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Rogelio V. Solis / AP file
Abortion foe Cal Zastrow, second from left, stands outside Jackson Women's Health Organization Inc., Mississippi's only abortion clinic, with other protesters on January 11.
Forty years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down many state restrictions on abortion with Roe v. Wade, women who want to terminate a pregnancy face a growing number of roadblocks in many parts of the country.
Last year, 19 states enacted a total of 43 provisions limiting access to abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute. That was half the number that went into effect the previous year, but still the second-highest number since 1985.
"The laws that have been passed, in the last couple of years especially, really make women walk through a gauntlet to get abortions, throughout the country," said Eric Ferrero, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood.
Eight states now require women seeking abortion to have ultrasounds, after Virginia lawmakers passed a measure in 2012. Three states also enacted laws that require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, which can deny them for a variety of reasons.
Louisiana banned abortions after 20 weeks. Utah tripled its mandatory waiting period to 72 hours. A Montana ballot initiative mandated parent notification for abortions on minors under age 16.
In at least four states -- North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Mississippi -- there is only one clinic.
"When you're the only provider in a state, you become a target," Tammi Kromenaker, director of the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, N.D., recently told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.
The fate of Mississippi's sole clinic, in Jackson, is up in the air. As of mid-January, it had not been able to comply with a new law requiring providers have hospital admitting privileges. If the clinic is shut down, Mississippi would become the first state where getting an abortion is impossible.
Forty years after the Roe v. Wade ruling, Rachel Maddow reports on what it's like for the people who are trying to preserve abortion access in the four states where there remains only one legally operating clinic, and the extreme duress they endure at the hands of anti-abortion extremists who would deny American women their Constitutional right to an abortion.
The erosion is happening as the rate of abortions has leveled off at about 15 per 1,000 women after a steady decline, according to the Centers for Disease Control. At the same time, public support for abortion rights appears to be stable or growing.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found 54 percent of adults think abortion should be legal always or almost all of the time -- the biggest percentage since the question was first asked a decade ago. Seventy percent don't want Roe v. Wade to be overturned, the highest number since 1989.
But abortion opponents say there's another statistic worth noting: Most Americans don't want public funding of the procedure.
"A majority of Americans do not want their tax dollars being used to fund abortions," said Mallory Quigley, a spokeswoman for the Susan B. Anthony List, which is part of an effort to strip $60 million in women's-health funding from Planned Parenthood.
U.S. law prohibits federal funding of most abortions, and only 17 states fund abortions for low-income women, most of them under court order. But abortion advocates argue that any government funding of Planned Parenthood for other health services -- from family planning to gynecology exams -- essentially frees up money it can use to provide abortions.
A scorecard put out by Quigley's group says officials in Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin have moved to cut funds for the women's health group.
Jan. 22, 1973: NBC's Garrick Utley and Betty Rollin report on the landmark decision by the Supreme Court on the issue of abortion.
Some state efforts are tied up in court; in others, Planned Parenthood was able to obtain direct federal grants to fill the gap. In Texas, the organization lost a court battle to hold onto funding until a trial.
Ultimately, though, Planned Parenthood believes it will prevail against state efforts to slash its programs, either through legal action or public pressure on lawmakers.
"What we've seen over the last two years is the public doesn’t want these preventive health services to be defunded and the courts won’t allow it," Ferrero said.
Related: NBC/WSJ poll: Majority, for first time, want abortion to be legal
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Anyone who does not like our laws should leave the United States, Not stay here and try to circumvent our current laws. I really think that the Republican leaders who are putting up roadblocks for any citizen to circumvent the laws of our country should be arrested and put in prison for the crime of treason, yes that is any individual or state that puts extra things onto a Federal Law to try to make it difficult for any person to abide with that law. It seems that mostly Red States and Republicans are interfering with the Rights of a person, throw all persons in Prison who are circumventing our Laws.
Anyone who does not like our Constitution should leave the United States, Not stay here and try to circumvent our current Constitution. I really think that the Democrat leaders who are putting up roadblocks for any citizen to circumvent the Constitution of our country should be arrested and put in prison for the crime of treason, yes that is any individual or state that puts extra things onto the Constitution to try to make it difficult for any person to abide with that law. It seems that mostly Blue States and Democrats are interfering with the Rights of a person, throw all persons in Prison who are circumventing our Constitution.
What a foolish statement, I guess those that were disputing slavery laws were trying to circumvent and should have been thrown in prison. That truly was an idiotic statement made by someone who cleary feels threatened.
Amen. Nice reply to the foolishness Cuban. And hang in there Vern!
This anti-abortion crap is all based on religion
For all of you Holy Rollers who like to stick your noses in other people's business, go look up 'Council of Carthage' and see where your Bible came from. Guess what? It's incomplete and full of rewrites. You put your faith into a book a bunch of old white guys put together 1700 years ago.
While you're at it, how about you petition your churches to allow the government to tax them so we can use all this Church money to pay for the children you're trying to force women to have because getting an abortion is so against your 'God'?
Hypocrites. You're all mental.
philly/Gabriel,
What do you follow? What feels good? Now you know why we have so many abortions.
*yawn*
Explain to me again why your Jesus and God hate babies? I mean unless you don't REALLY believe in the soul, heaven or God an aborted fetus misses a life on earth, to go directly into the "kingdom".
Listen, make a few more additions to your book and pretend they are from God. If you don't want an abortion, nobody is going to make you. You have to go to China for that.
If you DON'T want OTHER people to have freedom to do things you don't believe in, hop the first piece of transportation to somewhere else. Goodbye, good riddance.
Shouldn't you fools be standing at your local capitols threatening to shoot Obama in the face if he takes away your AR's and your God given right to blast your fellow man in the face if he looks at you cross eyed or takes your crappy Amy Grant CD's?
Or maybe another rally about the mothers of those children who were BORN robbing the system blind expecting help with things like...food for it. Disgusting piles of human waste sucking the government dry with their need for food stamps and help with adequate housing? CHRIST it's not YOUR fault they weren't born to better more educated parents why on earth should you have to be "Christian" toward them?! You went to church TWICE last month AND can quote scripture from your favorite VERSION of the selective truth that is the current incarnation of the Bible.
You really are a gift to the heathens. Thank you for all you give. Truly. If it weren't for your hateful ignorance and bigotry what would the lesser people do? To know the current perverted Christian version of Christ and God and the most popular version of his biblical truth (at the moment) is to be exempt from all those pesky commandments and human decency. God Bless. I mean Jesus can't bless because by the current Christian religious standard he is a dirty worthless heathen too. But you know, whatever.
Pray with me my fellow worthless piles of human garbage:
Dear Lord, please God in heaven (or wherever) save us from your organized followers. Please help them stop hating, lying and covering up or committing child rape. Please God help us to take the teachings of Christ and Christianity BACK from the lying worms who have perverted it for personal gain and political influence. Help the ignorant mass that is humanity that we must get our own lives set to perfection and fully understood before we even begin to tell others about the path THEY should take.
Remind them that that book of truth they beat everyone over the head with has a long documented history of tampering by men with motives. Every time they thump that sucker remind them that they thump a pagan man's effort to make his people easier to rule.
A-freakin-men
No one is pro-abortion. They are not fun and they do not occur without damage of some sort. It is not my place to tell another anything, least of all that they MUST bring a child into the world that finds it a monstrous burden and drain and will treat it and it's parents with nothing but disgust and contempt. We will not pretend that a childhood languishing in foster care before 18 years of neglect and disregard dumps them into a life of "sucks to be you" is a wonderful thing.
I believe in God and I believe in the soul and I fear not one bit for a fetus that does not make it into this life. Not when it is aborted, not when it is lost by accident or illness. I don't think children who die in infancy or toddlerhood are left to wander confused in hell. I don't need a book, I have a lifetime worth of truth. Nothing, least of all cowards and fools will corrupt that.
You will never be able to force women to submit to your garbage. The rest of us will be standing in your way FOREVER. We are there no matter the woman's choice, and we always will be. We are there with an ear and comfort if the choice is made to abort. We are there with all the time, compassion and supplies we can muster if she comes to term and keeps it or places it for adoption.
YOU will go to church. You will judge. You will vote for the guy most willing to keep cash in your pocket by cutting as much as he can from any and all programs for those in need.
Why on earth would we care what YOU want? You care more than enough about yourselves.
What?
Considering that 53 to 54 percent of the population of the United States is female, I just wonder how much longer, that they will allow a bunch of men, decide what is best for them?
What part of choice don't you get in "pro-choice"???
When you take away their choice, then ACTUALLY someone else is deciding for them.
If women could do it, take over, why have the not done it yet?
The for-profit abortuary chain doing business as "Planned Parenthood" was founded by Nazi eugenicist Margaret Sanger, as a way to control the black population. They've even been caught accepting donations earmarked to murder only black babies. Fully 70% of the infanticides committed by aborticians at their abortuaries every year, are committed against blacks. Maybe that's why, after over 230 years, blacks still only make up about 12% of the population.
Racists.
Proof??
Name just one of those infants
Really?? Her and Goebbels were best buds???
I'm guessing you watch alot of FOX.
You know all the misinformation talking points, huh Vern? How about keeping your fact-less, faith-based beliefs to yourself.
William, do a quick google or youtube search for " Planned Parenthood Accepting Racist Donations To Abort Black Babies ".
Unless you're sticking your head in the sand, this stuff is not hard to uncover.
Stephan, if me exercising my First Amendment Constitutional Right to freedom of speech makes you uncomfortable in any way, I'd like to call your attention to my mistletoe belt buckle.
Vern-1642229
MYTH vs. FACTMyth: Planned Parenthood has racist roots and its founder, Margaret Sanger, supported “black genocide.”FACT: Several independent media outlets have reviewed the facts and found that these claims are false and wildly misleading. PolitiFact gave this claim its worst rating, “Pants on Fire.” They say, “We found no evidence that Sanger advocated - privately or publicly - for anything even resembling the „genocide‟ of blacks, or that she thought blacks are genetically inferior.” The Washington Post gave a similar claim made by Herman Cain four “Pinocchios.” They write, “No matter what you think of abortion, it seems pretty clear that Cain is spouting historical fiction. There is no evidence that Sanger ever sought to kill black babies, either through the Negro Project or any other endeavor.” The fact is Planned Parenthood opposes discrimination in any form and has worked to address racial and economic bias in access to health care for 95 years.Myth: Planned Parenthood is targeting African Americans for abortions, and builds its health centers in African American neighborhoods.FACT: Planned Parenthood is committed to ensuring
Straight from Wikipedia:
"In 1926, Sanger gave a lecture on birth control to the women's auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey.[49] Sanger's talk was well received by the group, and as a result, "a dozen invitations to similar groups were proffered."[49]"
Gee Vern, they took the money and then used it anyway they wanted.
Vern, get me a magnifying glass...I can't see your facts.
Sanger was a Eugenics...Which was thought to be cutting edge Science at that time.
Those are the facts and, regardless...Sanger did not set up Planned Parenthood as a vehicle to promote a racist agenda.
What Hitler did to the Jews, is like spit in a rain barrel compared to what the for-profit abortuary chain doing business as "Planned Parenthood" has done to Americans.
Adolf Hitler only murdered 6 million Jews. "Planned Parenthood" has murdered over 50 million Americans.
Maybe Hitler would have gotten better press if he'd referred to his anti-semitic genocide as "Planned Jews".
Wow, your christian compassion really shines through with that statement.
hmmm look at all the men in that picture... big surprise!! <insert eye roll here>
It is ironic that jack-booted DemoKKKrats march lock-step to the party line about "choice", and yet virtually every female who's ever aborted her baby, will tell you that she did it because she felt SHE HAD NO CHOICE.
Evidence??
Proof???
Polling data??
I would love to hear from one,,One ..anyone of the libertards,,why an innocent child, gets less protection than a mass murder? You will protest outside a prison to save a guy who has murdered ten children,,,,,yet in your mind a child deserves no such protection. Don't try and absolve yourself that it's "not a being" Forget it. It has a heartbeat, it feels pain, and moves spontaneously. Late term? You allow that a complete being be allowed to partially exit the woman..it's tiny skull cracked open,,and the brain evacuated with a vacuum, just so you can slide in under the law? REALLY?
Yes you have a choice,,,and you made that choice when 1) you had sex 2) you had sex without contraception. There are THOUSANDS waiting to adopt babies...THOUSANDS,,,so your point in KILLING IT?
You don't get to make moral/medical decisions for others. Don't like abortion, don't get one.
There are approximately 400,000 children in foster care right now in the USA.
Many more than are wanted, as usual your facts are wrong.
Moreover, how many have you adopted you hypocrite??
Stephen....many laws are based on morals. Your statement is as witty as me saying "Don't like murder, don't commit one". If murder bothers you, too bad. Seriously, get a clue.
@: William-360414, Jack-295117, peteMT, Ines-1159800, PatriotM, bw-522378, gustifer, Lionfish, marsupial-3262721, SallyAnn-4595694, Bob O'Connor, phillykevin2
I enjoyed reading all of the comments and responses to them - and I must say I am horrified.
First of all, I'll let you know who I am. I'm a student, an engineer, a son, a brother, a grandson, a continual learner, a realist and futurist. And most important - I am what we call "human". I am part of a species that is the pinnacle of "life". I can think, develop, reason, create, dream, emote, and communicate.
I wouldn't be here in "life" if my mother and father hadn't gotten together and procreated. That is how our species continues. We are procreated, we live, and then die. This is undeniable; it is just the way "life" goes. I wouldn't have the tools and knowledge that I use today and tomorrow to do what humans do if it weren't for other humans doing what humans do.
I know that being human is full of problems and challenges - we eat and breath to power our bodies. That fact alone is troublesome. There are issues with the planet that we live on, where we grow our food to eat. In fact, all organisms we consider to be "life" intake something to power themselves.
So, being as though we are the "top" of the food chain, and the most complex organism of "life" known, we formed a society. Putting aside all morals and beliefs and ideologies, we finally have ourselves order. Order, is short form for where we can all live "life" as we know it to be, in relative harmony. There are still problems with food, society, and other humans we live with. These are flaws that we, as human beings, are able to figure out because, you guessed it - we are humans.
Here is the point: humans - US - are the most important thing that ever happened. It is those humans before me who taught me what "life" was and what made up a human, who invented, who thought, who reasoned, who laughed, who loved, who cried, who sacrificed for me to live in the world that I do now. I enjoy my fellow humans who I know will go on and do things for others in the future, and do the same thing humans have always done. We will see the stars, create wondrous things, awe at things unknown, and dream about all the experiences we will come to meet.
Conclusion: I am utterly disgusted that any one human being - US! - could ever think of depriving or killing any "life" or "being" that we consider human, from the atomic scale to the final form. IN ANY WAY. Or even causing harm. I am appalled at the lack of empathy that EACH ONE OF YOU SHOW FOR EACH OTHER! Life sucks - it really sucks - but we are HUMAN. We get around it. We learn for the better, and live on. It takes everyone of us - every single one of us - not to pass blame, not to do nothing, not to take advantage - to work things out. I am thankful for living, and for those living around me, not because they are a waste of space, but because someone made a sacrifice over petty, political, personal, religious, or theoretical reasons to let me and others, rather than die, live to benefit other humans like you and me.
If you can get off your soap box I have lots of empathy for all life forms not just Humans. So many of these life forms are at the edge of extinction or suffer terrible lives. Why because of pressure from Human population levels. Growing expedentially year by year. At the happy clappers would have us beleive that the world is infinatly bountiful as we plunder and rape its limited resources. Global warming is telling us to reign in the triumphant march of human populations. Not for the benefit of the planet but for the sake of our own survival as a species. So while you may beleive that every live created is sacred. I say think of what kind of life these potential people can expect to live in a depleted world. Yes we should treasure human life but we must be aware that every human life leaves a imprint on the planet. For the sake of the happiness of future generations limitations must be placed on human populations now. Or do we kick the can down the road for future generations to suffer the consequences of our inability to act now. Contraception and abortion planed parenthood must be the beggining of national debate on the limits of human population.
Maybe if those people who are so against abortion would adopt the baby that is born to the women who do not want them would put up or SHUT UP then the woman forced to carry the baby would not abuse it and kill it by torturing it things would be a lot better. But as it is the anti-abortionists think it is more humane to have the baby then starve it, beat it, torture it, etc. Evidently the anti-abortionists are uneducated and cannot read the newspapers to see how many times this really happens. I say it is the woman's body and her right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Keep you snooty noses out of everyone else's business. I am against guns but I do not interfere with someone wanting to legally owning a gun. So basically what I am trying to say is "MIND OUR OWN BUSINESS"
What are you talking about? Women have the right to terminate their own lives at any time- there is no law against it.
And yes, I think that murdering babies IS more inhumane than running the risk that someone MIGHT be a bad parent.
Funny how you say "forcing" the woman to be pregnant....nobody forces these women to get pregnant, that's the product of their own bad choices. Maybe people shoud take a little more responsiblity for their own actions.
Psyche jobs bothof you.
Law properly exists to enforce order in society, not to dictate morality to individuals. So stop trying to use laws and government and politics to replace God. People should be legally free to choose a path that you might consider "immoral" or "sinful" -- unless it obviously causes disorder in society. Then have a little faith in God to sort everything out in the final judgement.
Well, at least you and Adolf Hitler have that in common.
Really Vern?? This is what you posted above:
Which is it hypocrite??
If men could get pregnant, you "pro-lifers" [read pro life for fetuses, but once they're born throw them to the wolves] would have no voice at all and there would be an abortion clinic on every street corner, completely funded by every healthcare plan or proposal. So why don't you just shut up and go away?
Leroy, if you and I ever met, I'm pretty sure you'd get pregnant.
Vern, you have got some real issues to deal with.
I think Vern likes me!
I may be mistaken, but all these comments read as though they're from men. Has anyone on here actually been faced with this choice? I have. I made a decision 10 years ago, and I have never -- not for one second -- regretted it. I was backed against a wall, and I made my choice, because when you're that young, you don't have a lot of other options. Tell a 16 year old girl to just go through with her unwanted pregnancy and deal with it? That's not fair. You want to give everyone an equal chance? How about that poor mother? She doesn't have a chance now, thanks to these ridiculous regulations. Giving someone a fair chance would mean giving her the opportunity to make her own decisions. Planned Parenthood is not an "abortion factory," it's a healthcare resource for women in need. Leave it alone. Leave women alone. Let us make up our own minds, and control our own bodies.
Well said.
And to Hitler, Auschwitz was not an "extermination camp", it was a healthcare resource for Jews in need.
Women looking to help other women are now compared to Hitler? Why does everyone compare everything they don't like to Hitler? Also, exactly how is this similar?
Never heard of adoption? You made a choice and if you're ok with it, that's great. But don't try to say that there were no other options.
cs1701a,
Unfortunately it seem its the Anti abortion folks who never heard of adoption. Think of the consequences of making abortion illegal. Since 1973, without Roe v Wade, had anti abortion people been successful we would have added over 1,000,000 unwanted and unintended children to our population each year for 40 years. Many of them would have been born into abject poverty and worse. Their progeny would add about another 15,000,000 people to that number. All of these folks would require food clothes, homes, an education, medical care, and JOBS. Our current population would have more than 55,000,000 additional people in it than it does today. I cannot to begin to imagine the negative social, legal, and economic impacts that would cause. Its is unconscionable and irresponsible for people to advocate against legal abortion unless and until they can offer real solutions for those impacts. America is not going to become a third world country while these irresponsible religious folks get their way.
Nicely put! I'm not saying a scared, too-young, pregnant girl has no other options, but think: should a 16 year old go through with a birth? Should another child get put into the system? Now two lives are effectively -- potentially -- ruined and two people are scarred by this. I wouldn't begin to suggest that abortion is a woman's only choice. But it is her choice. Pro-life people are the same people that love to say, "You got yourself into this mess, now you get yourself out of it," but they're the first to put up resistance against anyone making a decision that they don't agree with. I don't care if a man gets a vasectomy, so why should a man care what I do with my body?
"I may be mistaken, but all these comments read as though they're from men. Has anyone on here actually been faced with this choice? I have. I made a decision 10 years ago, and I have never -- not for one second -- regretted it. I was backed against a wall, and I made my choice, because when you're that young, you don't have a lot of other options. Tell a 16 year old girl to just go through with her unwanted pregnancy and deal with it? That's not fair. You want to give everyone an equal chance? How about that poor mother? She doesn't have a chance now, thanks to these ridiculous regulations. Giving someone a fair chance would mean giving her the opportunity to make her own decisions. Planned Parenthood is not an "abortion factory," it's a healthcare resource for women in need. Leave it alone. Leave women alone. Let us make up our own minds, and control our own bodies."
@Danielle F
Hello, and thanks for the post.
I do agree with you on a few facts. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
I agree that at that age, a 16 year old can feel overwhelmed with how to proceed, and what the future might hold for each choice. That is what makes us so important. We are, to our knowledge, the most advanced life in the Universe.
You say that you wish to give everyone an equal chance - our mothers gave us our bodies and gave us a chance when we couldn't say ourselves. We, from the point where a man and a woman procreated, were given a choice to survive or fail. We survived, and thrived. Through it all, we were born and grew up. Our mothers gave us our bodies and gave us the choice to choose to give life as well.
From this standpoint, where do our mothers get to choose for us? Scientists to this day look for life beyond what we may think be possible, and yet our mothers choose whether or not we get to live. I personally think that we humans have more value in life than in death.
My grandmother just died a week ago; she was 85. Her mother let her live because there was more value to others than just herself. I am that result of life that my great grandmother choose to let live. All those protons, leptons, and electrons came together to make a form so great that it could potentially become something greater - my grandmother, and then my mother. Life was hard for my mother, and for me as well - and that choice was not my grandmother's choice to make. Letting life go on or not should never be a choice - it should be an imperative that it go on.
Today I am doing ok in life - school, job, friends, people who value not just themselves. My grandmother and mother made hard choices in a hellish world, and I will love them forever for that. I plan on getting a girlfriend soon, and hopefully later have kids, as my brother and sister both have kids of their own.
My final thought: I have cried, laughed, and hurt because of things in this world. I know others do as well. My wish is that other people get the chance to feel the same and get to have the same choices as I do - not because I wish bad things on them, but because they should get the chance. Even when I had no choices to make or the ability to do so, I still value the ones that let me choose for myself and let me say so. To deny life a chance to live and choose is to deny that we humans have value and worth.
That was very well put, and thank you for saying it! I'm sorry for your loss, though it sounds like your grandmother lived a great life and brought some more great lives into this world. But if she told you that she'd made the choice to get an abortion, at any time in her life, would you fault her for that? Or would you understand that she was a smart, self-respecting and self aware woman who needed to make a choice at one time? I hope you'd have understood and respected her decision. No one is saying that life isn't valued or has worth. Of course it is and of course it does. It's because of these facts that we even have the right to choose at all, and are able to make decisions for ourselves.
Those states that are trying to restrict abortions are run by GOP Gov's and legislatures who are trying to score brownie points with the extreme nutty right wing of their party. But it is amusing how they go around claiming they want gov't out of our private lives, but yet their actions do not match their words. What they should be saying we want the gov't out of "our" private lives, but they need to go after the rest of us who do not share their views.
Think of the consequences of making abortion illegal. Since 1973, without Roe v Wade, had anti abortion people been successful we would have added over 1,000,000 unwanted and unintended people to our population each year for 40 years. Many of them would have been born into abject poverty and worse. Their progeny would add about another 15,000,000 people to that number. Our current population would have more than 55,000,000 additional people than it does today. I cannot to begin to imagine the negative social, legal, and economic impacts that would cause. Its is unconscionable and irresponsible for people to advocate against legal abortion unless and until they can offer real solutions for those impacts.
Actually, the Pro-Death folks have been responsible for the blood of over 50,000,000 babies, straight up.
And after 40 years, many of those would have had children, and all of them would be paying taxes.
And we're 16 TRILLION dollars in the hole.
Hmm...
and all of them would be paying taxes.
That is IF they had jobs! That is if they weren't on welfare, or sick, or in need of life's basics, or uneducated, or living in hobo camps, or in prison. You probably don't know that there is correlation between reduce levels of crime and the availability of inexpensive and legal abortions. It seems that unwanted and unintended children grow up to be criminals in disproportionate numbers, is it any wonder.
No one I know is Pro Abortion- they are Pro Choice. Few so called Pro Lifers really care about lives since apparently the life of a fetus is more important to them than the life of the person carrying it. They are apparently selective about which life they are championing.
The arrogance of those who presume to know what God wants or what God even is, is mind boggling and downright scary, regardless of what religion is involved. Especially when you try to foist your beliefs on others regarding what they can and can't do with their bodies.
Abortion is tragic. It is also preventable and that is where we should be concentrating- on birth control. Just saying to people to abstain until you are ready to procreate is incredibly naive and is no more effective than "Just Say No" when more incredibly naive people thought that would be enough to stop people from taking drugs. Outlawing abortion or making it ridiculously difficult to get it done will only force abortions into the darkness again where once so many women tragically died or were harmed because desperation drove them to do what they felt they had to do.
Humans are always faced with dealing with reality while desiring the ideal. Trying to change other's realities to conform to one's narrow ideals will rarely work. To those of you who are anti-abortion, I respect that in regards to yourselves. I suffered from fertility issues and ironically and miracously went on to carry four beautiful babies to term. The fourth one was unplanned, I was 40 and it definitely wasn't a good time in my life for many reasons, and I still couldn't imagine having an abortion myself- but who the hell am I to tell others what to do with their bodies, their psyche, their lives??
You want to save lives??? Look around you- there are infinite possibilites for savings lives, innocent lives, children's lives who are here, crying for your help. There is so much misery and suffering, worldwide but also in our communities, EVERY community. Roll up your sleeves and do something to help prevent unwanted pregnancies so that abortions are an extremely rare event and go out and help alleviate the suffering of those that have actually been born.
Hear, hear!
Look at the abortion in DC. We don;t need more.
Less welfare mto pay for.
When did these right wingers who get elected forget about doing the PEOPLE'S WILL??
Latest polls shows for the first time a majortiy of Americans are in favor of keeping abortion legal and 70% do NOT want Roe vs Wade overturned.
These clowns have realized their retarded agenda does not appeal to the people of this country, so instead of modifying their agenda, they just have chosen to ignore what the people want. This group is about 5 steps away from turning us into the next Iran.
The people in those states elected local politicians who passed those laws. That is also "The People's Will".
Media types have been pushing the 'Blue' vs 'Red' state issue for so long it's actually become fact. Pretty much, be careful what you ask for, you might get it. We are turning into two separate countries within the same border, a mini EU.
Nothing to be concerned about. Just murder.
Sigh, no. Let me help.
Put the bible and the guns down and 1) Look up definition of murder then 2) look up definition of abortion.
See? Less religion, more education.
Ah, definitions.
toasted,
Ok, according to the law at the time, slaves were not defined as being a person. Were you ok with that?
Nazi Germany said that Jews were not people and could be killed. Ok with that also?
The definition of words change with usage. Look at how the word "gay" has changed over time.
Try to think before spewing.
Want to compare education and life experience? Give it a shot. I will be happy to discuss with you.
A foetus is not a person.
Anyone who says a foetus is not a person is articulating a falsehood. A fetus is very much a person. But saying a fetus is not a person makes many feel better about killing it.
Here is a quote I'd like to share with you:
D.J. Moran, M.D., J.D. Gorby, M.D., and T.W. Hilgers, M.D., "Abortion in the Supreme Court: Death Becomes a Way of Life." Abortion and Social Justice, Sheed and Ward, 1974.
Science has proven this over - and over - and over again. In 1981 a U.S. Senate Judicial hearing on abortion asked for testimony from scientists, biologists, and medical experts regarding human life and abortion.
Here are their conclusions:
Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania, said:
"I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.... I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence, from conception to adulthood, and that any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life....
I am no more prepared to say that these early stages [of development in the womb] represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty...is not a human being. This is human life at every stage."
Dr. Jerome LeJeune, professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, was the discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Downs syndrome. Dr. LeJeune testified by saying, "after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being." He stated that this "is no longer a matter of taste or opinion," and "not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence." He added, "Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception."
Professor Hymie Gordon of the Mayo Clinic said: "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."
Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School: "It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive.... It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.... Our laws, one function of which is to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data."
Dr. Watson A. Bowes, University of Colorado Medical School said: "The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter-the beginning is conception. This straightforward biological fact should not be distorted to serve sociological, political, or economic goals."
But it doesn't stop there. Other experts have also attested to when life begins and to the idea that the "foetus" - as you love to call it - is indeed a human being from the moment of conception:
Ashley Montagu, a geneticist and professor at Harvard and Rutgers, who was known to be pro-choice, admitted that, "The basic fact is simple: life begins not at birth, but conception."2
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, internationally known obstetrician and gynecologist, was a cofounder of what is now the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). He owned and operated what was at the time the largest abortion clinic in the western hemisphere. He was directly involved in over sixty thousand abortions.
Dr. Nathanson's study of developments in the science of fetology and his use of ultrasound to observe the unborn child in the womb led him to the conclusion that he had made a horrible mistake. Resigning from his lucrative position, Nathanson wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that he was deeply troubled by his "increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths."4
In his film, The Silent Scream ( which you can find on youtube and at the http://www.silentscream.org/ website ), Nathanson later stated, "Modern technologies have convinced us that beyond question the unborn child is simply another human being, another member of the human community, indistinguishable in every way from any of us." Dr. Nathanson wrote Aborting America to inform the public of the realities behind the abortion rights movement of which he had been a primary leader.5 At the time, Dr. Nathanson was an atheist. His conclusions were not even remotely religious, but squarely based on the biological facts.
Dr. Landrum Shettles was the attending obstetrician-gynecologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York for 27 years. Shettles was a pioneer in sperm biology, fertility, and sterility. He is internationally famous for being the discoverer of male- and female-producing sperm. His intrauterine photographs of preborn children appear in over fifty medical textbooks. Dr. Shettles states,
"I oppose abortion. I do so, first, because I accept what is biologically manifest-that human life commences at the time of conception - and, second, because I believe it is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances. My position is scientific, pragmatic, and humanitarian.6"
The First International Symposium on Abortion came to the following conclusion:
The changes occurring between implantation, a six-week embryo, a six-month fetus, a one-week-old child, or a mature adult are merely stages of development and maturation. The majority of our group could find no point in time between the union of sperm and egg, or at least the blastocyst stage, and the birth of the infant at which point we could say that this was not a human life.7
The Official Senate report on Senate Bill 158, the "Human Life Bill," summarized the issue this way:
Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being - a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.8
1. Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981.
2. Landrum Shettles and David Rorvik, Rites of Life: The Scientific Evidence of Life Before Birth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1983), 113.
3. Ashley Montague, Life Before Birth (New York: Signet Books, 1977), vi.
4. Bernard N. Nathanson, "Deeper into Abortion," New England Journal of Medicine 291 (1974): 1189_90.
5. Bernard Nathanson, Aborting America (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979).
6. Shettles and Rorvik, Rites of Life, 103.
7. John C. Willke, Abortion Questions and Answers (Cincinnati, OH: Hayes Publishing, 1988), 42.
8. Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981, 7.
So, Mr.Main, I think there is overwhelming evidence which makes it clear that you are not speaking the truth. blessings, Ken
Fine, Ken,
For the sake of argument, you're right. The fetus is a human (though not a person).
Whose rights supersede the other's? The woman or the fetus?
Because in the case of abortion, you are arguing that the fetus has rights. What about the woman? You are forcing her into a medical condition that she may not want. So you are effectively forcing her to give up her rights for 9 months while a fetus (who is technically a parasite until viability) invades her body.
The other day I was having coffee with God and he said people like you Vern have hijacked his teachings. You claim to be carrying out his will but really you are carrying out a very subjective and intolerant thing called organized religion. What, you say I can't have met God? How do you know or is that more of your religious hocus-pocus?
Blackbelt Marine??? and you had coffee with God? What the heck are you smoking?
This CONGRESS is NO are full of GERIATRICS and EXTREMIST. But they DO NOT WANT TO GIVE UP THEIR ENTITLEMENTS FIRST ( paycheck, perks, paybacks, freebies, ALL Benefits, etc) BEFORE THE PEOPLES DUE OF SERVICES, THE TAXPAYER PAID IN !!!. And they think they are MORAL and ethical !! BULL@!$%#.
Everyone else BUT CONGRESS gets screwed of their FREEDOMS AND RIGHTS. !!!
what ever happened to the citizens individual rights. human being rights of choice !!!
When was choise ever a matter of murder?
Why do religious folk always show their ignorance?
Abortion is not murder. The statement just makes you look stupid when you are probably a reasonable, educated person.
Aren't you embarrassed when you post comments like that?
You do not have the right to murder the unborn.
If they are unborn they are by definition "not alive"! END.
Of course abortion is murder. Unborn is not alive? What says that?
Don't judge me; I won't judge you. This is what this is all about - period.
I have a question. If I kill a women who is walking into a "Planned Parenthood" clinic, why is it I get two murder charges? If it is not murder for her to kill a child, why is it murder for me? Now, I am neither Rep. or Dem. I am not Christian or a religous nut job as some many on here call people. I just believe in fair justice. If it is not murder, than you can't charge someone for killing a "fetus". It has nothing to do with "Choise". When does "Choise" enter into the equation of murder? You "Pro-Choise" people really trip me out. When someone blows holes in your arguement, you revert to name calling and mud slinging, but you can't come up with a sound arguement.
I can't spell to save my life. "Pro-Choice". Good thing I am good at math and science other wise I would have to work as a blogger who thinks he is a real journalist oh wait, all of the so called journalist don't actuall report the news any more. They just give thier opinions on stories and spin everything to bad up thier views. Hell I would make a great journalist.
Jason, for starters,not every state has a law where if you murder a pregnant woman are you charged with two counts. Second, for those charges to be proffered in those states, the fetus must be viable. It varies from state to state on when exactly that is, but the average is around twenty-two weeks. No Planned Parenthood in the country provides an elective abortion at twenty-two weeks.