because I made "x decision" everyone else is wrong

[siead_lietrathua]

if it became mandatory to get both partners involved in abortion, it would make it difficult for women for whom the men "vanished" as soon as the word pregnant crossed her lips. or in those cases where the man vehemently denies paternity, then who would sign the papers? it would require loopholes for rape, etc as well.
unless it's a situation where the man agrees that he wants the child in sole custody or will be the care giving parent after it's born, or will assist with arranging for adoption, it isn't fair for a man to force a woman to give birth. it wouldn't just be the 9 months carrying the child, it will also be forcing her into 16-18-20+ years of child care. i think it's sometimes forgotten in abortion debate that a primary caregiver's duties don't end at birth.
i think it's a fairly safe assumption that in the magority (not all) of cases involving women in a committed relationship going to have an abortion that the man has been involved in the decision.

[Andara Bledin]

Not only do the primary caregiver's duties not end at birth, but they don't begin there, either.

And, no matter what is decided in court, the mother is the de facto primary caregiver until that point.

^-.-^

[Panacea]

The average pro-lifer is a religious person who believes in the existence of the soul, specifically a soul which is formed at conception.

There's a logical fallacy here that religion just can't get around: if the soul starts with conception, then every miscarriage means a baby with a soul has died.

That's just plain ridiculous. Pregnancy is a crapshoot; no way to tell how it will turn out. The Bible doesn't mention abortion, not once, and it was a common practice in ancient times. Our ick factor with abortions is a modern invention; it wasn't an issue even for Protestants until well into the 1970's.

Most Protestants would consider them "innocents" and saved by default. No idea about Catholics.

From what I understand, Catholics are "pessimistic" about an "unsaved" fetus, but leave it up to God to apply divine mercy. <snip.>There's also the concept of Limbo, but I think the Catholic Church considers that to be an arcane idea nowadays. Right now if you ask a priest where their unbaptized baby is, he'll likely just tell you, "To be honest, I don't know."

It all depends on whether you are talking to a cradle Catholic or a convert. Cradle Catholics tend to cling to ideas that were part of the Tradition but are no longer endorsed by the Church, such as the idea of Limbo.

My priest taught me that he doesn't know if anyone is in Hell at all, and that unbaptized babies and those who never heard of Jesus are with God. The idea you have to be baptized to be saved only applies if you have heard Jesus's message and had a chance to embrace it, but chose not to.

I'm not trying to be insulting or anything, I'm honestly curious here.

We keep saying 'the man totally does have rights'

Men have no rights these days; the system totally screws them over in most cases. (note: I do not codone this). This is a 180 from 100 years ago when women had no rights; she could not get health care without her husband's consent (no abortion, even if it was legal, unless he allowed it) and if she left him, she had to leave her children behind. The husband automatically got custody. This kept a lot of women with abusive husbands until the law began to change in favor of the woman.

Now the default is the women get the child and the father is screwed, and puts too much power in the woman who can use the divorce to hurt the father using the kid as a weapon. Not that some men don't continue to do this, but it's despicable no matter who does it.

[TheHuckster]

There's a logical fallacy here that religion just can't get around: if the soul starts with conception, then every miscarriage means a baby with a soul has died.

That's just plain ridiculous.

I'm confused. Can you explain how that's ridiculous compared to, say, a baby who had died soon after birth? Or an old man dying for that matter?

It all depends on whether you are talking to a cradle Catholic or a convert. Cradle Catholics tend to cling to ideas that were part of the Tradition but are no longer endorsed by the Church, such as the idea of Limbo.

My priest taught me that he doesn't know if anyone is in Hell at all, and that unbaptized babies and those who never heard of Jesus are with God. The idea you have to be baptized to be saved only applies if you have heard Jesus's message and had a chance to embrace it, but chose not to.

I was told two things by a priest: That there is only one person that the Vatican "knows" is most definitely in hell, and that is Judas. And that, overall, God has indicated unsurpassed forgiveness and mercy, meaning one must trust that God, as He promised, does everything possible to ensure as many souls ascend to heaven as possible, regardless of circumstances behind their lives, however short they may be.

[HYHYBT]

How do tgey know about Judas any more certainly than anyone else? He certainly seemed remorseful.

[hinakiba777]

I have a male friend, I will call him Ritz, who got a girl pregnant his senior year of his undergraduate. The reason being that his roommate thought it would be funny to poke holes in Ritz's condoms. I don't know if the girl was on birth control, but she ended up pregnant. There was a lot of discussion between the two of them and Ritz insisted that he really wanted to keep the child. If the girl did not wish to be part of the child's life after birth, he was cool with that. However he really wanted her to take the child to term, because he wanted the baby.

It was a long conversation, but she eventually agreed with him. He deferred his first year of medical school so that he could help her through the pregnancy. The issue was that she started getting a lot of advice about how it was her body and her choice alone, and maybe HE put the hole in the condom, etc etc. So for the first trimester the two of them were constantly arguing about it. They spent the whole first trimester like that. But she always ended up agreeing to keep the child to term, and by the second trimester the arguments stopped. I don't know if people had stopped pressuring the girl either way about the pregnancy around that time, or if she just decided to stick with her choice, but the arguments stopped.

6 months later a beautiful little girl was born. Ritz relied a lot on his family for support, so that he could do medical school and his residency on top of raising his daughter. He once told me that he didn't sleep the whole time through med school and his residency, though I think that's an exaggeration.

His daughter is 7 now. She's really sweet. A while ago he was talking to a guy he knew who had gotten his girlfriend pregnant. The guy didn't want the kid, but he didn't want the girl to abort so he asked Ritz to talk to her. So he did. Ritz confirmed in front of the girl that the guy didn't want to keep the kid. Then he told her to make her own choice on the matter.

A lot of people think that Ritz is anti-abortion because he made her daughter's mother keep his daughter, but the truth is he just wanted the kid.

The whole issue isn't as black and white as people say it is, there are a lot of factors that need to be taken into account. However, I can respect most sides of the argument and honestly don't know what I would do in that situation if it ever arose. It's a very complex issue.

Though I will say this, I do agree that people who insist people follow through on pregnancies even if there are no means to support the child financially or if the child has a developmental issue, and then in the same breath demonize social services that offer help for impoverished families or families with children with disabilities; I find them contemptible. Again, I can see the points that anti-abortion movements have presented, I am not opposed to their beliefs. But to force a woman to have a child and then deny her any aid is just plain cruel.

[Lace Neil Singer]

The fact is tho that pregnancy and birth are hard on a woman's body and it doesn't matter how much the man wants the child, or how much help he offers, the woman is still going to go thru all that hell alone. I can honestly say that any guy who tried to force me to go thru pregnancy and birth just cuz he wanted a child would be out on his ear. I am of course tokophobic, but even if I wasn't, I'd still say that in this case, my rights trump his cuz it's my body.

Unfortunately, there isn't a similar situation to compare it with; this is all I can think of. Say there's a woman who gets with a man who isn't circumcised. She prefers circumsised men, so she tells him to get it done pronto. In this case, it's his wishes that surmount hers, cuz it's his body so it's his choice. The opposite is true for pregnancy and will be unless medical science comes up with an artifical womb or something similar.

[TheHuckster]

How do tgey know about Judas any more certainly than anyone else? He certainly seemed remorseful.

First of all, it's written in the Bible. Second of all, I'd have to read the passages again, but I don't think he was truly remorseful. Full of shame, perhaps, to the point of suicide, but shame is not necessarily the same as remorse.

[HYHYBT]

Where does the Bible specifically say that Judas is in Hell?

[Panacea]

I'm confused. Can you explain how that's ridiculous compared to, say, a baby who had died soon after birth? Or an old man dying for that matter?

I think you've misunderstood me. It's ridiculous to assume that a zygote has a soul when pregnancy is such a crapshoot. It would mean that every failed pregnancy results in a soul that was never born and never having a chance to do anything in life. Since the same folks who make this assumption often assume a miscarriage is "god's will", they are in effect saying God is murdering unborn children.

That's nonsense. It's injecting emotion into a subject for the sake of making people feel guilty about abortion.

Babies who die after birth, or older people who die at the natural end of life are another story. They are fully developed human beings at that point; with lots of growth to do (both physical and mental) but the building blocks are all there.

I was told two things by a priest: That there is only one person that the Vatican "knows" is most definitely in hell, and that is Judas. And that, overall, God has indicated unsurpassed forgiveness and mercy, meaning one must trust that God, as He promised, does everything possible to ensure as many souls ascend to heaven as possible, regardless of circumstances behind their lives, however short they may be.

My priest doesn't even go that far. However, different people within any religious organization will have different ideas on the issue. I can't find anything in the catechism that says specifically that anyone is in hell, much less Judas. But I agree that God's forgiveness and mercy are unbounded and He wants everyone to be saved. Which makes me believe even Judas could very well have been forgiven by God for his treason.

[Pixilated]

There's a logical fallacy here that religion just can't get around: if the soul starts with conception, then every miscarriage means a baby with a soul has died.

*snip*

This is what has bothered me for a long time about the religious injunction. If the soul enters the body at conception, then a miscarriage or stillbirth means that either a deity has just killed that child or allowed it to die. And if all life is sacred ... well, I just couldn't figure that conundrum out, which is probably at least one of the reasons why I'm not particularly religious anymore.

I have a male friend, I will call him Ritz, who got a girl pregnant his senior year of his undergraduate. The reason being that his roommate thought it would be funny to poke holes in Ritz's condoms. I don't know if the girl was on birth control, but she ended up pregnant. There was a lot of discussion between the two of them and Ritz insisted that he really wanted to keep the child. If the girl did not wish to be part of the child's life after birth, he was cool with that. However he really wanted her to take the child to term, because he wanted the baby.

It was a long conversation, but she eventually agreed with him. He deferred his first year of medical school so that he could help her through the pregnancy. *snip*

A lot of people think that Ritz is anti-abortion because he made her daughter's mother keep his daughter, but the truth is he just wanted the kid.

*snip*

It doesn't sound to me as if he "made" the mother do anything. He wanted her to carry the child to term and then he would take over, and she did agree, but it didn't sound as though he really backed her into a corner over it. It sounds as though, if she'd gone for abortion or adoption, he would have been very distressed, but not vindictive or obstreperous. And he certainly kept up his end of the bargain after the child's birth.

*snip*

I could also say something like "At this point in the debate in the US, if you're not American, you don't have the right to an opinion on the matter, so you can shut the fuck up." *snip*

Funny you should mention that, LOL ...

[The Shadow]

i hate the term pro-life. can we just go back to calling it anti-abortion? since that's what it is and all.

I like the term "forced birther" because I think that's the most accurate - and honest - term for those people.

[Tanasi]

I like the term "forced birther" because I think that's the most accurate - and honest - term for those people.

The opposite can also be twisted into Pro-abortion or Pro-murder...

[BlaqueKatt]

The opposite can also be twisted into Pro-abortion or Pro-murder...

um no, pro-choice people aren't "forcing" their will on anyone, they aren't forcing women via legislation to get abortions, "pro-lifers" or "forced birthers" are trying to do just that.

[Fiffles]

The opposite can also be twisted into Pro-abortion or Pro-murder...

I'm pro-choice, but I wish abortion didn't have to exist; though I cannot confirm it, I am sure many, if not most, pro-choice individuals would agree. It's not a fun procedure, and no one wants to endure the mental and physical effects associated with it. Until every child that is conceived is wanted, and will be (for the most part) happy and healthy, however, I am glad it exists as an option.