Observations from the Park

On the bright side (if you can call it that), at least she won't be a parent to a neglected, possibly abused child. because, you know if she isn't taking an abortion very seriously, she wouldn't take a child's welfare seriously, either.

And, it is way too easy to get on assistance, get child support, etc., for a lot of these girls to even consider giving their babies up. In some circles, it's this huge game to see who will have the next baby, so that they can dress them up, and show them off... but what of actual parenting? These are the babies that you hear of, later, abandoned, or starved.

It is sad. Parents should discuss the physical and emotional ramifications of the choices that their children will be making... including what to do if the birth control fails. I personally think that adoption is a healthier, more respectful choice, but the choice is the pregnant woman's.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Jul 19 2007, 05:07 PM) [snapback]481903[/snapback]</div>

Tough issue - what to do about people who don't regard an issue as having the same gravitas you or I give it, or who are even incapable of giving an issue the gravitas you or I would. It's a problem only as old as the earth itself, this problem of people not giving the same issue the same weight, morally, intellectually, emotionally. We obviously need a book that sets out the appropriate weights on given issues, you know, should I murder my neighbor gets weighted 10 for moral weight, 5 intellectual weight and 1,000 emotional weight. Should I have the cake or skip dessert gets weighted 1 for moral weight, 10 intellectual weight and 5 pounds of actual weight.

Pinto, I can state for a fact that there are issues you or I take far too lightly in other people's eyes (religious devotion being probably high on that list), so I recommend caution before expressing alarm that some people don't give the same weight to an issue that you do.

(You still gotta call my partner for an airplane ride - PM me if you need the phone #).

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Jul 19 2007, 07:07 PM) [snapback]481903[/snapback]</div>

To echo another recent discussion here, I think this is what results when morality is relative.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Jul 19 2007, 07:07 PM) [snapback]481903[/snapback]</div>

In all seriousness, I'm impressed that this impacted you this much. I thought right to choose for the woman was trump on any voice that silent little baby could have.

I don't know how many weeks along she is, but I know at 8 weeks the ultrasound to an untrained eye looks like a baby. It sucks the wind out of me to imagine myself in the place of the baby. Everything in nature to that baby is going forward in the womb while the great theif is lurking to literally destroy his/her little body in a moment in time.

I'm glad you cared, and I hope one day that the beat of the drum can stop long enough to hear the quiet cry of our nations aborted babies. Science can try to prove that humans evolved from a monkey 99 billion years ago, but somehow can't prove that little person in there is a human baby, conceived in the land of the brave and home of the free... and then snuffed out without an ounce of protection from our laws....

 

What bothers me is the same people that are against abortion are also against Welfare.

So this teenager is shamed, guilted, forced or some other way coerced into carrying this baby to term. Then she either keeps it due to shame, guilt or just biology's bonding hormones or she gives it up for adoption.

If she keeps it, who pays for this kid? This kid who may end up neglected or abused in some way? The tax paying public. And this kid probably won't grow up to be a contributing member of society any more than it's lazy slut mother did. More taxpayer dollars wasted.

Or the baby goes to "adoption". Well, unless it's white and has a clean bill of health, it may not be adopted. Babies of any color other than white, mixed race babies, babies with any sort of disabilty or babies with mothers who have taken drugs are less likely to be adopted. So they go to foster care. Which is paid for by....you guessed it.

I'll pay for the abortion. In the long run....it's cheaper.

Or perhaps we should set up orphanages the same way we set up Animal shelters. If you're not adopted in a set period of time.....you're put down.

Now if this is just a matter of the sanctity of life and the potential of this fertilized egg to become a person after a full gestation...well why not commandeer every fertilized egg that's abandoned and pay surrogate mothers to carry them to term?

Oh...and end war.

Either you're for the sanctity of life or you're not.

You can't be for it until birth and then against it from that point on. Otherwise you appear to be against abortion simply to supply cannonfodder for the next war.

BTW I notice no one is commenting much on Pinto Girl's first encounter. There is a tremendous disrespect of the elderly in this country compared to other countries. And there is tremendous discrimination of the elderly. And elderly abuse. I think it is the byproduct of our obsession with money and worship of youth.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jul 19 2007, 08:46 PM) [snapback]482003[/snapback]</div>

Your attempt at trying to connect the rational of the anti-abortion crowd with warmongering is disingenuous at best.
Hmmmm . . . and to think I though it was all about CHOICE. :huh:

What choice did the aborted fetus have?
If you could ask them, how many do you think would say, “oh, it's OK, just kill me.†:blink:

On the other hand, the soldier killed in combat DID have a choice.
It's an all volunteer military.
They had the choice not to join.
They also had the choice NOT to participate in any particular war.
If you could ask them, how many of those - those who gave the ultimate sacrifice - would respond by saying, “I wish I would have been aborted instead.†:blink:

If I were King, I would decree that women, 18 or older, have the right to an abortion [and it never be paid for by the government] . . . up to the time that the fetus would be considered a viable human who could survive outside the mother's womb. Any time after that point would be considered murder. The mother still HAD a choice.

You can't have respect for human life without limits on the legalities of being able to end human life. Partial Birth Abortion anyone????

How can you be rabidly pro-abortion (that IS what pro-choice is) and yet be so appalled by the death of a soldier who put themselves in harms way by choice?
One is able to chose for themselves, the other is not. The fetus not having the choice is NOT pro-choice.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Jul 19 2007, 10:50 PM) [snapback]482066[/snapback]</div>

Did the 5 year old and his 8 months pregnant mother blown to bits by the bomb that soldier dropped on them have a choice too?

Did the 4 year old blown apart when he picked up a cluster bomblet thinking it was a toy have a choice?

Did the family of 6 that died of disease because they hadn't had access to clean water for months because that soldier had demolished the clean water delivery and sewage treatment infrastructure have a choice?

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

How about moving back in time to before the teenage girl got pregnant.

What if sex was something important and of value beyond the moment?

It sounds as if this crowd casually has sex, then casually has abortions.

Why expect someone to have values when values are held in contempt? Or just plain absent?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(05_SilverPri @ Jul 19 2007, 09:46 PM) [snapback]481954[/snapback]</div>

Brilliant observation. Not that that it is important, i would be interested to know if these women were religious or not - my guess would be no.

I was bother by the fact that they viewed life so benignly. I am in favor of allowing a mother to kill the fetus within her own body because the govt should never ever have control of something of that magnitude - that being said i would not do it unless it was for extraordinary reasons (like genetic defects, rape, life of the mother being endangered).

I am taken by the posters read on this - and i share her views. We all have to remind ourselves that there are others who do not approach what should be important decisions with any gravitas or thought. That is why i find myself torn between two parties and two thoughts often:

i believe in the rights of the individual over the govt - as long as the individual acts in a responsible manner making the decision. taking God out of the equation allows for things like this to happen and i believe why the founding fathers did not want a truly secular society - they just did not want the govt deciding what God you should believe in --- this is closest to my views -- that God is important or religion is important as a guiding light to empower people in their decision making process.

i hope i made some sense.

again, i was very taken by this. life should be respected always - decisions to terminate life should be given the utmost respect. this represents a failure of our society on multiple levels, and a failure that will undoubtedly be self-propagating.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 20 2007, 02:31 AM) [snapback]482085[/snapback]</div>

Jeez. Try sticking to the point. This was a sensitive and i think brilliant commentary on a topic of discussion that our society still has major issues with. and the fact it came from who it did was even more enlightening.

The fact to move to war and death says a lot about your view of this topic. stick to the abortion topic, if you want to discuss the side effects of war including innocent casualties make it a different post.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jul 20 2007, 09:36 AM) [snapback]482195[/snapback]</div>

Stick to the point? This from someone who brings up hitler and the nazis every other post.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Jul 20 2007, 12:50 AM) [snapback]482066[/snapback]</div>

That is the law NOW. That is the law the "pro-life" crowd is trying to change. The "pro-lifers" what to forbid all abortions. They consider a fertilized egg a "baby" even though it is hardly viable outside the womb.

And I don't recall having a "choice" whether we went to war against Iraq or not. I just remember hearing about it and thinking "oh God, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What a huge mistake."

Too bad nobody asked ME.

And I was right.

Oh....and TOLD YOU SO.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(formerVWdriver @ Jul 20 2007, 06:49 AM) [snapback]482181[/snapback]</div>

It seems to reflect a lot of what I'm seeing from this generation of teenage girls. While there are those who care, and try hard to keep their integrity, the peer culture seems to encourage casual and even aggressive attitudes about sex, with little or no concern for the consequences.

I think the most alarming part of Pinto Girl's observation to me is the young girl who had an abortion, and was saying "It's no big deal." My sister-in-law was pressured into getting an abortion by her mother and grandmother when she was 19 or 20. She was deeply psychologically scarred by it. The horrible physical trauma, combined with the stigma attached by her (Catholic) church has had a lasting impact on her self esteem, among other things.

Why, then, is there no effect on this other young woman? "It's no big deal"? I am not saying that the stigmatization of young women who have abortions is good, but maybe perceptions have swung too far?

I think it is an outgrowth of the internet. Any kid out there who is curious and has better technical knowledge than their parents / teachers / librarians can download whatever pornography they want, and unfortunately the lack of any controls on the distribution channels means that any type of degrading, unpleasant material is out there. There has been a massive change in the tone of the material out there over the last 20 years, becoming more brutal and violent and degrading as time goes on. This message, creeping into what is becoming the first source of sexual information for many teens, is building exactly the wrong attitudes, especially in young girls.

If it is ok, and even expected, for a young girl to perform whatever acts her partner wants, maybe it isn't a big deal any more. Unfortunately, the only preventative is parents, and in our current society, they are hard to find.

 

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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Jul 19 2007, 06:04 PM) [snapback]481929[/snapback]</div>

We already do it's called the Bible.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Jul 20 2007, 12:35 PM) [snapback]482383[/snapback]</div>

I agree in principle, but in this case the devil is in the details. Who decides what criteria are used to determine this competency? I guarantee that you, I, Wildkow, VW, etc. would not have the same criteria. Make me the supreme arbiter, and I assure you that there will be lots of unhappy conservatives. And nearly as many liberals.

In earlier cultures, it is the "elders" who would determine what was acceptable, out of their experience. Just look at the Taliban to see this model gone horribly wrong... Our society has pretty good controls to prevent this kind of morality police, thanks largely to George Mason. I wonder if they are too good.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jul 20 2007, 08:50 AM) [snapback]482233[/snapback]</div>

Yep, you sure did! You are a legend in your own mind. :wacko:

And yet, here we have Pinto Girl "experiencing a moral dilemma."
AND . . . what IF *none* of us are really able to be counted on to make decisions of this magnitude?
Yet the "pro-abortion" crowd wishes to have abortions legal ANYTIME! They screamed bloody murder with the ban on partial-birth abortions.

And what about pregnant underage girls? Are they to be "counted on to make decisions of this magnitude"? And what about her moral guidance? The "pro-abortion" crowd has succeeded to legally cut her parents out of that roll during her pregnancy. So who becomes her moral guide? Planned Parenthood? [Hmmmm, that sure changes the meaning of "planned parenthood." :mellow: ]

No wonder Pinto Girl is freakin' out while laying in a San Francisco park and listening to young ladies say things like, "It's really no big deal." Would it be any bigger of a deal if those "young ladies" were 13 or 14 year-olds?

And what did you tell me about war that I don't know? (P.S. I personally have been in a hot war zone as a member of the US military.)
So let's see . . . . YOU AREN'T THE DECIDER OF WHETHER OR NOT THE USA GOES TO WAR??? :huh:
Nope, I already knew that.
Maybe you didn't, but I did.

Once again: An aborted fetus had no choice. A slain soldier did.


TOLD ME SO? hardly.

 

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Isn't this the basic political distraction of our generation? Who cares how abortions anyone has? Why is it my business? This is private matter not a public one.

There is so much corruption and murderous behavior from our current government and corporations, why do we persist on oppressing ordinary people. Young women, girl friends, married women, poor, old, rich. . .get pregnant in real life, in every country in the world, throughout civilization.

Life is a lot messier than a hollywood movie, but it is my life to f-up or have an abortion or do drugs, or be a slut or a saint. What ever I want to do and I'll gladly take my consequences, as we all do at some point.

How interesting this country would be if we tried to stay focus on the real problems that hurt our society like: war mongering, corporate greed, media propaganda, corporate agriculture, the insurance, pharmecuticals and oil industry--- imagine that---