Sen. Paul stopped by TSA at airport, law enforcement denies it was a detention

It always entertains me when a bunch of folks with no kids get hyper animated debating abortion.

Us with kids know what a pleasure they can be.

We also know that at some point in their rearing, we're gonna want to take them for a long walk in the woods.

Bare assertion, present your argumentation.

Well, it was certainly more interesting than The Faithful taking Rand Paul jizz-shots in the face for a couple more pages.

Why? People without kids have just as much right to discuss abortion as people who've never played football do to discuss the NFL.

I see the mother having more rights than her unwanted fetus.

You see the fetus having more rights than the mother unwillingly carrying it.

That's pretty disturbing.

A fetus is not a baby.

Killing a baby would be walking into a nursery and opening fire.

Killing wanted babies. Babies that, one would assume, will be cared for and loved, as opposed to dumped into the welfare system that you hate so much.

It's like I've always said: fetuses of poor women are holy objects of Jesus. Babies and their poor mothers are worthless parasites.

This is the root of the entire debate.

You say it isn't, we say it is. There's no middle ground and neither can there be.

It's not possible to compromise on this binary proposition.

Translates to:

Congratulations.

Ok, you're dismissed.

Nah, sorry, just pointing out the obvious, whether you like it or not.

I don't think we can continue this conversation as long as you are this far out of touch with reality.

I hope you get better! Bye!

You don't get to talk to me about being out of touch with reality.

Poor thing.

My, what an intricate and well thought out argument you have there.

The ways and means of the universe and all the facts therein will march happily onwards regardless of my willingness or skill in defending them.

Yes, the universe will continue to march on regardless of you being wrong about this subject, but that does not change the fact that you are wrong on this subject.

Well put.

Oh, look, you're still wrong.

Well, looks like I am the clear winner in the war with Captain X, at least.

As I reward, I release myself from any further obligation to post in this thread.

Hurray me!

The day a presidential debate revolves around the candidates positions on the best defensive tackles, playoff overtime rules and throwback uniforms is the day I actually watch a presidential debate.

I'd watch it just to wait and see which Presidential candidate uses the term "homerun". I mean, come on, you know someone would do it.

If/when we get the technology to transplant embryonic "babies" into adamantly pro-life men, maybe I'll come around from being so adamantly pro-choice.

He has no right to rape her. Period. Genetic legacy has nothing to do with it. The fetus, if it is a person, had nothing to do with, and should not be killed for, the deplorable actions of the provider of half of its genetic code. This is quite possibly the worst (serious) pro-choice argument I've ever seen.

No shit.
How you gonna prevent that in all cases, bring back chastity belts?

Well, geez, cock, pussy, sperm, eggs, it would seem to have everything to do with it.

Not if it's running around, no.

But if it were, that meant the mother chose to carry it to term, not having been strapped down by the womb police.

Strange, that you conservative/libertarian types don't trust the state with delivering the mail, but fuck-monitoring...that's what they should be doing?
Huh...

I don't know why I'm jumping into this abortion of a thread, but here goes:

I'm seeing 'Dead baby' argument all over, as though a foetus is something more important than its mother. I have several problems with this argument, the least of which is that its men (myself including, it should be noted) who are debating whether abortion should be legal or not. Men will never know what it's like to be pregnant; men can never be raped and become pregnant, so why is it men passionately arguing what happens with a woman's body? Yes, an abortion destroys something, a potential life. Note that word: If a foetus cannot survive outside of the womb on its own, does it make sense to call it a baby? Certainly, premature babies can survive... with the help of medical technology, but on their own, they can't, so the terminology used by the Pro-Life side is already suspect. Whether or not life begins at conception, when the heart starts beating or even when the newborn first draws breath is irrelevant: I question the wisdom of a woman who flippantly uses abortions as a means of birth control as much as I question the wisdom of people who seek to deny a woman the ability to end a pregnancy, whether the reason is valid or not. With that said, if someone forces a woman to end a pregnancy she wishes to keep or to deny the father who wants to keep the child for his own, that is reprehensible.

There are three scenarios that have been brought up by the Pro-Choice crowd that do warrant some discussion and consideration: Rape, incest and danger to the well-being of the mother. These three scenarios, were I a woman, would be valid reasons to have an abortion. But I am not a woman; my opinion really should have little bearing on the matter.

Consider this: A woman is raped. No two women are going to deal with such trauma the same. Some stay victims; others become survivors. The distinction is something for another discussion. To the woman who elects to bring a subsequent pregnancy to term, she has my respect. To the woman who does not, it is not ours to judge her choice, even if the abortion is carried out later in the pregnancy than we'd be comfortable with. Rape leaves scars that the woman will be haunted by for years to come, even if she is a survivor, not a victim. Much like condemning a suicide victim to hell is downright foolish, condemning a rape victim/survivor for an abortion is stupid. We do not know what is going through their minds, how they are or are not coping with the trauma.

For matters of incest, why require a child that is genetically disadvantaged to come into the world? To do so results in the British Royalty. Jesting aside, the resulting child, if carried to term, is at a genetic disadvantage. Incidentally, most incest cases would fall under the rape umbrella; for consensual incest, well, that's another discussion entirely.

As for danger to the mother, is it really being suggested that the foetus is more important than the mother's life? Yes, an abortion would kill the foetus, but if the mother dies, the now-baby has no mother to raise it. Or, more likely, both die. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Last point, one I wish Pro-Lifers to examine: If the life of a foetus is important enough that they wish to make abortions illegal, why are the resulting children dismissed as waste of taxpayers' money? There is no arguing that the welfare system is indeed broken and that there is an entitlement mentality, but as the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. Do not demand a child be brought into the village if the demander is not going to be willing to help raise it; the child is now setup for failure.

No, the fetus wasn't even around when the rape happened.

A fetus can't run around. I didn't say, "when a fetus becomes a person," I said, "if a fetus is a person" (and I place great emphasis on the "if" - I really don't know, but if your pro-choice arguments are lousy, I'm going to attack them just as viciously as the poorly thought-out pro-life arguments).

Begging the question (in the correct sense of the term). I said, "if A, then B." You said, "not A, therefore not 'if A then B'." This is an invalid argument.

I hope you're getting your issues confused here, mistaking abortion for gay sex, because otherwise, you've just said you don't want the government outlawing rape. There's no other fuck-monitoring involved here.

Indeed.
So, there's nothing more to say.
Go to sleep.

A newborn can't survive very long without help either; this is not evidence that a fetus isn't a person and a newborn is. Hell, a newborn often can't even breathe without being smacked, and sometimes has the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck. Requiring medical intervention to survive disqualifies a hell of a lot of people from being people. I don't accept that.

No, in point of fact, that's the only thing that's relevant.

That's irrelevant.

While no one disagrees with the first, you'll find that the law, and probably most people, disagree with the second. In fact, in just the next paragraph, you disagree with it yourself!

See? Already you contradict yourself. Just a moment ago you said the father should have a say if he wants to keep the child for his own.

Are you saying if a woman is raped and goes and kills her born child, she's not a murderer? Or even if she brings the pregnancy to term and then kills the child some time after it's born, she's not a murderer? The only way she's not a murderer is if what she kills isn't a person. And you've made, thus far, only one attempt, and a lousy one at that, at distinguishing person and not-person. In the last abortion thread I participated in, only one person, Phoenix, IIRC, gave me anything resembling a bright line (when the head starts to pass the cervix during birth), and even he admitted it was completely arbitrary.

Yep. Not something to deal with in this thread.

Quite. I agree completely. If a person is pointing a gun at you, and is about to pull the trigger, if talking is fruitless and you can't get out of the way, you shoot them first, even if they don't realize what they're doing. Sad, but absolutely the right thing to do. Any pro-lifers that don't recognize this likely are the woman-hating caricatures pro-choicers ascribe to them.

For the same exact same reason conservatives are in favor of laws against murder, but not in favor of a welfare state.

That's not all there is. No one's proven one way or the other whether a fetus at any point is a person. Before conception, it's clearly not a person. After birth, it's clearly a person. There's a line somewhere, a transition from not-person to person, and it is absolutely vital that we figure out where that is. There are literally zero science-based responses to this question. Southern Baptists say God says it's at conception. Catholics say God says it's at "ensoulment", pro-choicers say it's birth, but they admit that's biologically arbitrary.

Don't be so sure.
Why...just look at some of the posters here.