There are days when I want to propose a secret treaty between the men and women of America. Abortion is the first trimester is "women's business" to be decided by women alone provided they agree never, ever to talk about it.

Let the women deal with the guilt and shame of having murdered an innocent, alone. Great for Clinton and other dirtbags. Tired of being the "just friends" who has to deal with the fallout are we Mr. B?

"I wanted to do something bigger with myself _ I didn't want to be stopped by anything."

What a selfish... Oh never mind!

There's money to be made for he who prints T-SHIRTS that read:

My Mom didn't have an abortion - THANK GOD!

Why would these women feel it appropriate to declare to the world that they had had abortions? Was it not a wrenching decision, made after some moral conflict, but ultimately what, to them, was an appropriate if difficult choice? Would they similarly sign a petition stating that, "I took my mother off life support," or "I starved my father to death?"

Of course they would. Everyone convinces themselves they were "aiming for the good" after they've done evil.

A good friend of mine is a practicing medical doctor and mother of 6 (including a toddler and a 3 year old). She also home-schools her children. Her husband is a high-school teacher. She got her degree while serving in the Canadian armed forces.

Oh, and she was born in France, raised atheist and became a Catholic here in Canada all on her own!

I wonder if 27 year old "Tyffine Jones" will ever measure up?

Yeah right.

Peter B: That comment is probably heartily shared by a large group of men who would love to have the woman "take care of it" in the first 3 months and never mention it again.

Randall Voth: Kudos to your friend, though I homeschool 3 children and do not know how she can be both a doctor and a homeschooler to six, but then, I'm just a mere mortal.

The problem is the whole society requires the woman to have a wonderful degree and career and there is no longer much respect for the woman who is simply a mother. Would you respect and consider your friend accomplished if all she did was have six children and never went to college and became a doctor? Personally, I would, but mere motherhood retains value for me.

Everyone believes that a woman must do more than be a mother to have value. Therefore, since being a mother is not highly valued you are going to have less of it since most children (except Mr. Voth's friend's homeschooled six) take up a lot of the woman's time and energy.

Let me tell you, I am 8 months pregnant. Last week I went to Target with my 3 children and my 2 nephews (all five children under age 11). The looks and comments of sorrow and pity I received for looking like I was going to have a sixth child were disturbing and explain a lot about why the abortion rate is so high.

A woman who does not understand that bearing children is ". . .do[ing] something bigger than myself. . .," is as far beneath contempt as a man who does not understand that bearing arms for his country is not the same as a corvee'.

Buttercup: congratulations on the new ButterBaby.

Buttercup:

Probably, but that is just part of the timeless male dream of consequence free sex. What I meant was that I am not totally convinced that the law shouldn't be turning a blind eye at very early stages when everyone is unaware, but that publicizing it makes that impossibe. It's not unlike the arguments that surround the quiet unstated pacts between families and doctors about the last stages for the terminally ill. We've always had and relied upon them, but the law can't handle them and it's dangerous to try and make it, as the Schiavo case showed.

Mr. Morley: Thank you!! I like the name Butterbaby, too!

Peter B: Actually what I hear in these stories is a lot of anger. Who are these women angry at? Most likely the men who failed to live up to their responsibilities and also themselves for failing their children. If one is repulsed by the naked selfishness of these women and by corollary the failed men in their lives maybe there is a chance to rid ourselves of this evil. So lets hear the ugly truth about why most people commit sins.

By the way, the Schiavo case did not involve anyone who was terminally ill which is why there was a furor over it, so your analogy does not hold up. Unless the condition of needing food and water makes you terminal, in which case we all fit the bill.

Buttercup:

Ah, but the Schiavo case did involve the law moving in to appropriate what had always been an extra-legal decision. You and I know she wasn't terminal by any civilized definition, but the court says she was, so she was in any sense that mattered to her.

So, we are agreed abortion is largely a function of selfishness and irresponsibility, sometimes the man's, sometimes the woman's, sometimes both. All I'm saying is I don't see blanket legal prohibition as resolving that and I don't fully subscribe to the "better than nothing" theory in the early stages.

Mr. B, have they changed the laws? Last I heard it was a woman's right to choose. If men now get a say on whether their children live or die, let me know. Second, when has a law resolved anything? Wrongs are still done, but we hope that attempting to enforce the law will keep them to a minimum. Is your position one of no law or no law when it comes to murdering children? I don't think you mean that. It's just part of the same moral bankrupcy that says "It's not my place to tell people how to live their lives". Sounds good, but we live in a Democracy, and that's how it works. Every time you vote, you're telling people how to live their lives. You don't get to punt when it gets close to home.

Sory, Mr. Mitchell, I found that a little confusing. Perhaps you could clarify by stating exactly what your poisition is on abortion and why that half of humanity known as women will benefit from it.

Thanks for responding Mr. B. My position on abortion is that it is Wrong. It is Murder. Second, I do not think that women benefit from abortion. The orginal article showed women trying to be proud of their abortions. Not the act of a sane person, I think we can agree. It looks to me that they and others are trying to fill a hole in their souls. I still dwell on the sins of my childhood. I can't imagine what it's like to live with the murder of a child on my soul, and I never will. Just the thought of hurting one accidentally makes me shutter.
The part of your comment that I was responding to was where you blamed men for some abortions. You have a point when I comes to China, but I didn't think that was what you were talking about. I've been talked into doing stupid and wrong stuff before, the blame is my alone. "The sins you do by two and two you must pay for one alone". The only ones who can choose to have an abortion in the Free world are women. Given adoption and foster homes, there is never a need to kill the child. This sin is womens alone, at the moment.

Well, the problem with declaring all abortion to be murder, which flows logically and rationally from the proposition that human life begins at conception, is that most folks don't really believe it when push comes to shove even when they agree that abortion is abhorent and life begins at conception, and they never have. There are any number of illustrations of this. Firstly we would hardly have invented the crime of infanticide if that's what we thought. The civil law of inheritance, etc. has lots of traditional references to entitlements beginning when the foetus "quickens". Over thirty years ago Buckley wrote of the anomaly of senior Catholic prelates calling abortion murder while continuing to work and socialize with pro-abortion politicians and concluded (correctly in my view) that just screaming hypocrisy at the prelates wasn't a sufficient answer. Ask yourself how many parents would try to stop their son marrying a woman they liked because they learned she had an abortion years earlier she now regretted. How many would try to stop their daughters from marrying a repentant murderer?

So much of this issue is tied into immaturity, sexual fraud, cultural influence, ignorance, nurture and education, fear and terror and sheer stupidity that that your nice, neat self-righteous paradigm seems to me to take the whole matter right out of human reality. You are making the same mistake as those ultra-rationalists we like to debate around here, which is to take the morally ambiguous and existentially messy and either turn them into nice pat uncompromising solutions that would impress Euclid or just walk away and wash their hands of the matter. Some scream "choice" and you scream "murder" and the majority of people are repulsed by both. Undoubtedly you and some others here will accuse me of introducing relativism here, but I'm not. I am confessing incompetence on behalf of my gender.

Your exculpation of men and fire and brimstone rant at women is scary and, frankly, pagan in inspiration. You are raising the traditional male dream of consequence-free sex to a whole new moral level. If this is what a lot of anti-abortion men are thinking these days, it seems to me they are throwing a bone to the other side and strengthening the credibility of those in favour of giving some early window for this issue to be settled quietly between women and their god while the men gather blissfully unaware in a tavern someplace to discuss the sins and perfidies of the weaker vessels.

Mr. B, thanks for your thoughts. A few things. When Life begins(Conception) is a hard line. When Human live has value is a soft one. Your position just moves the line to a place where no one agrees. One day? One month? One year? Ten years? People, Mainstream, "Important People", have argued for Ten years. What will you do? Once you put it up to a vote, you have to live with the consequences. The civil law of inheritance, etc. has lots of traditional references to entitlements beginning when the foetus "quickens". Yes, a hundreds year line drawn from when they knew(with the best understanding of medicine at the time) a baby was present. When they could state with certainty that Life was present. I'm sorry that science moved your line and now we have to draw the line again. Science is unpleasent that way. Infanticide? A bad example, as we see people redefining the term to deal with the "new reality". Children left in garbage cans is not something people sure of limits do. Your example with parents also suffers. People have a hard time acting correctly when they are involved. That's why we removed such people from the justice system.
Immaturity, sexual fraud, cultural influence, ignorance, nurture and education, fear and terror and sheer stupidity seems to be what you are selling, Peter. Instead of drawing a line before the ugliness happens and letting people know what is expected of them, you are content to let them suffer alone, while they write up a moral code for themselves, on the fly, as they attempt to cope with the issue. They don't have much time, the baby will be coming soon. Wish them luck, and go back to sleep. Thank you, sir.
I am not exculpating men and I am not sure how you read that out of my comment. Men are responsible for their children. It's not a point you can argue. It's the Law. What they don't have is a choice(other then to avoid women altogether. My body, My choice works for both sides). You seem to be the one hoping for the traditional male dream of consequence-free sex. It's her kid, she can kill it, and I never have to even hear about it. This is Moral? Brimstone rant at women? It's not a rant, It's what I hear from women who have killed their child and can't get past the guilt. They don't say "We choose not to have a child now" they say " I killed my baby". Or they blush and change the topic, or they get very sad and very quiet. I'm not so empty that I will happily let them burn alone. I can't imagine that it would be your choice if one of them came to you. Your idea doesn't stop suffering. It just moves it down the road, with interest. Being judgemental is hard, but avoids so much pain. Isn't that what laws are supposed to be? Lessons learned?

Peter B:

So declaring the intentional extermination of human beings (albeit very tiny human beings) to be "murder" is hyper-rational, but pro-life parents are guilty of hypocrisy if they don't treat their son's repentant fiancee like a convicted murderer?

I truly find it hard to believe you don't understand why parents would be much more worried about allowing their child to marry a convicted murderer rather than somebody who once had an abortion, killing a fetus that is essentially out of sight, in an act that much of society frankly condones and declares to be blameless.