Fetal Rights?

[livingentity 0]

Is there really any question?

 

Fetal Rights

[theist 1]

I have had some pro-abortion rights folks answer this question to me in this way.

 

They say that its the woman's choice. If she wanted to have the baby then it could be considered murder. If she didn't want the child then it wasn't murder.

 

You are right. That makes no sense.

 

Scientific knowledge is needed. Even the pro-life groups have varying views on when life begins. They mostly say conception. The truth is, as we know, life does not begin. The presence of life signals the beginning of biological life. Matter will only show growth under the influence of the animating life force, the soul.

 

These abortionists are simple demons.

[I_love_krishna_ 0]

But if you didn't want the baby in the first place but were forced to have it, what would you do?

 

[Krsnanatha 0]

It is beyond insane that children are allowed to be murdered in the womb because someone or someones don't want to be inconvenienced.

In this society there is full facility to give the child for adoption. Although depending on health and family background issues the children's prospects for permanent placement will vary the government will always step in and take the kid off your hands.

Granted, I am sure it is a pain to be pregnant for nine months, what to speak of having to curtail or at least slowed down the "big party" called material life. But how in the world can one come to the conclusion that it is it a well thought out option to execute someone whose crime is that of being a botheration.

During my life I have had several women friends who have confided having exercised this "option" and all of them (some whom weren't of the Vaisnava mindset) expressed regret and varying levels of intuitive awareness afterwards that they had done something really wrong.

We have all seen the very strident individuals who, claiming to represent womens rights on TV take the indefensible position that abortion is not much more than having a complicated sliver removed. Oddly enough these same folks can generally also be found protesting against war because it inevitably results in the death and wounding of children. An absolutely insane level of hypocrisy.

43,000,000; Kind of makes what Hitler did look like a misdemeanor.

[livingentity 0]

is the option. Abortion is murder no matter what.

[Guest guest]

yes, it is murder.

 

it is good to oppose it in civil ways.

 

when i see some oppose in very un-civil ways,

then i think that instead of doing violence,

they should adopt and provide for the new babies.

 

one who aborts does sin, but does not take away freedom of a third party (except her own child.)

if some one wants the child to live, let him/her adopt it.

 

jai sri krishna!

 

 

[stonehearted 0]

The abortion-rights advocates used to call it removing unwanted tissue, as if it were a tonsillectomy or appendectomy. It's nuts!

 

I believe that the choice should be left to the woman involved, not to a bunch of ignorant middle-aged men in the state capital, but that the best (probably not attainable) solution is to educate our entire society with genuine spiritual values so they always make the right choice. Same solution from another angle: my daughters have long said that the woman's choice is indeed the issue--her choice to have sex carelessly. (My old friend Siddhasvarupananda used to say that careless means you couldn't care less.)

[theist 1]

 

Babhru:

I believe that the choice should be left to the woman involved,

 

 

Why is that? I thought those ignorant middle-aged men were in the legislature to make laws protecting the weak.

 

I would be interested why you are pro-choice. I find that a difficult postion for a devotee.

[livingentity 0]

Stonehearted, are you really pro-choice? Please explain your views so I do not misunderstand you.

[stonehearted 0]

jumping to conclusions.

 

Those ignorant middle-aged men are ignorant because they have no real knowledge and no real compassion. Even their "pro-life" positions are based on ignorance, not real compassion. It's okay to have an abortion at x weeks, but not at y weeks? There's no real logical consistency, and it's certainly not based on protecting the weak. It's against thelaw to kill a dog to eat it, but not a cow, chicken, or pig? They are all our brothers and sisters. theist, wht would be your position if these same clods made laws telling you what you could and couldn't do with your gonads?

 

The answer is not legislation based on uninformed sentiment or a desire to control others. The answer is education. Don't you folks get it? Once, one of my godbrothers asked Srila Prabhupada about the revolutionary nature of our movement. Srila Prabhupada explained that this revolution is to be effected by education.

 

You can get all het up and shout me down as "pro-choice," just as you called me a liberal and a lefty. But you're wrong in every instance. I reject categorically all such labels. I cannot be put into such a box. I am eternally the servant of the servants of Krishna, who is the maintainer of the damsels of Vraja. You folks hang on to your temporary, relative upadhis as long as you like. I'm working hard to shed all of mine. And you'd better not get in my way! /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[theist 1]

Feeling a little defensive there professor? You brought Siddhasvarupa's name up so I will bring up the time when Siddhasvarupa spoke at an anti-abortion rally at the state capital building in Honolulu. He was decided NOT pro-choice.

 

I won't address the rest of your post directly as it is apparent you just want to argue.

[stonehearted 0]

Jesus--didn't you folks read the first paragraph of my post?

 

I've been actively and publicly anti-abortion longer than probably any of you. I have written letters published in newspapers castigating the abortion-rights advocates for characterizing the fetus as "tissue." I have participated in "pro-life" demonstrations at the state capital in Honolulu on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade on several occasions--with a sankirtan party and vaishnava speakers. I worked for a third party I helped start that ran vaishnavas as political candidates, primarily to give them a forum for introducing both subreligious principles and genuine spiritual knowledge into public discourse. And more. Be careful in youur judgments.

 

Srila Prabhupada sometimes defined brahmana as "broad-minded." He also told me personally that devotees and devotional service cannot be stereotyped.

[stonehearted 0]

Not defensive at all. Impatient with small mindedness.

 

You wrote: You brought Siddhasvarupa's name up so I will bring up the time when Siddhasvarupa spoke at an anti-abortion rally at the state capital building in Honolulu. He was decided NOT pro-choice.

 

That's precisely the occasion I spoke of. Both he and Katyayani spoke. I was there. And you have made my point for me.

 

And there's nothing to argue. The careful reader will note that I have written nothing favoring the choice to abort a fetus. Never have; never will. I'm unabashedly anti-abortion. But I beleive the real solution is to educate the public about the nature of life, to give them real spiritual knowledge. These dopes' laws and court decisions will not stop abortion. The only way to stop it is to help everyone understand that we are all spiritual entities. Every other sort of effor will fall short. It's just party spirit, nothing more.

[Guest guest]

In 1988 I remember a devotee telling me he was going to vote for George Bush because he was against abortion. I told him two things. One, the democrat Dukakis was on the record as not being in favor of this abortion but respected the American ideal of "Land of free home of the brave". In other words until everyone was on board intellectually as to when life begins it is a separation of church and state issue which is the founding notion of our constitution. Thus no one can can dictate morality through law (see prohibtion and the subsequent "War on drugs"). Morality has to be approached through a process of education. This why we don't bomb meat restaurants. Instead we pass out books to dispell the apathy the general public embraces and prasdam as the alternative to their nasty dining affairs. I would not legislate away a womens "right to choose" this will only serve to incite a mood of rebellion, the "No one's gonna tell me what to do with my body." mood which propells the pro-abortion movement. Instead I propose exercising the first amendment right to educate even without solicitation. If one is armed with proper information (as we are) only a lack of sincerity to welfare work will impede. Slowly, just as I am convinced the obvious mainstream public acceptance of vegetarianisn is completely to the credit of Srila Prabhupada and the dedicated souls working under his direction, this social plague of abortion can be reduced and eventually fractured through a process of devotees being dedicated to ideals and distributing those ideals.

The second issue I brought to his attention was the fact that from a far right Christian point of view, Hare Krsnas aren't all that much farther behind abortionist when it comes to their idea of who is on the side of the devil. Any Vaisnava preacher in America knows how many times a so-called Christian has sighted Krsna's historical record of having 10,000 wives as proof he was in fact satan. Or our apparent idol worship and on and on. I think I said something like "Before the far right Christians got the oven door shut on their declared enemies they would make sure we were in their too." I know this sounds a bit inflamatory but I preached for years in Orange County Ca (A hot bed of born againism) and got told I was going to hell so many times by so-called Christians who were unwilling to engage in actual discussion that I can't help having a dim view of their philosophy.

[Guest guest]

post was from me. I forgot to log in.

Your fallen friend and servant in Krsna Consciousness,

Krsnanatha dasa

[stonehearted 0]

Just so it's clear: I'm not saying there's anything right about the impatience I sometimes feel. It's a little embarrassing to get into what appears to be a spitting match with people with whom you agree. I probably also felt some impatience at what seemed to me to be misreading my posts. There's no excuse for that either. But defensiveness is too far from the mark. That's all.

[stonehearted 0]

When we started Independents for Godly Government in Hawaii in the mid '70s, we got a lot of attention and a lot of votes, though not enough to get any of our candidates elected.

 

Now there are several devotees in public office in Hawaii--elected and appointed. Most are Republicans, I believe, although one very well-know official's daughter was elected to the state legislature as a Democrat. After 1976, some of our former IGG candidates ran again for other offices, some as Democrats and some as Republicans. I've known devotees who are liberals, moderates and conservatives, some who registered and ran with the Peace and Freedom Party. In California, I was registered as a Green, although I disagree with the abortion-rights part of their platform (many Greens do, which has been acknowledged by the party). Other than that, I've always registered as not affiliated (or the equivalent). Here in Hawaii we don't state party preference when we register, and most elected county posts are nonpartisan (candidates don't state party affiliation).

 

Devotees and devotional service cannot be stereotyped.

[stonehearted 0]

The stories in the article remind me of something one of our friends told us recently. Her daughter was informed by the doctor that there's a chance the child she's carrying may have Down's Syndrome. She and her husband decided not even to have amniocentesis. She's sure that her daughter will be fortunate to be born into such a loving family, Down's or no. Because she has been educated in spiritual values since childhood, she sees only one choice.

 

If we find ways to stand up and introduce spiritual values to our society, more and more families will make the right choice, based on real knowledge--based on love, not sentiment or law.

[theist 1]

When abortion became a so-called right in America in 1972 the rate of abortions shot up to around 1 1/2 million per year, increasing every year. Why the increase? It became legal and thus socially acceptable. Abortion clinics started opening up openly. People who never would have considered abortion now felt it was just another form of birth control.

 

Education is the answer. DUH

 

But people don't have to all the esoteric facts straight on an issue to be on the correct side. For instance we have laws against murder. Do our lawmakers have too have a detailed understanding that at death the soul is forced out of the body before they can make laws against murder? Should we make murder a person's choice? Or should we keep our laws against murder and at the same time try to increase understanding of what happens at death?

 

 

[Krsnanatha 0]

I fully agree, to assume someone has the right to murder a baby simply because a group of fools voted it to be acceptable is beyond unacceptable.

Of course the problem is.... they did. We cannot reverse this legislation right now. I am convinced from a life in politics which goes back to campaigning for Eugene McCarthy when I was six years old that once legislatively, a Genie gets out of the bottle, God save us all. Trying to stuff that Genie back without a nearly one hundred percent concensus is not worth trying.

For the record I am pro-education and more specifically pro-Sankirtana.

Not pro-choice. I have just come to the conclusion that in this country until everyone comes on board with regards to a particular issue legislation simply creates black market and underground. That coming on board is the tall order of the Vaisnavas. Maybe not us but through the continued efforts of our children and their children I am convinced this will happen.

To give a statistic which I recently read in a book by an FBI murder profiler, Robert Ressler, 69% of all murderers reported a problem with alcohol. A pretty strong satistical reality, yet do we see the producers of Budweiser going on TV to tell the public they are going to stop producing alcoholic beverages because there has been an overwhelming statistical connection between alcoholism and the murder of other human beings? Of course not, they are doing their jobs as materialist exploiting and exploiting and not caring about the result. And if tommorrow alcohol was outlawed it would continue to be produced and sold on an even stronger black market and the sighted statistic would unlikely change. The only that thing will change is when we the servants of Brahma-Gaudiya-Samprdaya convince the public at large through theory and practical example that Hare Nama beats the hell out of a six pack. That there are moral absolutes. That through Vedic knowledge that the lump of Tissue they are so ready to discard is only animate as the result of a living entity, identical to themselves being present. Hence the cliche; the only people in favor of abortion.....Have already been born.

[stonehearted 0]

Actually, Roe v. Wade was Jan. 22, 1973, not 1972. It made abortion easier and somewhat more acceptable. We just don't know how many abortions took place in the US before that. Yes, the number of abortions grows every year; so does the population, which is probably one factor.

 

That fallacy prominent in your post is called argumentum ad absurdum. My only point is that laws alone are ineffective at stopping abortion, just as they were at stopping consumption of alcohol during Prohibition, or at stopping the use of illicit drugs, and just as they are ineffective at stopping murder. Without education everything else will fail, your facile dismissal notwithstanding. That was Srila Prabhupada's point, and I have full faith in that. Bush will get to stack the Supremes with right wingers who will find a way to undo Roe a bit at a time. That will fail to solve the problem. It's much deeper than that. Until you and I get off our asses and meet people where they are and help them understand what happens before and after death, and then even more important things, abortion and animal slaughter will persist. The root of sin is forgetfulness of who we are, not forgetfulness of some court decision. Laws do seem to help a little, but if they're as effective as you seem to think, how do you account for all the violence in our society? If we chop a weed here and there, things may look better for a short time; unless we attack the root, however, the weeds will continue to proliferate.

 

Look: most people admit that abortion is a horrible thing. Even the abortion-rights folks now know that their arguments have to concede that it's not a desirable thing. If more people were more sensitive, abortion, animal slaughter, child abuse, spousal abuse, etc. would be so rare that they'd be dealt with much more efficiently. (And I'm not talking about just subscribing to some dogma; we see plenty of violent behavior among ourselves. And I'm not talking about some "esoteric facts"; human life is meant for spiritual inquiry, not sense gratification. This isn't even really spiritual knowledge per se, but the foundation for spiritual understanding. If we believe that's the property of a special few ["us"], there's the problem. Bhaktivinoda Thakura didn't see like that, thank God.)

 

This problem persists because we haven't made a strong enough mark yet--we haven't changed enough people's hearts. The only real disagreement I see here is in the degree of faith in mundane laws and morality, which I believe are all terribly unstable because they lack a proper foundation.

[theist 1]

So if you aren't willing yourself to take a positive stance against abortion then how will you convince anyone else?

 

You give reasons why it is wrong and then say a woman should have the right of choice. We are not talking about jaywalking here.

 

I don't consider an "It's the woman right to choose" position to be strong enough. It is NOT the woman's right to choose. I prefer the truth told simply and in a straight forward manner.

 

Abortion is murder.

 

The convience arguement holds no water. A woman with a child has a legal responsibility for the child up to 18 years. That means housing clothing food education etc. So woman are denied by law to avoid that responsibity. Why by law should they be allowed to choose just because the child is in the womb?

 

The rare exception is if the women's life(not health) is at stake. then you can make the self defense arguement.

 

Ever wonder who is in the womb being aborted? Someone who previously aborted most likely. A vicious cycle.

[livingentity 0]

I was pregnant with my son and my friends could not understand why I ever would want to have a child when this wonderful new "freedom" of abortion was so available!

 

I remember this being discussed when I was pregnant and thought it was legalized in 1972. I am certain I remember the doctor mentioning it also but then I was using a Planned Parenthood clinic so who knows....

[livingentity 0]

eeekk..That is why I asked you to clarify! Ouch.. that hurt!!!

[Guest guest]

I'm with Theist on this. The law should reflect the moral quality of the act and/or crime.

 

People are swayed alot by what is legal or not, and that pressure should be brought to bear. Undoubtedly, it would save alot of lives.

 

Guess Guest