But the pro-life position is really ant-abortion so let’s no sugar-coat it. The anti-abortion position does punish a teenager with a pregnancy because it offers no argument to increase social services to help that mother raise her child. It just points the finger at her for getting pregnant. Love and hypocrisy cannot co-exist and the lack of love for the post-partum life in the world is where the anti-abortion argument fails.
Want to make the position more plausible? Get more liberal with social support services and improve them. Otherwise it is theological window dressing for an otherwise anemic ethical philosophy that is both inconsistent and dare I say hypocritical.
The better president is the one who can make the more rational adjudication.

Actually, hypocrisy is as necessary for love as it is for politics. Neither can survive total consistency or honesty. Obama, in this case is actually being honest and it is an opinion that you would have to look long and hard to find a parent of a teenage daughter who does not share it.

ANY “body,” who is alive and is pro-choice (pro abortion) is the perfect definition of the word hypocrite. Obama has more than proven, that he is a hypocrite on many issues. Thinking that a baby is a “punishment” is just about as reprobate as it comes.

is just about as reprobate as it comes.
Speaking in theological terms?

But the pro-life position is really ant-abortion so let’s no sugar-coat it. The anti-abortion position does punish a teenager with a pregnancy because it offers no argument to increase social services to help that mother raise her child. It just points the finger at her for getting pregnant.
QFT

“is just about as reprobate as it comes.
Speaking in theological terms?”
Moonshadow, this is meaningless by itself.

“you would have to look long and hard to find a parent of a teenage daughter who does not share it.”
You would have to look long and hard to find a person who was reluctant to murder their own grandchild? I think not. I would tell her to have the baby and I would raise the kid.

Unless and until the government decides to lock up all pregnant women until they turn the former into the latter, some people will choose to not carry their pregnancy to term.
You would have to look long and hard to find a person who was reluctant to murder their own grandchild?
Murder requires intent. Not everyone on the planet looks at a blastocyst and sees a baby.
Nice hyperbole, though – nothing quite warms the blood like self-righteous indignation.

Stupid HTML.
Above this…
“Unless and until the government decides to lock up all pregnant women until they turn the former into the latter, some people will choose to not carry their pregnancy to term.”
…were links to pictures of: 1) a blastocyst – clump of cells in a sac – and 2) a baby – a drooling, breathing, eating, pooping, baby. One of those things is not like the other. Doing away with one of those things is merely excising some addition unwanted cells. Doing away with the other is murder. Not for any qualitative rason, but by virtue of the fact of their being: 1) a clump of cells and 2) a baby. I wonder why we haven’t seen “Zygote Gap” or “Fetal Gap” opening at the mall?
Of course, one can’t argue reality with a dogmatist: “A clump of cells is the same thing as a baby because it is, darn it.” so you win. Women, especially teenage women, who have a few cells surgically removed before their lives are ruined are murderers and should be locked up for the rest of their lives.
OOh! I know! We could burn them at the stake!

Since the anti-abortion position says nothing of the post-partum life, all of the issues raised above are reasonable according to the position. At base is that “we” cannot decide when life starts, so we therefore must assume it is at the earliest possible moment. Why? Bible says so.
It’s a fallacious position to argue. Not to say that abortion is good. We need to do what we can to stop it. But this means assessing the conditions that give rise to the action before simply eradicating it as a legal means to an end.
But that is not the anti-abortion rhetoric. The rhetoric is that abortion is murder from the time of conception. This is a deontological position where it does not matter what the conditions are that make abortion a likely means to solve “the problem” as it were. And that is the problem.

Oh man…”I don’t want them punished with a baby”?
Whew.
And this guy calls himself a Christian?

Yeah, he does. Just like the millions and millions of other pro-choice people who call themselves Christians.
And you are…

Apparently Niles does not like reading. I am as Christian as they come Niles. I would call my position, contra anti-abortion/pro-life. I don;t “like” abortion nor do pro-choice folks I know. But I think the pro-life/anti-abortion position is implausible.
By the way, stop judging Obama’s Christianity with an absurd ad hominem. That is certainly not Christian. How’s the plank in your eye doing Niles?

“I would tell her to have the baby and I would raise the kid.”
and that would be your choice. therefore you’re pro-choice.

How much stock can we put in the fox news sleez. This network is not the gospel,even if most christians think so. Stop kidding ourselves,we would vote for King kong if he was a pro-life or pro-choice GOP candidate.

Christians are so worldly in their thoughts,that it is hard to tell who is righteous,christians or Rush Limbaugh. Is Shaun Hanninty a christian? What kind of christian? A pew christian who haven’t met Christ yet.?

It’s time to read your bible, Fox news can not help you.

“offers no argument to increase social services to help that mother raise her child.”
That’s not true. I’m ardently pro-life/anti-abortion, and I think it’s of dire importance that we make it easier for a mother in this situation to raise her child. Many, many pro-lifers feel that way.
Let’s not make a sweeping generalization, ok?

“This network is not the gospel, even if most christians think so”
Gee, I didn’t know most of us thought so.
Thank goodness for these blogs. If it weren’t for the liberal posters informing me of what we Christians think, I would be lost with only the the Gospel and the Church. Thank you, Liberals. Thank you.

That’s not true. I’m ardently pro-life/anti-abortion, and I think it’s of dire importance that we make it easier for a mother in this situation to raise her child. Many, many pro-lifers feel that way.
Funny how it’s never people like you who get elected, isn’t it? It’s always the people who *do* wish to turn a pregnancy into a punishment on the pro-life side that we see paraded before the cameras and placed at the top of the ballot:
“It’s yer own damn fault for getting pregnant, now suffer! Oh – what do you mean you need medical care? Should have thought of that before you got pregnant, shouldn’t you?”

Thank you for this! I reposted it on my blog with my own commentary. Stop by and let me know what you think. Hopefully I will not have too many nasty comments! If so, I know where the delete button is! *grin*

“Not everyone on the planet looks at a blastocyst and sees a baby.” So, I take it you don’t hold to Obama’s position of late term abortions and infanticide of babies born despite the abortion attempt? Because there is no difference between those babies and babies born of mom’s who want them.

Drew, the pro-life view is pro-life, we believe in the sanctity of life. Man is made in the image of God and therefore has value.
“The anti-abortion position does punish a teenager with a pregnancy because it offers no argument to increase social services to help that mother raise her child. It just points the finger at her for getting pregnant. Love and hypocrisy cannot co-exist and the lack of love for the post-partum life in the world is where the anti-abortion argument fails.”
Haven’t you’ve heard of crises pregnancy centers?

“Drew, the pro-life view is pro-life, we believe in the sanctity of life. Man is made in the image of God and therefore has value.”
Nice to say it, but that is not practiced politically by proponents of pro-life. Who in the pro-life circuit would like to spend money to improve social programs? Know any good republicans who dig spending tax dollars on what might just be considered “socialist programs” by some? The rhetoric of anti-abortion needs to be irreducibly coupled with increased program spending and outcomes in social services. Sure I have heard of these crisis centers. A crisis in something aversive is it not? Which goes back to the correct definition of punishment.
So, who wants their daughter to be in such a crisis to require the services of such a center? Would you be eager to send your daughter to such a center for care if she was pregnant? I would not. They are understaffed and the number of trained professional counselors to be of effective help dwindles as publicly funded social welfare programs like these get the funding cut. This has resulted in increased privatization that is harder and harder to regulate since these centers are for-profit. The system is not working.
Besides, as Don Marquis argues quite well, the sanctity of life argument is implausible because it makes an arbitrary decision on what constitutes life as it is. From the perspective you raise, it also makes an arbitrary decision on what exactly constitutes an Image of God. Flesh and blood? Personhood? The ability to relate to another? Read up on his future of value position a bit and you will see exactly why a) the sanctity of life argument is implausible and b) why the pro-life stance is generally implausible.
To say that the anti-abortion/pro-life position does not view the unwed pregnant mother as a symbol of the fall and as something toxic to a pre-conceived and arbitrary notion of social order is simply to construct a strawman born of naivety or political expediency.
At least have the sanctity of life position work for all life. But the callous remark that there are “crisis centers” bespeaks of the lack of pragmatic action to substantiate the position.

So, I take it you don’t hold to Obama’s position of late term abortions and infanticide of babies born despite the abortion attempt? Because there is no difference between those babies and babies born of mom’s who want them.
There’s a big difference – the babies of moms who want them were carried to term and didn’t have toxic saline flushed over them, destroying their skin and corroding their muscles and organs, or weren’t dismembered in utero.
That, I think, is a BIG difference, and one that makes it a truly distinctive distinction.
I, personally, hold to the position that it is up to the patient and her doctor to decide, which is the same position Obama takes.
The “aborted babies born alive” situation is a canard – a red herring – an outlying case designed to obfuscate and deflect because though it almost never happens, it is the number one screech from the rabidly anti-choice as the reason to outlaw all abortions.
86.7% of all abortions are done in the first trimester, according to the most recent numbers I’ve seen. Only 1.4% happen after 20 weeks, and of that small percentage, even a smaller percentage than that falls into the bucket that people want to roast Obama over.
An abortion that is being performed after viability probably has a medical reason for doing so. If the abortion is unsuccessful, it probably means there’s now an expelled fetus with serious damage to it. I don’t know how to feel about that, and since it’s not my decision, I’m okay with saying leave that up to the doctor and the patient at that moment.

Besides – what are y’all worried about anyway?
Are anyof you going to feed those approximately 1.8 million unwanted children per year? Are any of you going to raise the results of a botched abortion, with all of the medical funding that would require?
Who among you is ready to take that on without raising taxes to do so?

Personally, I am glad both Obama and Clinton are pro-choice. No one has the right to tell a woman she can’t have an abortion if she needs one. (she decides if she needs one, no one else). The anti-abortion people don’t have to have one. Do the anti-abortion people really think that reversing Roe V. Wade will stop abortions? Women will either leave the country for one (but not all can afford that), or go to a hack with a suit case full of equipment, or get out the trusty wire coat hanger and try to do it themselves. Women had known how to abort unwanted pregnancies for centuries. Fortunately in this country it is legal, thus offering safe terminations. I agree with Obama, I wouldn’t want a child who gets pregnant to have to carry to term. There are already too many girl children with children, who BTW, they can’t feed or take care of. As was mentioned above, the late term abortions are IMO only performed under certain circumstances. Those decisions made by patient and doctor…no one else. (as should be any medical procedure).
So I’m glad Obama made his position clear…and if he is the Democratic candidate,he’s got my vote, for that a lot of other reasons. He also made clear that he is teaching his girls morals and responsibility, but so have many other parents. Hormones take over and there is a pregnancy. It happens. The girl should be able to have an abortion safely and privately.

“Are any of you going to feed those approximately 1.8 million unwanted children per year? Are any of you going to raise the results of a botched abortion, with all of the medical funding that would require?
Who among you is ready to take that on without raising taxes to do so?”
Right on meh. That is precisely the issue that makes the “pro-life” position window dressing for what it really is: anti-abortion. Pro-life republicans are so freakish about social programs that these simply do not come into play to leverage the position. This is why the position is implausible.

A Baby is not a punishment. A baby is a blessing. If you are stupid enough to get pregnant, when you do not want or cant afford to care for a child then dont have sex or wear a condom while on birth control and make sure the man pulls out! An innocent child should not be killed because its parents were selfish. That baby is being punished, NOT the parents! Its considered murder to kill a child but If you kill an unwanted pregnancy its suppose to be ok? How is that different or fair? Be responsible people, dont kill another life because you are immature and irresponsible and ignorant! Obama should have been aborted because he will be punishing us if he becomes president!

i am a woman, and I believe a woman has the right to choose whether or not she has a baby, but she makes that decision BEFORE deciding to have sex…21% of women have had an abortion,70% of women who’ve had abortions didnt use ANY form of protection, and 43% of women getting abortions have had AT LEAST one before so all the feminists out there crying out that women are strong need to start living up to that claim and be responsible and strong enough to use protection….that would reduce unwanted pregnancies by a lot and then those 30 percent will be a blessing to all the parents seeking adoption….accidents happen, i have a friend who not only had a condom break but the morning after pill failed as well, and i see her in therapy years after because of the horrid experience and the regret she feels….if women want to claim to be strong, be strong enough to accept the situation, be strong enough to take the difficult path…we are teaching our children how to find the easy way out, making unprotected and irresponsible sex more appealing cuz it can always be “taken care of”…stop fooling yourselves that an unborn baby is not a person, at what point in the pregnancy does a blob of cells become a person? oh today one more cell divided so its a person? that makes no sense, but its certainly EASIER to think its just a blob of cells…own up to the consequences of your actions, and you will probably find that the baby was not a punishment and when you look into your babys eyes be glad that you didnt kill it…when was the last time you heard someone say “i wish i never had my son or daughter”??? cuz that would be MESSED UP!

nice post,I like the post thank you