Tag Archive for abortion

Zika Virus and Abortion

August 5, 2016 Comments Off on Zika Virus and Abortion

No, they aren’t that closely related. Yes, some women may abort if they discover their child  would be born with the conditions that that Zika-infection causes.  Actually, abortion is getting in the way of funding research to fight Zika.

Both Houses of Congress, after compromise (yes, Dems and Reps can compromise when they really try), a funding bill was agreed on–until one side of the aisle added some changes.  The main change, the main sticking point keeping that bill from passing and research flowing is one that blocks money from going to a Planned Parenthood affiliated clinic in Puerto Rico, supposedly to stop the spread of Zika. (I can only guess that the logic is that women are so happy to have abortions available to them that they have more unprotected sex, knowing that they can always get rid of their little “mistakes” growing inside them. !!!!!!)

I don’t understand a legislative system that can tack on semi-related–or totally unrelated–amendments and details. Roberts, of Robert’s Rules of Order, would be horrified.

And I can’t understand how our legislators can be off on vacation when they can be taking g measures to stop a disease that not only affects people in other countries but also is creeping into our own.

Come on, people!  Do the job we elected you to do!

 

 

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Planned Parenthood/Targeted Death

November 30, 2015 2 comments

This whole attack on Planned Parenthood has me in a quandary.  Personally, I don’t like abortions.  I would very much like, in this imperfect world, to see abortions a thing of the past.  However, I question the logic of the actions of some people who share my feelings.

How can you claim to want to save lives, then take lives (physically and/or emotionally) by bombing, shooting up, or setting fire to Planned Parenthood clinics?  How can you destroy the lives of medical staff who have nothing to do with abortions as they serve poorer women’s basic health needs (e.g., exams and mammograms)?  Without health care, these women are in danger of sickness and death.  For that matter, how can you endanger the lives of the very unborn babies you’re trying to save?  You never know for sure if a pregnant woman is present, not for an abortion but for prenatal care that she couldn’t afford to get elsewhere?  How much control do you have over the bomb fragments and debris or the bullets you shoot off–enough to be sure a person just walking past the facility or police officer  doing his or her job isn’t maimed or killed?

I just don’t get how those lives are any less innocent or worthwhile than the unborn life you want to save by violently attacking an entire clinic.  Isn’t all life sacred?  It should be.

 

 

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How to Fight for Right: Kim Davis and Planned Parenthood

October 6, 2015 Comments Off on How to Fight for Right: Kim Davis and Planned Parenthood

If you have a righteous cause, why jeopardize it by (let’s be kind) “stretching the truth”?  Publicity that isn’t based on actual fact can fire up current followers and garner a few more–until the truth comes out.  At that point, the black cloud of suspicion gathers over your cause and you.  Take two recent cases in point.

First, Kim Davis and her encounter with the Pope.  Yes, her position would be strengthened if the Pope granted her an audience and offered her support for her stance against issuing marriage licences to gay couples.  IF that had actually happened.  Instead, she was among dozens of people who had a brief casual conversation with Pope Francis, not an audience or deep discussion, let alone encouragement and support.

Next, the Planned Parenthood video with the horrendous talk about an aborted fetus. This is powerful ammunition against Planned Parenthood–if the video is true.  Many people still choose to believe the validity of that video, although reputable sources question it because the jumpy motions indicate that the camera was stopped and started again and again (lots of editing), because there is no sound (e.g., discussion about harvesting the brain), and because the maker of the video admits he made it elsewhere to depict a story he had heard.  It doesn’t create an air of truthfulness, either, when the mother of the fetus says publicly that her child was a miscarriage, not an abortion.

I believe that we need to act on our consciences.  To do so effectively, though, we need to use the truth as our weapon of strength, not emotion-grabbing falsehoods.

 

 

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Abortions for Newborns: A Moral Dilemma

February 10, 2015 Comments Off on Abortions for Newborns: A Moral Dilemma

Here’s a moral quandary for people who believe in no abortion under any circumstances: fetus in fetu. It happens–in both boys and girls–in 1 of every 500,000 births.  It is a fetus within a newborn baby. Some say it’s more of a tumor.  But sometimes there’s no question, as in the case of the Hong Kong baby with twins inside her, twins that were 8-10 weeks developed, with arms, legs, spine, ribs, intestines, and an umbilical cord each.  (No, this isn’t something from National Inquirer.  Read about it in the U.K. Mirror article.)  The medical team removed them surgically when the girl was three weeks old.

Was that an abortion?  Of course it was.  Was it morally right?  That’s a knotty question.  Should the newborn and her twins have been allowed to die instead?

I’ll leave the answers to people far more intelligent, moral, and spiritual than I am.

 

 

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“Pro-Life” Should be Pro Life

January 28, 2014 Comments Off on “Pro-Life” Should be Pro Life

I’ve been reading the signs on the news coverage of the recent San Francisco Walk for Life.  A common one is “We’re the Pro-Life Generation.” The positive message and fact that they were doing something to spread the message really appealed to me, because I believe that all human life is sacred.

For the same reason, though, the signs make me uncomfortable.  I’ve been wondering if those same people and same signs–maybe with some other action to back them up–will ever appear outside a prison at execution time.  Or at a City Council meeting where upscale housing decisions are being made that will put more people out on the streets to become ill and endangered.  Or at restaurant garbage cans where perfectly good food is thrown out, food that could feed hungry families at shelters and soup kitchens.  Or at a legislative session that, instead of fixing the food stamp program lawmakers are cutting it, meaning more poor children experience malnutrition, hunger, and food insecurity.  Or outside nursing homes where the sick and elderly are mistreated, abused, neglected, and in an environment that hastens their deaths.

I applaud the anti-abortion people for their demonstrations (except for the bad apples who feel it their duty to hound and humiliate rather than inform, encourage, and pray).  Unfortunately, too many of them think that stopping abortions, therefore preserving pre-born human life, is all there is to being Pro-Life.  Those people need to change their label to what it is–“Anti-Abortion,” which sounds negative but is more descriptive.  All the rest, the true believers in life, should expand their conviction toward honoring and preserving human life–from womb to tomb.

 

 

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