Abortion Activist Hears Abortion Survivor’s Testimony, Still Refuses To Condemn Infanticide
[guest post by Dana]
Melissa Ohden is the survivor of a failed saline infusion abortion. In 2012, she founded the Abortion Survivors Network (ASN) to reach out to other survivors. The organization provides emotional, mental and spiritual support to those who have found themselves in a similar situation as Ohden’s. Ohden has written about how the grim event shaped the mission of her life:
I am the survivor of a saline infusion abortion attempt. When my 19 year old, biological mother entered the hospital for the abortion attempt in August of 1977, she estimated herself to be 18 to 22 weeks pregnant. Medical review of my birth records indicate that she was likely closer to 24 to 28 weeks pregnant.
Over the course of a five day period, I endured the deliverance of this toxic salt solution into the amniotic fluid around me, while numerous rounds of Pitocin were delivered to my mother with the intent to induce labor and dispel my dead body from the womb. When I was delivered in bed by a nurse that fifth day, I was believed to be dead. However, instead of being scalded to death from the outside-in, I had survived!
Gratefully, the doctors and nurses stepped in and provided me with the medical care that I needed to survive the abortion attempt and my premature birth. Although doctors believed that I would likely not live for very long, and if I did survive, would be disabled, I am now 32 years old and am perfectly healthy, happy and successful.
Last week, Ohden testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee about abortion legislation. Also speaking to the committee was Hollywood actress, Busy Phillips. Phillips, who had an abortion at age 15, testified that, had she aborted in her native Arizona today, she would have had to obtain parental consent, wait 24 hours, undergo informed-consent counseling, and, most offensively, “give the state a reason why.” :
“Well, here is mine: my body belongs to me, not the state,” she declared. “Women and their doctors are in the best position to make informed decisions about what is best for them. No one else.” Phillips falsely claimed that criminalizing abortion won’t “stop anyone” from committing one, and is only about “shaming and controlling women’s bodies.” She asserted that she has the right to abort other human beings because “I am a human being that deserves autonomy in this country that calls itself free.”
As if involving responsible parents would be a terrible thing. As if it isn’t a parent’s very job to help their children wisely navigate the painful landmines in life and to be able to come out of it as unscathed as possible. And what is wrong with waiting 24-hours? Is there a problem with a woman reconsidering her decision, and perhaps even changing her mind about having an abortion? Finally, if Phillips herself claims that women and their doctors are in the best position to make informed decisions, wouldn’t informed-consent counseling provide even more information critical to making said informed decision? It seems fairly important to understand all aspects of a medical procedure, especially one designed to end a pregnancy. Since when isn’t the empowerment of women vital?
In response to Phillips’ statements, Ohden asked her:
“How do you reconcile my rights as a woman who survived a failed abortion with what’s being discussed here today?” she asked. “There’s something wrong when one person’s right results in another person’s death. There’s something deeply disturbing about the reality in our world that I have a right to an abortion but I never had the simple right to live.”
It was a compelling question, and one that Phillips was unable to answer. In fact, she worked hard to dodge and dance around the question. I suspect her efforts at avoidance were not unlike Ohden in the womb, attempting to escape the needle piercing her little body with toxic saline, poisoning her from the inside out as her delicate skin was burned. Here is the exchange between Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas and Phillips:
Gohmert referred back to Ohden’s testimony when questioning Phillips, asking her if “somebody who has survived an abortion like Melissa Ohden has a right when she’s born to life, to control her body when someone else doesn’t take her life.” Phillips responded by “thank[ing] her for sharing her story,” … quipping that “although I played a doctor on television, sir, I am actually not a physician.”
“No, but you’ve given very compelling testimony, and I appreciate you’ve obviously given these issues a lot of thought,” Gohmert replied.
Phillips tried to deflect again with the standard pro-abortion refrain that “I don’t believe that a politician’s place is to decide what’s best for a woman and, you know, it’s a choice between a woman and her doctor,” and claiming she “can’t speak to [Ohden’s] experience because I was not there.”
“Well I just wondered how far your feeling about that went, because once she’s born, would you agree that she is a person in being?” Gohmert asked.
“Yeah, see, I’m not speaking about birth, sir, I’m speaking about abortion,” Phillips replied.
The willful disconnect is jarring. While I understand that it is a necessary disconnect for rationalizing abortion, one has to consider the foul root of decay dwelling deep in the heart and mind for one to be unable to agree that, yes, Ohden was a person who was born alive, and that Ohden, the tiny, living baby had a right to more than “comfort care” – she had a right to live. It’s very troubling that someone could be in such close proximity of Ohden giving first-hand testimony about her miraculous survival, yet still be unable to admit that yes, when she was born, she was a person in being. Phillips’ level of self-deception and denial is the stuff that haunts the soul when there are no distractions and one is alone with only their seared conscience in the middle of night when darkness has fallen.
(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)
–Dana
Good morning.
Dana (779465) — 6/11/2019 @ 5:13 amHow can we, as a culture, argue over whether life starts at conception when we can’t seem to agree that life starts at birth?
Gryph (08c844) — 6/11/2019 @ 5:14 amAssuming she actually has a soul. Phillips’s morality is like that of a three-year-old child: She wants what she wants and anyone who tells her no is a bad, bad person.
Chuck Bartowski (a2c25f) — 6/11/2019 @ 5:17 am3. Utilitarianism chills me to the bone, and yet it’s the basis for so much of the law concerning abortion and fetal homicide. God forgive us. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Gryph (08c844) — 6/11/2019 @ 5:21 am“Cougar Town” values.
nk (dbc370) — 6/11/2019 @ 5:46 amThis:
It will never be settled because it can never be allowed to be settled. There is too much at stake. It’s amazing to see how much effort there has been in the past several years to push the boundaries even further to normalize a woman’s “right to choose” up to the point of birth (and even after). They just need to make sure the mask is kept in place by making sure it continues to be about a woman’s right to choose, and to make sure that the little one inside is not seen as a person with a soul, who feels, but instead is just an easily disposed of interruption.
Dana (779465) — 6/11/2019 @ 6:05 amWe can only hope that she is indeed a poor player who struts and frets her hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.
Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71) — 6/11/2019 @ 6:37 amParents are responsible for raising their children. For the state to intercede and not only let a child make a life-or-death decision, but hide the fact of her pregnancy and sexual activity from the parents without substantial (or, indeed any) reason is beyond belief.
I can think of nothing more important for a parent to know than that their child is sexually active, unless it is that she is irresponsibly sexually active.
And yes, she should also have to name the father so that his parents can be given the same information (assuming that the father is also a minor (and if not, there are other reasons to know who he is)).
Kevin M (21ca15) — 6/11/2019 @ 7:15 amAs you can see, I don’t even have to touch upon the morality of abortion to find serious fault with these state “privacy” laws that prevent parents from finding out that their child is out of control.
I remember when I was 16 and backed into a post with my dad’s car. I sure wish that there had been a state repair shop that I could have taken it to, so that I could cover up my mistake. Sadly not, and I went home to face the music.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 6/11/2019 @ 7:18 amIf it was porn they’d have no problem with it:
Narciso (d76f90) — 6/11/2019 @ 7:48 amhttps://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2019/06/11/more-censorship-pinterest-permanently-banned-the-pro-life-group-live-action-and-labeled-it-a-porn-account/
Great post, Dana.
Patterico (115b1f) — 6/11/2019 @ 8:00 am@6
“It will never be settled because it can never be allowed to be settled.”
Say, rather, that the Left can never allow it to be settled. Which is funny, because they are pushing policies and positions that will CAUSE it to be settled. Against them, mostly.
Opposing Parental Notification laws will cost them the votes of every Parent who has two brain cells to rub together, and many who don’t. But that isn’t the worst of its effects (so far as the Pro-Choice Lefties are concerned). The Left, like all political factions, attracts a small number of loose canons. But because the Left’s Narrative is built to a degree on ‘Radicalism’ and the romance of Fighting The Man, they really can’t do as much to suppress them as they might want to.
So, the combination of Pro-Choice loose cannons and opposition to parental notification laws mans that, inevitably, some Pro-Choice loose cannons will engage in smuggling underage girls across state lines to get abortions without notifying their parents. And, just in the nature of things, sooner or later one of those girls will die on the table, or of later complications.
And then all hell will break loose.
Abortion is already losing popularity except among the Left’s True Believers. When the smoke clears from the scandal I’ve just described, or from the uncovering of another Gosnell style abattoir, Abortion will be broadly illegal just about everywhere except, maybe, Nevada.
C. S. P. Schofield (f7316d) — 6/11/2019 @ 8:09 amWe saw with the gosnell trial that ‘safe legal and rare’ was a sad joke, if death is the key to liberation they will embrace death whole heartedly and any contrary view is heresy.
Narciso (d76f90) — 6/11/2019 @ 8:15 amExcellent post. It is troubling that so many believe only people who agree with them deserve life.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/11/2019 @ 8:21 am14. A fetus isn’t capable of disagreeing or agreeing with anyone. It’s worse than that. It’s about utilitarianism. The fetus is an unborn baby if the mother wants him/her/it, and is a useless mass of tissue if she doesn’t.
Gryph (08c844) — 6/11/2019 @ 8:24 amLook at the bigger picture there were 58 million abortions, quantifiable there were probably something in the neighborhood of 200 million total deaths
Narciso (d76f90) — 6/11/2019 @ 8:37 amhttps://hotair.com/archives/2019/06/11/whoa-pinterest-bans-live-action-blocking-porn/
This is how they choose to battle in the marketplace of ideas. By preventing you from having the ability to speak and reach others. Whether all choose to accept it, the battle exists.
NJRob (4d595c) — 6/11/2019 @ 10:11 amEmbryologists tell us that babies are human at conception. The pre-born baby has personhood. So I will ask this question. What crime did the baby commit that deserves the death penalty?
Any excuse for killing a baby in the womb can also be used to kill a child or an adult out of the womb.
I was told by a man who said that he teaches ethics at a local college that I should commit suicide so that I wouldn’t be a burden on my family because I have Parkinson’s.
Is suicide to not be a “burden” a moral answer? Is abortion (infanticide) a moral answer?
What crime did the baby commit?
For people who wonder how a pro life person can be for the death penalty here’s how I feel.
They execute the baby without due process, which is a foundation of our constitution and is in the Bible.
Again, what crime did the baby commit?
From a biblical point of you we have:
Defines Jeremiah as a person in the womb. Killing him in the womb is murder.
Again, what crime did the baby commit?
Even in the cases of rape. What crime did the baby commit that deserves the death penalty?
Tanny O'Haley (8a06bc) — 6/11/2019 @ 3:07 pmthat is very crimethink, tammy, this valueless anomie where people and animals have the same value, is what’s considered sophisticated,
narciso (d1f714) — 6/11/2019 @ 3:51 pmgillebrand decides that prolife sentiments are as unacceptable as racism,
narciso (d1f714) — 6/11/2019 @ 4:17 pmI think there are distinctions to be made. For example, I wouldn’t get as worked up over a drug or device that prevents a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall as I would with an abortion at eight months.
norcal (ce7ce7) — 6/11/2019 @ 6:41 pm“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says birth control should be available over the counter. She’s right.“
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/11/i-am-a-conservative-i-agree-with-aoc-on-over-the-counter-birth-control-column/1402941001/
harkin (58d012) — 6/11/2019 @ 7:03 pm_
Pro-choice.
The laws of the United States do not require us to risk harm to save another. If I have chosen to attempt to save a person falling over a cliff and, as I am holding them up, I feel myself slipping, I can drop them. Even if I know that dropping them will kill them. Even if I later discover I would not have slipped. There is no requirement that I risk myself to save another person.
Ohden is making an argument from emotion. It isn’t an argument from logic, it isn’t even really an argument from religion, just emotion. She doesn’t even know if her mother consented to her treatment or if the doctors usurped her mother’s parental rights in order to treat her. In fact, she’s making an argument that anyone pro-right-to-bare-arms should find very disturbing. “There’s something wrong when one person’s right results in another person’s death.”
Nic (896fdf) — 6/11/2019 @ 7:08 pmYes progressives dont use emotion, that’s why that Baker is facing his third lawsuit.
Narciso (a08d6b) — 6/11/2019 @ 7:36 pmBecause the ‘love wins’ trumped 4,000 years of history.
Narciso (a08d6b) — 6/11/2019 @ 7:36 pm(Someone else said something you aren’t talking about) is also a lousy argument.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/11/2019 @ 7:51 pmNic (896fdf) — 6/11/2019 @ 7:08 pm
That comment is as off-the-wall as a comment could be, unless you meant it ironically. The laws do require you not to harm another person except in self-defense or in the defense of an innocent third person. When that person is helpless and in your care, harming him includes neglecting him.
Even your cliff example is wrong. If your aborted rescue attempt had prevented other would-be rescuers from intervening because they thought they could rely on you, you are liable for aborting it without objectively reasonable cause.
May I ask, if you did not mean it ironically, where you picked up those ideas?
nk (dbc370) — 6/11/2019 @ 8:14 pmWhen I am in an especially eugenicistic mood, I also see the pro-choice side.
nk (dbc370) — 6/11/2019 @ 8:42 pmGood people will not kill their children without a compelling reason due to circumstances beyond their control.
Bad people who kill their children without that compelling reason, it’s maybe a good thing that they remove themselves from the gene pool.
But my utilitarian side then tells me that even bad people can have their purpose in the scheme of things and we should not be wantonly wasteful; especially since we cannot be certain that those children would have grown up as soulless as their parents.
A sophisticated response to a simple comment. It caused me look up a number of words from such a short comment.
Thank you.
BTW, my name is Tanny. Like a sun tanned knee.
Tanny O'Haley (8a06bc) — 6/11/2019 @ 8:48 pmNic,
Tragically, Ohden’s birth mother, who was 19 years old when she was coerced into having the abortion and never knew that her baby girl had survived.
Dana (779465) — 6/11/2019 @ 9:27 pmAlso, this is confusing:
Would you mind telling us why you think she’s just arguing from emotion, and not from any sort of moral principle?
Dana (779465) — 6/11/2019 @ 9:30 pmTammy O’Haley @ 18,
Well said.
Dana (779465) — 6/11/2019 @ 9:31 pm@27
Some case law on forcing a relative to make any sacrifice for your safety:
McFall v. Shimp
Application of George- https://casetext.com/case/application-of-george-1
On being a good samaritan:”In general, there is no legal requirement in the United States to help and rescue someone else who is in danger. This would typically apply even in extreme situations where a bystander sees a small child who has wandered into the street or a man who has fallen onto the train tracks. There are some exceptions to this rule. Ten states have limited rules that may require you to help a crime victim if you can do so without danger or peril to yourself or to others” If there is peril as could be understood by a reasonable person, you can stop rescuing them. https://www.thelaw.com/law/good-samaritan-laws-the-duty-to-help-or-rescue-someone.218/
On self defense: “Sometimes self-defense is justified even if the perceived aggressor didn’t actually mean the perceived victim any harm. What matters in these situations is whether a “reasonable person” in the same situation would have perceived an immediate threat of physical harm.” https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/self-defense-overview.html
Duty to rescue: People v. Beardsley,
(I hope I have not included too many links)
Nic (896fdf) — 6/11/2019 @ 9:32 pmAnd still besides the point. I agree that a mother has the right to abort her child if continuing the pregnancy places her in danger of death or great bodily harm.
What is your position? That the child is a stranger in danger while it’s in her womb and she has no duty to “rescue” it by letting it remain there until it can survive outside the womb?
nk (dbc370) — 6/11/2019 @ 9:41 pm@30 That doesn’t make sense. If the mom is still alive, as Ohden says she is, and 19 at the time, which the article says she was, she would either have had to sign paperwork to give her baby up for adoption (so she would have known her daughter survived) or the court would have had to remove her parental rights which would have taken a hell of a lot longer than 3 months and she definitely would have know about that.
@31 In the initial post and then in the linked article, she doesn’t give any kind of moral principal argument. Basically in the initial quotes, all she’s saying is “look at me, don’t I deserve to have lived?” In answering your question, however, I clicked all the way through to the transcription of the testimony. Reading the testimony, it becomes clear that next of kin rights were, in fact, disregarded:
“my grandmother instructed nurses to leave me to die, and arguments about whether I would be provided medical care, ensued.In the words of Nurse Jan, who received me in the NICU that day, ‘a tall blond nurse,’ courageously rushed me off to the NICU, shouting out, ‘she just kept gasping for breath, and so I couldn’t just leave her there to die!’
Now, it’s understandable why they were, but the fact is that they were, according to Ohden’s testimony.
In reading through her testimony, my opinion regarding her arguing to emotion doesn’t change.
“is there space for stories like mine, women who are alive today after surviving failed abortion procedures”
“most important stories, though, are likely the ones that you’ll never hear. The stories of the little girls who will never live outside of the womb.”
“How do you reconcile my rights as a woman who survived a failed abortion with what’s being discussed here today”
“I would ask for you to look behind the language and see the stories that are so often hidden”
She’s not arguing a moral standpoint, she’s arguing an emotional one.
And yes, the pro-choice side also argues from emotion, often as well. It creates a sympathetic face for whichever stance is being taken. It’s why anti-abortion legislation often creates a carve out for rape or incest, even though they make no sense if your stance is a personhood one. I have far more respect for laws like the one in Alabama, because it at least is written like a law that believes a fetus is a person.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/11/2019 @ 9:57 pm@34 Pregnancy is always a health risk and sometimes a life risk. Sometimes more than others, but there is always some health risk. And yes, my stance is that, moral or immoral, the woman has no duty to take that risk if she decides not to. We are not generally in the business of legislating religious morality in this country.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/11/2019 @ 10:03 pmlegislating religious morality
Criminal defense attorneys are missing a bet when they don’t raise the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as a defense in homicide cases?
nk (dbc370) — 6/11/2019 @ 10:21 pmWe have legislated a number of times when it is OK to kill one another, which defense attorneys use all the time. We did decide that the country wouldn’t be functional if we went around randomly killing each other, but no prosecutor is using “Thou Shalt Not Kill” as a legal argument.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/11/2019 @ 10:29 pm35. 35.@30
It’s not explained, but…
A) They might not have followed regulations
or
B) The mother might have been deemed incompetent by a judge and someone else was making the decisions for her, possibly her parents, who, we read, refused to help the daughter get in contact with her.
And in that case, she was indeed compelled to underggo an abortion, even though she was already age 19, and her parents signed all the papers.
I have sasid that if anyone wanted a test law for abortion they should prohibit anyone consenting to a abortion for anyone else (with the possible exception of someone in a coma where medical opinion held t wold increase the chances oof getting out of that coma, I might add.)
Planned Parenthood would be sure to litigate against such a law.
Sammy Finkelman (9974e8) — 6/11/2019 @ 10:38 pm@39 In the late 90s I worked with a student whose mother had been declared incompetent (mom was quite intellectually disabled) and had the opportunity to be adopted (the student was 12 at the time). Even though mom had been declared incompetent they still interviewed her regarding the adoption.
I know this is going to seem terribly cynical, but it seems far more likely that mom lied than that there was some convoluted process through which everything was hidden from her.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/11/2019 @ 10:56 pmGuess what? The no-abortion-ever position will never ever be law again. Give up now. Find something you can live with and work for that.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 6/11/2019 @ 11:37 pmNic and Kevin M,
Life is dangerous. You can trip and fall and die just walking out the front door.
Since Embryologists tell us that babies are human at conception. What crime did the baby commit that deserves the death penalty?
Tanny O'Haley (8a06bc) — 6/12/2019 @ 12:34 amTanny
You seem to be using an appeal to the authority of Embryologists to skip the fact that people disagree about when life begins.
Time123 (d54166) — 6/12/2019 @ 4:09 amAt least now I understand the new Party Line. It’s not “My Body, My Choice!” anymore, because that was not victimhood enough I guess. It’s “Pregnancy is a dangerous condition and I need to protect my health”. I don’t think it will last. Only the Sterile Cuckoos will buy it, and they’re still in the minority, thank God.
nk (dbc370) — 6/12/2019 @ 4:33 amWe did decide that the country wouldn’t be functional if we went around randomly killing each other, but no prosecutor is using “Thou Shalt Not Kill” as a legal argument.
I know that. You are the one who phrased the debate as “legislating religious morality”.
nk (dbc370) — 6/12/2019 @ 4:50 am— The Moon Moth, Jack Vance
nk (dbc370) — 6/12/2019 @ 4:56 amI think it went
Woman “My body my choice”
Time123 (69b2fc) — 6/12/2019 @ 5:02 amGOP “There’s no valid reason to make that choice.”
Woman “Pregnancy has risks and hardships. My concerns for my health are valid.”
Not Jack Vance:
nk (dbc370) — 6/12/2019 @ 5:18 am@40. They’re not telling us the full story so it’s hard to tell, but I can see why the mother of a 12-year old might have been interveiewed but not the mother of a baby.
In questions of custody, the whole thing is supposed to be dependent on the best interests of the child, so they would have to find out what the relationship is between the mother of a 12-year old and her son, but with a baby just born or released from the hospital they alwaready know he full story.
The version here is that the abortion was coerced, (and the pregnant woman also concealed how oold her pregnancy was) and the fact that the baby was saved was hidden from her.
Whether that’s actually true or not I don’t know but it would help to hear more details of what Melissa Ohden had to say. Now if she is concealing too many details to protect someone’s privacy there may be no way of telling or making a good guess. But there probably is a bit more.
She wrote a book published in 2017 called You Carried Me: A Daughter’s Memoir, One important point she says is that the abortion did not take place at Planned Parenthood.
One wesite I checled doesn’t give mre information:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-44357373
Sammy Finkelman (9974e8) — 6/12/2019 @ 9:07 amThere are all sosrts of legal questions here (including whether the law was broken) and reading further down in the BBC article it seems like the law was indeed broken:
So they probably bypassed the adoption regulations also. maybe forged the mother’s signature.
Sammy Finkelman (9974e8) — 6/12/2019 @ 9:09 am@42 The question is not what the embryo had done, the question for me is at what point is it permissible to force one person to act as a literal life support machine for another person. Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose? Well, living inside someone else’s body and forcing them to give up life sustaining nutrients and moving their bones and organs around without their permission is far far closer up (and has more long term consequences) than a fist contacting a nose. You will notice my links above were exactly about one person’s legal responsibility in risking themselves to save another. If there was a way to remove the fetus and gestate it elsewhere, I’d support that.
If you are just arguing that there’s no legal precedent for not continuing a human life outside of abortion, even not looking at the other times when it’s legal to end another human life, we take people off of life support all the time. People’s next of kin can decide to sign DNR orders. Or choose not to apply other extreme measures. We make these decisions all the time.
And none of that even touches on the argument of when an embryo becomes a person, which people absolutely disagree on and is almost always religiously based.
@44 I don’t know that it’s anyone’s “Party line”. It’s my reasoning.
@45 My point is that we don’t. Your argument is that making murder illegal is a religiously moral legislation. Mine is that it isn’t, it’s a practical one.
@48 yeah yeah yeah, people have vehement political disagreements. Oh noes, how put upon poor Angmark is. My side is terribly persecuted! How many years of the last 50 years has the President been a Republican? How many years has at least one of our legislative bodies been majority Republican? Oh the oppression!! Both Republicans and Democrats whine about how the other side is keeping them down, oh how terrible it is, and frankly they have both had their times in power. Just because one side or the other wants absolute control doesn’t mean they get it.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/12/2019 @ 9:30 amNic @51
They tend to force people to take vaccinations for that reason.
Of course, the sacrifice is less.
By the way the fact that pregnancy is (even in the modern United States) potebtially danegerous could be a rather important ethical point.
Sammy Finkelman (9974e8) — 6/12/2019 @ 9:43 amMaking murder illegal is more of a religious question – it applies even to enemy soldiers.
There are some practical arguments too – if not will they ever surrender? but tat’s not the main reason.
There are people the law does not want, but their murder is also illegal.However, savings people from death is sometimes considered illegal.
But in arecent case in Arizona there may have been some jury nullification:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/us/scott-warren-arizona-deaths.html
Sammy Finkelman (9974e8) — 6/12/2019 @ 9:45 am@52 Only people in very specific situations are forced to vaccinate, the rest are just strongly encouraged to do so. For example, in CA you don’t technically have to vaccinate your kids, they just can’t attend school until you do. They could home school or online school, though and choose to not vaccinate.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/12/2019 @ 10:52 am@45 My point is that we don’t. Your argument is that making murder illegal is a religiously moral legislation. Mine is that it isn’t, it’s a practical one.
Eh? This was not you, it was me?
I’m pretty sure it was not me. Why would I steal your identity?
nk (dbc370) — 6/12/2019 @ 11:28 am@55. I think we misread eachother somewhere. I said we don’t legislate religious morality and I thought your return comment was contradicting that.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/12/2019 @ 9:26 pm56. If murder isn’t ipso facto immoral, why outlaw it at all? Law of the jungle, baby!
Gryph (08c844) — 6/13/2019 @ 8:03 amI have a tendency to take straw man arguments seriously.
nk (dbc370) — 6/13/2019 @ 8:31 am34. There is NO health risk to a mother involving pregnancy that requires killing an unborn child. None. Zip. Zero. Zilch. The most common cause of death in pregnant women directly related to pregnancy is eclampsia. And the most effective treatment for eclampsia is labor induction. You could greatly decrease the prenatal mortality rate in women if more Ob-Gyns knew what pre-eclampsia looks like, and knew what to do about it. Abortionists need no role whatsoever in that picture.
Gryph (08c844) — 6/13/2019 @ 8:39 amAnd if you don’t want to “act as a life support machine” for an unborn child, there is one form of birth control that I am aware of that is 100% effective every time it’s tried…
Gryph (08c844) — 6/13/2019 @ 8:41 amIt saddens me that the defense of abortion on display in this very thread is utiliarianism at its most egregious.
Gryph (08c844) — 6/13/2019 @ 8:42 am