Obama: "I don't want them punished with a baby"

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.

is just about as reprobate as it comes.

Speaking in theological terms?

"is just about as reprobate as it comes.

Speaking in theological terms?"

Moonshadow, this is meaningless by itself.

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.

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.

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

And you are...

"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.

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.?

"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?

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?"

"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."

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.

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?

"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.

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!