29 Comments

• 1. Chip  |  August 20th, 2008 at 1:40 am

  Actually, it is

  ” Thou Shall Not Murder”.

• 2. Leo Pusateri  |  August 20th, 2008 at 1:42 am

  *

  1. Chip | August 20th, 2008 at 1:40 am

  Actually, it is

  ” Thou Shall Not Murder”.

  Not in the Roman Catholic Bible.

  Nonetheless, what would you call a premeditated act that snuffs out the life of a living human being?

  I don’t know… the term “murder” sounds appropriate to me.

• 3. Regarding Obama’s “Pa&hellip  |  August 20th, 2008 at 2:26 am

  [...] Continue Reading [...]

• 4. congressive  |  August 20th, 2008 at 2:38 am

  So what do you Christian Bible thumpers make of this:

  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2021:22,23

  which reads

  “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [a] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows.

  Footnotes:

  [a] 1. Exodus 21:22 Or she has a miscarriage”

  Be sure to read it for yourself, don’t take my word for it.

  It would appear that God finds a miscarriage caused by two men fighting to be a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine determined by the courts.

  But the NEXT passage states:

  Exodus 21:23 - But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life,

  meaning God does not find a “miscarriage” to be a “serious injury” or most importantly, a “taking of a life.”

  Numbers 5:27 also illustrates how a priest is commanded to abort a fetus of adulterous origins. LINK HERE, don’t trust my word.

  Again, God and the Bible seem to take the “killing’ of a fetus a lot lighter than modern Christians. Is there a passage anywhere that clearly states causing a miscarriage is indeed a crime, other than the loosely interpreted stuff we hear thumpers cross correlate in Kabuki theater fashion?

  It is a serious inquiry. I’d love to see actual scripture contradicting this actual scripture.

  Normally I find all this distasteful, but if you are going to accuse Obama of “infanticide” it becomes very relevant.

• 5. Leo Pusateri  |  August 20th, 2008 at 2:45 am

  A “miscarriage” is a far cry from a deliberate act of abortion.

  Come on… quit being obtuse. There is no defending the indefensible.

• 6. congressive  |  August 20th, 2008 at 2:48 am

  ANOTHER VERSION, SAME STORY. where God doesn’t consider punching a woman so hard that she has a miscarriage “taking a life.” If the mother dies, it’s murder, but otherwise, it’s a financial matter.

  it’s just the Bible, which I personally find to be an interesting historical document.

• 7. Leo Pusateri  |  August 20th, 2008 at 2:49 am

  And Congressive–I notice you utilized the term, “Fetus” to describe the yet-to-be born child.

  I guess all one has to do is to arbitrarily label developing life in the womb something other than what it really is.

  “Fetus”, Latin for “little one” fits the bill nicely.

  Just as it was convenient for slave traders and slave owners to label Africans as people less than human (3/5ths of a vote); just as it was convenient for Nazis to de-humanize the Jews…

  Just deny that it is a life, or think of the object of your barbarity as something less than human, and not only does the guilt magically disappear, but at the same time you buy justification for your barbarity toward humanity.

  Isn’t that convenient?

• 8. congressive  |  August 20th, 2008 at 2:54 am

  Leo, this passage IS an intentional abortion by a preist:

  Numbers 5:27 (Today’s New International Version)
  Today’s New International Version (TNIV)

  © Copyright 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society
  [TNIV at IBS] [International Bible Society] [TNIV at Zondervan] [Zondervan]

  27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse.

  But I REALLY would like to read something different in the Bible if you have anything to offer.

• 9. Leo Pusateri  |  August 20th, 2008 at 2:59 am

  Congressive, I can see where your values lie.

  If you want to be on the side of Margaret Sanger, arguably the foremost advocate for eugenics, and the one who wanted to solve the “race question” by keeping their populations to a minimum, then have at it.

  I know my values, and am quite comfortable with them.

  Your trying to justify and defend the indefensible act of snuffing out a human life is really unbecoming of you.

  I would have hoped that events such as the Holocaust, the Stalinist purges, and Killing Fields would have put an end to the wanton killing of innocents.

  Sadly, I am wrong.

• 10. congressive  |  August 20th, 2008 at 3:01 am

  Also to be clear, I am not pro-choice, I am pro-active. I believe science gives us the ability to prevent abortions through effective education and contraception. But that’s another bag of worms when religion gets involved.

• 11. congressive  |  August 20th, 2008 at 3:05 am

  You are contradicting the Bible, Leo, I am merely reading it. There are no passages vilifying contraception. There is only one about spilling of seed on the ground that upset God, but only because God had commanded that guy to have kids and he defied that order. Otherwise, nothing.

  Unless you know some passages I have yet to discover. Please, enlighten me.

• 12. Rich  |  August 20th, 2008 at 3:11 am

  Wow yet another attempt at hijacking the thread by Congressive listing some obscure bible passages he no doubt found on google or on dailykos. I guess you didn’t realize not everyone believes in the Bible or takes it literally. One need not be a christian to be pro-life. So, rather than muddy the waters with your current path of logic, please tell us when you believe life begins, and when human rights should be assigned.

• 13. congressive  |  August 20th, 2008 at 3:11 am

  Oh, and I also believe that an accidental child (i.e. the pill didn’t work) should be not just brought to term but given universal healthcare throughout it’s childhood to insure it’s success, regardless of it’s parent’s financial status. That is the truest expression of love we can show.

  How about you?

• 14. french student  |  August 20th, 2008 at 3:17 am

  Please also note that at the time the bible was written, the only sure sign that a woman was pregnant was when it showed, from the second trimester on.

  A lack of menstruation can have several causes, including but not limited to anemia and overworking. It was therefore not a sure sign of pregnancy.

  Therefore, every time the bible speaks of a miscarriage or an abortion, it is a late-term miscarriage or abortion.

• 15. congressive  |  August 20th, 2008 at 3:29 am

  Rich, you don’t know me, so I’ll explain. I believe the Bible is a historical document, nothing more. But it is constantly misquoted to justify wrongheaded righteous indignation, i.e. hypocrisy.

  According to the Bible, life begins when the Holy Spirit enters the baby’s nostril as it takes it’s first breath, but I don’t agree with that. My understanding is VERY complicated but I’ll try to keep it short.

  To define when life begins we must first define what human life is. Let’s work in reverse. When that guy in SiCKO cuts off his two middle fingers, while he waits to decide which one to reattach, they are both technically “alive” in a petri dish. They are “human life” but do his fingertips have “human rights?” Silly question, right? Or is it?

  At what point do human parts cease to be “human life”? Arms? Legs? Torso? If a severed but re-attachable arm is left to die, is that murder? Is it exclusively the domain of the brain? Does living brain tissue in a laboratory have “human rights?” Without a clear definition of what human life is, when it starts is an impossible term. Soooo, is self-sustaining human life “human life” with all it’s ensuing “rights?” Maybe, but that would exclude zygotes. So, cells that COULD become self-sustaining? That would include sperm, which of course has no “human rights.”

  I could write a term paper here, but I’ll sum it up: I don’t know and neither do you, so I advocate free universal on demand educated use of contraception. Problem solved.

• 16. french student  |  August 20th, 2008 at 3:51 am

  Leo :
  On this thread, you are the one who chose to frame the abortion debate as a theologic one, by first quoting the ten commendments and then holding that human life is “sacred” (note the not-so-atheist vocabulary here).

  It is quite hypocritical of you to then dismiss verses from the very book you quote to justify your position. The verses congressive quoted pertain more to the question of abortion than the verses you quoted.

  It would, however, be more convincing if you could quote verses from the bible that specifically said that a human life is not to be extinguished in the nine months before the baby is born, or any verse that were even more precise on the issue of abortion than the ones quoted by congressive.

  Until then, you have to either admit your moral foundations do not come from the bible, and that you do not believe the bible is the inerrant word from god, or you have to align yourself to the position of the bible and stop saying abortion is murder, since a distinction is clearly made in the bible, to the extant that they were performed by priests.

  Good verse-hunting, or good recanting.

  As fro my position on the subject : I believe everything should be done to reduce the number of abortions, but that the choice should always, ultimately, be the woman’s.

  That includes real sex ed, and access to contraceptive measures.

  “Abstinence only” is a personal choice that can not be imposed from the outside. It also supposes that the girls is always fully capable of making a reasonned choice, which is more the exception than the norm a 15.

  Statistically, abstinence-only “sex-ed” simply does not work, because while a slightly lower percentage of teens abstain because of it, the vast majority of the teens do not, and they are so ineducated inthese matters that they do not use any form of protection.

  In short, abstinence-only “sex-ed” is putting the word of a teacher against the most powerful force ever discovered to man : a teenager’s hormones.

  That includes health coverage that does not mean the kid is born poor because of medical expanses.

  That includes cheap nannies and financial help for young mothers, so that they can continue their studies and do not have their lives ruined by something that should be a joyous event.

  That includes facilitating adoption, so that having the child and putting he/she up for adoption becomes more and more appealing.

  That includes legal, safe and, yes, free abortions, so that the abortions are performed early rather than late. Late abortions are more invasive, more painful, and morally more dubious.

  And that includes forbidding adoptions as soon as the foetus can, in the current state of the medical science, survive without the mother and without permanent damage. At this point, the mother can choose to have a C-section and put the kid up for adoption. Needless to say, I would also encourage medical research so that this point in time comes as early as possible.

  Now these methods (excepts for the c-section part) have been tried in various parts of the world. And guess what? they actually reduce the number of abortions performed.

  What I do not want to see, though, is children (as in, teens under 18) having surgical procedures performed on them without their parents knowing about it. They are not of legal age because the state feels they are not mature enough to be responsible for themselves. Be consistent.

  However, I believe the parents wanting to force their child to drop out of school and go through an unwanted pregnancy should be a very strong argument in favor of the minor if said minor decides to file for emancipation.

  There, I hope my position is clear and does make sense to you.

  I will also point out that forbidding alcohol, to the point of criminalising it, did not, in fact, reduce the number of alcoholics. Historically, making abortion illegal has not made it disappear either.

• 17. Rich  |  August 20th, 2008 at 4:22 am

  Congressive- I have absolutely no problem with contraception. I do have a problem with third graders being taught about it.

  As far as your term paper, it seems to be mental masturbation at this point. Really, fingers in a petri dish are a bit different from a three month developed fetus is it not? Obviously parts of the human body do not have inalienable rights and donated quarts of blood do not either. As far as brains and brain tissues, we can cross that road when we get to brain transplants sometime in the next fifty years. Obviously a person need not be self-sustaining as babies, toddlers, the crippled, the elderly and mentally challenged are not self sustaining.

  So we get back to the actual point which you are avoiding. When does a person become a person? I would not go as far as conception, but I would say pretty close. Obama’s position is that a person is not a person sometimes even if they have been birthed and actually alive. Can you explain to me under what definition one off these botched abortions would fall under? Seems to me if they have been given birth to whether naturally or in an attempt at abortion, once free from the womb they would be considered an independant living entity.

• 18. Danish Artist  |  August 20th, 2008 at 6:15 am

  Regardless of conregressive’s leftist pro-abortion talking points, Obama dodged a question that shows his true character.

  That character was reaffirmed when he voted NO on the Born Alive Act, which had provisions to protect Roe v Wade - the reason Obama lied about why he voted NO. Apparently that vote and political opinion was not above his “pay grade”.

• 19. Greg-O  |  August 20th, 2008 at 8:02 am

  Exodus 21:22   “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and vhe shall pay as the wjudges determine. 23 But if there is harm,* then you shall pay xlife for life, 24 yeye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

  No mention of miscarriage there. Such is the importance of distinguishing the text from a commentary footnote. Then again, it isn’t the first time the left-wing have tried to spin Holy Scripture.

  To the topic of the post, it was very telling how 0bama avoided taking on the abortion issue. Be a man and say what you believe, 0bama, let the chips fall where they may. As President, it would be within your pay-grade to make such decisions.

• 20. Eric T  |  August 20th, 2008 at 11:16 am

  The comment about “Pay Grade” was used because if he told the truth it would be too harsh.

  Is he really going to come out and speak his mind and say “Life means nothing to me.”

  If people seen his pro-death views for what they really are, they would be real worried about him euthanizing people with universal health care.

  Here is a link to a well known Pro-Death Leftist Euthanizer running for State Rep.

  http://video1.washingtontimes.com/fishwrap/2008/03/will_dr_death_be_knollenbergs_1.html

  http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_6/atr/26671-1.html

• 21. Leo Pusateri  |  August 20th, 2008 at 11:44 am

  To reiterate:
  

  In the former circumstance, assigning the title of “human being” to a child beginning at the moment of conception is a values decision, born of the belief that every human being, regardless of stage of development, or of ability to independently or otherwise function, is a manifestation of human life, must be held sacred, and is necessarily worthy of protection under the law.

  This is where my (and many other pro-life people) values lie.

  Although it can be codified, the decision of when to assign the title, “human being” is ultimately a values-based decision. Either you value life at its earliest, most vulnerable stages, or you don’t. Either you place life as being sacrosanct over issues such as personal convenience, or you don’t.

  I urge you to google the video, “Silent Scream,” and I dare you to watch it in its entirety. And then I dare you to have the intellectual and emotional wherewithal to come back here and say that the child was merely “a collection of cells.”

• 22. congressive  |  August 20th, 2008 at 1:25 pm

  Alright, it apoears we actually agree on something: federally funded on demand educated contraception made universally available to men and women older than third grade would insure events portrayed in “Silent Scream” never happen again.

  Because contraception isn’t 100% perfect, babies conceived on purpose or accidentally should be guaranteed quality medical care throughout their childhood, i.e. modeled on the very successful Canadian or French healthcare systems.

  Somehow I don’t think the conservatives will get behind this plan, though. But one can hope.

  For the pro-life and pro-choicers to be shaking their fists at each other over all this when the answer is prevention, shows that no one is really interested in the answer. They just want to keep vilifying each other to sway elections and raised PAC money while babies die.

• 23. Jeremiah  |  August 20th, 2008 at 2:01 pm

  Congressive,

  Look up Molech in the Bible.

  You can find it in Leviticus first, and then the book of Jeremiah.

  In Leviticus, he commands the people to never throw their children in the fire to Molech, but they disobeyed.

  Since they disobeyed, He ordered the Babylonians to go in and take them and their city … which was, Juda.

  God gives us pleasure in making children, and when we void the pleasure that He gives us, taking pleasure in it for own wants, then we are deserving of death.

  You have to remember, we are just mere tiny pip squeaks in the vast sum of things, and we want to face an angry God … what fearful thing. He could strike eveyone with the most terrible fever, and sickness that is ever beknownst to man, yet He is patient … wonderin, is there ANYONE who wants to serve Me?

  God’s order transcends everything. Let’s do what is right, and give the little babies a chance at life.

• 24. Rich  |  August 20th, 2008 at 2:01 pm

  “Because contraception isn’t 100% perfect, babies conceived on purpose or accidentally should be guaranteed quality medical care throughout their childhood, i.e. modeled on the very successful Canadian or French healthcare systems.”

  I would be fine with this. I would go with a child insurance program based on parent income with a sliding scale rather than a free health care system however.

• 25. Leo Pusateri  |  August 20th, 2008 at 2:09 pm

  More food for thought.

• 26. Eric T  |  August 20th, 2008 at 5:04 pm

  Congressive-

  “we actually agree on something: federally funded on demand educated contraception made universally available to men and women older than third grade would insure events portrayed in “Silent Scream” never happen again”.

  This probably would reduce abortions which would be a good thing. I think kids have to be taught about this from their parents, church, schools at a young age. This is one of them issues that you need a solution that works for everybody.

  I think most people might agree that
  Rape and incest victims need the option open to them. or to Save the mom. .

• 27. Eric T  |  August 20th, 2008 at 6:11 pm

  Congressive,

  I was hoping for a better answer than “pay grade” from Obama.

  McCain respects life, Obama trys to turn into into an attempt at humor and avoids the question.

  I wasn’t impressed with Obama’s stance on the issue at all. He has a few good issues. Keeping good jobs here, I like, I’m look foward to the debates.

  I think McCain is the best choice, I don’t want to sound like I’m spittin venom at Obama all the time, but some of his statements are so bad, It is not his race, or personality, you could switch him with any other democrat, he probably would get the same stuff hurled at him.

• 28. Dennis  |  August 20th, 2008 at 7:09 pm

  McCain and Obama on Abortion

  By Nancy Gibbs

  ….McCain’s position has the great virtue of simplicity: a unique set of chromosomes, having been assembled, has the potential to grow into a unique human being, assuming circumstances permit. As many as half of fertilized eggs naturally miscarry, usually before the prospective mother even knows she was pregnant. But there is a roiling debate over what factors might also affect implantation, with implications for everything from fertility treatment and contraception to criminal law and human rights. I wonder if McCain knows how deeply into troubled waters he has waded.

  Consider the obvious implications if rights attain the moment the egg and sperm meet: all kinds of embryo research become questionable, starting with the stem-cell research McCain says he favors. Couples who undergo in vitro fertilization and then choose not to implant all the embryos are surely violating the rights of those that are discarded or frozen. Some forms of contraception, such as IUDs and the morning-after pill, would presumably be illegal if they affect the ability of an egg to implant. Abortion opponents contend that the birth control pill itself, while designed to prevent ovulation so no egg is fertilized in the first place, may also have the effect of blocking implantation of any egg that sneaks through. Suddenly, a whole range of reproductive choices comes into question.

  The eternal battle over when life, and rights, begin has been playing out this summer on the blog of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, who sought comments on a proposed regulation to refuse federal funds to any hospital or clinic that didn’t respect the “conscience” of its workers. This refers to doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others who refuse to perform abortions or prescribe drugs like Plan B, which they view as equivalent to abortion. By defining abortion so broadly, as “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation,” the regulation set off a firestorm from reproductive rights groups and members of Congress. Slate’s William Saletan toured the implications in a “letter” to Leavitt, noting that by the same logic, the government should be outlawing breast-feeding (which by affecting a woman’s hormones interferes with ovulation and, in theory, implantation), not to mention drinking coffee (can increase the chance of miscarriage), riding horseback (same) or exercising in general.

  Four years ago, President George W. Bush was able largely to avoid this treacherous ground because he had the confidence of his base (despite a grandfather who served as a Planned Parenthood treasurer and a wife who told Katie Couric she didn’t think Roe should be overturned). He talked about promoting a “culture of life” but didn’t get down in the weeds about when exactly that life started. McCain enjoys no such benefit of the doubt, and so he had to offer blunt reassurance. But his construction of human rights beginning “at the moment of conception,” while theoretically clean, is a practical mess. It throws the entire weight of argument onto one side of the scale; a woman, whose womb and RNA are essential to the development of a fertilized egg, would be obliged to do nothing that could even inadvertently interfere with the progression from zygote to newborn. This would have, among other effects, such immense impact on access to contraception that it would all but guarantee an increase in unwanted pregnancies — and the abortions that McCain opposes… I just wonder if McCain’s definition takes him in the direction he really wants to go.

  http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1833496,00.html

• 29. Nate  |  August 21st, 2008 at 1:30 am

  knock it off, y’all kill when it suits you, get off your high horse. killing is killing is killing, doesn’t matter how you frame it, if you say you’re pro-life or against killing there should be no killing for any reason.