After a friend printed a misguided defence of abortion (from her comments thread)

[fpb]

Rephrase your premise as follows:
I don't agree with abortions... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with rape... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with burglary... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with assault... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with embezzlement... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with fraud... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with forced marriage... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.

etc., etc., etc.....

Excuse me, if something is wrong, why the Hell should it be safe and legal, only because "it's going to happen"? Crime is always "going to happen". That is the point of having laws. We do not have laws against something which, though wrong, is never going to happen (e.g. there is no law against stealing someone's soul). The point of having a law against it is to state that it is a disapproved and forbidden activity, and that, if you are caught (which, alas, will not always be the case), you will be punished. This trash about "it's going to happen anyway" is simply something that abortionists repeat ad nauseam, on the principle that if we hear a statement often enough we're going to take it for granted.

Comments

[wudjuwait.livejournal.com]

for yourself as such a child, but can you speak for another, a woman/mother/parent, which is what you appear to be doing? i think not.

'your kind of enlightened society'
i'm not sure what you mean?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You seem to be denying my right to live at all, since you tell me that my existence is optional. As you may imagine, this is not a point I welcome. As for "your" notion of the enlightened society, it is the one you are promoting - where individuals are optional. I find it repulsive.

you're the product of a failed abortion then?

[wudjuwait.livejournal.com]

'You seem to be denying my right to live at all'
umm no.
'since you tell me that my existence is optional.'
no, i didn't and i certainly wouldn't.
'As you may imagine,'
i suppose i might... if it were the point i was making
'this is not a point I welcome.'
i would agree, but honestly, it's not a point i'm making.
'As for "your" notion of the enlightened society, it is the one you are promoting'
no, i'm questioning your stance that abortion is wrong for all, when there could be circumstances under which it might be appropriate for some.
'where individuals are optional.'
at what point does an individual become an individual?
'I find it repulsive.'
i don't suppose anyone would like the idea of abortion, perhaps they are an occasional and unpleasant necessity?

Re: you're the product of a failed abortion then?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

So are rape, GBH, forced marriage, burglary, manslaughter, robbery, fraud, embezzlement, murder... not one of them that has not been justified as an unpleasant necessity.

muddying the water?

[wudjuwait.livejournal.com]

all of these are acts against the person and so illegal in almost every civilised society, i should think. i'm not sure but i believe forced marriage is a crime against the state: false declaration of a legal oath? i wonder under what circumstances you consider them justifiable? abortion is not a crime against a person - the current cut off date is 24 weeks except in exceptional circumstances.

Re: you're the product of a failed abortion then?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

NO I'm not. But I would certainly have been aborted, had it been legal when I was conceived. I do not wish to say anything more.

Re: you're the product of a failed abortion then?

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

You, Michael Reagan, a lot of other folks....

I've got a friend who WAS the product of rape. Her mother figured that murdering a child of her blood would not hurt the rapist, and this gal is now an AZ2 in the US Navy, with a loving adopted father and five half-siblings. Her mother has recovered very well from the rape, and is a very neat woman.

For that matter, there are a couple of folks touring right now who are failed abortions-- one very pretty lady has nerve damage because of the injection that was supposed to kill her.

Yeah, sigh me up to support murder and torture of small, innocent humans-- like we need more of that.

Re: you're the product of a failed abortion then?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Your friend is the living instance of the answer I worked out a while back to the classic abortionist argument - the abused mentally ill twelve-year-old. My answer is: the past does not cease to exist. If you destroy the child, all you will take back from a rape or an act of abuse or incest is going to be the horror, and that horror will work through your life, bringing both pain and hardening, and very likely messing up your relationships - is it not the case that many people who have been abused as children tend to repeat their abusive patterns in their adult relationships? It is certainly something I have seen. On the other hand, if you keep the child, the first thing it will do when it is born is show you that it is not a "monster" (one expression I have heard is "she felt this monster growing in her womb") but a little helpless creature who loves you. You will have drawn something positive out of a horrible experience, and this may even help straighten out your relationship with other people.

[wudjuwait.livejournal.com]

'I do not wish to say anything more.'
well that is entirely up to you, i suppose, but perhaps it's worth considering that you appear to want to avoid that women/families might face mental (and economic) difficulties or dangerous pregnancies on the basis of angst about your own childhood and further justifications, regardless of the fitness of the unborn child/parents. one also wonders if children born into such parental relations might turn out to be dysfunctional adults, seems fairly likely doesn't it?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I do not think you even realize that you are being vile. You are not only inventing motives for me that sooth your wreckage of a conscience, you are deliberately designing them in as vile a form of verbiage as you can. For your information, the reason why I do not want to say anything more about my birth and related matters is that I would have to speak of other people and things they said and did and did not do, and I do not want to hold the words and actions of those people up for people like you to contemplate. The repulsive romance you wove around a few words I said only reveals your baseness. Do not come back. If I see another post by you, I will delete it without reading and ban you.