Between 2000 and 2003, the abortion rate declined by an average of only 0.8% per year; the 0.6% decline in 2002–2003 was the smallest in those three years. By comparison, the abortion rate declined by 3.4% per year in the early and mid-1990s.

The problem is not abortion, of course, but unintended pregnancies, and on that point the report shows that both parties have failed poor women. Neither party should be patting itself on the back here.

Quarp, you left out the most important part of my answer to your “organ borrowing” problem:

Quote: Its like inviting someone into your home and then blowing their head off with a shotgun for trespassing.

I left it out because it’s not a good analogy. In the case of a woman using birth control, for instance, you can’t say she really “invited” the fetus in. She pretty much locked the door in that case. And the more appropriate example in terms of the fundamental concept or right that we’re discussing here is a case where you force the person out of your house and she dies because she can’t survive on the outside.

And anyway, as I said before, how the situation develops doesn’t really matter. I can invite someone in and then change my mind and ask her to leave.

Pregnancy is also nothing like bone marrow donation. As I said before, pregnancy comes naturally, therefore there is no malicious intent.

Leukemia comes naturally too. And as I said before, intent is irrelevant. The little boy with leukemia could be a perfect angel, but unfortunately for him the state still can not force me to give him my bone marrow. You have to think objectively here. Don’t let yourself get too emotional.

Second, Pregnancy is temporary where organ donations are generally permanent.

Bone marrow grows back, actually, and pregnancy can have permanent effects on your body (urinary and/or bowel incontinence, uterine or other pelvic organ prolapse, etc).

There also doesn’t need to be an interfering agency for pregnancy, whereas organ donation is more complicated.

I don’t understand what that means – please explain.

Your argument is essentially that any time any being had any use of your organs, no matter how they got there, you should be able to kill them without consequence.

No. I’m not saying you can kill the kid with leukemia, just that you’re not obligated to save him. And if you were to wake up attached to him for some reason you would have every right to disconnect yourself, even if that means he’ll die.

The fetus’ problem, of course, is that the process of removing it from the uterus kills it. If there was some way to just remove the up to 35 ml of tissue and let it try to survive on its own, would you be ok with that? I suspect not, so this point about actively killing vs. letting die isn’t really relevant here. You’d oppose abortion either way.

You are arguing for a special right of a pregnant woman to kill her own child because it is “borrowing her organs without her consent,” even though consent was clearly given when she decided to engage in sexual activity.

As you guessed, my response is that consenting to sexual activity is not the same as consenting to pregnancy. Seems pretty obvious, especially if the couple’s using birth control. I’d say the use of birth control is a pretty clear I DO NOT CONSENT.

But even if birth control isn’t used, it doesn’t matter. I mean, if someone gets an STD, is he denied treatment because he consented to the sex and therefore, according to you, to the STD? Who consents to an STD? That’s absurd. Where else does this sort of logic ever apply? Do I consent to be hit by drunk drivers when I get in my car at night? Do I consent to die in a plane accident when I fly? That doesn’t make any sense.

I know what you’re thinking, its the same thing I’ve always heard. “Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy.” Tell it to Biology, because feel-good statements like that don’t pass scientific muster. If you have sex there’s a good chance you get pregnant. There’s no liability waiver when it comes to biological truth.

Actually, if you have sex and use birth control properly there’s a good chance you won’t get pregnant, so…yeah. You’re wrong. Again.

Re trolling: Arguing in bad faith would be, for example, your whole founding fathers being equivalent to the opinions of your gas attendant. If you aren’t going to give credible sources on relevant topics the credence they deserve, you’re little more than a troll just goading me to post things you have no intention of understanding.

Who decides what a credible source is? Besides, as I noted, the fact that the founding fathers allowed slavery is, I think, a legitimate point to raise in deciding whether or not they should be looked to for moral guidance.

Furthermore, I’m not sure why you’re still trying to rely on them since we’ve already established that they were mostly A-OK with abortion. If anything they support my position, not yours.

By the way, this issue of abortion in early US history would be one of the questions in my previous post that you once again ignored.

I don’t waste time writing when it goes over the head of the person I’d adress it to. I also don’t need to buffer myself by arguing for the strength of my arguments. I know they are solid. I just don’t like wasting time articulating to those who ignore them.

I haven’t ignored them and they certainly haven’t gone over my head. I think we both know that. What I have done is asked legitimate questions – a couple of which you still haven’t answered – and in a few cases shown that your arguments simply don’t hold up. For instance,

Regarding Kant’s categorical imperitave, nothing says it has to be binary (either x is always wrong or x is always right).

Actually, what you initially said was:

Perhaps you might find Kant’s categorical imperative useful. Act as if anything you do can be applied as a universal law. If you lie, so can everyone else. If you kill, so can everyone else.

So you did actually say that it was either always wrong or always right. I was the one arguing, as you are now, that whether or not actions are acceptable depends on the circumstances. Glad to see you agree with me.

Quote: Its like inviting someone into your home and then blowing their head off with a shotgun for trespassing.

Pregnancy is also nothing like bone marrow donation. As I said before, pregnancy comes naturally, therefore there is no malicious intent.

Second, Pregnancy is temporary where organ donations are generally permanent. There also doesn’t need to be an interfering agency for pregnancy, whereas organ donation is more complicated.

Your argument is essentially that any time any being had any use of your organs, no matter how they got there, you should be able to kill them without consequence. You are arguing for a special right of a pregnant woman to kill her own child because it is “borrowing her organs without her consent,” even though consent was clearly given when she decided to engage in sexual activity. I know what you’re thinking, its the same thing I’ve always heard. “Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy.” Tell it to Biology, because feel-good statements like that don’t pass scientific muster. If you have sex there’s a good chance you get pregnant. There’s no liability waiver when it comes to biological truth.

Re trolling: Arguing in bad faith would be, for example, your whole founding fathers being equivalent to the opinions of your gas attendant. If you aren’t going to give credible sources on relevant topics the credence they deserve, you’re little more than a troll just goading me to post things you have no intention of understanding. I don’t waste time writing when it goes over the head of the person I’d adress it to. I also don’t need to buffer myself by arguing for the strength of my arguments. I know they are solid. I just don’t like wasting time articulating to those who ignore them.

Regarding Kant’s categorical imperitave, nothing says it has to be binary (either x is always wrong or x is always right).

Example:

“Killing is always wrong” is a nice, simple statement, but it cannot be applied universally because reality is not that simple. If Armageddonjad wakes up one day and decides to attack you with his suicide brigade, that maxim leads to nothing but more slaughter. The people who violate the maxim cause more destruction than if the maxim was better worded.

Contrast that to “Killing is always wrong, except in self-defense.” Now when Armageddonjad sends in his suicide squad and you take them out before they blow anything up, you have saved more lives. This maxim is better than the former one. It still says nearly all forms of killing are wrong, but makes a self-preservation exception. Essentially it maxes the maxim enforcable.

Now lets look at Armageddonjad’s maxim:

Killing is always wrong, unless they are an infidel scum.

Applied universally, all you have to do is argue anyone who disagrees with your religion is an infidel scum, and the maxim becomes pointless.

What is your source for this?

quarp: You haven’t answered my simple question, surely you haven’t missed it.

I’ll post it again: What are the intellectual merits of arguing against an intrinsic right to life?

I did answer your question, but I’ll be more explicit: in questioning this right to life I draw attention to the fact that it doesn’t always hold, that as a society we do make exceptions for it, and that it is therefore intellectually dishonest to invoke it as some sort of stand alone defense.

Now, for the questions you didn’t answer:

1. How can you argue that rules for killing should be universal when you clearly believe that whether or not killing is acceptable depends on the circumstances?

2. How do you respond to the fact that abortion was allowed in early US history?

3. What is wrong with an organization making money in a capitalist society? And do you believe that cigarette manufacturers should be shut down?

Look, I make it my policy to spend a maximum of two posts arguing with trolls. After that, I cease with long narratives.

C’mon. You completely ignored every point I made in my post and are now calling me a troll just to to make your inability to respond look good. I just trampled all over your arguments, is all, and you feel like a fool. If calling me a troll makes you feel better, knock yourself out, but let’s not pretend I haven’t provided legitimate responses and questions to your posts.

You aren’t engaging in good faith, therefore I have no need to continue to waste time with you.

And you base this on what? And what is a good faith engagement on abortion, exactly?

There is only one point I’m going to address because it is so incredibly stupid.

Is this an example of engaging in good faith?

There are no such thing as “special rights” for the unborn. They aren’t space invaders; they don’t just haphazardly show up in a uterus.

Who said they do? How the person ends up in the situation doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that people don’t have a right to each other’s organs. That rule applies to unborn children as much as it applies to born children, and all adults. Arguing that unborn children should get special access to the organs of other people really is saying they should have rights no one else does, i.e., they should have special rights.

Any woman with a baby in her womb had to open up her legs first. Usually the sex is consensual. Even if it isn’t there’s no malicious intent involved on the part of the child.

I never said there was malicious intent, and the intent also is irrelevant. There’s no malicious intent on the part of the child with leukemia, for instance – he just needs someone’s bone marrow – but that doesn’t mean the state can force anyone, including his parents, to give it to him.

It comes down to this: do you think the government should be able to force people to give of their bodies – meaning their organs – to their children even when they don’t want to?

Simple question, really, yes or no. And, in the spirit of Kant, it has to apply universally.

(And if you don’t answer it, does that mean I can call you a troll?)

I’ll post it again: What are the intellectual merits of arguing against an intrinsic right to life?

Look, I make it my policy to spend a maximum of two posts arguing with trolls. After that, I cease with long narratives.

You aren’t engaging in good faith, therefore I have no need to continue to waste time with you.

There is only one point I’m going to address because it is so incredibly stupid. There are no such thing as “special rights” for the unborn. They aren’t space invaders; they don’t just haphazardly show up in a uterus. Any woman with a baby in her womb had to open up her legs first. Usually the sex is consensual. Even if it isn’t there’s no malicious intent involved on the part of the child. Its like inviting someone into your home and then blowing their head off with a shotgun for trespassing.

Besides, the idea we approve of “special rights” for the unborn is ridiculous, abortion supporters support the special right of women to unilaterally kill another human being with no consequences, for any reason or no reason. Women are the one’s getting special rights here, the unborn are the ones getting slaughtered on a scale of thousands per day.

If we assume the right to life is intrinsic and unalieanable (ignore God-given for now, you obviously have a religion hangup), we are protected from people who would violate it. If they violate our right to life, they get punished.

Unless they violate it under allowable circumstances, correct?

The fact of those allowable circumstances is all I was getting at. Killing is acceptable to us in certain situations, so you can’t say abortion is wrong because it is killing. You have to go beyond that obvious fact.

If we assume that every time a life is destroyed that someone has to argue for the value of that life…

Why would we assume that? I have not argued this.

Perhaps you might find Kant’s categorical imperative useful.

No, actually, I wouldn’t, and it doesn’t appear that you do either. You say:

Act as if anything you do can be applied as a universal law.

But then go on to draw the boundaries in a way that suits you. First you say:

If you kill, so can everyone else.

but then:

Killing in self defense does. Fighting a war against an agressor does. Killing people only after they have been given a trial by jury and convicted passes muster as well. Killing others for your convenience doesn’t.

You are no longer talking about killing – you are talking about killing under certain conditions. How is that universal?

Oh sure, you wrap it up in nice arguments about “personhood,”…

Actually, I don’t. While I personally don’t believe the fetus is a person I don’t think this point is relevant to arguing for abortion rights.

Oh, what the hell, here you go: It’s very simple, actually. The state should not be allowed – and would never be allowed – to force a parent to donate organs to a child (or anyone else for that matter). So if your 5 year old has leukemia, and you are the only bone marrow match in the whole world, and you choose not to save him, that is your right. The government can not force you to save that child’s life.

I would argue the situation is the same with a pregnant woman. If she does not want to donate her organs to this fetus-person, the state can not force her. Those who oppose abortion rights are really just in favor of special fetal rights.

As to the founding father’s allowing abortion? Abortion was made legal in 1973. Abortions might have happened (so did murder and theft), but they certainly wern’t approved of before then.

Yeah, actually, they were. Before it was made legal in 1973 it was first made illegal in the late 1800s. The founding fathers did not outlaw abortion and, interestingly enough, did not ban it when writing the constitution.

By the way, the founding fathers did allow slavery, so I’m not sure that using their actions as the standard for today is all that wise, but you’re the one who brought it up. Just wanted to be clear on that point. Since you invoked them as some sort of authority you have to deal with the fact that abortion was legal for nearly the first 100 years of American history.

If I ask myself, “what is the most important thing to Planned Parenthood?” The answer is clearly cold, hard cash, no matter how many cold, hard bodies come with it.

Here’s the thing: you don’t like abortion, so you don’t like PP because they provide abortions. That’s fine, but it’s disingenuous to use these other things against them. This is a non-profit organization that usually charges women on a sliding scale, according to income, and it works in under-served communities, so the idea that they’re after cold, hard cash is a bit absurd.

But even if they were, it is a capitalist society, is it not? What’s wrong with wanting to make money? Do you rant against cigarette companies, which really don’t care how many cold, hard bodies come with their cash?

What are the intellectual merits of arguing against an intrinsic right to life?

If we assume the right to life is intrinsic and unalieanable (ignore God-given for now, you obviously have a religion hangup), we are protected from people who would violate it. If they violate our right to life, they get punished.

If we assume that every time a life is destroyed that someone has to argue for the value of that life… well, exactly who do you expect to prosecute the killer? Your idea creates a nightmarish situation where any vigiliante thug can go on a killing spree, and “deep thinkers” like you will be asking “were those lives really valuable?”

Perhaps you might find Kant’s categorical imperative useful. Act as if anything you do can be applied as a universal law. If you lie, so can everyone else. If you kill, so can everyone else. If you split hairs over whether someone else’s life is valuable enough, when you get culled people can do the same.

Your philosophy doesn’t hold up to the categorical imperative.

Killing in self defense does. Fighting a war against an agressor does. Killing people only after they have been given a trial by jury and convicted passes muster as well. Killing others for your convenience doesn’t. Oh sure, you wrap it up in nice arguments about “personhood,” but you always define yourself as a person whenever you would be persecuted. You want two sets of rules, one for the “undesirables” and another for yourself.

I do hope you won’t find Kant’s philosophy equivalent to the opinions of your gas station attendant on your posterior like you do with our founding fathers on natural rights.

As to the founding father’s allowing abortion? Abortion was made legal in 1973. Abortions might have happened (so did murder and theft), but they certainly wern’t approved of before then.

Like I articulated in my post elsewhere, its possible that this woman just didn’t pay attention to instructions, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if PP didn’t give her any, given thier past. If I ask myself, “what is the most important thing to Planned Parenthood?” The answer is clearly cold, hard cash, no matter how many cold, hard bodies come with it.

According to our founding father’s, life has intrinsic value and the principle of such is self-evident.

Well according to the dude at the gas station I’ve got a great ass, but I’m not about to claim that as holy truth.

And again: why it’s ok to revoke that right sometimes but not others? If asserting only this “right to life” is enough, why are war and the death penalty and murder in self-defense ok? I see that you went through your reasons later in the post, and that’s fine, but my point was just that simply asserting a right to life is not enough to argue against abortion.

I suppose you could ask Hitler and Stalin for a second opinion on that. Fortunately, dictatorial maniacs didn’t found our country.

Irrelevant, actually, since this discussion started with you arguing the fetus’ nationality didn’t matter. In reality, your assertion that a god or gods has granted everyone this “right to life” is as valid as someone else’s assertion that s/he/they have not. Neither one of you can prove anything, really. That’s why I feel it’s wiser to base legal rights and responsibilities on what it is that helps us build a better, more just civilization. I find the intro to the constitution a little more appropriate for that reason.

If that isn’t enough evidence for you, I recommend boning up on the founders of our nation and the philosophies of John Locke by whom they were greatly influenced.

Evidence of what? That god grants a “right to life”? If I’m not going to accept your word for it why would I accept someone else’s word for it? You haven’t provided evidence, just quoted someone else (sort of) saying the same thing you said.

And actually, I’m almost tempted to argue that a fetus hasn’t actually been created yet – it is a person in the process of being created and so therefore hasn’t been granted these rights yet. Technicality, perhaps, but true.

Anyway, since we’re boning up on the founding fathers and using their standards for a discussion on abortion, you should know that abortion was basically legal back then until quickening, which I believe is about 21 weeks, though obviously it varies. So, it seems they would probably disagree with you on when this “right to life” starts applying to the fetus.

Moreover, one looks for the justification for any revocation of the right for life.

Certainly, and I would simply argue that that justification exists with abortion. You would obviously disagree, but we can skip the debate on that point since I’m pretty sure I am not going to change your mind.

[Abortion] is simply not justifiable for anyone who believes in the founding principles of our nation.

Except, of course, that it was allowed by the founding fathers, so…yeah. Tough break.

Nah, we’d probably just have it plastered all over the MSM 24/7, as happens any time a pro-lifer shows any signs of malfeasance in opposing the sacred right to abortion.

Well, I think pro-lifers killing abortion providers deserves media coverage, if only for the irony. Women dying of medical complications, well…dog bites man, you know?

People don’t like PP for several reasons, most of which I have outlined in my blog post on the subject here.

Oh, I know that, I was just saying that this particular reason doesn’t really hold up.

This is just one more example of PP’s evil in a sea of other examples.

But it’s not. A woman died from medical complications, possibly because she failed to follow the doctor’s orders. If you want to say this is evil then you have to say the same thing about every medical malpractice case. You have to oppose all hospitals where patients have died from complications or negligence, calling them “evil” and writing blog entires about them. That’s obviously not the case, though, because that would be just slightly absurd.

One forgotten fact about abortion: It increased under W over what it was under Clinton. The truth is that Clinton’s policies that helped poor and working class people resulted in less Americans choosing to abort.

Because as we all know, a sitting President has a direct effect on who decides to get abortions. Women think “hmmm… who is the President of the US” before getting an abortion.

Then again, there are many “inconvenient truths” you Conservatives ignore, such as:

(1) The divorce rate is lowest in Mass. (despite gay marriage)and highest in Arkansas. You red staters really have family values don’t you?

Massachusetts also has among the lowest marriage rates whereas Arkansas has the third highest, after Nevada and Hawaii which are significantly larger.

So less people are getting divorced, but less are also getting married. Moreover, what does divorce have to do with family values? Since when did liberals find divorce immoral? Feminists recommend it!

(2) The safest neighborhoods in the US are those with first generation and, yes, illegal immigrants. Want to decrease crime? Bring in the illegals.

Yeah, illegals are great. They only make up 25% of the prison population, even though at 12 million they represent 4% of the population. There’s also the drug smuggling, leech on the health care system, identity theft… yeah, if you love illegals so much, get out of your gated community and live among them.

(3) The murder rate is highest in states with the death penalty (got that, Texas).

Incidentelly, Texas also has a huge illegal alien problem. Fancy that.

(4) Ronald Reagan, conservative hero: (1) cut and ran in Lebanon; (2)increased government spending every year he was in office; (3) Met with and made treaties with horrible regimes; (4)signed the alleged “amnesty law”.

No one proclaimed Ronald Reagan perfect, although at least he didn’t pull out of an intern. As to points 2 and 3, he was the President, its in his job description. At least he didn’t sell nuclear technology to Kimmy.

(5) Bush “cut and ran” from Afghanistan resulting in the resurgence of the Taliban who actually had something to do with 9-11 as opposed to Iraq.

Yeah, cause we all know Saddam didn’t have terror training camps. There are no documented incidents of him eeting with terrorist leaders. The WMD are not theorized to have been moved to Syria. Saddam was not giving the IAEA the runaround. Saddam was not shooting down planes in the No Fly Zone. Nobody said Bush hasn’t made mistakes either. Not that I think you care about Afghanistan anyway since you’re a lefty troll that doesn’t have his facts strait.

(6) Conservative talk show hosts like Limbaugh and Hannity were openly critical of our military while our troops were in “harm’s way” in Bosnia. Aren’t they “traitors” by their own standards?

Yeah, Ima gonna need proof of that one. Lefty trolls aren’t known for any kind of honesty.

Then again, there are many “inconvenient truths” you Conservatives ignore, such as:

(1) The divorce rate is lowest in Mass. (despite gay marriage)and highest in Arkansas. You red staters really have family values don’t you?

(2) The safest neighborhoods in the US are those with first generation and, yes, illegal immigrants. Want to decrease crime? Bring in the illegals.

(3) The murder rate is highest in states with the death penalty (got that, Texas).

(4) Ronald Reagan, conservative hero: (1) cut and ran in Lebanon; (2)increased government spending every year he was in office; (3) Met with and made treaties with horrible regimes; (4)signed the alleged “amnesty law”.

(5) Bush “cut and ran” from Afghanistan resulting in the resurgence of the Taliban who actually had something to do with 9-11 as opposed to Iraq.

(6) Conservative talk show hosts like Limbaugh and Hannity were openly critical of our military while our troops were in “harm’s way” in Bosnia. Aren’t they “traitors” by their own standards?

It seems we have already given ourselves the power to revoke this right from time to time. See, for instance, the death penalty, killing in self-defense, and war. Obviously, then, this alleged “right to life” (that you have decided to simply claim exists, providing no evidence, but for the sake of argument I’ll allow it) can and often is revoked.

Going back to the DoI, “we proclaim these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by thier Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

According to our founding father’s, life has intrinsic value and the principle of such is self-evident. I suppose you could ask Hitler and Stalin for a second opinion on that. Fortunately, dictatorial maniacs didn’t found our country. If that isn’t enough evidence for you, I recommend boning up on the founders of our nation and the philosophies of John Locke by whom they were greatly influenced.

Moreover, one looks for the justification for any revocation of the right for life. Death Penalty: Only used on criminals guilty of murder themselves. Self-Defense: Your life takes priority over an attacker’s. War: Almost always between militaries designed for the purpose of war, and started by agression by one nation on another. It is basically the macro version of Self-Defense.

Abortion is taking an innocent life for selfish human reasons over 90% of the time. It is simply not justifiable for anyone who believes in the founding principles of our nation.

People are just using this case to bash Planned Parenthood because they don’t like PP. While I don’t doubt everyone is genuinely saddened by the death of this woman, if her death had been caused by an anti-abortion policy of some sort I doubt we’d even be talking about it.

Nah, we’d probably just have it plastered all over the MSM 24/7, as happens any time a pro-lifer shows any signs of malfeasance in opposing the sacred right to abortion.

People don’t like PP for several reasons, most of which I have outlined in my blog post on the subject here.

Among the links are Planned Parenthood’s Superhero for Choice video, a re-link to the “I had an abortion” T-shirt photo, and of course a link to Planned Parenthood’s coverup for pedophiles.

This is just one more example of PP’s evil in a sea of other examples.