So now even Giuliani is starting to slither to the Right. I guess it was inevitable that he would, as a Republican, need to cater to the religous conservatives. He may have just solidified his nomination.

The Republican Party is almost unrecognizable with what it once was in the 50′s, 60′s and part of the 80′s.

Women, and men who care about one or more women, need to remember that if Giuliani is nominated, the future of the right of any woman to an abortion, even to protect her life, is at stake in this election. The same is, of course, true for all the others but Giuliani will try to blur the issue.

Now ALL the Catholics won’t be permitted to vote for Guiliani! I think the guy is great.

nnmns,
Please don’t pull the move of trying to make this into in issue of caring or not caring about women. I’ve yet to personally meet an opponent of abortion who doesn’t care about women; it’s just that they care about the unborn women as well as the ones who’ve already grown up.

For starters, being a conservative is not synonymous (sp? – haha) with being a “religious” conservative. Conservativism, as liberals may be shocked to hear, is a political ideology in and of itself which may (or may not) contain patently religious motivations. As such, Giuliani, as a republican, does indeed, during this primary season, need to appeal to his fellow republican base because that’s what will ensure his ability to even run in the general election. Only after that will both of the candidates (R. and D.) run for the middle territory of the electorate’s political sensitivities so as to appeal to as many people as they possibly can. This being said, the more conservative of the Democrats and the more liberal (Giuliani) of the Republicans are, to a degree, representing themselves a little less genuinely to pander to their respective primary voters. I get the sense that a tremendous number of Republicans support Giuliani not because he is all that conservative but because he would probably be the candidate in the best position to beat Clinton, precisely because his politics are more moderate (thus more moderate independents might support him). I’m reasonably curious as to why, of all the Republican candidates, nnmns (what does that mean, by the way?) would be sounding the alarm over Giuliani? He seems to me to be the one R. candidate LEAST LIKELY to “endanger” abortion. Incidentally, while I am indeed ideological/politically/whatever conservative and thus I consider myself to be significantly more Republican than Democrat, I took an online survey of the issues to see which candidate most represented my political views, and *surprise* Giuliani was WAY down my list… the survey indicated that the candidate who most represented my views was some Democrat (who I had never heard of). Giuliani barely surpassed Clinton in terms of how I, as a conservative, feel about the issues. I think it is also worth noting that the demonized religious right is profoundly torn on who to support. The most viable candidates for beating Clinton don’t exactly strike them as sharing many of their religious values, and the ones that do are trailing significanty in the polls. Pretty much the only unifying issue for much of the Republican party is to BEAT CLINTON, because apparently, the worst Republican is much more preferrable to New York’s junior Senator. And finally, considering that the general election is a very long way off, I must admit that I am skeptical of people who have already made up their minds, republicans and democrats alike…

I think this is the link…
http://www.selectsmart.com/president/2008.html

“For starters, being a conservative is not synonymous (sp? – haha) with being a “religious” conservative.”
It didn’t used to be; I was once a Goldwater conservative, but I was different then and conservatism had not been co-opted by the religious right. Conservatism as anyone would reasonably understand it now is the Bush kind (which led to the Iraq invasion, Katrina screwups, ignoring global warming and so much more), not the Goldwater kind. Please don’t try to make conservatism more acceptable by claiming what we’ve been seeing is not conservatism. What we’ve been seeing is modern conservatism and any more upstanding conservatives have a lot of work to do to reclaim the label before any sensible person would vote for a conservative now.
“I’m reasonably curious as to why, of all the Republican candidates, nnmns …would be sounding the alarm over Giuliani?”
I’ve sounded alarms about a lot of them. I’m not too familiar with Ron Paul but on foreign policy he seems to make the most sense.
As for abortion, it’s not killing, Nate, except it gets close at the end of the pregnancy. And the woman matters more than the fetus for a lot of reasons that I’ll go into if someone disputes that. And Michael we don’t know what Giuliani would do but he might keep his word and nominate justices who’d end some or all of the right to the abortions women and families all too often need. It would be far less of a danger with the Democratic nominee, whomever it is. Any woman who would not care to be forced to bear a rapist’s child, or who would not want her daughter or niece to be, should not vote for a Republican till the Supreme Court is set somewhat more right.
It’s remarkable how much hatred there is in the Republican party. It should, of itself, disqualify them from the consideration of people who don’t want the government run by people filled with hatred.

Trust me, I have no intention of claiming that “what we’ve been seeing” is not conservatism, because it indeed is. But just as there are liberals who allow their respective religious views to influence their political views, so too there are conservatives whose ideas are not COMPLETELY MOTIVATED by religion… that was the contention which I was attempting to vocalize… as for acceptibility, I believe we would be of like minds in considering that there’s not much of a possibility in making conservativism as an ideology more acceptible to liberals… and of course, I could be wrong, but my assumption remains that if the next president was to be a republican, (hypothetically)Giuliani would be considered by liberals to probably be the least of all evils, correct?
As for the nomination of justices, there exists the confirmation process of the senate to allow for some parity among those individuals nominated, thus it would be unlikely that any new republican president would have any chance of appointing a justice that a presumably democratic-controlled senate highly disfavors, if that makes sense.
As for your cheap-shot at republican “disqualifications,” such an “argument” would not be allowed in a freshmen-level debate class. Mischaracterizing all of the Republican party as haters stinks of plain-old prejudice.
While I may personally feel the absolute same thing is true of many of the democrats, I would not be so passionately naive to insinuate that they’re all a bunch of hate-mongers wholly incapable of participation in our Democratic Republic… the entire premise is invalid. As much as you conspicuously dislike the republicans, I also know you sound much more credible when you stick with reasonable conclusions based on demonstrable facts and not with such straw-man opinions… and I’m still curious as to the letters “nnms.”
By the way, you were a Goldwater Republican?… history classes have tended to paint him as something of a reactionary.

“As for abortion, it’s not killing”
I was taught that taking a life is “killing”. Abortion isn’t self-defense, and it’s not consensual as euthanasia would be (not that I support euthanasia — I don’t). That means it is, like it or not, killing. There’s no other way to see it if you let logic take its course.
And personally, I’m appalled at the idea. I would hope that you would be, too.

“As for abortion, it’s not killing”
That, my friend, is at the center of the whole debate, and so simply making an assertion one way or the other isn’t going to get anyone anywhere. Just because you don’t think it’s murder, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not, and it certainly doesn’t mean that anyone who disagrees with you doesn’t care about women.
“And the woman matters more than the fetus for a lot of reasons that I’ll go into if someone disputes that.”
I’m not trying to turn this into a debate about who “matters more.” Even if you can make the argument that, when forced to choose, the life of an adult should take priority over the life of a fetus (and I may, with reservation, be willing to grant that), that says nothing about purely elective abortions done for no other reason than that a mother (or someone else who’s influencing her) doesn’t want her child. A grown woman might be more important than a fetus, but I certainly cannot ever be convinced that a grown woman’s supposed right to live without responsibility for her actions could be worth more than even the life of an ant.

“Mischaracterizing all of the Republican party as haters stinks of plain-old prejudice.”
Michael, please read. I said:
“It’s remarkable how much hatred there is in the Republican party.”
Clearly I did not characterize all of the party as haters. But the leaders are working on it.
As for abortion versus killing a person:
A person has relationships, people who’ve grown to expect the person to be there, people who’ve assumed responsibility for the person and later people for whom the person has assumed some kind of responsibility. This is not true of a fetus except to some extent with the mother to be. In other words the person will likely be missed, the fetus only by the mother to be and perhaps the father to be at most.
A person typically feels fear before being killed and pain while he or she is killed (unless it’s done blessedly fast and by surprise). A fetus feels no fear before an abortion and pain for at most a very short time during an abortion.
Society and the person’s family have made an investment in the person but only the mother has made an investment in the fetus.
So, clearly, an abortion is a far different and less serious thing than killing a person. Even if you still don’t agree with that I hope you can agree with me that abortions should be made rarer by teaching real sex education and making real contraceptives available to whomever may need them.
As for:
“I certainly cannot ever be convinced that a grown woman’s supposed right to live without responsibility for her actions could be worth more than even the life of an ant.”
That says a lot about how you feel about women to me, but suppose you step on an ant; should you be able to live without responsibility for whatever act led you to do that?

“I was taught that taking a life is “killing”.”
As a matter of fact, I was taught the same thing, so out of curiousity, I looked up the word, “life” in the dictionary. My copy of Webster defines “life” as “the period between birth and death”. Abortion ends something that has the potential to become a life. It prevents the life from happening. This is true logic without emotion getting in the way.
“I’m not trying to turn this into a debate about who “matters more.”"
I agree wholeheartedly, Nate. Unike you though, I see this option as being very responsible action-wise. And since when is this just the woman’s responsibility? When one looks at real world statistics, not those in our own middle class neighborhoods, you will find many women raising unwanted children. These children suffer everyday at home, in school and in their neighborhoods. I know, I work with them. Abortion is never going to end until we stop hating each other because of our viewpoints and prejudices (an ant, really?)and work together to make every living child feel wanted. Then, and only then, will you see this option become part of our past.
Every couple of years when candidates announce their platforms these topics become overheated once again. I am a democrat, but I like Giuliani. I, like Michael, believe there’s difference between a conservative and a religious conservative. Giuliani has always been pro-choice and that has not changed. Just because he hopes abortion will end does not mean he will initiate a law that makes it so.
Remember, politicians like the issue of abortion. It’s a no win emotional issue that takes focus off of solvable issues. If this issue would be put to rest, we might question them on the national debt, education, health care and taxes and they don’t want to have to answer to that!!!

“A person has relationships, people who’ve grown to expect the person to be there, people who’ve assumed responsibility for the person and later people for whom the person has assumed some kind of responsibility”
So if someone is unwanted and has no responsibilities to anyone else (say an unwanted infant), would it be okay to kill that person?
“This is not true of a fetus except to some extent with the mother to be. In other words the person will likely be missed, the fetus only by the mother to be and perhaps the father to be at most.”
Or grandparents to be, or brothers and sisters to be, or church/religious family to be, and so on. But I fail to see how this is relevant, anyway. It’s like you’re saying if there were a sole Jew living in a society composed entirely of anti-Semites, it would be okay to kill him just because there’d be no one there to miss him.
“A person typically feels fear before being killed and pain while he or she is killed (unless it’s done blessedly fast and by surprise). A fetus feels no fear before an abortion and pain for at most a very short time during an abortion.”
Is this jumbled mess supposed to be an argument of some sort? You’ve undermined your own case by saying that it’s possible to kill a grown person without causing fear or pain and admitting that an aborted fetus might feel pain. You don’t have a clear point here anymore.
“Society and the person’s family have made an investment in the person but only the mother has made an investment in the fetus.”
For the love of Christ, I hope you’re not reducing the value of humanity down to being nothing more than a return on an investment.
“That says a lot about how you feel about women to me”
What does it say about how I feel about women? That I believe that they, just like men, have moral responsibility, and don’t have some inalienable right to pursue pleasure without thinking of how it might affect others? Yes, that’s exactly how I feel about them; I grace them with the dignity of being moral agents.

NNMNS,
You said:
“It’s remarkable how much hatred there is in the Republican party. It should, of itself, disqualify them from the consideration of people who don’t want the government run by people filled with hatred.”
By all means, forgive me for incorrectly comprehending the spirit of such an unsubstantiated statement. Tell me, how should I better understand a contention that the hatred within the republican party should in itself disqualify “them” (republicans altogether? the republicans that possess the hatred which you are referring to?) from people’s consideration. Sounds an awful lot like a sweeping generalization of some fashion, but as you observe, I have misunderstood you.

| who posted at 6:50 PM are you Michael? Whoever you are I’ll try to make some sense of your post. It will take some work.
“So if someone is unwanted and has no responsibilities to anyone else (say an unwanted infant), would it be okay to kill that person?”
No, but it would impact the world far less than if the person is wanted. It would be just as bad to cause an unwanted person fright and pain as a wanted person.
And I failed to mention the expectations of their life a person has which a fetus, certainly an earlier stage fetus, doesn’t have. Of course those expectations might be bad expectations, perhaps bad enough the person would welcome death or even commit suicide, but fortunately for most of us they are positive expectations. That’s another reason it’s different to kill a person than to abort a fetus.
“You’ve undermined your own case by saying that it’s possible to kill a grown person without causing fear or pain and admitting that an aborted fetus might feel pain. You don’t have a clear point here anymore.”
Unlike, apparently, you I’m aware there are gray areas in the world. I, along with Roe v. Wade, think it’s more serious to abort later in a pregnancy when the probability of pain is greater. But overall there’s far, far less pain in a group of abortions than in as many killings. And I don’t expect there’s any fear in the abortions.
You bring up the care of other relatives for the fetus, which I expected someone would. If a lot of relatives are involved with the mother in the pregnancy in a caring way I think it’s far less likely there will be an abortion and if there is one there’s almost surely a very strong need for it.
“For the love of Christ, I hope you’re not reducing the value of humanity down to being nothing more than a return on an investment.”
Nope, but it’s a factor; one of several, all of which show the fetus to have less claim on life than a human. But a growing claim which becomes equal, as far as I’m concerned, when it’s born.
You can quibble about individual reasons I’ve given but you can’t overcome any of them and together they make a strong case that aborting a fetus is a less serious matter than killing a person; earlier in the pregnancy a lot less serious.
And sometimes society kills people.

The 6:50 posting was mine.
“That’s another reason it’s different to kill a person than to abort a fetus.”
Different, yes, but to establish that there’s a genuinely moral difference there, you’ve still got work to do. Is it wrong to kill a human being because he or she has “expectations,” or is it wrong simply because the human person possesses an inviolable dignity regardless of whether or not he or she has any expectations about life?
“Unlike, apparently, you I’m aware there are gray areas in the world.”
I acknowledge that there are plenty of gray areas in the world. I don’t see how this is a matter of gray areas, though. It seems more like you were trying to establish the conditions under which it’s permissible or not to kill, and you were simply painting a confusing picture that really didn’t provide any insight into how the resolve the issue.
“I, along with Roe v. Wade, think it’s more serious to abort later in a pregnancy when the probability of pain is greater. But overall there’s far, far less pain in a group of abortions than in as many killings. And I don’t expect there’s any fear in the abortions.”
But do different degrees of pain and fear necessarily create a moral difference? Sending a dozen newborn infants into a gas chamber causes a whole lot less pain and fear that hitting somebody’s big toe with a hammer, but are you willing to say that that someone makes gassing the babies less bad than the hammer strike? If not, then on what grounds and in what way are you going to bring concerns for pain and fear into your moral evaluation of different situations?
“If a lot of relatives are involved with the mother in the pregnancy in a caring way I think it’s far less likely there will be an abortion and if there is one there’s almost surely a very strong need for it.”
This will undoubtedly often be the case, but I know from first-hand experience that believing this will always be the case is simply naive idealism. I know a young couple who had an unexpected pregnancy that was received by friends and family with extreme charity; friends and family offered nothing but loving support, offered to pay for the whole pregnancy, and even offered to adopt the child when it was born. They had an abortion and offered no other reason than that it would be too much of a hassle to go through with the pregnancy. I’ve also heard plenty of testimony from other such people to know that it’s just too idealistic to assume that love alone will end all abortions. Some people have just been convinced that there’s nothing wrong with abortion, and in such a case, why should they bother to have the baby if they just don’t feel like it?
“Nope, but it’s a factor; one of several, all of which show the fetus to have less claim on life than a human.”
Which, again, has nothing ultimately to do with the issues that concern me. I’m not trying to set the lives of mother and child against each other; I’m setting the life of the child against the woman’s supposed possession of an inalienable right to pursue pleasure without responsibility for her actions.
“But a growing claim which becomes equal, as far as I’m concerned, when it’s born.”
Why? Is the birth canal lined with some magic potion that grants a baby inviolable dignity when it gets squeezed through? I’ve always found this position the most absurd of all; if you aren’t against late-term abortions, then any objection you have to infanticide really just becomes silly.
“You can quibble about individual reasons I’ve given but you can’t overcome any of them”
So far, there’s nothing for me to overcome. You’ve not made one step towards establishing how any of the concerns you’ve raised have moral relevance. I simply reject the idea that they have any such relevance, because I have never been offered any compelling reason to think they do.

Nate,
You have obviously never given up a child for adoption. It is a horrible heart wrenching experience. I would wish no girl should have to go through living with the fact that her child is out in the world and she has no means to know how it is doing or who is raising it. I have lived with that fact for 30 years. I carried my daughter for 9 months and held her and feed her after she was born. We have a connection.
Now abortion isn’t my first choice, but I don’t see it as taking a life, because the fetus can not survive at the early stages. I see it as extreme good karma for the soul of the fetus as it gives up this chance of life. That will ease their path in their next reincarnation.
I have heard some say that the soul plans out their path in life before they are reincarnated in order to achieve the highest possible levels of enlightenment. I would hate to think I actually picked out this life before hand, I am more on the thought that a general direction is laid out and the rest is up to us.
The main point is this is my way of thinking, my choices and the ability to have that choice should not taken away from me by someone who has a different thought process.
As for the number of abortions, I agree they need to be reduced. Education is the key to that. Students should have classes in parenting and conception issues no later than the 6th grade. They need to know how it will effect their lives to have a child and how they can prevent it from happening in the first place. Oh and don’t bother giving me crap about abstinence because all it takes is one time that they get over welled and its too late. Girls need to know that they can get pregnant at any point in their cycle and with little physical contact. Clearly this isn’t being taught at home or church with any success.
Again I can speak from experience as my daughter’s father was a good Catholic boy who went to church every week. His father the church elder had him sign papers saying there was no way he was the father. Thats good values for you, leave the girl to face everything alone. Thank the Goddess I had good family and friends for support. Not every woman/girl has that benefit.

Ruairi,
Doing the right thing is sometimes tough. No matter how hard it may be to give up a child for adoption (even, though, in the case I brought up, the child would have been raised by his or her grandparents, not some strangers), it wouldn’t for a minute change my opinion that even the unborn are of infinite worth and aren’t to be sacrificed so that the mother can feel good. Sorry, but perhaps you don’t realize that the model of my morality is a God who become a man in order to be tortured and killed for the sake of truth and justice, so I will not ever, under any circumstance, be tempted to change my view of morality just because the demands are tough.

I’ll say it now, probably because I’m feeling warm fuzzies over reading this thread… I really enjoy this dialogue. Though I sometimes get as carried away by my passions as the next person, this discussion is a great tool for solidifying one’s thoughts and reasoning abilities. All opinions aside, I appreciate the debate… I’ve become compulsive about seeing what people say next!… even nnmns, with whom I seldom agree, gives me the opportunity to ponder!

Michael:
“…is it wrong simply because the human person possesses an inviolable dignity regardless of whether or not he or she has any expectations about life?”
What gives the human person (and, I take it, fetus, embryo, blastocyst and zygote; what the heck, how about the sperm and egg??) this “inviolable dignity”?
Is it a god you believe in? If so you are in the untenable position of having to explain why your god aborts an unknowable but quite high number of fetuses in miscarriages every day.
If not a god, what human agency grants this dignity? I admit I’d like to think some powerful agency could do that because then wars, e.g. would go away along with executions, etc. But that hasn’t happened.
Could it be you are creating such a “dignity” in your mind and trying to impose it on women around the world? You and the Pope, maybe?
You seem to have given yourself the authority to determine when a “genuine moral difference” is established, and somehow I don’t think I or even Jesus could ever make your cut so I won’t try.
I have established that there is a real difference between killing a person and aborting a fetus; a larger difference earlier in the pregnancy but always a difference. That means people who talk about abortion as “killing” or “murder” are mis-speaking.
In fact, as far as brains and pain and fear and even conscious expectations you are doing a more serious thing when you participate in the murder of a cow or hog by eating a hamburger or pork chop than when a reasonably early term fetus is aborted. Think about it.
Oh, and I’m concerned that you seem to think all the abortions are due to some act of feeling good on the part of the woman. Well there’s always a man involved and often it’s a husband and not unusually the father of her other children. They may need an abortion for her health or because they’ve fallen on hard times or because contraception failed and they are not in a position for her to be pregnant. At one time, and it may still be true, abortion rates were higher among Catholics because they used real contraception so little.
And if the man is just some guy she knew a little too well why is the woman the one to bear all the burden of the act he was no doubt as least as enthusiastic about? We certainly have the ability now to identify the fathers of all such pregnancies; it would just involve getting some DNA from every male. Homeland Security may decide to do that anyway. Why aren’t you campaigning at least as hard to see all such fathers are identified and punished in some appropriate way? What do you think would be an appropriate way?
You really need to get off this kick of punishing the woman alone for an act of pleasure.

nnmns,
I think you’re directing your comments at me, not Michael.
“Is it a god you believe in? If so you are in the untenable position of having to explain why your god aborts an unknowable but quite high number of fetuses in miscarriages every day.”
That’s simply the problem of evil, which has always been a matter to be addressed in theology, but it by no means makes the religion “untenable.” There are countless ways around the problem; suffice it to say that, as far my beliefs God, God does not cause miscarriages.
“If not a god, what human agency grants this dignity? I admit I’d like to think some powerful agency could do that because then wars, e.g. would go away along with executions, etc. But that hasn’t happened.”
What human agency grants any value to any life, born or unborn? What human agency makes it so anyone ought to care about causing fear or pain, about destroying people’s expectations for their lives, or about killing people who have loving relationships with others?
“Could it be you are creating such a “dignity” in your mind and trying to impose it on women around the world?”
Yes, and I suppose if I had been alive in the ’40s and gone off to war to save the Jews, I’d have simply been imposing my fantasy of human dignity on the Germans, right? Give me a break. You would “impose” just as much on me by telling me I ought not kill or rape or rob from someone, but just because you disagree with me on the particular issue of abortion, you’re unwilling to grant that I have any genuine concern for human dignity by saying we ought not kill people just because they haven’t passed through the birth canal yet.
“You seem to have given yourself the authority to determine when a “genuine moral difference” is established, and somehow I don’t think I or even Jesus could ever make your cut so I won’t try.”
It’s called having an ethical debatet. I’m not claiming any authority. I’m asking you to provide with a reason to think that the differences you’ve stated are morally-relevant differences, because not all differences are morally relevant. The color of your shirt while you’re killing someone doesn’t seem to matter morally, and, unless you provide me with reasons, I have no reason to think that the amount of pain being caused is relevant either.
Basically, I’m saying if you have a point, make it; don’t just make a claim and accept me to bow down and accept it with no reason.
“In fact, as far as brains and pain and fear and even conscious expectations you are doing a more serious thing when you participate in the murder of a cow or hog by eating a hamburger or pork chop than when a reasonably early term fetus is aborted. Think about it.”
And here, you see, is a prime example of a difference that you have yet to provide any reason for me to believe is morally relevant. I asked you why the amount of pain matters, and you just seem to want to dodge that question, prefering I suppose instead to have me just uncritically accept everything you say.
“Well there’s always a man involved”
Yes, and he must share equally resonsibility for what they have mutually created.
“They may need an abortion for her health or because they’ve fallen on hard times or because contraception failed and they are not in a position for her to be pregnant.”
When hard times hit, someone needs to step up to the plate and help out. When the mother’s life is at risk, making a choice between her life and the life of the child may very well be a legitimate option she should have. None of this changes the fact that I think that abortion is in every case a tragedy, and in cases where the situation is less than dire, a moral crime.
“Why aren’t you campaigning at least as hard to see all such fathers are identified and punished in some appropriate way?”
I like how you can read a few of my posts on a news blog and wonder why I’m not “campaigning” for something that I just happen to have not posted about. How do you know all the things I advocate? Of course fathers should bear equal responsibility (and I’d go as far as to say in cases of rape, where the mother keeps the child, the man should spend his life in a forced labor program and provide for all the kid’s financial needs). I’m in no way trying to absolve men of responsibility, and neither is any other pro-life advocate I’ve ever met (and most of the people I’ve grown up around are ardently pro-life). We need to crack down on male irresponsibility. The thing to do, however, is not to lobby for women to have the same kind of license that men have always selfishly tried to claim.
“You really need to get off this kick of punishing the woman alone for an act of pleasure.”
You need to get off this kick of making unsubstantiated claims about what other people believe and what their motivations are.

Nate, thanks. I just did what Michael did to me elsewhere. Sorry, Michael; I apologize.
‘”Is it a god you believe in? If so you are in the untenable position of having to explain why your god aborts an unknowable but quite high number of fetuses in miscarriages every day.”
That’s simply the problem of evil, which has always been a matter to be addressed in theology, but it by no means makes the religion “untenable.”‘
Sorry, Nate, you don’t get off that easily. If you are a more or less conventional Christian your god is the biggest deity in town and there’s no excuse for it letting all those fetuses be aborted by “evil”. Unless, that is, it doesn’t really care. It’s my understanding the word “abortion” doesn’t show up in the Bible and to claim there’s mention requires some real stretching of meanings, the kind of thing Biblical literalists, at least, should hate. I’m not accusing you of being one.
“What human agency grants any value to any life, born or unborn? What human agency makes it so anyone ought to care about causing fear or pain, about destroying people’s expectations for their lives, or about killing people who have loving relationships with others?”
I’d say, ultimately, it’s the fear that similar things could happen to us or our loved ones and perhaps the generalization of that to “What if that happened to me or a loved one; how can I prevent it?” that has lead humans over recorded history to less and less allowance of taking human lives. Right now GWB is lowering the bar as are other “leaders” around the world but it’s still a lot higher than, say, five hundred years ago.
So you can’t imagine a morally relevant difference between, say, someone who tortures a person then kills him and someone who shoots him in the back of the head by surprise? Well, if I were on the killer’s jury I’d vote for more penalty for the torturer. I see a real difference there. Not that I want either killer running around. If you don’t see a difference I guess we are really different people and I never want you as president or prosecuting attorney or judge.
I can go along with you on the forced labor; now what about the guy who impregnates her during a one night stand or such? What should he have to do and what changes in laws are you campaigning for to accomplish that and the forced labor? I believe I’ve seen you repeatedly advocate anti-abortion laws but I don’t recall you ever advocating punishment for the guy before. Please assure me you’ve done that by showing me where you’ve done it. You have the opportunity to prove I made not only an unsubstantiated claim, but a false one.

“If you are a more or less conventional Christian your god is the biggest deity in town and there’s no excuse for it letting all those fetuses be aborted by “evil”. Unless, that is, it doesn’t really care.”
Again, you’re simply restating the problem of evil, not really making an argument for abortion. The same God who lets fetuses die also lets whole societies get wiped out by natural disasters, lets people rape and murder each other, and so forth. If anything, this is a challenge to the idea of God itself, not a reason why I, as a believer in God, should be okay with abortion.
I don’t know what you mean by “conventional Christian” (since every person I meet online seems to mean something different by phrases like that), but I don’t believe that God exercises meticulous control over creation. I believe God leaves room for both human and non-human freedom and chance, specifically freedom and chance that are redeemd through the cross. This is certainly not the place for a discussion of the problem of evil, but since this is one of my acedemic interests, I can point you to countless sources on the issue if you’re really interested in pursuing it.
“It’s my understanding the word “abortion” doesn’t show up in the Bible and to claim there’s mention requires some real stretching of meanings, the kind of thing Biblical literalists, at least, should hate. I’m not accusing you of being one.”
I’m neither a biblical literalist nor, in fact, a biblicist at all. I look to Christian tradition as a whole, and to reason and fundamental human experience to guide my thought. Christian tradition does, from its earliest days, speak clearly against killing babies in the womb (some writings actually use those words); it’s usually just seen as an extension of infanticide. Some of these books were once considered by many early Christians to be part of the “Bible,” and in fact some of them are still part of the Bibles of some of the Eastern churches.
“I’d say, ultimately, it’s the fear that similar things could happen to us or our loved ones”
That doesn’t sound very noble at all. Not to mention that fact that we don’t all fear the same things.
Well, what I were to fear that I had been aborted, or that I child I conceive is aborted? If you and everyone else are developing moral and legal codes based on nothing more than your fears, why can’t I be free to do the same? Why should I respect your fears at all, if I think I can disrespect them and manage to get away with it?
“So you can’t imagine a morally relevant difference between, say, someone who tortures a person then kills him and someone who shoots him in the back of the head by surprise?”
I can imagine a possible morally-relevant difference there, but I wouldn’t necessarily to reduce it to the formula that says whatever causes more pain and fear is necessarily more evil than what causes less. After all, as I was trying to get at with an example I used a few posts ago, I’d terribly more disgusted by someone who killed several people without pain and fear than someone who caused a little bit of pain or a little bit of fear but didn’t cause any lasting damage to anyone. Simply appealing to pain and fear is, well, too simple.
But I don’t want to base my moral thought on mere gut reactions to things, either, because everyone gut reactions are different, and they don’t really get us at any truth unless we critically analyze them. I was basically asking you to do just that, to give me a critical reason why pain and fear are morally relevant in the way you’re making them out to be, rather than just stating what you feel and then expecting me to agree with you. After all, if everyone just goes around saying how they feel, as is often the case in abortion debates, no real discussion ever takes place, and the debate just turns into two groups of idiots seeing who can scream more loudly than the other.
“now what about the guy who impregnates her during a one night stand or such? What should he have to do and what changes in laws are you campaigning for to accomplish that and the forced labor? I believe I’ve seen you repeatedly advocate anti-abortion laws but I don’t recall you ever advocating punishment for the guy before.”
There should be tough child support laws, and they should be strictly enforced. But these laws have to work in conjunction with laws that hold mothers to the same kind of responsibility; in other words, no merely elective abortions (serious health concerns can be taken into consideration, the rape issue can open up room for potentially more leniency–I’m not unaware that the world is full of tragic, lose-lose situations). Child support laws don’t make sense without tighter restrictions on abortion, since that would basically mean that the woman is exercising choice not just over her body but over the body of a man as well–she’s forcing him to use his body for a work to raise a child he had no legal right to determine would exist or not. So I’m advocating mutual responsibility for what people create together, and I’d fully support any law that would hold fathers more accountable.
But I’ve never really “lobbied” for any such law, mainly because I’ve never lobbied for any law, even laws against abortion. I mainly just talk to people, and when I talk to people long enough, I usually end up letting them know that outlawing abortion alone isn’t going to solve many problems. You have to create a culture of life, a culture that also holds fathers responsible, that doesn’t judge poor or unmarried women who end up with an unexpected pregnancy, and a culture of people who are willing to sacrifice some of their own luxuries to help out mothers and couples in need. It’s for this reason that my wife and I have decided we will pass up having children of our own if we are ever presented with the opportunity to spend our resournces elsewhere, like on helping out single mothers in our community or adopting children who might otherwise be aborted or abandoned. I do lobby for this, all the time, in the churches. As a theologian-in-training, it will undoubtedly be one of the things I lobby for for the rest of my life as well.

“I look to Christian tradition as a whole, and to reason and fundamental human experience to guide my thought. Christian tradition does, from its earliest days, speak clearly against killing babies in the womb (some writings actually use those words); it’s usually just seen as an extension of infanticide.”
Nate, I suspect you are not as informed about the history of Christian (prior to Luther, Catholic) thought on abortion as you think. As this site, which I recommend shows, Catholic opinion on abortion has changed a lot and for much of its history abortion, while discouraged, was not considered murder. In fact it has at times been looked on somewhat as Roe v. Wade, and even I, look at it.
‘”I’d say, ultimately, it’s the fear that similar things could happen to us or our loved ones”
That doesn’t sound very noble at all. Not to mention that fact that we don’t all fear the same things.’
Are you surprised that laws aren’t very often derived from noble reasons? Welcome to the real world. And no, we don’t all fear the same things and our “moral compasses” don’t all point in the same directions but over all we tend to fear dying and if we’ve seen people die because of arbitrary actions of people, we tend to work for laws that prohibit such things.
Sensible people do not fear being aborted; after all, if you can think about it it’s too late to abort you. If you worry about your “child” being aborted you need to be careful about where you plant your seed and how you support the recipient of such. (I presume you are and do and don’t really worry about that.)
“I’d [be] terribly more disgusted by someone who killed several people without pain and fear than someone who caused a little bit of pain or a little bit of fear but didn’t cause any lasting damage to anyone.”
So would I! A lot of other people would be grieving over those killed.
You might want to ponder the following example that was going around a couple years ago:
Suppose you and a two-year-old are in a facility where there are blastocysts (very early term products of pregnancy) and there’s a fire and for some reason you can either rescue the two-year-old or a container with five blastocysts. Which would you rescue?
If you say the five blastocysts it would seem to be consistent with your thinking, but I’d be very disappointed in you if that were your actual choice.
“I mainly just talk to people, and when I talk to people long enough, I usually end up letting them know that outlawing abortion alone isn’t going to solve many problems.”
You are absolutely right. There will always be abortions and outlawing abortions will just drive them, again, to unsafe ways to get abortions. That was the case in many states before Roe v. Wade and it will be again if that wise decision is overturned.
If you plan to go into religion I urge you to spend time chatting with jesterfyl, who often posts here (though he’s on vacation now) and is a preacher and seems to have a realistic and thoughtful approach.

The usual things have been said about abortion by the usual people. Everyone that is running for office of President, etc. also understands that a subject as abortion has many facets. It’s not enough to say it is wrong or it is right because there are many reasons why people feel as they do, pro and con. Religion, Philosophy, Health, Crime, Rights of the Mother and Father are all part of the contributing decisions of individuals for what is right for them. These decisions should not be decided by Popes, Ministers, our Government, belief.net posters or myself.