Dean on Abortion: "No One is Pro-Abortion."

From LBN - read article first

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1415498

Would this be a good way for the Democrats to recast the issue?

:hi:

is that abortion is a private matter between a woman and her doctor/health care provider and it should be safe and legal

we should want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare.

using "rare" is just playing into the hands of the cons that want to outlaw the procedure

I don't think inner city women get so many abortions because they think its a wonderful time at the doctor's office.

people shouldn't be forced into getting abortions because they are POOR.

That's why women's health clinics with available contraception are important, along with economic empowerment, education, investments in urban communities, etc. -- precisely the sort of things rightwingers don't like to support.

Republican policies cause poverty, unemployment, uncertainty, and more abortions. They really are the "culture of death". assholes Some of these "Pro-lifers" need to understand that Republicans increase abortions.

Anybody got a stat on that?

The stuff that works.

I would love to see the conditions that necessitate the procedures become rare. A lot of abortions are necessitated by conditions surrounding the pregnancy like poverty and fear.

No one is pro-abortion...just like the repugs aren't pro-war and not having that stupid ribbon on your car doesn't make you anti-troops.

False dichotomies are set up everywhere.

If they weren't pro-war, they wouldn't have voted for half-assed monkey boy again.

Much of the issue is one of dogmatism vs. free will, authoritarianism vs. individual responsibility. The specious argument that a fetus deserves the guardianship of the State is without secular merit and very arguable theological merit. (I use the analogy of a woman's womb being a foreign land under the sovereign authority of her as the Queen.)

People making up their own minds, rather than having rightwing fundies dictate their beliefs on everybody, makes different choices "morally equivalent" and freaks them out.

They are right! Everybody else is wrong! :eyes:

That's my chairman. Here's another vote for the greatest page!

he says it is about whether it is a decision for a woman and her doctor or for tom delay and his cronies. nail, meet hammer.

He knows how to drive nails and isn't afraid to do it. If things don't work out for him as a doctor or senator he can always become a carpenter.

In my time I've had a lot of sex with a lot of women for a lot of reasons. They thought I was handsome. They thought I was charming. They thought that twinkle in my eye was pure magic. But never have I had sex with a woman because she thought I was very fertile and would get her pregnant so she could run off and engage in her favorite past time of having abortions. I whole heartedly agree with Dean. What is truely rare about abortion is that it is an issue with no real Pro side to it. The closest you really get to a pro side is in allowing this option for women in what will always be regretable circumstances.

Since it will inevitably be asked. My Postion: I'm Pro Choice and I choose life. As for life I'm Orthodox. God made Adam from Dust(cells)and then God breathed life into him (gave him a soul) and Adam was alive. Life begins with the first breath which is always in and ends with the last breath which is always out. The soul entering and leaving the body.

I am more of being pro neutral on abortion, its not my buisness. I also feel that if a man doesnt like an abortion he shouldnt be hitting on women all the time. It takes two to make a baby after all.
Funny my stroke and parkinsons and all other health problems can be traced backed to 2000 when my old church blocked my confirmition and kicked me out for refusing to become a protestor when I refused to take pics of women entering clinics. Some people have a strange way of exhibbiting love thy neighbor huh?
Anyhow have a great day everyone and try to be good to each other. The world has gotton a whole lot meanner.

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I want to abort Tom Delay and George Bush (which one? ...hell, I ain't picky).

Abort Prescott Bush. Then you have no Junior, no Jeb, no Poppy, probably no Hitler, and DeLay would still be a sleazy exterminator in Texas.

so 30 years ago.

I've been saying this forever it seems. Republicans came up with the Pro-Abortion label b/c it sounds bad. Pro-Life sounds so good, until you realize that under the republican view, once a child is born, they are finished. They don't care if the child has food, water, a roof over its head, access to healthcare, education and all that life is about. They love the death penalty. That is why I say they are pro-birth, not pro-life.

I think they try to protect birth so visciously because once you are born. Many are the ways they support killing you. It's to compensate for thier guilty conscience. Hell with their asbestos law reform (special for KBR.) They are now Pro Asbestos.

"If you're pre-born, you're golden. If you're pre-school, you're fucked."

To begin with, I don't know why this needs to be said, or what it has to do with the idea that Dean doesn't want to discuss the morality of the issue.

And, again, I think not defending the morality of the procedure is a mistake.

I'm not really understanding this argument.

You'd be hard pressed to come up with an answer. Nobody likes that; it's hideous.

Dean's just telling the truth and taking people back to the kind of country we had 30 years ago.

And everyone knows that.

What is the point of saying that?

it's absolute bullshit.

my own brother in law has called me a baby killer because of my pro-choice stance.

Everyone knows that nobody is "pro-abortion" (except for possibly a few total nutjobs).

"Pro-abortion" meaning that they're for having an abortion over not having one right? That's totally ridiculous.

makes any progress.

I don't accept that there are only two position pro-abortion and anti-abortion and that we must all choose one.

Abortion is not automatically hideous. To say so is to give up moral ground to the repubs. It's to say that we think abortion is wrong and evil and is really murder but that the rights of the mother are more important (than stopping something evil). This is a losing argument that makes us look hypocritical.

The fact is that whether or not abortion is murder is a moral issue. There are in fact people who don't think it's that big of a deal. I'm one of them. I don't want to have kids. I know that is extrememly unlikely to change. I have safe sex. Sometime it may fail. If it does there is absolutely nothing wrong or hideous or evil about ending the pregnancy. What is wrong is trying to shame or frighten women into keeping a child they don't want and can't provide for.

It's too simplistic to put abortion into the category of "like" or "don't like", "for" or "against". For some it's simply a medical option.

I really don't see that we're gaining anything by "admitting" that abortion is hideous and evil except undermining the point that government needs to stay out of it. If your neighbor were doing something "hideous"- beating their dog or child or threatening to kill someone- you'd want the police to interfere wouldn't you?

I like Dean, but this shit is moving us backwards.

it's that it's a medical precedure, that can be costly and have risks (like all do). That's why you want it rare. You want heart and brain surgeries to be legal, but you don't *want* situations where people have to have them. You want them to be rare.

Abortion should be rare because either birth control is easily available to women who don't want kids or societal infrastructure is there for women who do. But in those rare and inevitable cases where birth control or social support fail, I don't think we need to tell women in those situations how they should be feeling about the medical option. I think it's arrogant (especially in a man) to assume that 1.) all women want kids 2.) if a woman gets rid of the kid she must be in really dire straights 3.) she must be really torn up about it afterwards, after all, she just did something hideous.

Are you expected to feel really, really bad about having heart or brain surgery because it was such a tough "choice"? What annoys me is that women are expected to be all torn up about abortion (which implies that it really is evil or murder). And I don't think Howard Dean's speech did much to move us past that notion.

they should have an abortion? If not, you are not pro-abortion. However these right to lifers stand outside of clinics and drs. and jeer at pregnant strangers they should not have abortions.

Democrats are pro-choice, not pro-abortion.

We should not be legislating morality, it simply doesn't work. Look at W and his pals, how many laws have they broken with their morality plays. The real issue is in fact similar to the Schavio (sp?) case, who decides?

Morality can only be educated into people. The immoral simply ignore morality based laws.

-Hoot

but I want them to have the option. I want them to be able to make an informed decision, based on their own circumstances, and in private consultation with a physician. I don't want the decision left in the hands of a priest, a judge or a politician. If that is the woman's choice, then that is her choice and everyone else can just mind their own business.

I don't want people to have to have open heart surgery either, but if that is what it will take to save a life, or improve quality of life, then the person should have the choice to undergo the procedure.

It's not about being pro-life or pro-abortion, it's about choice and privacy. The majority of people see it that way; it is the vocal minority that try to frame the issue as pro-life vs pro-death.

Too many women and girls are having babies they can't afford to take care of either finacially or emotionally. Those kids are growing up in poverty and without hope. There is a permanent underclass of people and very little chance of escape from poverty.

The women live in poverty forever and the kids are filling up the jails. Wash rinse repeat.

Abortion is preferable.

easy to obtain birth control is even more preferable. And it starts with information.

I think that Dean is making a good case.

We are a pluralistic society. There is no agreement on the morality of abortion. Some believe it is out and out murder, others believe that it is not a big deal in moral terms. Most are somewhere in the middle and are swayed by terminology such as pro-choice or pro-life..

Putting the emphasis on who makes the decision to terminate a pregnancy and recognizing that it is a serious and profoundly moral decision which ultimately needs to be made by the person the most involved--i.e. the woman herself. Not by politicians and not by religious leaders however well-intentioned they may be.

Besides, if these religious leaders truly believe that God will judge us all at the end of our lives, don't they believe that, if indeed abortion is against the will of God, that he will send those who have had abortions or who perform abortions to their very own place in Hell?

It seems to me that these religious leaders don't trust God to make the right decisions either.

and in fact I regret it very much.

I've always hated Clinton's "safe, legal and rare," and I'm not at all comfortable with him saying "no one is PRO-abortion."

IMO there are three possible position on abortion and indeed most things: for (pro), against (anti), and neutral (which would include undecided or conflicted).

I guess you could call me pro-abortion because I for damned sure want ANY woman of any age to have an abortion who wants and needs it. Period, end of discussion. I think it's quite enough to talk about the angst that most women go through while making such a decision, without somehow requirng that I, as a supporter of women and their reproductive and life choices, should be anguished about it. I AM NOT anguished about it and will never be. I am sympathetic to and compassionate about HER anguish (if any), but that's it.

I also despise the common concession by the left that "abortion shouldn't be used as birth control." Excuse me? Abortion is by definition birth control. :shrug: Yes, I understand that people mean abortion shouldn't be used instead of birth control, but how demeaning that is to ALL women just because a few -- and we're talking VERY few -- may not be as "responsible" about their reproductive choices as the tongue-clucking self-righteous among us might want.

I'm so sick of the left conceding -- on anything, and this is no exception. And as much as I adore Howard Dean -- and do agree with him that the issue needs reframing -- I think this concession is a mistake as ALL concessions with these people (wingnuts and neocons) is a mistake.

These people do not play fair and do not bargain in good faith. For them, on the issue of abortion and almost any other topic you can name, there IS no middle ground which can be found. They want it all and fully intend to have it all. So each and every concession is gained ground for them toward their ultimate goal. Where abortion is concerned, their ultimate goal is to get rid of contraception as well (on the way to or as part of installing theocracy), which will force women back into the dark ages. And please, anyone who may think I'm exaggerating, PLEASE do some research; you'll find I'm spot on.

have molded my position and I am unwaveringly pro-choice. My mother, the oldest of 4 children, became pregnant when she was 19 and attempted to hide it. When my grandparents found out, my mother was forced into a group home until she had the baby. The baby was given up for adoption, though my mother's boyfriend offered to marry her. When I was nine, my mother told me about the baby and that she had actively been searching for her. Shortly thereafter, we found her. My sister was 16 when I met her. She was the youngest adopted by a devout Catholic family. They had one child of their own, then adopted 2 girls, 2 boys and finally my sister. While I believe the parents were well intentioned, they refused to acknowledge that my sister was being sexually abused by the boys. She began having seizures and became a substance abuser. Within months of our meeting, my sister's adoptive parents sent her to rehab ... and refused to allow contact with my mother.
My mother's younger sister had a horrible drug problem when she became pregnant at 30 (or so). She moved home (without the support of her boyfriend) cleaned up, and raised the baby alone on welfare. She was briefly married, had two more children (now 9 and 7) and still struggles with alcohol. Her oldest, now 18, faces charges of supplying drugs and alcohol to minors. While no longer on welfare, she is blowing through her inheritance to raise her children.
The youngest sister had an abortion in her teens, and was briefly married to an older man who abandoned her and her two children. She remarried, second husband refused to have children, and when my aunt became pregnant after 6 years of marriage ... he threatened to leave her unless she had an abortion. She did, and it ultimately destroyed her marriage anyway. She is haunted by regret. Both of her 20 something children live at home, and my aunt is helping raise her daughter's baby.
My uncle had a baby with an unstable woman, who tried to have the child diagnosed with a mental condition in order to receive aid. My uncle fought for and won custody ... and now my cousin is thriving.
My 24 year old stepbrother has a child with his girlfriend ... a difficult situation since he became quadriplegic after a motorcycle accident last summer. The sweet little 2 year old gets to visit Daddy at a group home.
What I have learned from this (other than how to use effective birth control) is that there is no right or wrong answer. It is a matter of personal choice. None of these scenarios is particularly ideal (or planned for that matter), but the players have to live with their choices ... no one else, especially not the self righteous ... politicians or otherwise. I respect my relatives' choices and try to reserve judgment, choosing instead to let it guide my decisions and mine alone. At 30, I have never had to choose. While I would not have an abortion (barring unforeseen circumstances) ... it should be an option, as no one can understand my situation but me.
I am anti-abortion in my own views ... but I do not extend that to anyone else. I think education is the only way to address this issue, and we need to aggressively discuss it. Politicians should be talking about abortion in terms of how to minimize it's impact ... not whether it is a right or attempting to moralize the issue. We need to talk about the repercussions of overturning Roe v. Wade so that hard liners understand how multi-faceted this is ... that there is no simple answer.

I have to add one more to the list. A male friend of mine was married, and when the wife became pregnant, she decided that she did not want the child. He did. He convinced her to carry the child, though he knew it meant losing her and raising the baby on his own. That is what he did ... with no regret. I would be interested to hear her side as I admire them both for their choices.

It is an issue of a personal nature that the Democrats need to speak out about and let it be clear that the choice is always to be between a woman and her doctor. The government and religious zealots need to be forcibly, if necessary, kept out of the decision making.