Snoqualmie

If an adult wants to kill a child, that's fine. But children should not be allowed to kill other children, even if those children are inside them. Why? The adult is old enough to weigh the full consequences to determine whether or not she wants to live out the rest of her life having killed her child. In contrast, the child is not old enough to decide whether or not she wants to live out her life with that terrible burden. Thus, we should establish a presumption against children killing children unless an adult guardian steps in and gives the green light.

And at what point is someone old enough to be indoctrinated into considering a six-months pre-natal cluster of cells as a child, with cute little toesy-woesies and big dewy eyes which it does not in fact have? That goes along with the consciousness, physical self-regulation, and ability to respond to stimuli which it also does not have. That's not a child. Calling it one makes for good rhetoric, but you need more than good rhetoric to justify denying someone a freedom that's guaranteed by state law.

Maybe this will make you feel better.

Yes! It will! Thank you.

Oh for christ's sake. The argument that the state was just trying to step in and prevent this poor, befuddled 13-year-old girl from waking up every morning hating herself for murdering a cute wittle baby is so STUPID that I'm forced to abandon my 'net manners and yell in all-caps about it. STUPID!

1. "Cell blob" does not = "baby".
2. Removal of "cell blob" does not = murder.
3. "Cell blob" = blob of your own cells that have been induced to mutate into "embryo" mode. Removing them is like removing any other mutated cells at this stage. Think tumor.
4. Who better than the 13-year-old with the cell blob to decide that she wanted to have it removed before she has to drop out of junior high or whatever to carry, give birth to, and then figure out what to do with, it? 13 is young, but if you're old enough for your body to get you into this position, you're old enough to decide if it's where you want to be or not.

Anyone notice that we're not even surprised that this girl and whoever knocked her up weren't, evidently, using condoms? What does it take to change this from a public right-to-choose argument into a public sex-ed argument?

Thank you. You covered all of the points I had intended to bring up before I decided to edit myself into civil debate form instead of bloody fistfight form. The former is good for feeling rhetorically superior, but emotional satisfaction demands the latter.

Speaking of public sex-ed debates, by the way, condoms aren't exactly the only issue there. If you're going to argue that an abortion is a major moral decision to make, you're not helping matters if your sex education shies away from any information that would help someone to make it (for instance, my squeamish high school biology teacher's approach to abortion education, which was to have us read a Hemingway story that vaguely referred to abortion in metaphorical terms and then ask us to discuss it among ourselves). In fact, if that's your approach, what you're trying to do is to lock in a situation in which no one is ever prepared to handle such a decision. It amounts to willful oppression and is wildly out of place in any civilized country you care to name.

Okay, your turn.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that you read "Hills Like White Elephants" in a biology class as part of an abortion discussion? I thought that I was all for the introduction of literature into all parts of the school curriculum, but I stand corrected. Jesus.

OK, agreed that the safe-sex/sex-at-all conversation needs to cover more than condoms. But it at least needs to include condoms, for a couple of reasons:
1. If sex-ed only treats reproductive issues, it leaves queer kids out in the cold by not dealing with the one issue which might be directly relevant to them, i.e. disease.
2. If sex-ed fails to lean heavily on condoms, it tends to go in the abstinence-or-nothing direction, which is worse than useless; it also avoids dealing with the idea that there are reasons other than reproduction for which people might choose to have (safe) sex, i.e. enjoyment.

Right, which (that last part, I mean) is a great way to make kids feel ashamed if they happen to be having sex for the sake of enjoyment, and shame leads to not talking about it and if you're not willing to talk there's no way you'll have either the resources or the communication with your partner that you need to do it safely.

Yep, "Hills Like White Elephants" was it. It wasn't part of an abortion discussion, it seriously was the abortion discussion. Do you remember Mrs. Braker at Portola and her "sexy box" for people to put questions in? She was ten times better as a sex-ed teacher than what I got at North Hollywood.

Cue joke about the sex-ed that you got at Cleveland... now?

Fun fact: I can't open that Planned Parenthood link at work, apparently because it's porn.

In high school my wacky AP Bio teacher was apparently in charge of sex ed as well (which I fortunately got multiple times in a different school district). He had this trick that he was very proud of. The sex ed laser disc had a glossary at the end, where each word was its own track. The first word, alphabetically, was "abstinence." So he would pull up the abstinence track and tell his students, "If you learn this word, you don't have to learn all these words!" and then he'd press play and the player would quickly scroll through the dozens of other words.

Good times.

This, for the record, is exactly what the fuck I'm talking about.

kill bugs not babies
82% of females under 15 that are pregnant and have the aborition have more physical mental damages and possibly death then actually having the baby
we should be thinking about the saftey of these girls..have you forgotten about adoption...if anyone makes the choice to have sex before marriage then they can deal with 9 mon of being fatter and takeing care of their body. Adoption compared to abortion is less physical pain, less money (adoption is almost paid for) and moraly right.
you obviously have your elements of thoughs twisted that you will not hurt a bug but are promopting the death of small children on your site. Think how much of a difference your life would be if your best friend had been aborted. And irresponsable fuckers all over the world are talking away those people and lovers all over the world that you are never going to be able to interact with. Hitler's mother went to an abortion clinic 6 times...but never went through with is..how different would that be.
If you ask the doctors that perform the abortions if the baby is a human being the will say yes, why do you think its called pro life. The twentieth day a baby's heart, brain, spinal column, and nervous system are almost complete. the baby's blood is flowing in the infant's veins, and by the eighth week the baby has fingerprints and all organs are functioning.

1. Fetuses are not, biologically or semantically, babies.
2. Pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood consist of more than "being fatter and taking care of your body."
3. If you're going to throw statistics around and expect to have them believed, you need to support them.
4. Your Hitler example, if it's arguing for anything, is actually arguing for abortion.
5. "Why do you think it's called pro life?" Because the people holding that position know, as most human beings in the last several thousand years have found out, that how you phrase any sentiment makes an enormous difference in how people perceive it. Welcome to the world of propaganda.

And since "morally right" is always and has always been entirely subjective, and this is my blog and composed of my perspectives, hey presto, I'm not the one with my priorities twisted. I do not and never will support the treatment of women of any age, but particularly underage girls, as carriers of fetuses rather than individuals with the right to seek their own personal health, safety, self-determination and moral satisfaction with as complete knowledge as they can and should be provided and as much time and freedom as they can be given to reach a decision. I do not grant those same rights to fetuses based on my perception of them as not being independent organisms. I am satisfied with this as a consistent and morally defensible position to the best of my considerable ability to evaluate it.

In short, balls to you.

I suggest you close comments on this thread before the (rest of the) enemy sniffs it out and goes apeshit all over the main page. (Unless you're in the mood to butt heads with the stupids for a while, which given your current circumstances might be cathartic, who knows.)

Nrmph. I'd much rather re-argue completely pointless and overrepeated debates with random strangers on the internet than finish my archaeology paper. You're absolutely right, but you're still ruining my fun.