Late-term abortionist killed

LDB · Jun 10, 2009

I can't help always being right... it's tough actually but someone had to do it and I was chosen.

Turtle · Jun 11, 2009

aristotle said:
Oh, I see similarities between abortion and Islam. Millions of innoent lives imperiled by both.

Yeah, and if you want to defeat either, or both, the same methods will have to be used.

Of course, I don't expect any minds to be changed on the abortion issue. No matter how much lipstick abortion advocates put on this issue, it's still a pig.

That's an opinion. Can you not see the basic differences between universal morals that are accepted by nearly everyone in society, regardless of race, religion, economic or other differentiators, and the morals of a subset of society that are not universally adopted and accepted? That right there should tell you something about those subset morals. They are based on a set of beliefs that not everybody shares. And just because you believe it, and they don't, doesn't make them wrong. But to force your beliefs onto others certainly is, because you won't stand for it when the roles are reversed. It's hypocrisy on a grand scale.

Abortion is not a natural right. It is an artifice of the mid and late 20th century. If it was a natural right, abortion would have been a widespread practice from the dawn of civilization.

Actually, it was rather widespread, at least since the dawn of Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BC, and according to the meticulous records of the Chinese, several thousand years before that. The Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and many other ancient civilizations had abortion. There is a bas relief in Angkor Wat in Cambodia, cira 1150, which depics an abortion. Avicenna, the Muslim who wrote one of the fundamental medical manuals, "The Canon of Medicine", listed in his encyclopedia both birth control and abortive medications, many of which are still in use today in one form or another.

In literature, in Theaetetus, Plato mentions that one particular midwife was especially skillful at inducing abortion. In medicine, Hippocrates (the Hippocratic Oath guy) specifically recommended against the use of the more common pressaries (vaginal suppositories) for abortion because the tended to cause vaginal ulcers. In the 2nd Century, the Greek physician Soranus, in his foundation manual Gynecology, detailed suggestions for both abortion, as well as guidance for when it should and should not be performed (should be performed in the case of health complications, as well as the emotional immaturity of the mother, among many). Other physicians came up with natural herbal and pharmacological methods to unduce abortion, such as the oils of the common rue plant, which modern science has shown to contain three separate abortive compounds. And there were physical methods, like running, jumping, horseback riding, any kind of strenuous labor.

Up until the third century, sharp and pointy implements were discouraged because of the obvious dangers of performation, but by the 3rd century the more surgical methods were being used.

It is not a recent phenomenon. The recent phenomenan was in the 18th and 19th centuries that various doctors, clerics, and social reformers successfully pushed for an all-out ban on abortion. Prior to that, it was a relatively common practice. And in the 20th century is has returned to more or less a comon practice. It's really hard to force your morals onto the entire history of civilization, I know. It would probably be easier just to pretend that abortion on demand didn't exist before the 20th century, I suppose.

In the rest of the natural animal kingdom, many newborns are either intentionally ignored and left to die by the mother, or outright killed because something is wrong with them. Some actually eat their young. That's about as natural as you can get. So the nature of it all could be a lot worse for us humans. Or a lot better, but that's also a moral judgment, isn't it?

Morality and values matter. Alot. Every society has to contend with issues of right vs. wrong.

Absolutely, but it's not the job of a self-proclaimed 'holier than thou' segment of society to dictate to all of society what society's morals and values are to be. Only society at large can adopt and accept its own morals.

In some parts of the Islamic world, halftime entertainment at soccer games includes stonings and beheadings.

They do a lot of strange things in many parts of the world that we would consider barbaric. Over here for halftime entertainment, we show Janet Jackson's 40-year-old tіttіe. I don't know which is more barbaric.

Here in America, in the 1600's, women suspected of being witches were burned at the stake. It was a horrendous, barbaric act condoned by the morals and values in that time and place. Much like abortion is condoned today.

I love it. I really, really do. That's one of the greatest Urban Legends, ever. And what's most astounding about it is, it's an Urban Legend that predates the Internet.

What actually happened is the answer to a great trivia question. In Salem and elsewhere, hanging was the standard method of execution, although one victim was crushed to death under heavy stones for refusing to even enter a plea. During the Salem Witch Trials, 150 had been arrested, 31 were tried, and of those 31, 14 women and 6 men were convicted and put death. Not one person was burned at the stake in Colonial America for being suspected of, or being convicted of, being a witch. Not even one. And all this time we're believing that it was hundreds, or even thousands.

They burned a lot of them in Europe, though. Way more than thousands. Most estimates are hundreds of thousands, some estimate far more than that. Most were burned at the stake during the Reformation, the Thirty Years War, and the Inquisition, but also in the Great Witch Hunts of Europe (but even then, most were executed by other, more expedient means). These burnings were a result of people forcing their moral values onto others against their will. Ya gotta love good irony. I know I do.

One of my favorite quotes is,

"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."

It was written and spoken by Giordano Bruno in his defense of, among other things, blasphemy, heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, cosmic plurality (the belief that life could exist on other worlds), the possibility that the universe was infinite in scope, and, of "Dealing in magics and divination" (a.k.a., witchcraft). For these and other high crimes against the morals of others, he was imprisoned for 7 years and then burned at the stake during the Inquisition.

Minds cannot be changed on this topic because it's cloaked in emotioalism. There is nothing rational about killing our young.

Emotionalism on both sides, though. True, there is nothing rational about killing our young, and because it's not rational, all of rational society is universally against it, making it one of society's universal morals. What is not rational, is trying to define the unborn as being "our young", as it is not universally accepted. Some religions, major ones, believe that a fetus has no soul until angels come and breathe "life" into it, and thus life begins right then and there, not a moment before. Are they right, or are they wrong?

The stone cold fact is, if it was universally rational, and not based on a societal subset of beliefs, then it would be universally accepted. But it's not. And to try and force your morals onto people who don't believe them is called Moral Relativism. Trust me, it's a shoe you do not want to wear on the other foot.