The War on Women

[Theo520]

Well, -]frankly/-] franciscly, I see no further point in -]circling/-] tangoing endlessly around this bush beating the dead horse with it.

I’ll leave it to those reading the thread to draw their own conclusions.

You, my dear, may propagandize your “war” all you wish.

I think she’s built a very solid ‘strawman’ that all out of wedlock pregnancies only occur when men fool the women into sex, by making promises about their undying love while lying about their commitment.

Seems to me the Catholic response of ‘waiting for marriage’ easily defeats these nefarious males.

 

[Murmurs]

As I said, we don’t need to punish women further. But I think it is in high need that we start to hide the knives they are using to kill themselves.

I really appreciate where you’re coming from, but leaving aside the question of criminalising abortion, which clearly neither of us (nor the vast majority of people on this thread or elsewhere) want…banning abortion doesn’t ban the demand. It pushes it underground, and it has attached to it by now (sadly, perhaps, but given the way the pro-life movement tends to articulate its position, hardly surprisingly), a ‘rights’ aspect, and you can fine and jail all the doctors you want, but some will help women undergo abortions anyway. And these women will be far less safe, without legal and regulated abortion. We should regulate the h*ll out of it, but banning it or making it too difficult defeats the purpose of the regulation…it goes underground. The only way to stop abortion is to eliminate the demand, either by people having less/no sex unless they’re willing to have that child, and/or increasing adoption facilities (including encouraging childless couples to adopt rather than for instance undergoing endless IVF cycles), and welfare/charity services for poor mothers/families (ideally, all of the above).

We can deal away with PP with a law…we can easily make abortion itself illegal with a Act of Congress that only has two lines in it (though it wouldn’t get close to passing, let’s be honest). But that doesn’t stop one unwanted child coming into the world. That is what we’ve got to tackle.

One thing choosing life NEVER is: the easiest option. Caring for a child is expensive, time consuming, emotionally taxing, burdensome, and by the time you can reap any fruit out of it, you are either already old or hated by the children you tried to raise with the best of your abilities.

One thing choosing life ALWAYS is: the best choice. It is a life you are saving. Maybe they didn’t have any intention of bringing that life to its fullness, but once it exists it will NEVER be a good choice to end it.

Can’t the USA, one of the most developed countries of the world today, focus on both neutering the cats AND caring for the kitties? / focus on both providing resources to pregnant women and saving babies from abortion?

A very interesting and enlightening parallel. Yes the USA absolutely has the resources to ban abortion and make provision for women and their children so gold-plated that aside from the issue of emotional readiness (though often, help is what’s needed there, too…that’s basically what my job is, just by the way). I think the problem is with politics - abortion and everything surrounded it has been subsumed into party politics; with one party presenting the other as in favour of slaughtering babies (which isn’t true) and the other presenting its opponent as in favour of letting mothers and their newborn kids live and die in gut-wrenching poverty as long as they are forced to give birth first. Neither picture is remotely true, but I think this is one of many issues which won’t actually be solved until the nonsense of the sheer sums of negatively-motivated money is siphoned out of US elections though impartial regulation (like plenty of other developed countries do, and which have frankly far more democratic and accountable constitutions), and probably a whole host of linked constitutional reforms.

This day is probably coming sooner than people think, not because the current President is as terrible as all that nor because Congress is quite so divided as it seems, but simply it is the only solution to an intractable problem and eventually people however sated with junk tv, junk food, and junk debate about rights, will get fed up. The utterly bizarre level support for Donald Trump kind of indicates that.

It’s a political problem, and until the politics is neatened out and the Republican base stops viewing compromise as such a dirty thing, the abortion issue, the national debt issue, the social security issue, the military spending issue…whatever…will not ever be meaningfully tackled. This is just what I mean when I talk about people “not living in the real world” on this issue…they don’t recognise how little is currently politically possible.

I think she’s built a very solid ‘strawman’ that all out of wedlock pregnancies only occur when men fool the women into sex, by making promises about their undying love while lying about their commitment.

Seems to me the Catholic response of ‘waiting for marriage’ easily defeats these nefarious males.

I hate “yes…but…” things, but…not everyone is Catholic, or Christian, or of any religion. And a even majority of those who are have sex outside of marriage anyway. So the issue isn’t with the Catholic/Christian/whatever teaching…it’s people choosing to make their own decisions (irresponsible ones, sure, but not wholly unreasonable given the atomised and individualistic culture we live in!)

 

[francisca]

I think she’s built a very solid ‘strawman’ that all out of wedlock pregnancies only occur when men fool the women into sex, by making promises about their undying love while lying about their commitment.

Seems to me the Catholic response of ‘waiting for marriage’ easily defeats these nefarious males.

No woman take abortion for fun.

If there is marriage in waiting, why would a woman take abortion for?

Men hang women to dry waiting for marriage. That’s what happens.

Strawman argument? Maybe.

I think it’s also a strawman argument too to think that women has no motherly instict and kill their own fetus for no significant reasons. No woman will take abortion only and simply because there is legal abortion clinic available at the street corner.

 

[CatholicHockey7]

My sincere apologies, and the way I wrote (I didn’t mean it to be personal but then a group attack isn’t any better ), while perhaps explained by it being before dinner, certainly isn’t excused by it.

To be honest, though, my regrettable insinuations aside, there isn’t actually a logical fallacy that I can see (could you point it/them out?).

The “regrettable insinuations” were the biggest one. They fall under the category of “ad hominem attack” which is where you attack the person arguing rather than the argument. (And thank you for your apology, btw).

There also was a non-sequitur when you said, “Women need protection as well as the unborn.” I have never argued that women do not need protection. In fact, my entire argument against abortion has been about protection FOR women. As Bl. Mother Teresa said, “two-thirds of abortion’s victims are women. Half the children and all of the mothers.”

You also propose a false dilemma when you said, “If you came and joined us we might get somewhere. As it is, I hope your unrealistic, unhelpful and utterly patronisingly self-righteous perch is comfy because you’ll be up there a bloody long time if you’re waiting for the world to change for you. Not that one does it for such reasons, but i hope you remember to credit those activists who actually make a difference when it does although I imagine your nauseous pomposity will hide even then any recognition of how the end to the evil of abortion actually came.”

Here you say a person can either hold an “unrealistic” view that won’t lead to any changes or they can hold your view. The reality is there are multiple viewpoints within that spectrum.

Finally, your entire argument has been built on an appeal to pity. While I think (and certainly hope) that everyone on this thread does feel sympathy and/or empathy for those women trapped in situations where they feel the only answer is to murder an innocent human being, that doesn’t justify keeping abortion legal any more than sympathy for drug-users would justify legalizing heroin or cocaine.

And for my “group attack,” I’m assuming (so please correct me if I’m wrong) you’re referring to this post:

On another note, I’ve noticed a few of you arguing in favor of abortion who list “Catholic” as your faith. I would like to remind you that as Catholics we are called to respect life from CONCEPTION to natural death. There is no pro-choice argument that can be reconciled with this important part of our faith.

If you truly support abortion, even if you would never chose it for yourself, you should either change your views or change your faith. By actively supporting the pro-choice agenda, you may also incur upon yourselves an automatic excommunication in accordance with Canon Law.

At the very least, supporting abortion places you outside the state of grace necessary to receive the Eucharist until such time as you make a full and authentic confession. This includes a firm recognition that the action was sinful and a commitment to change.

What I posted here is nothing more or less than the facts of official Church teaching. It is meant only to inform. If a person calls himself Catholic, but is a pro-choice advocate, he may incur automatic excommunication. That is Canon Law in keeping with the Church’s infallible teaching on the sanctity of human life.

 

[francisca]

There is only one real world – the one created and superintended by God.

The human ordained one that you claim is the “real” one has all the illusion of it, but none of the actuality.

Do not judge by appearances. What appears to be so will fade or be burned up in due time.

Make no mistake, where you put your faith – in what you suppose is the “real world” – will, ultimately be a huge disappointment when you realize what a bizarre fiction it truly is.

There is only one real world: the one you’re living now. After this one, there will be another one in heaven or in hell.

Regardless our discussion, legality of the law, etc, I am reminding you all, men, that abortion is not merely women’s issue in the eyes of God. Even we human knows and can see that women & her fetus are victims.

Victims of what? Think about it.

 

[francisca]

This reasoning bothers me. A lot.

Making it illegal would bring about policies that would hinder the spread of facilities such as Planned Parenthood. It is not about punishing the women who do it, but punishing people who may try to encourage abortion.

Basically, we want to make murder a crime. We don’t want to punish the victims of the crime (both the woman and the baby), but we want to make sure that the murderer doesn’t come out unpunished.

The need to punish the clinics doesn’t supercede the need to reach-out to/ help the women and their fetus

If you feel the need to punish somebody, then go and punish the sex business people and porn business people, or at least don’t become their customers.

 

[NovusFidem]

The need to punish the clinics doesn’t supercede the need to reach-out to/ help the women and their fetus

If you feel the need to punish somebody, then go and punish the sex business people and porn business people, or at least don’t become their customers.

Please read my other posts, as I stated rather clearly that we can try to change more than one thing at the same time and that, in fact, it is the better option.

The need to punish clinics does not supersede any other need we may have. But the need to protect the unborn supersedes any other worry a developed country may have right now.

 

[Athanasiy]

i was communicating with one young woman, few days ago, she was in desperate mood and on tears, her husband left her with three kids, with no means for existance.
She revealed to me that she was ready even to give her body for the obtaining of urgent money. I could not hear it. I think this is the most terrible moment of a person who in despair willing to do anything to help children.
Yes, she is very stupid, uneducated, low class woman.
Like a car programmed to be broken during the journey…
It’s hard even to talk about any prospects. She even can not find the low paid job.
But what struck me most of all -
is the fact that young mom (she’s 23 years old) not had the abortions, she gave birth of three kids(the fourth attempt it was abortion to save mother’s life)
I decided to help her to heal the two children, and to support her materialy.
I’m an old bachelor, being unburdened by family, I think that is in my strength to help her.

But I realized that there are women very frivolous, they do not value the husbands, and because of these mother’s - their children suffer.
There is no justification for abortion, It is better to have the child than to have an abortion, but when you realize the headlessness (brainslessness) of some women, you just realize that in case with child bearing (God forgive me) - the quality is better than numbers.
Some have small families, they give to their children good education, and they have a future. And for uneducated with poor quality of life its hard to take place in this life…

 

[Athanasiy]

This led me to thinking that these kinds of examples are another side of the coin in theocratic countries.
there are many maimed, crippled and destroyed destinies of women. and where life is changed into a living hell on earth, and the society is deaf to your problems (because its hard to live for all, because the stigma of fool, who must blame only herself) but no wait for help from anyone.
On the one hand the eastern countries are the example of piety and great respect to God, but on the other side, why so many flee to the West and dream of living in the Western secular world?

 

[francisca]

i was communicating with one young woman, few days ago, she was in desperate mood and on tears, her husband left her with three kids, with no means for existance.
She revealed to me that she was ready even to give her body for the obtaining of urgent money. I could not hear it. I think this is the most terrible moment of a person who in despair willing to do anything to help children.
Yes, she is very stupid, uneducated, low class woman.
Like a car programmed to be broken during the journey…
It’s hard even to talk about any prospects. She even can not find the low paid job.
But what struck me most of all -
is the fact that young mom (she’s 23 years old) not had the abortions, she gave birth of three kids(the fourth attempt it was abortion to save mother’s life)
I decided to help her to heal the two children, and to support her materialy.
I’m an old bachelor, being unburdened by family, I think that is in my strength to help her.

But I realized that there are women very frivolous, they do not value the husbands, and because of these mother’s - their children suffer.
There is no justification for abortion, It is better to have the child than to have an abortion, but when you realize the headlessness (brainslessness) of some women, you just realize that in case with child bearing (God forgive me) - the quality is better than numbers.
Some have small families, they give to their children good education, and they have a future. And for uneducated with poor quality of life its hard to take place in this life…

Thankyou Athanasiy for your beautiful testimony.

I think we have to differentiate though between woman’s personal choice in her life, and policy making for handling woman’s health.

We do have to encourange women to be couragious and optimistic and choose life. We should not make policy that get women’s life a compulsory suffering.

Women and children need to be protected nowadays more than ever from the culture that harms family and women and their children.

 

[francisca]

The need to punish clinics does not supersede any other need we may have. But the need to protect the unborn supersedes any other worry a developed country may have right now.

We can’t protect the unborn, if we do not protect the woman (the mother) first.

 

[CatholicHockey7]

We can’t protect the unborn, if we do not protect the woman (the mother) first.

I don’t think anyone is arguing protection for the unborn at the expense of the mother. I’ve never seen that from any pro-life group or individual I’ve ever encountered.

Pro-lifers focus on the unborn because that child is the more vulnerable. The child is completely innocent, and doesn’t deserve the death penalty. He or she deserves a chance at life.

This is not at all incompatible with protection for the mother. In fact, there are pro-life groups who call attention to the mother. They are more than ready to show the scientific evidence that abortion puts her at risk for physical and mental health issues. Things abortionists won’t tell them.

The difference between these groups and your position, is that you think protecting the mother means keeping abortion legal and safe. You support the legal murder of 1.2 million innocent victims each year, all in the name of “protecting the mother.”

 

[Sarcelle]

I don’t think anyone is arguing protection for the unborn at the expense of the mother. I’ve never seen that from any pro-life group or individual I’ve ever encountered.

Pro-lifers focus on the unborn because that child is the more vulnerable. The child is completely innocent, and doesn’t deserve the death penalty. He or she deserves a chance at life.

This is not at all incompatible with protection for the mother. In fact, there are pro-life groups who call attention to the mother. They are more than ready to show the scientific evidence that abortion puts her at risk for physical and mental health issues. Things abortionists won’t tell them.

The difference between these groups and your position, is that you think protecting the mother means keeping abortion legal and safe. You support the legal murder of 1.2 million innocent victims each year, all in the name of “protecting the mother.”

This view of legalizing abortion to protect the mother comes out of the view that there is an adversarial relationship between mother and child. This view is simply put, diabolical. At its root, diabolical comes from a Latin word, which means to divide. The Latin word escapes me at the moment.

Anyway, at its core, evil seeks to divide, man from God, people from each other and even themselves, and of course, mother from child.

 

[francisca]

It is a crazy assumption that women do not have motherly instict that naturally want to protect her own child. To remove this fact is to paint a false argument “monsterly evil women murdering their own child deserve to be punished as child murderers”.

The truth is abortion is a horrible no fun no woman want to go through.

Having to go through abortion is a form of punishment in itself.

 

[CatholicHockey7]

It is a crazy assumption that women do not have motherly instict that naturally want to protect her own child. To remove this fact is to paint a false argument “monsterly evil women murdering their own child deserve to be punished as child murderers”.

The truth is abortion is a horrible no fun no woman want to go through.

Having to go through abortion is a form of punishment in itself.

Then why do you argue it should be legal?

And of the 1.2 million abortions in the US, how many of those women HAD to go through it? How many of them had no other choice but abortion?

 

[MarcoPolo]

Having to go through abortion is a form of punishment in itself.

That may be for many women because somewhere in their conscience, they know they are putting an end to the life of a real person. But what you say here is one of many assertions that do not confront the ultimate question: Is that which is in the womb a human person?

 

[Murmurs]

(W)hat you say here is one of many assertions that do not confront the ultimate question: Is that which is in the womb a human person?

Yes.

However what counts legally as personhood is something else. I don’t think the abortion debate should ever be framed by what counts as “life” or personhood, but by the question of when the right of an adult woman to determine in privacy what happens to and inside her own body supersedes (or stops superseding) the right of another human person to maintain his/her life dependent on her.

Generally the law informed by medical opinion has determined this should be when the infant is able to survive semi-autonomously (“viability”) outside the womb.

Because we cannot agree on when one set of righta in this case should trump another set, restrictions to abortion prior to viability can het characterised by those who support even limited abortion rights as an unmitigated legal amd bodily assult on women. Obviously that’s not at all what is intended (except for a few deeply unpleasant misogynistic oddballs anyway) but it is how it always comes across. Hence, “war on women”.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Yes.

However what counts legally as personhood is something else. I don’t think the abortion debate should ever be framed by what counts as “life” or personhood, but by the question of when the right of an adult woman to determine in privacy what happens to and inside her own body supersedes (or stops superseding) the right of another human person to maintain his/her life dependent on her.

Generally the law informed by medical opinion has determined this should be when the infant is able to survive semi-autonomously (“viability”) outside the womb.

Because we cannot agree on when one set of righta in this case should trump another set, restrictions to abortion prior to viability can het characterised by those who support even limited abortion rights as an unmitigated legal amd bodily assult on women. Obviously that’s not at all what is intended (except for a few deeply unpleasant misogynistic oddballs anyway) but it is how it always comes across. Hence, “war on women”.

I find this “war on women” meme to be rather contrived as a way of justifying what under any normal human circumstances would be akin to a dereliction of responsibility.

Is there any similar eventuality where a human (or any other moral agent) can declare their right to “autonomy” to override moral responsibility at a time when the lives of other human beings are in jeopardy?

We can, for example, construct parallel cases.

1. A soldier at war in the heat of battle. The soldier, assuming they have volunteered to shoulder the responsibility of defending their country from a belligerent enemy is being relied upon to risk life and limb for comrades and citizens. Now suppose when needed the most – in the middle of an assault or defensive maneuver – the soldier decides to assert “bodily autonomy,” claiming their country has no “right” to expect that kind of sacrifice from him/her and simply walks away from their duties –*goes AWOL. Would you support this kind of desertion of responsibility and a claim that their abdicating responsibility to country and compadres is justified by a claim to “autonomy” and any attempt to hold them liable is a “war on soldiers?”
2. Another parallel would be absentee fathers. Why couldn’t fathers of children – or parents in general (women included, I suppose) – be accorded the right to walk away from all responsibility vis a vis their responsibilities and justify that abdication under the rubric of “war on fathers?”

Why, in other words, are ONLY women accorded this special privilege (If we can call it that) to commit heinous acts or walk away from taking responsibilities with regard to babies they have created and subsequently justifiy that dereliction of responsibility by deflecting blame to others using this rather mind-bending meme of “war on women?” Personally, I don’t see it.

You can call me a mysogynistic wart if you wish, but I don’t see that that kind of special pleading works here. If you think the priniciple of “autonomy” can be used to defend women’s “choice,” then I fail to see how it CANNOT be used by soldiers facing the demands of duties they no longer “choose” to take on and fathers/parents who want to flex their autonomy vis a vis shouldering parental responsibility. Everyone, it seems to me, ought to be “free” to walk away from moral responsibility under the same general rules – that could lead to some rather messy moral implications as mass murderers may simply wish to no longer be moral agents and declare that their actions are ONLY defensive responses by asserting that society is actually making them act by its “war on those who choose not to be moral.” They, too, will want to claim society’s moral rules are a heavy burden to carry because they want to be “free” and “autonomous” in their choices.

Of course, this is all nonsense – but it is just as much nonsense coming from the mouth of a woman about to kill the human being she helped to create and then wishes to be rid of all responsibility for this baby by deflecting the blame for her moral abdication onto the actions of others.

 

[vz71]

I don’t think the abortion debate should ever be framed by what counts as “life” or personhood, but by the question of when the right of an adult woman to determine in privacy what happens to and inside her own body supersedes (or stops superseding) the right of another human person to maintain his/her life dependent on her.

Dependence upon someone or something does not remove the rights of a human being.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Yes.

However what counts legally as personhood is something else. I don’t think the abortion debate should ever be framed by what counts as “life” or personhood, but by the question of when the right of an adult woman to determine in privacy what happens to and inside her own body supersedes (or stops superseding) the right of another human person to maintain his/her life dependent on her.

If the answer is “yes” it’s a life in the womb, then appealing to “privacy” as justification for killing that life is insane and diabolical.