Linkmeister

These people make me so angry. They're are all for life while it's in the womb, but once it's born, forget it. I can't write too much more on this or my blood pressure will go through the roof and my doctor will get very upset with me.

My deepest sympathies to the family of Dr Tiller. And my sympathies also to all the women he will now be unable to help. Are there any doctors out there brave enough to put themselves in the cross hairs to provide the help those women will need?

Actually, no, it wasn't personal. Terrorism never is. And that is exactly what this murder was: the first major act of domestic terrorism since Obama was elected. Unless I'm mistaken (and I so want to be mistaken) it will not be the last.

I suspect you're right, Bruce. There will be more acts of domestic terrorism during Obama's presidency, just as there were when the last Democratic president was in office. Funny how they stop when there's a Republican party in control.

I do think this one was personal as well, though. Dr. Tiller put a finger in the eye of Operation Rescue and its cohorts every time he performed an act of grace like this one. Bill O'Reilly has vilified Dr. Tiller as a baby-killer for the past four years.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/01/arkansas.recruiter.shooting/

The 2nd case of domestic terrorism?

John Brown was a domestic terrorist as well, and was executed for treason against the State of Virginia for his terrorist activities. Legal doesn't necessarily define morals, unless of course, you wish to extend the "it's legal so it's okay" premise to the prior legal practice of slavery and involuntary sterilization. Some of us are otherwise not fighting some other because they're "terrorists" but because we abhor their vision of our world should be.

Oh, and Linkmeister, learn some human biology. A female has more eggs when she's in utero than she'll ever have after birth, as she starts losing her eggs while still in the womb and the loss continues in one long, downward arc. What does that say about our humanity and when it begins? And what makes you, you, but your DNA? Is it human DNA that's being aborted? If all goes well, it's one long process from conception through growth through degeneration and then death.

Lastly, you'll never be in business with Barnes and Noble if you use "forced pregnancy" since no one is forcing the pregnancy. We are forced birth and not forced pregnancy. Though the more correct description is we view human life for what it is and believe that there had best be good cause for its termination.

Sure, Pix, that qualifies.

Paul, fight us pro-choicers all you want in the area of public opinion. But don't advocate and condone murder with a wink and don't commit violence against women and clinics.

It is forced pregnancy when your side tries to abolish sex education about condoms, tries to prevent Plan B pills from being accessible, and promotes abstinence-only policies which aren't very effective for very long.

Linkmeister, think about it for a moment. You are a human who believes that abortion is murder. What do you do? If it helps, picture you and I having lunch together, some soul coming up to you with a tire iron in hand, then he says he's going to kill you and starts whacking on you with the tire iron. Am I supposed to simply hold a sign in protest at some minimum safe distance [as that distance is determined by others]? Or would you prefer that I take a more interventionist approach?

The guy who did the act here may be a whack job, I don't know, but the souls in the worst moral position here are the souls who believe that abortion is murder but yet do nothing more tangible than holding up a sign in protest in response. You don't see that ooint because you don't view abortion as murder and so your thought process never makes it to that part of the analysis. I'm actually surprised that there hasn't been more killing. Not that I ever expected a tsunami of killing (as it were), as most humans are cowards, but I would have expected a more direct response in defense of the one claimed to be undergoing murder.

Lastly, again, take the first two lines in your reply and apply them to the prior practice of slavery and involuntary sterilization. Or you might ask yourself, if this was slavery that we were talking about, would you still be sticking with the public opinion debate line? Or would you join me in the raid on Harper's Ferry?

Sorry, I lied, and so one more. Those things that you mention in your second paragraph, well, can I ask the obvious question? Why aren't parents doing those things? Well, the first and last items and we can save the Plan B pills for another day. I would have hoped that as a claimed "liberal" and/or "progressive", that you'd have understood that the last thing we want is for our government to assume the role of parent. And not that it matters on this point, though it matters when it comes to the total discussion, but if you examine the data, you'll see that our teen pregnancy rate has gone up during the very same era that more of us are aware of such things as birth control, the teens among us included.

In any event, if you were to add up all of the pregnancies resulting from lack of education concerning birth control and the failure of abstinence-only education or not, you'll still need to justify the other 90% of abortions. I have always held my view for as long as I can remember, perhaps owing to the fact that my mom has a PhD in biology, but I will nevertheless always remember my one friend's then girlfriend, who was more "liberal" here than you. She went to work for a medical practice that included the practice of abortion. Within two years she was more "militant" an anti-abortionist than me. I asked her once what brought about her change of heart and she reported that it was those women, the majority, who weren't there for the first abortion, but for the second, third, fourth, and fifth.

Do you know that some of those in the practice refer to the gals with multiple abortions as "frequent flyers"? Planned Parenthood reports that 2 in 100 women will have abortions this year and that of those 2, half, or 1, will be on abortion no. greater than 1. Peg Johnson, a worker at an abortion clinic in New York, has been quoted as saying that even if you have a 1 in 100 chance of getting pregnant with use of birth control, there's still 300 chances to get pregnant during your fertile life [take all acts sexual intercourse resulting in semen emission during fertile life and multiply by .01], and that such reality means that we can expect each woman to have 3 unintended pregnancies that might "require" an abortion. How does that reality fit into your argument re the benefit of education in ending the practice of abortion?

Truly lastly, I can't be more specific as it would work a continuing breach of the patient/physician privilege, i.e., I can't name names, but you'd be surprised to learn just who has had an abortion, and certainly at the names of some souls who have had multiple abortions. And by surprised, I mean to say that they are not poor, non-descript souls that no one has heard of, but some rather famous people with all the money and all the other support in the world. Again, it is those people that turned my formerly liberal, feminist friend into a far more staunch opponent of abortion than me. I sometimes wish that she had never told me who the women were, and in more than a few instances, who the putative father was, since from the info as understood by her, some rather famous men don't know that wife/girlfriend ended the life of the pre-born human that might have been their later born and walking-talking child. I'll save for another day the discussion on just how much trust there can be in an intimate relationship when you're not even told that she's expecting your and her child. And back to our government, well, your a dad and a grand-dad now, yes? How do you feel about the law saying that the abortion clinic need not notify you that your daughter/granddaughter wants an abortion and/or that the clinic has in fact performed an abortion on your daughter/granddaughter? Suffice it to say that if I am ever in the latter position, my response will make our friend here look like a wimp compared to me.

Almost forgot, but speaking of cowardice, I too am a coward here, as I am not out there truly doing what I can to stop what I believe is murder. I am a coward in other respects as well, since if I wasn't a coward, I'd be out there hunting down like rabid dogs all of those who humans who keep children as prostitutes/sexual-slaves. I'm waiting for the diagnosis of terminal lung cancer resulting from nicotine addiction, and when that comes, then I'll do my hunting of the rabid dogs.

Paul, "he says he's going to kill you and starts whacking on you with the tire iron.

That's illegal; providing abortions is legal.

The slavery analogy doesn't work either. The states which wanted to preserve it seceded from the Union. Not content with that, they started the shooting at Fort Sumter.

Seems to me denying contraception to children and morning-after pills to women is acting more parental than a government simply ensuring that remedies are legally available (not required, as denial of those remedies is).

I don't give a rip about your friend's anecdotal claims about multiple abortions among the rich and famous. That has nothing to do with murdering doctors who provide a legal service to their patients.

We are not going to find any common ground here, despite what President Obama hopes. I believe women and only women have the right to choose what they do with their bodies, sexually or any other way. You don't.

If anyone's curious as to how abortion came to be the defining issue for the evangelical movement, Fred Clark at Slacktivist has an inside look.