The only thing that will make anti-abortion folks happy is to get rid of Roe V Wade. The new platform might draw a few opponents to the Democrates, but unless that platform says that there will not be funds for the procedure, many will stick with the Republicans.

I absolutely support freedom of choice and absolutely oppose re-criminalizing abortion. That said, I think that the issue is not simply a dispute between “enlightened liberals” and “redneck Bible-thumpers.” To the hard-core anti-abortionist, there is no moral difference between destroying a microscopic clump of cells and destroying a 9-month fetus just before labor begins. To the rest of us, there is a difference — but that very fact means that we all recognize that there is a legitimate moral issue here, at least at some point in pregnancy.
The problem with political rhetoric on the subject is that it has been so shallow. Republicans strut about with Bibles in hand, making loud religious noises as they pander to the most theocracy-inclined of our citizens. Democrats, as usual, seem unable to do much more than stand about ineffectually, making bleating noises of distress.
So I welcome any political attempt to come to grips with this issue in a serious and responsible manner, starting with what should be a universally acceptable goal: reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that occur. There can be a debate on how to achieve that, but a debate thrives on fact and logic, not dogmatic assertion.

Let’s hope it helps several people who are coming to realize there’s a lot more to morality than opposing abortion and homosexuality.

If you really want to reduce abortions, then why do something half way the democrats party symbol isn’t half a donkey). The republicans symbol is a full elephant. Why not reduce it all the way. If you have breast cancer do you want to only reduce it, or wouldn’t you rather eradicate it. This half way logic is akin to the demo demolition to incent children cRATS, driving around with the gas light on so much it burns out. Saying you want to drill less on innocent children instead of not drilling at all is absurd. Yet to drill in dirt, rock, and water is somehow a sin.Go all the way to save the planet and only a little way to save innocent babies lives is just stupid. I think Obama and Biden are doing the bid’en or bidding for evil. It likes dead babies, 50 million strong in 30 years needs to get to zero,not 25 million, death isn’t something you can barter with and who do we to think we are to have the power to create such planned destruction of such pure innocent sweet life… Why not starve evil all the way to death when you have a chance why just wound it.Why even just feed it a crumb thats dumb. Starve evil don’t feed it. Roe from Roe vs Wade is now pro life why don’t catholic bidden and obama change and be real pro lifers, why be halfway about. Insist a babies life is worth going all the way to the golden life, it’s worth it.Let it rise like a gold medal flour. Like a flower. Does B. oBAma and Joey, pick only half a flower? Barrack was praising china economy if he really wants to reduce abortion why is he praising their booming abortion business? What is the price of a life. I say it’s worth going all in for, for all of it. In Texas hold em do you fold pocket aces twins or do you abort them? Kids in the hall are worth more than cards. Shouldn’t be just a discount bargain basement offering of hate to a growing human being. After all where is the man’s right in abortion, where is the childs right. Why can only women choose to eradicate a man’s baby? If it’s her body then she can take care of it on her own, after all it came from her body too. If i’m forced to provide for this child when it’s out of the womb, i want rights when it’s in the womb. It’s sad we have two men running for the two highest offices in the land and they don’t want to change thing back to the way they were for over 190 years in the USA. Let’s change things back to the way things were when their were no abortions when JOhn Kennedy was president. JOhn Kennedy would have never allowed the massacre of innocent children, or like Barack in the infants born alive act,John Kennedy would have saved the kids. Never would have voted for partial abortion like barrack. half a ticket voting against this deplorable practice,isn’t good enough. In the infants Born alive are where all Repubilcans and all Democrats in Illinois wanted to get doctors to help these almost aborted kids who survived, everyone in Illinois voted to rescue the kids.Barack Obama didn’t vote for it he stood up and said this would be a burden to help dying innocent children. I hope Robinette thinks about that when he is recieving communion.

Well Mike you say a lot of things. I’ll address a few of those.
First there never was a time when there were no abortions. When they are illegal women have them anyway, often under dangerous conditions.
I’m not sure what you mean by “evil” but if it’s e.g. Satan, why would “he” like dead babies. If Satan existed and wanted chaos he’d surely want more and more people because that’s when wars and such get started, when people are fighting over resources. Think about that.
Blastocysts, zygotes, embryos and fetuses (bzefs) are not “pure innocent sweet life”. You’ve watched Bambi too often. In fact bzefs’ only goal is to live and if they had to suck the life out of their mother to do so, they would. Fortunately that rarely happens. But they are parasites; often wanted parasites, but parasites.
Regarding John F. Kennedy, he made some powerful statements about a politician’s religion and his/her duty to those who elected him or her. This appeared in Look Magazine:

Whatever one’s religion in private life may be, for the office-holder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts – including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state.

Then in an address to Protestant clergy in Houston he said:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute – where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote – where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference – and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish – where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source – where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials – and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

I do not speak for my Church on public matters – and the Church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come before me as President – on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling, or any other subject – I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

I find those words both unequivocal and necessary from someone who’s clergyman may try to influence his vote, like unfortunately any Catholic in these days. Joe Biden is going to need to make an equivalent, if probably less eloquent, statement.

MikeW.
The government and/or religion doesn’t have the right to tell women that they don’t have a right to a legal, save abortion, if the need arises. The best solution, of course, is to teach children,starting in middle school, the “facts of life”,and to be responsible for their sexual behavior, how to prevent pregnancy (condom use being one) if they decide they want to have sex, as well as how to prevent getting STD’s.(again condoms). This is the best way to stop unplanned pregnancy. However, not all children, or adults are going to be careful and will get pregnant and that can lead to an abortion. Even preaching abstinence doesn’t quite cut it. Children having children…not a good thing. In the case of incest, is it OK for a child to carry to term? But there are many cases where an adult woman needs to terminate…rape, medical reasons, not being able to feed yet another child or even a first child, etc.
As to going back to before Roe V. Wade. Do you really think there were no abortions then? If they could afford it, women went overseas, or if they couldn’t do that, went to the back alley hacks, and either died or ruined their chances of ever being pregnant again…or just used the trusty coat hanger. No, returning to JFK’s time isn’t a good idea at all.

nnmns,
Blastocysts, zygotes, embryos and fetuses (bzefs), and parasites.
You make life seem alien but as a mother I can tell you that I never treated my child as any of those things. Is there a difference between life at 2 weeks and life at 2 months? Yes. Is it the mother who decides the value of that life? No. Is it the government who decides the value? No.
Who decides the value? We do, through thoughtful discussion, contemplation, and open minds.
Your perception is one that presents the bzefs in an almost evil way, as if its only purpose is to do harm to the mother.
Your description of the bzefs is not so much different than how you would describe a baby just born. Would you advocate the mother deciding to end its life? Why or why not?

Yet again, the most prevelent pro-choice attack on pro-life is that we are moronic, theocratic sheep, hellbent on taking over the nation, no pun intended. Its an old jab that doesn’t work folks. Pax!

Political platforms are like job descriptions. They involve hundreds of hours of committee work, pages of statements an explanations, and fill whole drawers of files. And they are sure to include nothing of the many things that the identified job (or platform) involves.
Nobody cares about job descriptions or political platforms.
Voters want to know what helps a candidate make decisions, who do they turn to for advice and strength, who their adversaries are and who their allies are. When it comes down to a truly difficult decision you can bet it was not covered in any political platform or job description.

C: “You make life seem alien”
I was responding to the saccharin “pure innocent sweet life” as should have been clear from the context. Blastocyst, zygote, embryo and fetus are correct biological terms for what we’re talking about here; it’s false to talk about “babies” or “children” or “unborn babies”. Maybe “unfinished babies” but I’m sticking to what’s right.
As for a bzef’s purpose, to the extent it thinks and has one I presume it’s to eat. I don’t think it’s in there thinking about philosophy or what a nice person mom is. Certainly not in the earlier parts of its development.
As for a baby, that’s a whole different thing. As I just told someone else I’d give a baby all the rights to life humans have in whatever country the baby is born in. We have to draw a line somewhere and that’s an obvious place. But also a baby, unlike a bzef, is there for everyone to see and interact with and care for and be entertained by (hopefully). I could give more reasons but that’s enough for now.

Speaking of fetuses, here’s a big old one:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080825.html

Interestingly, there is rational place to draw a line that is not “the instant the sperm hits the egg” — and, in a way that I personally find meaningful, it is consistent with religious beliefs. The oft-cited passage from John 1:1 refers to the “Logos,” usually translated as “Word” but also meaning Mind, Reason, Rationality, Thought, etc. In physiological terms that we would apply to a fetus, these characteristics cannot be present until higher-level cerebral activity begins. It is noteworthy that we define the end of human life by the cessation of higher-level cerebral activity (“brain death”), so it makes sense to me that we can define the onset of human life by the beginning of cerebral activity, which I believe usually occurs in the second part of the first trimester of pregnancy.
Now, religious people who oppose abortion sometimes cite passages (in Jeremiah, I think) to indicate that God cares about us long before we are born; but the Bible also indicates that God, when he was in one of his divinely dyspeptic moods, did not refrain from dashing babies’ heads on the rocks. So the Bible is no good guide on this topic.
I do not denigrate those who have a moral objection to abortion. I would hope that we can stop calling each other nasty names and work together to find ways of reducing the numbers of unwanted pregnancies.

nnmns,
Excellent response to all of this. I think astronomy is a greater challenge to “intelligent design” than Evolution. So what if this is simply our perspective on a three dimensional reality – it looks cool. Sadly it is like using clouds to prove there is a Heaven.
Heretic for Christ
It is good to see your moniker back among the steadfast troops here! Your third paragraph sums up everything I think these forums represent. I love your phrase, “Divinely dispeptic”!

Nnmns,
We are all kind of like parasites, don’t you think?
There are more ways to describe the beginning of life than in biological terms, which you seem to cling to without consideration to the spiritual side of things.
Let’s face it, we all know that there is a difference between a baby and a fetus. If the difference wasn’t obvious, there would be a lot more outrage against the abortions being committed.
If you and I believed there were really babies being killed by the droves in a building we would probably be trying to bring those buildings down faster than you can say Blastocystzygoteembryofetus but we know that’s not happenning and so do Pro Lifers.
Maybe it’s just because most of them think prayer will help the most but I doubt it.
And I’m not sure it is wrong to refer to a fetus as a child. I thought of the growing life inside of me as my child immediately.
I don’t think “unfinished babies” is a good term either, unless you tend to describe yourself as an “unfinished man” which wouldn’t devalue your life anyway.
Newborns don’t really give much love back. In fact, my four year old doesn’t give much love back. I feel pretty unappreciated most of the time.
We don’t value life because we philosophise or because we think our mom is nice.
You would give rights to a baby based on the country it was born into?
Do you really think countries are good at providing moral authority?
We can contemplate drawing the line somewhere but there is no solid line.
Interaction with a human being isn’t what gives that life value. You seem to think the logic in that is self-evident but I don’t see any rational support for it.

“I don’t think “unfinished babies” is a good term either, unless you tend to describe yourself as an “unfinished man” which wouldn’t devalue your life anyway.”
Actually at my age and condition, “overdone man” might be more appropriate.
“Let’s face it, we all know that there is a difference between a baby and a fetus.”
Apparently not, what with all the people talking about “baby killers” and such.
“I thought of the growing life inside of me as my child immediately.”
Probably you were looking ahead; you obviously wanted your child(ren) which is as it should be. A woman who didn’t want it might not think of it as her “child”. Anyway here are some definitions of “child” off the internet (Google “define: child” without the quotation marks.):
a young person of either sex; “she writes books for children”; “they’re just kids”; “`tiddler’ is a British term for youngster”
a human offspring (son or daughter) of any age; “they had three children”; “they were able to send their kids to college”
an immature childish person; “he remained a child in practical matters as long as he lived”; “stop being a baby!”
a member of a clan or tribe; “the children of Israel”
As you can see a bzef doesn’t fit nicely into those.
“You would give rights to a baby based on the country it was born into?”
I can’t give rights to a baby but countries can so that’s what I said.
“Do you really think countries are good at providing moral authority?”
Not usually. Whom do you think is good at providing moral authority? But countries provide and take away rights.

nnmns,
LOL your great compassion for the weakest of the human family is heart wrenching. I wish all pro-choicers were so warm and loving…I say as I swim away in oceans of sarcasm. Pax!

jkans I was raised a conservative so my store of compassion is likely sort of short, but I have a fair bit for actual humans.