Kristen responded again and I wanted to give my response more visibility. As always, her comments are in quote marks and my responses are bolded...
Kristen,
Once again, thank you for your thoughts. As before, they are well articulated arguments, without attacking the people that disagree with you. I appreciate that about you. On the matter of contraception, I've already responded to that, so I'll move on to your other arguments.
"I think pro-choice people get a bad rap in the pro-life community for being pro-abortion. Who is pro-abortion? You have to be (in my opinion) a total whacko to think that having to come to an abortion clinic and terminate a fetus is one of life's little pleasures."
On "pro-choice" versus "pro-abortion," I don't know of any pro-lifers that actually think women walk into abortion clinics whistling "Dixie." The issue that divides us is not that you are pro-choice and I am anti-choice. Truth is, I am vigorously "pro-choice" when it comes to women choosing a number of moral goods. I support a woman’s right to choose her own health care provider, to choose her own school, to choose her own husband, to choose her own job, to choose her own religion, and to choose her own career, to name a few. These are among the many choices that I fully support for the women of our country. But some choices are wrong, like killing innocent human beings simply because they are in the way and cannot defend themselves. No, we shouldn’t be allowed to choose that.
"The thing is, it's a terrible hardship to have to decide. That's the basis of being pro-choice-- to have the FREEDOM (yeah, I live in America and I want to express every freedom I have)and peace of mind to make the right choice for myself if I'm considering an abortion."
On the issue of freedom, I disagree with your premise. We simply do not have the freedom to do whatever we want in America. Obvious things like mass murder, rape, grand theft auto, etc. are things we can decide to do but we have to be willing to pay the consequences. Yes, abortion is legal right now, thus there are no criminal penalties for it, but that hasn't always been the way. This isn't the first time in history that America has legalized something wrong. (Slavery would be an obvious example.)
"These women go through hell to make the decisions they make. Why not trust them?"
Every single law we make is intended to take decision making ability from someone. The truth is that all human beings are capable of making immoral decisions, particularly in a time of crisis. Laws are needed to protect other innocent human beings from having those decisions inflicted upon them. If I am right, and abortion is the killing of an innocent person, then women should not have the right to make that decision. If I'm wrong, and the unborn are just "blobs of non-human tissue," then the woman's lifestyle preferences should take precedence. The burden of proof rests on you to prove that the unborn are not human persons. You can't say that we don't know if the unborn are persons or not because if we can't know for sure, then the benefit of the doubt should go to life. (For example, what would we think of a structural engineer that decided to blow up a building without making absolutely sure there wasn't anybody inside?) That's why the entire abortion debate comes down to personhood.
"Also, I've been browsing the site and saw something that shocked me. There's a link for "church resources." OK, I realize that this is JUST a website, but that's kind of a tip-off to me that religious beliefs are weighing in on these decisions. Whether I'm a Christian or not doesn't matter-- I don't want someone else imposing their religious beliefs in my healthcare!"
I think it would help if you took a look at the articles on the website. The question of personhood can be decided with science and philosophy, not just Bible verse quotations. I don't just think abortion is wrong because the Bible says so. I'm also not solely pro-life because abortion pictures are ugly. I’m pro-life because I know that the unborn is alive, because the baby is growing; I know that the unborn is human because the baby has two human parents, and I think that innocent human persons should be protected. Period. Georgia Right to Life is a faith-based non-sectarian organization. Of course our faith has something to do with our beliefs. The church resources on the Human Life Amendment website will be for pro-life activists
that want to also activate people in their church. Planned Parenthood is involved with a group called the "Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice" and they have a page on their website with resources to organize their pro-choice activism in their churches. Is that wrong? If not, then why is it only wrong for pro-lifers to activate those in their church that care enough about the issue to be involved?
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Response to Kristen
We had another comment from the other side that I wanted to respond to in a new post to give both her thoughts and my responses more visibility. Her comments are in quote marks and my responses are bolded...
Kristen said...
"As a college student in Georgia, I have concerns regarding the amendment- particularly how it relates to contraception.
Your website details that "...genuine contraception is the prevention of life." (in the "Responses to Common Objections" section) No argument here. BUT the medical definition of pregnancy begins at the point when the egg is implanted in the uterine wall. This poses quite a problem if your definition of "personhood" begins at the moment of fertilization, which occurs before implantation. The kind of birth control I use (the pill) is hormonal and used to prevent the egg from implanting in the uterus.
If this is the case, how can you speculate that my birth control (and many other common forms of contraception other than the pill that rely on hormones) wouldn't be banned? Seeing that this contraception would interfere with your definition of "personhood" in that it would prevent the fertilized (and therefore, in your terms) "person" from implanting, how could it NOT be illegal?
My fear is that not only will Georgia women be stripped of their constitutional right to choose to have an abortion, they will also be stripped of most common forms of birth control that would in turn prevent them from having an unintended pregnancy in the first place. Pretty scary, huh?"
Hi, Kristen.
Thank you for taking the time to comment, and for writing such a thoughtful objection. I know that one of Planned Parenthood's main arguments against this amendment is that it is "an attempt to ban certain forms of birth control." I also know that this is not true and Planned Parenthood is spreading this misinformation to mislead and cloud the real issue. The real issue is the dignity of all human life whether that life is a days-old embryo or a disabled veteran, or an elderly citizen. We feel that the best way to affirm that dignity is through a constitutional amendment.
While Georgia Right to Life does oppose the forms of birth control that cause chemical abortions (abortifacients), this amendment of itself will have no effect on any type of birth control.
Constitutional amendments are not legislation. We think it's very important to be honest about what this amendment does, and more importantly, what it does not do. If this amendment is passed, (which requires a two-thirds vote from both sides of the legislature, and a majority vote from the citizens of Georgia) there would be no immediate impact on birth control, or abortion for that matter!
The day after the amendment passed, abortion clinics all over the state would still be in business. You would still be able to get your birth control. Constitutional amendments are made to be broad in scope, so that if passed, legislators can later attempt to pass bills to enforce the part of the amendment they want to enforce, or think they could enforce constitutionally.
As one who studies the statistics of abortion, I believe that if the people of Georgia can barely decide if they want a barbaric procedure like abortion to be legal or not, there is no reason to believe that the same people would decide to ban abortifacients. According to the polls, over 90% of the country believes that there should be full access to birth control. Birth control was made legal before Roe v. Wade, and there is no reason to think that it would be made illegal if the Human Life Amendment were passed, or even if Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Kristen said...
"As a college student in Georgia, I have concerns regarding the amendment- particularly how it relates to contraception.
Your website details that "...genuine contraception is the prevention of life." (in the "Responses to Common Objections" section) No argument here. BUT the medical definition of pregnancy begins at the point when the egg is implanted in the uterine wall. This poses quite a problem if your definition of "personhood" begins at the moment of fertilization, which occurs before implantation. The kind of birth control I use (the pill) is hormonal and used to prevent the egg from implanting in the uterus.
If this is the case, how can you speculate that my birth control (and many other common forms of contraception other than the pill that rely on hormones) wouldn't be banned? Seeing that this contraception would interfere with your definition of "personhood" in that it would prevent the fertilized (and therefore, in your terms) "person" from implanting, how could it NOT be illegal?
My fear is that not only will Georgia women be stripped of their constitutional right to choose to have an abortion, they will also be stripped of most common forms of birth control that would in turn prevent them from having an unintended pregnancy in the first place. Pretty scary, huh?"
Hi, Kristen.
Thank you for taking the time to comment, and for writing such a thoughtful objection. I know that one of Planned Parenthood's main arguments against this amendment is that it is "an attempt to ban certain forms of birth control." I also know that this is not true and Planned Parenthood is spreading this misinformation to mislead and cloud the real issue. The real issue is the dignity of all human life whether that life is a days-old embryo or a disabled veteran, or an elderly citizen. We feel that the best way to affirm that dignity is through a constitutional amendment.
While Georgia Right to Life does oppose the forms of birth control that cause chemical abortions (abortifacients), this amendment of itself will have no effect on any type of birth control.
Constitutional amendments are not legislation. We think it's very important to be honest about what this amendment does, and more importantly, what it does not do. If this amendment is passed, (which requires a two-thirds vote from both sides of the legislature, and a majority vote from the citizens of Georgia) there would be no immediate impact on birth control, or abortion for that matter!
The day after the amendment passed, abortion clinics all over the state would still be in business. You would still be able to get your birth control. Constitutional amendments are made to be broad in scope, so that if passed, legislators can later attempt to pass bills to enforce the part of the amendment they want to enforce, or think they could enforce constitutionally.
As one who studies the statistics of abortion, I believe that if the people of Georgia can barely decide if they want a barbaric procedure like abortion to be legal or not, there is no reason to believe that the same people would decide to ban abortifacients. According to the polls, over 90% of the country believes that there should be full access to birth control. Birth control was made legal before Roe v. Wade, and there is no reason to think that it would be made illegal if the Human Life Amendment were passed, or even if Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)