Fluffy Language

Any position can be made to sound good by dressing it up and dancing around the issue and insulting the opposition.

Those against gay rights speak of "defending marriage" and "protecting children" and "supporting traditional marriage".

Those against youth rights speak of "for their own good" and "parental rights" and "protecting children".

Those against prenatal rights speak of "women's reproductive rights" and "no forced parenthood" and "every child a wanted child" and "deciding whether and when to reproduce" and "Get your laws off my body!" and "Against abortion? Don't have one!".

Those in favor of slavery spoke of "property rights" and "privacy" and "constitutional protections" and "legislating morality".

Those in favor of rape speak of "men's sexual rights" and "no forced celibacy" and "opposing rape is telling those conceived of rape they should not exist" and "the right to one's own penis" and "Get your laws off my body!" and "Do not force your morality upon others!" and "If you are against rape, you are free not to rape anyone.".

Okay, I made that last one up but you get the point. I believe that the personhood movement will ultimately succeed because it forces people to look at the essential issue: Do all human beings deserve human rights?

WTF

OH EM GEE.

I smell a Colbert Report segment...

Broodmares of the state?

No, not the 1937 Soviet porno flick of the same name.

I'm referring to the "argument" that pro-lifers just want to force women to pop out babies. This is absurd. I would be okay if nobody reproduced ever.

The definition of reproduction indicates that at least one additional organism is produced. The law of biogenesis states that organisms reproduce after their own kind: dogs make dogs (puppies), cats make cats (kittens), cows make cows (calves), wolves make wolves (pups), and humans make humans (babies).

Therefore, once reproduction occurs, another human being is brought into existence. And along with this human being comes human rights. One of the human rights is the right to live.

Amnesty International

In September, the Dominican Republic just enshrined the right to life in its constitution.

Wanna know how "human rights group" Amnesty International responded?

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC DELIVERS "HUGE BLOW" TO WOMEN'S RIGHT TO LIFE

Yes, they said that it violated itself.

I'm thankful for...

Today's issue on NationStates.

Nulono Decides: Much Ado About Abortion

The Issue

A monstrous debate between pro-life and pro-choice groups has erupted after a high-profile case of a pregnant woman aborting her foetus because she 'didn't feel like it' hit the tabloids.

The Debate

1. Johann Mombota, lawyer for the woman known only as Miss X, says, "It is Miss X's right to choose! It's her body; she can do whatever she wants with it. In the interest of women's rights, abortion MUST be legal throughout the country!"
   
   
   
2. "I most vehemently disagree," says Miranda Shiomi, a pro-life activist. "I'm all for women's rights in general, but what about the child? Does it have no rights either? Abortion is totally immoral and I insist that it be outlawed except in cases of rape, or when the mother's life is in danger."
   
   
   
3. "You're not going far enough! Abortion is murder!" shouts Reverend Zeke Wall, waving a placard with a picture of a foetus on it. "God decides which babies live and which will die, not us! The government must maintain a stern anti-abortion stance to preserve the morality of Nulono!"
   
   This is the position your government is preparing to adopt.
   
   
4. "Abortion has to be legal if we're going to last as a nation," says Fleur Broadside, President of the Society of Bitter Old People. "Have you ever thought that with Nulono's growing population of 563 million, we soon aren't going to be able to squeeze any more people within our borders? If we use abortion to control the population, we'll make great savings and can spend the money elsewhere. One child per family should just about do it I think. Extraneous ones can be sold to other countries."
   

The Government Position

The government has indicated its intention to follow the recommendations of Option 3.

If you wish, you may:

Military tribunals?

Some people are saying 9/11 was an act of war. This is what the terrorists want: they want to be soldiers.

Calling it an act of war dehumanizes the victims into mere "collateral damage", and justified the further loss of lives in retaliation.

Also, how is bringing them to New York dangerous? KSM doesn't have superpowers, and he'd better hope he's not released onto the streets of NYC.

Personhood Movement

Go here to find out how to protect human rights in your state. PersonhoodUSA may be a Christian organization, but personhood is a secular cause. Dr. King was a reverend. The abolitionists used religion in their arguments.

YES

This man has the right idea.

[/plaintext]

The glitch is fixed, so back to Arial we go!

No Texan Marriage?

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/18/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5700676.shtml

I LOL'd.

Hypocrisy

This isn't a substantial argument, and it's sort of overused, but it's something that's been bothering me.

In a normal pregnancy, you hear things like "How's the baby?", "The baby's due on July 8th.", "She's kicking!", or "He's very healthy.". If someone kills a "wanted" prenate, you hear "He killed the baby!". (Though some people in the hardcore pro-abortion camp won't do this).

But if we're pondering prenaticide, there's a huge switch to the abstract. There's talk about "terminating the pregnancy", or "removing the products of conception", or, in the case of multiples, "reducing the fetuses".

There's a huge attempt to dance around the issue. There's references to "choice", and "reproductive rights", and "controlling one's fertility".

Just sayin'.

LifeReport

Go to http://blog.prolifepodcast.net and listen. It's great.

Plaintext

I'm having technical difficulties, so I can't add any images or change from the default font or have the tags fill in automatically*.

*So forgive me if some tags stray by a letter or two.

Rights of Citizens

There's lots of talk about whether terrorists "deserve" the "rights of American citizens".

The Framers didn't implement those rights as a reward to people for being born here. They implemented them because they saw them as basic human rights. To ask if someone "deserves" their rights is unAmerican in the truest sense of the word.

All men are created equal, not just all Americans.

A Little Perspective

☹=15000 deaths per year

Lack of health insurance:
☹☹☹

Abortion:
☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹☹

Twitter

PersonhoodUSA is going beyond its mission on Twitter and has become the illegitimate child of ALL and the Libertarian Party. I'll be giving them a talking to.

"Wait, there's a debate over ______?": 0.9999...

Fascist?

This word is thrown around a lot. You need to know what it means.

Fascism, pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/, is a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism^[1][2][3][4] with a corporatisteconomic system,^[5] and which is usually considered to be on the far right of the traditional left-right political spectrum.^{[dubious – discuss][6][7][8][9][10]}Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak.^[11]

Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state.^[12] Fascist governments forbid and suppress openness and opposition to the government and the fascist movement.^[13] Fascism opposes class conflict, blames capitalist liberal democracies for its creation and communists for exploiting the concept.^[14]

In the economic sphere, many fascist leaders have claimed to support a "Third Way" in economic policy, which they believed superior to both the rampant individualism of unrestrained capitalism and the severe control of state communism.^[15][16] This was to be achieved by establishing significant government control over business and labour (Mussolini called his nation's system "the corporate state").^[17][18] No common and concise definition exists for fascism and historians and political scientists disagree on what should be in any concise definition.^[19]

Following the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II and the publicity surrounding the atrocities committed during the period of fascist governments, the term fascist has been used as a pejorative word.^[20]

Natural Law Party

This is an argument I see all to much.

I agree that education and resources are needed to prevent abortions.

However, natural law does not dictate that the mother should be responsible to no one for the death of her unborn child. It is not the person most affected that should decide if one option is the death of an innocent human being. This is not a private issue that only affects her; it is the destruction of a human life. However, it is also true that the person affected most is the child, who is killed. Because the child cannot speak for him-/herself; this is the government's job.

In any other situation in which one human being decides to kill another human being (we call this "homicide"), the government steps in. This is, in fact, what natural law dictates: that the government should protect human beings from each other.

As for "legislating morality", this is almost the definition of legislation. The reason we have laws against assault, murder, and rape are because these actions are immoral and violate the rights of other human beings. An action that inflicts violence upon another human being is never a private issue, and if it were the entire concept of natural rights would fall apart.

The analogy to prohibition is invalid because the consumption of alcohol does not violate anyone else's rights. The notion that a mother may harm herself in the process of killing her unborn child does not mean that the unborn child should not be given the full protection of the law demanded by basic human rights.

Okay, wait a second.

After actually reading the Stupak amendment, I'm going to have to come out against it. It's just as I feared: the Stupak amendment doesn't just restrict abortion to medically necessary cases (you know, health care?). Instead, it forces me to pay for abortions in the cases of incest (why does incest get a separate exception?) and rape. Because if you're the victim of a violent act (rape, assuming the incest was unconsensual, in which case a separate exception is unneeded and dangerous), I'm apparently expected to pay for you to inflict graver violence (homicide) upon an innocent third party!

That's not compassion.

Those devious prenates!

Before they are even created, they force their parents to have sex. They then create themselves and begin sucking nutrients from the mother*. And they make themselves delicate and unviable so that they cannot be removed. What a cunning plan!

Wait, what's that? The offspring has no say in the matter? A prenate's existence, location, and dependency are thrust upon him or her? Wait, by who? By the parents?

Try telling that to the Roebots who compare an unwanted child to a rapist.

If you want intelligent debate on prenatal rights, don't go to NationStates.

*The mother's body delivers nutrients to the baby and the nutrients are passed from one circulatory system to another by diffusion.

Morons (or is it Moroens?)

Even beyond Roebots are the pro-abortion folks who are ignorant of basic facts like the following:

The difference between natural death and homicide*

That prenatal development is controlled by the fetus's DNA

That your kidney is not a human being

That hamburgers are neither human nor alive

That Jello™ cannot be fertilized by human sperm

All those were on the NationStates forum. Why do certain forums attract morons?

*If Old Man Jenkins down the road dies because I shot him, I go to jail. If he's hit by an asteroid, I don't? Why? One scenario has me choosing his death and one doesn't. ZOMG teh murder lawz r antichoice!!!1one

GREAT NEWS

The House passed the health care bill AND the Pitts-Stupak amendment. I don't remember if the House bill had the public option, but this is GREAT!

Now on to the Senate. Remember, we aren't out of the woods yet. The pro-abortion lobby is not going to give up. We cannot let this victory make us complacent until the Stupak Amendment is signed into law! And even then we must remain ever vigilant lest the unborn suffer the wrath of fuzzy language.

BREAKING NEWS! Calls needed NOW!

Moments ago, Planned Parenthood sent out a mass
e-mail blast to abortion supporters calling it an
EMERGENCY ...

... Here's what they're terrified of:

Late last night, the House leadership -- realizing
their health care reform bill didn't have the needed
votes while containing an abortion mandate -- agreed
to allow a vote today on the bi-partisan pro-life
amendment offered by Rep. Bart Stupak and Rep. Joe
Pitts that explicitly excludes government funding of
abortion in health care reform.

Your calls and e-mails made the difference to allow
for this amendment which could help to save millions
of lives from abortion -- and prevent Planned
Parenthood and the rest of the abortion industry from
receiving a massive government funded bailout!

Now, everything comes down to what's happening on the
House floor right now.

Planned Parenthood is begging abortion advocates to
call Congress now and "reject this attack..." by
demanding opposition to the Stupak/Pitts amendment.

If they succeed and the abortion mandate is not
removed from health care reform, Planned Parenthood
will be sending out a victory e-mail tomorrow -- and
preparing to ramp up its operations to handle the
largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.

Even if you have called before, it is critical that
you pick up the phone RIGHT NOW and tell your U.S.
Representative: "Remove abortion funding and mandates
from health care reform!"

If you know your Representative's name, call him or
her through the House switchboard at:

(202) 224-3121

If you need to look up your Representative's
information, go to:

http://tinyurl.com/yg6jot5

You've already demonstrated that the pro-life voice
can make a powerful impact.

Now, everything depends on today.

PLEASE CALL NOW!

For Life,

Stop the Abortion Mandate Coalition
http://www.StopTheAbortionMandate.com

P.S.- For more information and the latest updates,
visit http://www.StopTheAbortionMandate.com or read
the breaking news story from the New York Times at:

http://tinyurl.com/ybzv34g

Thanks, ALL!

I've always seen the American Life League as the PETA of the anti-abortion movement, with their anti-sex agenda, but they actually saved me some trouble by fisking a video I'd been meaning to get to.

Prenaticide is REAL

This is a short article, but really worth reading. Abortion is not some abstract concept, some simple "unplugging" or even choosing to not get pregnant. It is not destroying a potential life. It is the very real killing of an extant human being.

Religious Power

The things often cited as religious freedom fall under liberty in general. Your brain is your own.

There is no right, however, to coerce because of one's religious beliefs. One may not, for example, perform human sacrifices or lynch people or kill your unborn offspring because of your beliefs. You may also not force your beliefs directly upon others, even your children.

This demonstrates that there is no such thing as religious freedom.

Slaves to biology?

One thing I'm tired of hearing is how affirming prenatal rights would make women "slaves to their biology". This is absurd. Even abortion is only possible because biology allows it. Biology is the study of life. It says what is, not what ought to be, and you can't be a slave to an entity (though biology isn't even a entity) that has no free will of its own.

It's like... it's like...

RotH Updates

Notice anything different? Restraint of the Heartless is now a Blue Ribbon Site. In addition, the momentum of the personhood movement has led me to reopen the poll on personhood amendments.

Gulag Schools

I probably should've told you about them. They are despicable and really need no debate; sunshine is the best disinfectant.