  If people faced jail time instead of a mere corporate fine that still makes law-breaking more profitable than compliance, then much fewer laws would be broken.

Your argument does have merit, however, because Corporations do need legal standing in order to eneter into contracts with one another.  BUT, this was done all the time prior to 1886 when the Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pac. RR declared that corporations were people under the 14th ammendment (equal protection), which was originally passed to extend constitutional protections to former slaves.  This was the technical gimmick used to give corporations personhood: usurpation of civil rights legislation.  It wasn't a planned endeavor to ensure that corporations could be prosecuted or enter into contracts.  It was the hijacking of legislation originally intended to end one of the worst injustices this nation has ever suffered, so don't pretend that corporations were made people as part of some well-planned legal theory to ensure enforcement.  Corporations can have legal status to enter contracts without being full-fledged persons; we just have to make that the law if that's what we want.

In fact, if you study your history, you will see that the Boston Tea Party was a revolt against corporate power granted by the crown, not the power of the crown alone.  Bostonians were angry because the king announced that American colonists could only buy tea from the Dutch East Indies Company, which was granted a monopoly in the Americas.  American colonists could sell their tea only if they paid a tax that teh Dutch East Indies Co. didn't have to pay.  Hence, the crowds yelling "no taxation without representation".

To say that a corporation is a person is a terrible analogy because corporations live in pertetuity, people do not.  Corporations are intangible fictions created on paper and cannot be incarcerated as a person can; they have no threat of the loss of liberty.  Corporations do not require clean air and water like people.  Corporations have no allegiance to their country, their allegiance is to profit and profit alone.

I am not saying that corporations are evil.  Far from it.  All I am saying is that we've created a situation where we allow people to avoid any kind of resposnibility.  Seems like we could amend this situation and still have most of the benefits that corporations provide the economy.

... incorrect in your understanding.

It was legal all the way up until the mid 1800's in the US.

Not only was it legal, it was advertised and doctors/women spoke openly about it in the doctor's office.

I provided two links in my post. Please read them. If you still aren't convinced simply do some research into the history of abortion in the United States.

Furthermore abortion wasn't made illegal due to moral outrage over it... it was from pressure from the medical profession over concern about who is qualified to make choices such as that, largely because ANY medical procedure was so difficult back then. Once that problem was no longer a problem, the same medical profession reversed itself and started to support it being legal.

It was legal in the US in the 1700's and remained legal when the US was formed due to Common Law. States slowly one by one started to make it illegal during the 1800's.

your links provide no evidence of advertising

also, john see agreed with you on legality. Anything not explicitely made illegal in a free society is legal.

 But suicide was illegal as was murder, and I suspect their were murder prosecutions for abortions through out our history.

let's see ad links

ok?

gave us anesthesia and antibiotics abortion (like all surgeries) was a profoundly dangerous and painful procedure. People simply did not have abortions except in the most extreme and desperate circumstances, and often they paid with their lives.

... I provided.

People were having abortions at the relatively same birth to abortion ratios as they are having now.

Or provide some evidence that supports what you say, that abortions then were almost non-existent, because I've never seen anything that suggests abortions have been minor at any point in human history.

... of one of the links.

Abortion Was Legal

Abortion has been performed for thousands of years, and in every society that has been studied. It was legal in the United States from the time the earliest settlers arrived. At the time the Constitution was adopted, abortions before "quickening" were openly advertised and commonly performed.

If you aren't even going to bother reading what I provide, then why bother responding?

First, Leon H. posted another diary entry that extensively discusses the research here:  http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/11/3/123953/560

Second, doctors were forbidden by the Hippocratic Oath to perform abortions:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_classical.html

Maybe some performed it, but it certainly wasn't sanctioned in their profession.  If you can provide contrary evidence, please do so.

Third, I return to my earlier point that even if abortion wasn't banned specifically, that doesn't mean that it was approved of socially, or done except in extremely rare cases.  Prior to about a century ago, there was no such thing as scientific medicine, and most invasive (surgical) medical procedures were extremely dangerous.  It was the inherent danger and rareness of abortion that resulted in little or no need for laws against it.  Don't confuse that with social acceptance of it.

the ancients practiced infant exposure to get rid unwanted children if abortion was so common and safe and easy to obtain? Your assertion flies in the face of common sense and any links you provide are to spurious websites asserting ahistorical fantasies.

You are absolutely right!

The nomination of a Supreme Court Justice is about so much more than one issue, or even one list of issues.  The placement of Justice Alito on the court promises a return (swing vote people, come on!) to constitutional values.

For far too long states have been crippled in their ability to deal with issues that traditionally were theirs to decide.  Federalism has been etched away by activist judges who don't care one whit about the framers' intent.

In one Southern California high school, male students are only allowed in the bathroom one at a time, because a liberal wacko teacher was teaching them to masturbate together.  Thankfully, a socially conscious principal fired the guy, but now the boys at this school have to wait in long lines just to use the restroom, and they are even timed, to make sure they are just doing what is necessary!!!

A liberal Supreme Court means that the teacher would be told he could do whatever he wants.  A court that understands federalism and the purpose of the Constitution would not strip California of the power to decide whether perverted teachers should be passing homosexual smut on to the children!

Bravo to you, for seeing the larger picture.

It's a dangerous medical procedure.  It's unpleasant for everyone involved.  Even ignoring the risk of physical damage, the risk of psychological damage is very real--after all, you're talking about killing your future offspring, not something to be undertaken lightly.

I could probably think of more reasons, but these are already pretty heavy.