The sacred work of abortion

[No Tof]

A TBM friend of mine posted this on FB a couple of days ago.


LifeNews.comLike Page
Yesterday at 3:02pm ·
Religious Leaders Bless Opening of New Planed Parenthood Abortion Clinic, Call It “Sacred Work”


Religious Leaders Bless Opening of New Planed Parenthood Abortion Clinic, Call It “Sacred Work”
LIFENEWS.COM

I wish I was tech savy enough to get the links for this.

It is an interesting question to see where we are regarding both the idea of abortion and birth control as well as the idea of the blessing of "religious leaders" to such an idea.

[Newme]

http://www.lifenews.com/2017/01/12/reli ... cred-work/

Sad, so sad and really evil.
Evil is not just sinning but evil is the attempt to pretend you're doing good while you make someone else suffer - which is what they're doing.
Children (developing humans) have no say in whether they are tortured and killed or not.
They ignore childrens' rights in order to try to seem "kind" to those who irresponsibly neglected to use birth control and therefore demand a child suffer for their inappropriate choices.
By 8 weeks gestation, all body systems are intact, so by the time many abortions are conducted, he/she can FEEL his/her body being ripped apart limb by limb. We don't hear their screams but that doesn't mean they don't feel pain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3ZQURkpGY0 Utah is the first state to require with abortions, babies to be given pain-killers after a certain time gestation (should be earlier but at least it's better than none).

It seems those people are ignoring the greatest commandment - to love the least of these, to be a voice to those who have no voice, to not kill.

[LaMachina]

http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/1/18 ... th-control

If the link provided above is any indication, then those that want abortion to be a rare occurrence should be clamoring for women's health clinics (like the one lifenews is complaining about) to be widely available. Easy access to and education about birth control appears to be the approach that will have the greatest effect at reducing the need for abortion.

[RubinHighlander]

As LaMachina points out, the good news is that abortion rates have been on the decline since the 70's.

http://kff.org/womens-health-policy/sta ... B%7D%7D%7D

But that's mainly attributed to easier access to more effective birth control, which is also a good thing.

[alas]

Those who want to outlaw *all* abortion are either uneducated, not realistic, or they think a fetus's life is more important than the life of the mother. There are simply situations where the mother will die if she continues the pregnancy. Until medical science advances a bit more, abortion is still the only way to save the mother's life in some rare and specific cases. This is why politicians who do not understand medicine should stay the hell out of what should be a decision between a woman and her doctor. I am against abortion in most cases, but it makes me furious that politicians think they should get to decide on their religious beliefs when abortion is needed, or that God somehow magically doesn't ever let a mother die or a rape victim get pregnant.

Think about it this way. Pregnancy forces a woman to share her organs with another human. In cases of someone already born needing a bone marrow transplant politicians cannot force a donor with a good tissue match to donate his bone marrow. But the other person's life depends on it and by withholding, the reluctant donnor is killing them. But he still cannot be forced to share his organs. But a pregnant woman CAN be forced to share her organs? And what about when the mother's life is in danger? People have the right to kill someone who is actively threatening their life. But a total outlaw on abortion would mean a pregnant woman is the only class of person who does not have any right to kill in order to save their own life. Yes, it is sad that the person threatening the mother's life in an innocent fetus, but why can men shot someone who is threatening their life, but a woman can't abort someone who is threatening hers.

In the countries where abortion has been outlawed and made a crime, women have been put in prison because they cannot prove that a miscarriage was a spontaneous miscarriage. It is like they are guilty until proven innocent. When a pregnancy miscarries, there is no way to prove that the mother did not take an abortion pill, so several countries where all abortion has been made illegal, women are being put in prison for having a miscarriage.

Another thing that really irks me is that the same people who are against all abortions are often the very people trying to prevent women from accessing birth control. It is like they are not against abortion so much as they are in favor of forced pregnancy and forced birth. It has been proven over and over that the way to reduce abortion is to provide women with birth control. But why do conservative politicians try to limit birth control? If they are against abortion, then that is the worst thing they could do. But what it seems to me is that conservatives want to force any woman who has sex, into having babies, with no regard for women's health or welfare.

The other way to reduce abortion is to take care of single mothers, so that a pregnancy is not a sentence of life time poverty. There was one study that took pregnant women considering an abortion and followed them for ten years. Those who opted not to have the abortion were much poorer ten years later than those who had the abortion. They were much more likely to be on welfare, to not have completed their education, and their over all health was poorer. So, the abortion really improved the outcome later in life for the women who had a crises pregnancy compared to those who decided to carry their babies to term. Now, weakness in this study is they did not include women who placed their children for adoption. So, if society provided a better safety net by helping single mothers with housing, education, childcare, this would also reduce abortion. But funny, the conservatives are also against spending money on these kinds of programs also.

It costs money to prevent abortions and conservatives don't want to spend the money to prevent abortions. That tells me that conservatives have other motivations than preventing abortions.

Also, when abortions are illegal, women take the risk of an illegal abortion. So, in order to keep abortion safe, it must be kept legal and controlled by laws that keep it safe. Women die from illegal abortions, so if a person cares about life, all life, not just unborn life, then we need to keep abortion, legal, safe, and rare.

[Newme]

About 1% of abortions are given medical reason. And it does make sense to save one life (mother) rather than lose 2. But that's rare.
Most abortions are overwhemingly done as an irresponsible excuse for birth control.

Obviously (or not), legality is not something that can be affected on an online forum.
Education of child development and the facts of how a child is killed in abortions is what can help people make more informed decisions.

[No Tof]

A controversial subject for sure with strong emotions on both sides of the issue. I tend to think the rights of the woman with the fetus should over ride the rights of others not involved but that is just my opinion.

Can we turn now to the idea of religious leaders "blessing" the concept of abortion. What are your thoughts about this in our modern society? ..... and more interestingly in our own post TBM place in life.

[Enoch Witty]

Also, when abortions are illegal, women take the risk of an illegal abortion. So, in order to keep abortion safe, it must be kept legal and controlled by laws that keep it safe. Women die from illegal abortions, so if a person cares about life, all life, not just unborn life, then we need to keep abortion, legal, safe, and rare.

I am increasingly becoming a fanboy over here. Everything you wrote is exactly dead-on.

I think this post makes a great argument from a religious perspective that a fetus is not a living being yet: http://www.thechristianleftblog.org/blo ... ving-being.

I have a friend who came from absolute poverty, got pregnant right before getting ready to transfer from community college to a university, and her boyfriend told her, "I won't help you, I won't be involved, I don't want this." So she got an abortion. Now, 12 or 13 years later, she's a college graduate, a teacher, and married with two beautiful children. If she had had that baby, she would have been stuck in poverty with basically no family means to support her, with extreme difficulty to find any kind of meaningful job, education, or relationship. Sure, that baby would have been alive, but what kind of life could my friend have provided it?

In a twisted sort of way, I have become a much larger proponent of abortion after the birth of my son. He's awesome, but he's hard work, man. I would argue that it is better for a child to not be born than to be born unwanted, unloved, resented, and/or neglected. It's not a coincidence that Roe v. Wade coincides so heavily with the decreasing crime rates over the last 40 years. A greater percentage of the children that are being born are wanted, loved, and nurtured. What good does it do society or these children to force births on unwilling women that result in negative environments?

[LaMachina]

Can we turn now to the idea of religious leaders "blessing" the concept of abortion. What are your thoughts about this in our modern society? ..... and more interestingly in our own post TBM place in life.

They blessed a Women's Health Clinic. Calling it an 'abortion clinic' is the type of inflammatory rhetoric places like lifenews use far too often. To me it seems akin to calling a hospital a boob job clinic because boob jobs happen to be performed there.

I'm perfectly satisfied with someone calling a place concerned with women's health sacred, including a place that provides safe abortions.

[alas]

Can we turn now to the idea of religious leaders "blessing" the concept of abortion. What are your thoughts about this in our modern society? ..... and more interestingly in our own post TBM place in life.

They blessed a Women's Health Clinic. Calling it an 'abortion clinic' is the type of inflammatory rhetoric places like lifenews use far too often. To me it seems akin to calling a hospital a boob job clinic because boob jobs happen to be performed there.

I'm perfectly satisfied with someone calling a place concerned with women's health sacred, including a place that provides safe abortions.

Yes, calling a women's health center an abortion clinic and trying to close them all down is the kind of thing that angers me, because poor women go to a women's health clinic to get birth control and that prevents abortion. So, to me, the conservatives attempts to close down planned parenthood is evil because if they succeed, there will be more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions and more unwanted children growing up in poverty and neglect and abuse. So, yes, blessing a women's health clinic is a righteous thing. Women deserve to have their reproductive rights and health protected.

The problem is not the *percentage* of abortions that happen to save the mother's life. Yes, it is small. But it still needs to be protected. In Ireland a woman died recently because all abortion was lumped into "lazy people just wanting birth control," and totally banned. The problem is that there are people who want to take away *all* right to abortion, even when continuing the pregnancy might kill the mother. They might as well go get a gun and shoot the mother themselves. Because they are placing the right to live of a not yet human above the rights of a living human to live. Also, the right to abortion needs to be protected in cases of rape and incest without the woman having to prove that she really was raped. It is very hard to prove rape, let alone weeks after the fact when the woman finds out she is pregnant. The law used to state that rape had to be reported to the police and they had to decide it was a "founded rape" and police are notorious for not taking the word of the rape victim, or when she found out she was pregnant, she could not get an abortion. If she does not report the rape, she still has the right to be able to get an abortion.

And for the people who are against all abortion, well studies show that women who feel that way are just as likely to get an abortion because they see their own case as different than all those other women getting an abortion as a method of birth control. They see their abortion as justified but not other women's abortion.

Much of the information put out by the anti abortion groups is false, like post abortion trauma and the dangers of abortion compared to live birth and regrets over abortion compared to regrets about placing a baby for adoption.

[Newme]

Reminds me of fear of "anti-Mormon" facts.
When does a child have any rights? When they're finished developing - around 18 or in their 20's??
When they're able to be legally independent and not reliant on adult guardianship?
Until then, they have the right to die only? It just doesn't make sense logically nor ethically.

New Study Shows 85 Percent of Women Say Abortions Cause Mental Health Issues
http://www.lifenews.com/2009/11/03/int-1371/

Abortion Risks: A list of major physical complications related to abortion:
Approximately 10% of women undergoing induced abortion suffer from immediate complications, of which one-fifth (2%) were considered major. [19] However the majority of complications take time to develop and will not be apparent for days, months or even years. Major risks and complications of abortion are described, with citations to the medical literature, below.
-DEATH
-CERVICAL, OVARIAN, AND LIVER CANCER:
-UTERINE PERFORATION:
-CERVICAL LACERATIONS:
-PLACENTA PREVIA:
-SUBSEQUENT PRE-TERM DELIVERIES AND OTHER COMPLICATIONS OF LABOR:
-PRETERM BIRTH/HANDICAPPED NEWBORNS IN LATER PREGNANCIES:
-ECTOPIC PREGNANCY:
-PELVIC INFLAMMATORY DISEASE (PID):
-ENDOMETRITIS:
-IMMEDIATE COMPLICATIONS:
-INCREASED RISKS FOR WOMEN SEEKING MULTIPLE ABORTIONS:
-LOWER GENERAL HEALTH:
-INCREASED RISK FOR CONTRIBUTING HEALTH RISK FACTORS:
-PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLICATIONS:
http://afterabortion.org/1999/abortion- ... -abortion/

[Newme]

“Abortion should be listed as a weapon of mass destruction against the voiceless.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri

“I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.”
― Ronald Regan

“We must learn that when people devalue any one Life, they devalue all Life.”
― Donald L. Hicks, Look into the stillness

“I could feel the baby being torn from my insides. It was really painful....Three-quarters of the way through the operation I sat up....In the cylinder I saw the bits and pieces of my little child floating in a pool of blood. I screamed and jumped up off the table....I just couldn't stop throwing up....”
― Randy Alcorn, Why Pro-Life?: Caring for the Unborn and Their Mothers

[Flaming Meaux]

“Abortion should be listed as a weapon of mass destruction against the voiceless.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri

“I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.”
― Ronald Regan

“We must learn that when people devalue any one Life, they devalue all Life.”
― Donald L. Hicks, Look into the stillness

“I could feel the baby being torn from my insides. It was really painful....Three-quarters of the way through the operation I sat up....In the cylinder I saw the bits and pieces of my little child floating in a pool of blood. I screamed and jumped up off the table....I just couldn't stop throwing up....”
― Randy Alcorn, Why Pro-Life?: Caring for the Unborn and Their Mothers

Well, at least this debate isn't devolving into hyperbole.

[Newme]

Well, at least this debate isn't devolving into hyperbole.

No, just illogical comments like the one above that have no relevance to the discussion.
Ad hominem attack, unless you explain exactly how which statements were "devolving into hyperbole."

[LaMachina]

Reminds me of fear of "anti-Mormon" facts.
When does a child have any rights? When they're finished developing - around 18 or in their 20's??
When they're able to be legally independent and not reliant on adult guardianship?
Until then, they have the right to die only? It just doesn't make sense logically nor ethically.

The comparison of terminating an 8 week pregnancy with murdering adolescents seems to be veering wildly towards unhelpful hyperbole...but that's just my opinion.

[Flaming Meaux]

Well, at least this debate isn't devolving into hyperbole.

No, just illogical comments like the one above that have no relevance to the discussion.
Ad hominem attack, unless you explain exactly how which statements were "devolving into hyperbole."

I'm talking about quote-mining some of the most extreme opinions on the subject and then posting them as though they were authoritative, even though they gloss over the moral, ethical, and philosophical complexities of the issue.

In my experience, people who immediately approach the topic of abortion with "BABY KILLERS!!!!!" are rarely well-equipped to discuss those complexities. That's fine for you, it's your opinion, but it's a whole 'nuther ballgame when you want your opinion to have the force of law against others who do not share it.

Personally, I'd be satisfied if pro-lifers actually cared about a kid's life enough that they would support the social programs necessary to make sure those kids were provided for after the birth--or at least support wide access to affordable birth control to avoid unwanted pregnancies to begin with. Instead, they seem too generally to fall into the stereotypes on which they are basing their opinions in the first instance, such as the one that you apparently couldn't help but fall into yourself in only a couple posts on the subject, that people are just having abortions because they are too lazy or irresponsible to do anything else.

As alas pointed out, suddenly when these types are faced with an unwanted pregnancy themselves, studies show their inclination is to be in favor of abortion in their own "extreme" case while they feel justified blanket-denying it to almost anyone else.

[Snowdrop]

As I have mentioned in previous posts, the births of my children were traumatic. My pregnancies were unhealthy at best. I was never ill enough to require hospitalization, but I was unable to do anything most of the time. I was too sick to notice how much I was missing/neglecting. I was on bed rest for a month with my first and for three with my second. My DH stepped in and made sure our family worked while working graves because I was incapable of running a household or taking care of our older child to the extent he needed. If I were to be pregnant again it would be disastrous for my family. Honestly, I don't know if I would consider abortion, but I don't think it would be off the table. However, I don't need to worry about that possibility thanks to women's clinics. It is a blessing in my life to know that I don't have to worry about an unplanned pregnancy making me unable to care for the children I have and forcing my spouse into being my full time caretaker and the primary parent, jeopardizing his ability to do his job well. That could throw our family into a hugely negative tailspin.

As has been mentioned by others, I think that abortion should be rare and safe. I don't think that people who have them are as selfish as they are portrayed to be. We need to remember that every person has a different set of reasons for doing what they do and we are not privy to that information, nor should we be. It is a personal decision which has nothing to do with us. Our job is only to make sure that women have access to information that can help them to make the best choices possible for their situations, hopefully before pregnancy is even an issue.

[No Tof]

I find it interesting to see such strong feelings about this issue. Not surprising but interesting especially because much of the polarizing sentiment related to abortion is couched in religious belief regarding the right or wrong of the procedure.

I would guess with the rare exceptions outlined in the "handbook" such as incest or rape or a doctors opinion that the life of the mother is at great risk, TBMs would oppose abortion. I think in general they would not support clinics and would be shocked to see religious leaders bless such clinics.

Personally I hope women have the opportunity to take charge of their bodies and their futures and that we stop putting much credence into the blessing or support from so called religious leaders on this issue or any other.

[Newme]

Personally, I'd be satisfied if pro-lifers actually cared about a kid's life enough that they would support the social programs necessary to make sure those kids were provided for after the birth--or at least support wide access to affordable birth control to avoid unwanted pregnancies to begin with. Instead, they seem too generally to fall into the stereotypes on which they are basing their opinions in the first instance, such as the one that you apparently couldn't help but fall into yourself in only a couple posts on the subject, that people are just having abortions because they are too lazy or irresponsible to do anything else.

"Pro-lifers"?? You accuse mem of hyperbole when you use such a statement in response to me?
I don't identify myself as that - why do you?
I am a person, not my beliefs, yet you jumped to conclusions, painted me with overgeneralizations and then accuse me of bs.
All of your posts on this thread have contained logical fallacies and cognitive distortions.
I value life - a live heart beat - as long as the mother's life is not in danger, otherwise I see abortion as ethical when it saves one life in stead losing 2.
It's not all-or-nothing (another logical fallacy).

Killing a child is wrong in most cases - it is very rare when it is ethical to stop a beating heart.
Just because many people on this forum (everyone on this thread except me) believes it's ok to kill a child, doesn't make it ethically right.
What bothers me most on this thread is not so much the topic of abortion - who knows - maybe this thread will do nothing for saving lives.
But what bothers me is the HERD mentality. I see no consideration of FACTS of human development, just attacks at me and anybody suggesting that it might be morally wrong to kill a child who has no way of defending him/herself.

It bothers me that nobody else on this forum has shown any backbone to stand up for these little children - even those who may believe that it's wrong are too afraid to be verbally attacked. So many people, especially many Mormons and "post-Mormons" are herd-thinkers - they just jump to different herds, seeking to fit in. So few actually THINK for themselves and form their own unique opinions based on facts and ethics.

[fh451]

Just because many people on this forum (everyone on this thread except me) believes it's ok to kill a child, doesn't make it ethically right.

Just because you believe strongly in a topic doesn't mean you have the right to claim people here believe "it's ok to kill a child." That's a gross mis-charactarization of just about every person here (if not everyone), and is insulting and flat wrong. Similarly, the reason people come to their conclusions is just "herd mentality." Perhaps you might want to actually make a positive argument for your case and avoid impugning people's motives.

I'm no longer a moderator here, but this is one of those hot button issues that has repeatedly caused (on the old NOM board) tension and dissension. It's ok to have strongly held beliefs, but maybe we can remember to state our positions with clarity and not insult.

fh451