Those would be considered crimes. I don't think he was referencing criminal behavior.
Abortion
- Thread starter LDB
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Those would be considered crimes. I don't think he was referencing criminal behavior.
One must be careful about the idea of what a "crime" is or is not, or what "criminal behavior" is, or is not. What if the "benevolent government" was to "require" that all children, regardless of background, be "educated" in a "state run school"? What if that same "benevolent government" "outlawed" even a "swat on the butt" for punishment? Neither of those ideas are beyond the reach of this, or any, government.
Every time I make that statement somebody invariably comes back with an extreme example (or in this case, two). My answer is always the same. Yes, you should be able to raise your kids any way you want. They're your kids, nobody else's, and how you raise them is nobody's business.
Now, if you want to make exceptions for extreme examples, that's fine, but the exceptions need to be spelled out and you need to stick to those extreme exceptions. The slope can't be slippery enough to allow a child to be taken from its parents on an unsubstantiated allegation by a neighbor (or even a teacher or medical professional) to "err on the side of caution" without due process. The slope cannot be slippery enough to allow a child to be taken away because a parent spanked him in the cereal aisle of the grocery store for throwing a temper tantrum and then have the parent hauled off to jail, because that's not extreme. If a kid is bruised or is injured, "consistent with" abuse is not evidence of abuse, and the kid shouldn't be taken away and put the burden of proof on the parent that they didn't do it - the burden of proof is on whoever makes the allegation - and unless that burden of proof is met, the kid stays with the parent.
It should be extraordinarily hard to remove children from their parents. Unbelievably hard. It should be a last resort instead of the first resort that it is.
The Department of Health and Human Services defines child abuse or neglect as:
"Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or an act or failure to act, which presents an imminent risk of serious harm."
And states can expand on that. In some (most) states it's been expanded now to include the serious emotional harm of a child getting a spanking, and "imminent risk of serious harm" has been expanded to "possible risk of imminent risk of serious harm" to where kids playing in the front yard while not being directly supervised by a parent is considered neglect, because of the possibility of a windowless van driving by and snatching them.
In 2012, the most recent year that Health and Human Services has published reports, 3.2 million children were investigated by CPS, 2.5 million of those were eventually declared non-victims, and another 686,000 were declared to have met the expanded definition of abuse or neglect. As many as 80 percent of those 686,000, or 548,800 children were of the non-extreme type, like playing unsupervised in the yard, left in the car for 5 minutes while the parent runs a quick errand, or left at home for an hour while the mom goes to the grocery store.
Imminent risk of serious harm becomes hypothetical risk of serious harm.
Since 2008, the number of referrals to CPS has increased by 14.3 percent, even as overall rates of actual child victimization declined by 8.3 percent during the same period. That's insane. That's a 22.6 percent spread between reality and people minding other people's business. That's how you get 548,800 children wrongly being taken away from their parents over minor things that come down to being nothing more than a difference of opinion on how kids should be raised.
The system of Child Protection Services isn't about protection, it's about power. So in that light, yes, absolutely, you should be able to raise it any way you see fit with no outside interference.
Every time I make that statement somebody invariably comes back with an extreme example (or in this case, two). My answer is always the same. Yes, you should be able to raise your kids any way you want. They're your kids, nobody else's, and how you raise them is nobody's business.
WOW!!!
There's nothing else that can be said to that.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
WOW!!!
There's nothing else that can be said to that.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Except for everything else I said after that.
paullud
Veteran Expediter
Forcing anyone to have a child because of religious beliefs is asinine...especially for a country partly built on the premise to escape religious persecutions?.....just my 2 cents...
The determination that a fetus is alive isn't always based on religious beliefs. Some people just look at the idea that if there is a beating heart or brain that it means there is life.
Life is determined by science. A fetus that has not died of natural causes, or one that has not been killed in an accident or an abortion, is without a doubt, alive. That is a scientific fact. It has NOTHING to do with "religious" beliefs. That is true even IF an idiot like Obama believes that is somehow above his "pay grade".
I've always accepted the terms pro choice and pro life at face value. A pregnant woman doesn't always choose abortion, but if she didn't intend to get pregnant, she should have a choice - at least, until either birth control or human beings are perfect.
The pro life people believe they are trying to save lives, for which they are willing to lie. Starting with referring to the fetus as a baby, which it is not. A compromise of 20 weeks should satisfy both sides, but the anti abortion side cannot accept that, either.
How could anyone think a baby should be born to a woman who doesn't want to be pregnant?
And don't even bother saying "if she doesn't want to be pregnant, she shouldn't have sex" because that's just unreasonable. Unless, of course, there's a way to keep the men who don't want babies from having sex too, because it's just as much their fault, only they can walk away whistling Dixie afterwards.
Abortion KILLS! That IS a FACT. Don't like facts? Tough cookies. Life begins at conception, I defy ANYONE to prove that fact wrong. Only those who reject science can say that is not correct. One can choose to kill a growing life, or not. To reject the idea that a killing is not taking place when an abortion is performed, flunked 8th grade.
No one is saying life doesn't begin at conception. No one is denying that "a killing" is taking place when an abortion happens. An abortion is the killing of a fetus, there's no debate about that.
But a fetus is not a human, nor a child, nor a baby.
But a fetus is not a human, nor a child, nor a baby.
Sorry, YOU may not say that abortion does not kill, but many do. Obama once stated that knowing when life begins was above his "pay grade".
A human fetus is a normal human being at that point in it's life, assuming it is healthy. It is not a rabbit fetus. It cannot be anything other than a human being since it is the joining of a human sperm and egg. It will live, as all "beings" on this planet, until it dies. Medical abortion, a opposed to a natural abortion, ends that life in a violent, unnatural, manner. Many people have survived that attempt to kill them, some with visible scares from the attempt.
The ONLY point of contention would be "religious", which I was not speaking of.
It seems you have a problem with the meaning of "being." Being is a fact of existence, something that exists, as opposed to nonexistence. A human being, with "human" being the descriptive adjective, is one type of being. There are exotic beings in the sea, existential beings, alien beings, transcendental beings, and potential beings. In order to be a human being you have to A)- exist, and B)-be human. The most you can say about a human fetus is that it's a potential being, a potential human being. But it wont be an actual being until it exists as an actual being. It is a fetal being, though.
Well, no, of course it's not. It's not a couch, it's not a tire iron, it's not a Big Gulp. The list of what it's not is far longer than the list of what it is. What it is is a human fetus.
Depends on how you are using "be" in that sentence. If you mean "be" to mean "end up becoming" or "become," then the sentence is correct. If you mean "be" to mean "currently exist" then the sentence is incorrect. Life may begin at conception, but human existence does not. A fertilized chicken egg doesn't instantly become a chicken just because the rooster bumped ugly.
Well, yeah, but unless it's born it won't live as a human being until it dies, it will live as a fetal being until it dies.
People don't survive abortion attempts - fetuses do, though.
The point of contention is the redefining of words.
Abortion kills. As does war, and people can rationalize the death of actual, real, already born babies, plus their parents and siblings, when they are killed by bombs meant for "the enemy" - not a word of protest about all those deaths. Those deaths we can accept, but a woman who has sex must bear the consequences - and the baby, if she gets pregnant. Not the man who is equally responsible- just the woman. Because: morally superior people say so.