This is unsettling

Listening to NPR this morning and heard a piece about the Compassion Forum over the weekend. One thing that struck me was the news reader stated that Hillary believes that life begins at conception.

So, knowing that the media likes to misstate things, I went looking for the original quote: ""I believe the potential for life begins at conception," OK, so now she's using the weasel word "potential". I also realize that she has stated repeatedly that she's for keeping abortion "safe, legal, and rare" much like her husband.

Still, I find this sort of message troubling. It signals to me that abortion rights aren't going to be anywhere near a high priority item in her administration, and that the justices that she appoints won't necessarily be vetted with their abortion stance as a high priority. Her husband took the same sort of stance. Though he did prevent the passage of the ban on third trimester abortions, he failed to be proactive about the abortion issue, failing to push the Freedom of Choice act through a Democratic Congress, and allowing abortion opponents to chip away, chip away at abortion rights throughout his administration.

So while Hillary is pro-choice, it seems that her support of the pro-choice position is tepid at best, and that she won't do much to secure the right to choice for future generations.

snip

Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.

snip

Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the under-appreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define The Family's theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power--cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich

"""including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics. """"

holy hell I didn't know that.
I knew Lieberman was, but Hillary too?
wtf is going on?
HOW COULD SHE POSSIBLY SUPPORT THIS KIND OF UGLY THING?

...and the DLCs job is to undermine and marginalize everything progressive in this country.

When a Democrat votes for a DLCer, something progressive will die. It is about time more people came to grips with this.

Sure, it's not in the tones of black and white that the religious right likes, but should Democratic candidates really be pandering to the religious right. It seems as though Hillary is making an attempt at that, and I wonder what she is willing to compromise away in order to get some of their votes.

Sometimes pandering pays off better, but I'll take honesty every time.

The question itself was a setup. If you believe human life starts at conception, how can you not therefore oppose abortion?

Clinton at least stated her answer and then referred to the Methodist Book of Discipline to show the confusion as to what do with that fact.

Of the two weasel answers, I think Obama was more weasely. The simple question of whether a human zygote is human life is not hard to answer. Abortion policy and reproductive rights are much harder to answer.

He showed his facility with answering biopolitical questions with the very next question. He simply ducked this issue, as he did when stating a literal six day creation is a legitimate debate.

The concept of this forum was ludicrous and neither shone.

It depends on many things besides science, namely one's personal and religious beliefs. For some, the answer is clear cut one way or the other, for others it isn't so simple, it is a conundrum. Hillary took the simple, yet weasely answer. Obama was at least honest about what he didn't know.

It very much factors into policy decisions such as at what stage does the law intervene to restrict or enforce rights. That is the debate Obama did not want to have.

Weaseling her words to see if she could pick up votes. Obama on the other hand came across to me as honest and intelligent on a difficult issue that everybody interprets differently.

While Hillary gave the weasely worded one, just one word off from the anti-abortionist credo. Hmmmm.

There are two questions. Is the zygote human life, which has only one answer. And, At what point does the law protect embryonic life over the mother's choice?

He was asked to answer the first question, did not, and reverted to his stump speech.

It was thoughtful, but not honest.

Obama's unity strategy angers people because it requires him to both admit his own fallibility and that of those on all sides of a political debate. So repubs cheered his concession that economically underpriveleged whites might justifiably be frustrated about affirmative action, but spewed righteous indignation at the thought that racial prejudice could be common among whites. They'll only accept the OTHER side's fallibility.

True, it would be dishonest for you, rug, given your infallibilty, to pretend you don't know the answer to this question. But since Obama is not perfect like you and I are, he may have sincerely meant that he did not know, and may not be trying to play the safest card. Indeed, since dems don't get the hardcore pro-lifer votes anyway, the expedient move would be to have taken a hard pro-choice position.

Now I know you for what you are. Thank you.

Nonhuman animal, vegetable, or mineral?

Biology, I find, is rather a continuum rather than a cut and dry easy answer.

is very low. Say something intelligent on the matter, rather than minimizing and ignoring anything that doesn't slam Obama enough for you, and we may talk again. Have a great day.

:hi:

for making policies that determine when life begins, is to undo Roe V. Wade. Once one proclaims that the death of a 3 week old fetus is murder...it is murder. And it's bullshit.

I would call their bluff and propose legislation guaranteeing medical care and housing from conception to school age, along with paid leave and/or government subsidies to ensure the parent(s) can take care of this life.

Of course it would not pass because the right never puts its money where its mouth is.

according to Roe v Wade?

Whether a zygote is a human life certainly does not depend on anyone's beliefs. Anymore than whether you or I are human beings depends on whether someone else believes we are.

The dilemma in the case of the zygote is that science doesn't deal with the philosophical question of human identity (this is part of the broader difficult question of how to determine the identity of ANYTHING, given the fact that things completely change their identifying attributes over time). Figuring this out is not science's job. Those who have dealt with the question (see 2,000+ years of metaphysics and the philosophy of mind from Plato to the present) have not reached a reasonable consensus, because it's an extraordinarily difficult question.

There are actually mutliple levels to it, too: 1) at what point does something count as human (or cease to count as human--e.g., euthanasia debates), 2) does counting as human qualify one for full rights granted to humans generally (e.g., infants are humans, but have few political rights, though many broader moral rights, such as life and proper care).

So it's deeply, deeply naive to think the answer is obvious or easy, much less that there's any consensus among experts who have the knowledge to answer it (which would be the case if it were obvious). And it's absolutely wrong to pretend science has anything to say about this in the relevant sense. The scientific definition of human is a practical one for purpose of classification, and has little moral bearing--if there even is such a thing as a scientific definition of a human being.

Having said all that--the difficulty of the question aside, I think the suggestion that a zygote is fully human in the sense requiring full moral obligation to its rights is patently absurd, but that's only one part of a very difficult question.

Ive been studying this crap for 10 years now. Its what I was trained to study in college. I still cannot answer your "simple" question in any easily canned for delivery manner. Of all the inanity, lets dismiss things that can be and are argued up and down from 20 different directions as "not hard to answer". Maybe if you are a zealot in one direction or another, its easy for you. But for a thinking functioning person, not so much.

The truth is that the potential for life starts at conception. It doesn't always become life though. There are many things that can stop it from becoming life and usually it is a very natural occurance.

I also believe abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare". The best way to accomplish that is by giving people the means and education to avoid unwanted pregnancies if at all possible, while giving safe and legal options if they do occur.

Just my honest two cents.

First of all, it seems by taking this rhetorical tactic, she is fishing for the religious right vote. The question then becomes what is she willing to compromise away in order to get a part of that vote.

Secondly, I have no problem with "safe, legal and rare" excepting for the fact that that is the same stance, and same words, that her husband used, and he not only failed to push through the Freedom of Choice act, he also allowed abortion rights to be chipped away at all throughout his administration.

Hopefully whichever candidate wins will make this an important issue for them.

"First of all, it seems by taking this rhetorical tactic, she is fishing for the religious right vote."

As opposed to Mr. Almost Southern Preacher Man who has held gospel rallies with the ex gay movement and said that women make "prayerful" decisions about the sin of abortion? I've liked your posts for many years Mad, as you are almost as far left as I. But apparently something really does happen to supporters in this campaign once they choose a candidate.


For the record, I am uncommitted, will vote D, and have praised/bashed each proportionately.

That is good enough for me. She has been consistently pro choice. I am very comfortable with her stance on choice. She has always fought for women and children. Even if you are someone who does not care for her, you would have a tough time arguing that she is "tepid" on choice for women.

Of course, she may have simply been pandering to the right to make herself more electable.

In this election campaign, she has made many, many comments that make true liberals gasp on horror.

make "prayerful" decisions about abortion?


It's rather strange being on the outside of the candidates' camps and trying to make sense of their supporters. :shrug:

I know dozens of men and women alike who are pro-choice. None of them EVER want to be faced with that decision because it is so very hard. I know women who have had abortions and, although they don't regret that choice, have made it clear that they would not make that choice (that is, choosing abortion) again.

Yeah, you're darn tootin' it's a hard, hard choice. Those who are inclined to pray will ask for divine guidance in that life-changing decision.

Please don't trivialize this issue.

All politicians pander, I just wish more Obama supporters accepted that reality. Obama pandered to the religious when he said that trusts women to make a *prayerful* decision regarding abortion. He didn't simply say that it was an important decision that no one would make lightly. No, he specifically freaking used *prayerful*.

So again, my comment was in response to you complaining that Clinton was pandering while apparently ignoring the same kind of conduct from Obama. I don't particularly care for either, myself, though I will vote for either in Nov. I just think it's interesting to watch the 2 blinded kool aid drinking factions go after each other for the same behaviors on this board. Pot, meet kettle. :shrug:

Obama was speaking from his personal experience, and there is nothing wrong with that. It certain does not sink to the level of pandering, despite your suggestion.

And as for you "kool aid" comment, I am more than capable of independent thinking and your inflammatory remark is highly offensive.

at the "Messiah College" in the language they and he understand makes any sense at all.

right now she, being a representative and "100% NARAL" approved, just endorsed the main thrust of the central premise that the anti-abortion crowd uses as a justification for taking a womans right to choose away.

edit* womans, not womens :)

I look at what's really going on. Bill Clinton ranked high with NARAL, yet he failed to push through the Freedom of Choice Act through Congress, and allowed abortion rights to be chipped away bit by bit throughout his time in office.

Hillary is speaking the same "safe, legal and rare" language as her husband did, and frankly I don't think that bodes well for the future. She's not going to oppose choice, but I don't think that she's going to go on the offensive with it, but rather take the same tack as her husband and allow it to be chipped away.

I'll stake my daughter's future on it.

She was weaseling for the anti-choice vote here.

Kber

would prefer that people avoid actually having them, so she wants to provide other options.


It was a great opinion, and as a matter of fact, it is actually exactly the way I feel about the issue.

I have no opinion at all of Kber's "weasle" comment other than Hillary is constantly trying to reside in both right- and left-wing camps when it comes to the war, economics, and basic rights. If her stance on abortion is solidly pro-choice, then I'm pleased.

For those anti-choice votes.

Sorry, but I don't think that this is something that should be on the bargaining table.

that the pro-choice stance is wrong.

even if they disagree with me.

We will teach my son that HIS choice is when and with whom to have sex. Every woman he makes love to is either a potential mother of his child or not, and he will have to live with the consequences of his actions as well as her decision to have or not have his child. You'd better have a good understanding of who a woman really is and what she's going to do before you drop your pants.


For men, it's more difficult in that they must earn a place in the discussion. I'd NEVER have an abortion without discussion and ultimate agreement with my husband - but you can't legislate good marriages any more than you can legislate good parenting. He's earned my trust, love and friendship and I'm grateful that I have someone who can be a real partner in difficult times.

As far as our kids go, we have no problem with sex outside of marriage, but will teach our kids that sex outside of love can be physically and emotionally dangerous. We will also teach them that children test a relationship as much as they can bring people closer together and given the responsibilities of parenting, take precautions against pregnancies that you aren't ready for. An abortion is a difficult thing for many to do, and having someone who will support you and your decision, either way, will make it a little bit easier.

Those are our values. I will fight to be able to impart them to my kids.

but respectfully disagree with the second.

Even if an abortion might be "wrong", leaving the choice in the hands of a pregnant mother isn't.

Before my daughter was born, I got a false (thank God) positive on a birth defect test. Let's just say that when I was facing the possibility of carrying a terminally ill baby (and yes, I thought of her as a "baby"), who had no chance of survival past her second year and couldn't even donate her damaged organs b/c her illness would have deformed them so badly, that I did turn to my husband, my family and even my Rabbi for advice and comfort, but it was MY choice is who I sought out.

I didn't need strangers telling me what I couldn't or shouldn't do.

I never came to a decisions b/c further tests made it clear that I didn't have to. But, for those two weeks when we were in limbo, I was more acutely grateful that the decision was mine.

It's a moral decision - absolutely. But the gov't needs to respect our ability to work the morality out for ourselves.

Kber

she said the potential for life begins at conception. Big difference, and how could anyone possibly disagree with that?

She said that the potential for life begins at conception, just like I stated in my OP. Please go read for comprehension, not to get the first outrage in. Thank you.

Now then, the reason I find these words of hers troubling is that it seems to me with these weaseling words, she is trying to angle for the religious right vote, which I find abhorent. Second, the question then becomes what is she willing to compromise away in order to get those votes. I think that her answer here is indicative of what she's willing to give up, that one little word "potential"

Oh, and if you go back and read the OP, you'll find what else bothers me about this. Thanks

the potential for life damn well does begin at conception. Find me one expert who disagrees with that. And I stand by what I said: Both candidates strongly support abortion rights, and both have a strong record supporting that FACT. I just said the same thing to someone professing "concern" about Obama and his support for those rights. And both have a 100% rating from NARAL. This is a non-issue.

Though there are plenty of experts who would disagree with you. It is also a matter of wording and of belief on the part of many people. With this sort of phraseology, Hillary is obviously trying to court the anti-choice vote, and I wonder just how much is she willing to give away in order to get that vote.

Furthermore, since she's parroting her husband's words of "safe, legal and rare" will she also parrot his actions? This is Bill Clinton, the man who couldn't push the Freedom of Choice Act through a Democratic Congress, and who allowed abortions rights to be chipped away slowly but surely.

This may not be an issue for you, but it is an issue for many millions of people across the country.

Nothing in her statement indicates she'd be less than 100% pro-choice, as she has always been.

That is NOT THE POINT. The POINT is what can only be termed "SENTIENT" life, in humanistic terms, or "SOULFUL" life, in religious terms.

in a political culture that is increasingly more hostile to the pro-choice movement and where sound bytes and bumper stickers are the dominant method of communication, if one even bothers to participate. Instead, she gave the republican sound byte with an easily ignorable qualifier in front. She could have stated her position but she consciously chose to use language promoted by the anti-choice movement

For some people, life doesn't begin until the child is out of the womb. Further still, for some life doesn't begin until the second birthday(these are in high infant mortality areas).

If life begins at conception, then how come that "life" can't exist outside the womb for a number of months?

Sorry, but this issue isn't a black and white one, but one with shades of grey, which is why I found Hillary's answer so troubling.

I wasn't satisfied with Hillary's answer either, but we shouldn't twist reality to explain why. Winkydink may be mistaken about when life begins, but if so, it would be because reality, not "some people," disagrees with WinkyDink's view.

In any case, Winkydink's point is a very important one: even if life begins at conception that doesn't prove we have any moral obligations to protect it. Grass and bacteria are life, but nobody's arguing we have a moral value to keep THEM alive. As Winkydink points out, the crux of this debate is what KIND of life, not whether something is alive. (The interviewer's question was flawed from the beginning: "When does life begin?" is really not the point.)

The embryo is alive in the same sense that a germ is alive. However, when does it become "human" life?

And welcome to DU :hi:

But Cereal Killer Dexter? Are you named after a fictional pyschopath?

to the forum. I had an account a few years back, but forgot my login info.

Who's Cereal Killer Dexter? As in breakfast cereal? I'm named after C. K. Dexter Haven, of the Philadelphia Story.

But thanks again for the welcome!

about a serial killer who works for the police department. Combined Dexter with CK made me think of the homynym "cereal killer".

For up to the first 48 hours only the mothers genes are active and coding proteins. This does not meet the definition of human life.

That's all there is to it. It makes complete sense is anything but unsettling when you realize this.

:eyes:

In fact he used the same terminology as she does, "safe, legal and rare". However under his administration he failed to push the Freedom of Choice Act through a Democratic Congress, and allowed abortion rights to be chipped away bit by bit during his tenure. So yes, Hillary may be pro-choice, but by these indications she will be no more vigorous in defending choice than her husband was.

Look it up. It's a fact. Keep on spinning.

The religious right slammed Clinton on abortion out of reflex. That still doesn't mitigate the fact that Bill failed to push through the Freedom of Choice Act through a Democratic Congress, and that he allowed abortion rights to be chipped away continuously throughout his time in office. No, he didn't pass any anti-choice legislation, he just failed to defend what was there on the books. Is this where Hillary is headed? From her rhetoric it seems like a distinct possibility.

I find all life begins 'at or sometime after' fertilization threads troubling. Visions of special creation dance through my head everytime I hear it. Not recognizing that life has come to us in a continuous unbroken chain ignores science and makes room for deistic arguments.

The real issue isn't when life begins. The real issue is when during development is there personhood before the law, and all its protections of civil rights, to be granted. The issue is about the laws, NOT about life.

I know that many DU'er don't want to hear that a zygote is alive and see such an admission as a slide way down a slippery slope. But, societies have been making distinctions on personhood and classes of personhood and degrees of protection and rights to life throughout human history. Scientific understanding of the continuity of life won't undermine a truly effective argument for a woman's rights to abortion.

... example of a Clinton trying to be all things to all people. These people have no principles. If she were elected President, she will would leave behind a conservative legacy with the rest of the Democratic Party in shambles, just as her husband did.

First of all I found that whole forum to be creepy. What they said while they were there regarding religious/moral issues was what you would expect them to say considering the audience they were pandering to. However, why was there a need for them to subject themselves to a religious litmus test in the first place? Does this not indicate that something is wrong with our country when we insist on subjecting our potential candidates to something such as this?

I'm not sure if anything they said or did will in anyway diffuse the potential abuse of the abortion issue by the Republicans in the GE. The religious people the Republicans resonate with aren't going to be changing their minds about the Democratic pro-choice stance. And the Democratic party cannot turn away from that stance as it's a core belief with far too many of us.

I think their time would be better spent pointing out to those people how the Republicans have used them election after election on the pretense of abolishing abortions. Yet still, some 35 years later it's still legal. In other words, fertilize the seed of discontent that's been sown between the Republicans and the anti-choice crowd. Then let the Republicans deal with their own failures to deliver anything of substance to those people. It's not our problem that the Republicans have been all talk and no action for 35 years. They've had plenty of chances to change things if they really wanted to, which they don't. It's long past time these people understand they're being used.

she's strongly pro-choice, and she's certainly never talked about women having to "pray" over their decision the way Obama once did.

If you can parse his words, he is open to the interruptation of when life begins. I honestly have a problem with the question too. I believe in the right to an abortion but what if it is a life being snuffed out? Where do I personally draw the line? I am not sure, honestly. I do not like think about it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

This is in regards to her church:
Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."

>snip<

Clinton has championed federal funding of faith-based social services, which she embraced years before George W. Bush did; Marci Hamilton, author of God vs. the Gavel, says that the Clintons' approach to faith-based initiatives "set the stage for Bush." Clinton has also long supported the Defense of Marriage Act, a measure that has become a purity test for any candidate wishing to avoid war with the Christian right.

>snip<

At the heart of The Family's American branch is a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe and Rick Santorum. They get to use The Family's spacious estate on the Potomac, The Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by The Family's young women's group. And, at The Family's frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already powerful.

>snip<

Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.

It would be difficult to say the embryo wasn't alive. It is. And it would be equally difficult to say it's not human, because it is.

But it's the wrong question. The question is what is the moral status of a clump of cells. Certainly, it has some (I believe minimal) status, but not as much as a fully developed human being.

The "when life begins" debate is a phony debate and designed to trap people.

I am, however, very worried about the workplace religious freedom thing.

If you cannot do everything that your job requires, then you are in the wrong job. Period. Find another job.

Oh, and cheating too.

She was correct though, life does have the potential to begin at conception, but it is unlikely as only the mothers genes are active at conception.

Individuals have the right to CHOOSE. I know and respect a lot of women who deeply believe that life begins at conception and would never have an abortion. That is their right. I also know and respect some doctors who hold the same beliefs and support their right not to perform abortions.

When did pro-choice become pro-abortion? I reserve the right to make my own decision on this and also reserve every woman's right to make her own decision. Acknowledging that there are different perspectives on this is, for me, the epitome of being pro-choice.

I mean, life doesn't suddenly begin at 8 or 10 or 12 weeks, does it? I actually agree with the stand she has taken on this, which is that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. This actually pacifies the large number of pro-life voters without going anywhere near Roe v. Wade.

That is a pro-choice position which affirms a womans right to choose, affirms the sanctity of life, and also tries to find ways to help a woman keep a baby who might be choosing abortion for economic reasons. I think thats great. But it does not change the right of a woman to have an abortion for any reason that she chooses.

We don't have to be disappointed when the Democratic president fails to sponsor any progressive initiatives.

Both Obama and (HR) Clinton are centrists and I agree, neither will really sponsor truly progressive bills.

But I think we can still get a lot accomplished with either of our two potential nominees in the WH.