Pro-Life Folks In Tx Sing "Amazing Grace," Pro-Abortion" Respond With Chant Of "Hail Satan"

[Calm]

I understand that at first it may seem strange that the activist holding up the sign is male . . . but what of that? For too long I have been hearing men be bullied off the public square on this issue, cal, as though we had no voice. Bad enough a woman can kill my kid and I cannot have any input into the decision. To silence me altogether, however, is something, as Churchill would put it, up with which I shall not put.

I have no problem with the guy protesting an abortion of his own child or speaking out on anything that involves their offspring. I don't believe that just because the woman carries the baby for the pregnancy, the man is a nonentity when it comes to decisions even during the pregnancy....that is if the pregnancy was intended or they were in a committed relationship and not the result of casual or uncommitted to the relationship sex. If the man approaches the relationship with the intent he has no responsibility towards the woman and acts on that (attempts to prevent conception as opposed to letting the woman handle that side of things completely), then the woman has the choice to either reject him or take on the full responsibility imo.

It is just the way he phrased it may appear strange to some. It makes it look like a standard placard they handed out to whomever wanted to hold it. If it said "I regret the abortion of my child" no eyebrows would have been raised.

[USU78]

I have no problem with the guy protesting an abortion of his own child or speaking out on anything that involves their offspring. I don't believe that just because the woman carries the baby for the pregnancy, the man is a nonentity when it comes to decisions even during the pregnancy....that is if the pregnancy was intended or they were in a committed relationship and not the result of casual or uncommitted to the relationship sex. If the man approaches the relationship with the intent he has no responsibility towards the woman and acts on that (attempts to prevent conception as opposed to letting the woman handle that side of things completely), then the woman has the choice to either reject him or take on the full responsibility imo.

It is just the way he phrased it may appear strange to some. It makes it look like a standard placard they handed out to whomever wanted to hold it. If it said "I regret the abortion of my child" no eyebrows would have been raised.

I'm a little confused: do you then agree with the proposition that men, as men, are to have no say in the public square on the subject of abortions in general?

[smac97]

Some could be. But that is both sides and not just one.

Again, how do you characterize "extremist" pro-lifers? What evidence is available to indicate that the folks singing "Amazing Grace" are extremists?

Thanks,

-Smac

[ERayR]

"Hail Satan"...that makes me chuckle.

Why?

[ERayR]

They just look like young people being young and stupid. I wouldn't consider much a concern

With luv,

BD

The trouble with that is a lot grow up to be older and stupid.

[Judd]

20 weeks is really 18 weeks.

Uh... ok. Despite this being true, every other context of pregnancy, bar none, uses this reference point. Why the insistence to change emphasis for convenience?

[canard78]

I don't have much use for the extremists on either side of the issue. As a long time member of the Church I support and defend the Church's position, and as a US citizen I have no right to force my position on others not of my faith.

This!

We'd all be so much better if we didn't feel the need impose our religious perspectives on others by force.

I'm against abortion in all cases. I would prefer for it to not be legal at all.

I realise I am probably contradicting myself.

[MorningStar]

I don't have much use for the extremists on either side of the issue. As a long time member of the Church I support and defend the Church's position, and as a US citizen I have no right to force my position on others not of my faith.

But we can force our position that human beings not be murdered.

[MorningStar]

GG:

20 weeks is really 18 weeks. The medically agreed upon age of viability is 25/26 weeks.

20 weeks/18 weeks is when you have an ultrasound to find out the sex of your baby and all of their functioning organs are checked. It's barbaric to kill a child at this stage.

[Hamba Tuhan]

We'd all be so much better if we didn't feel the need impose our religious perspectives on others by force.

Absolutely! My life would be so much better if those annoying Christians hadn't imposed their 'religious perspectives' on my free, happy ancestors:

• Thou shalt not kill.
  
• Thou shalt not steal.
  
• Thou shalt not commit adultery.
  

[canard78]

But we can force our position that human beings not be murdered.

Which is why I fall strongly in the pro-life camp.

However, if we take this position, it should be universal and without exception. The church says the sometimes the "human" can be "murdered" without any church action.

On the other hand...

If a woman has a miscarriage the child is not sealed to the mother. Neither is she is she has an abortion.

That would then suggest that the spirit that might have gained that body will instead get another one elsewhere. Even stillborn babies have uncertain status in LDS theology.

Church policy does permit a family to record stillborn children on their family group record if they wish to do so. If the stillbirth takes place after the sealing of the parents, those children can be identified on the record as being born in the covenant (BIC). Miscarriages, however, are not normally recorded on family group records.

A miscarriage is delivery of a dead fetus, before it is viable—that is, before it could have lived on its own outside the mother’s womb. A stillbirth is delivery of the dead fetus that has developed to the point where it would normally have been viable, but for some reason is born dead. The line between a miscarriage and a stillbirth is not clear cut, and sometimes there is a question as to whether the fetus was viable. In this case, the decision to record or not to record the name on the family records is up to the family. The family may give the stillborn child a name for recording purposes, if they desire, and funeral services may even be held. But such children are not reported as births or deaths on Church records.

...

The question of whether stillborn children will be resurrected and belong to their parents in the hereafter is really the crux of the matter. This question is, as yet, impossible to answer with certainty. Elder Joseph Fielding Smith wrote that “there is no information given by revelation in regard to the status of stillborn children. However, I will express my personal opinion that we should have hope that these little ones will receive a resurrection and then belong to us.” (Doctrines of Salvation, 2:280.) He said nothing about miscarried children.

...

It is not clear exactly at what point of development that “certain stage” of quickening—when the spirit makes eternal claim to the body—occurs. Even though quickening occurs before birth, we still do not know definitely when a living soul comes into existence. In fact, some Church leaders have suggested that a living soul does not exist until three essential elements—the body, the spirit, and the breath of life—are all present.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1987/09/i-have-a-question?lang=eng

So if a miscarried child is not considered a person's 'turn on earth' and if a stillborn has uncertain status then there is an argument that an abortion is not murder.

It's certainly denying a potential 'tabernacle' for a spirit. But so is a condom. So is miscarriage (though through no fault of our own).

To call it murder in all cases is a simplification. I agree with the sentiment. But I'm questioning why. It's complicated. Which is why I keep arguing myself round in a circle.

[canard78]

Absolutely! My life would be so much better if those annoying Christians hadn't imposed their 'religious perspectives' on my free, happy ancestors:

• Thou shalt not kill.
  
• Thou shalt not steal.
  
• Thou shalt not commit adultery.
  

These are wonderful good principles. They exist in most communities and philosophies. Not because they are God's 'tests of obedience' but because they are the grease that keeps society moving.

The golden rule exists in almost every philosophy and theology. The principles you mention above are certainly not exclusive to Christians (or even religion). Or maybe that was your point?

[bluebell]

Which is why I fall strongly in the pro-life camp.

However, if we take this position, it should be universal and without exception. The church says the sometimes the "human" can be "murdered" without any church action.

On the other hand...

If a woman has a miscarriage the child is not sealed to the mother. Neither is she is she has an abortion.

That would then suggest that the spirit that might have gained that body will instead get another one elsewhere. Even stillborn babies have uncertain status in LDS theology.

https://www.lds.org/...estion?lang=eng

So if a miscarried child is not considered a person's 'turn on earth' and if a stillborn has uncertain status then there is an argument that an abortion is not murder.

It's certainly denying a potential 'tabernacle' for a spirit. But so is a condom. So is miscarriage (though through no fault of our own).

To call it murder in all cases is a simplification. I agree with the sentiment. But I'm questioning why. It's complicated. Which is why I keep arguing myself round in a circle.

For me personally, I don't think the issue is about what happens to the spirit of the child, but more what it says about a society that is ok with seeing a child moving about in the womb, sucking it's thumb and practicing for life outside, and then hacking it to pieces or burning it to death with chemicals at the behest of the mother.

[canard78]

20 weeks/18 weeks is when you have an ultrasound to find out the sex of your baby and all of their functioning organs are checked. It's barbaric to kill a child at this stage.

What about killing a sperm?

What about a 24 hour old fertilised egg that's nothing more than a blob of cells?

I'm anti-abortion. But why is a 20 week old cluster of cells more valid than 1-day old cluster of cells or a male single cell?

If we have prophets uncertain of when it becomes a human, how can we be certain abortion is 'murder' in all cases?

[Hamba Tuhan]

These are wonderful good principles. They exist in most communities and philosophies. Not because they are God's 'tests of obedience' but because they are the grease that keeps society moving.

The golden rule exists in almost every philosophy and theology. The principles you mention above are certainly not exclusive to Christians (or even religion). Or maybe that was your point?

These principles have become nearly universal now specifically because Christians felt free to impose them in the past. In my part of the world, they never were the 'grease that keeps society moving'; instead, they are a relatively recent Christian imposition -- just as they were in barbarian Europe 1,500 years ago. To pretend otherwise is to be historically naive.

[ERayR]

This!

We'd all be so much better if we didn't feel the need impose our religious perspectives on others by force.

I'm against abortion in all cases. I would prefer for it to not be legal at all.

I realise I am probably contradicting myself.

Yes you are. So it is not ok for those who do not want a society that kills its babies to be vocal and active in forming that kind of a society but it is ok for those who want a society that kills its babies to impose their view on those who do not? Just wanted to make sure where you stand. I have to shut up and submit?

[canard78]

For me personally, I don't think the issue is about what happens to the spirit of the child, but more what it says about a society that is ok with seeing a child moving about in the womb, sucking it's thumb and practicing for life outside, and then hacking it to pieces or burning it to death with chemicals at the behest of the mother.

I agree with you. It's abhorrent. But in the desire to explore the issue I want ask myself/you some questions.

What is the difference between 18-week abortion and the morning after pill or even a condom?

I would suggest it's simply 'affinity.'

Western society avoids eating dogs and horses because of affinity and association. But is fine with dirty/dumb animals being eaten and abused in their rearing process (pigs, cows and especially chickens). We prosecute people who treat dogs like battery farmed chickens, but stop via fast food joint for a bucket of chicken wings on the way back from the courthouse. We criticise people who put kittens in a sack with a brick in the river but we haul fish out of the sea by the 1000 and leave them gasping for breath while they suffocate.

Affinity defines us. We are barbaric to one species but treat others as almost equals.

A 18-week old foetus looks like us. Seems like a living child (even though if miscarried is not treated as such). But a single sperm looks nothing like us so the "murder" of that potential life is acceptable with a condom.

[Hamba Tuhan]

For me personally, I don't think the issue is about what happens to the spirit of the child, but more what it says about a society that is ok with seeing a child moving about in the womb, sucking it's thumb and practicing for life outside, and then hacking it to pieces or burning it to death with chemicals at the behest of the mother.

For two years I taught in an alternative school in America. Our pink-haired and pierced student population gave every impression of leaning left in their emerging political lives: they thought that drugs should be legal, that monogamy cramps one's style, and that someone owed them a livelihood whether they were inclined to work or not. Consequently, I was dumbfounded when, as part of an English exercise in the lead-up to a federal election, I got them to read party platforms and write persuasive pieces in support of one: easily more than 90% of the students wrote that they would vote Republican if they were old enough. The reason given in every case: abortion. Student after student wrote basically the following: I've spent my entire life hearing mum/dad/mum's boyfriend say that their lives would be easier if I'd just been aborted.

[canard78]

Yes you are. So it is not ok for those who do not want a society that kills its babies to be vocal and active in forming that kind of a society but it is ok for those who want a society that kills its babies to impose their view on those who do not? Just wanted to make sure where you stand. I have to shut up and submit?

Like I've said in several posts: I'm going round in circles on this issue. So I recognise that eventually I'll catch up with my tail and not like the looks of it.

The church is both against abortion and yet permits it in certain circumstances. It seems they're facing the same circular dilemma.

If the church wants to permit in exceptional circumstances then it can't very well ask for society that prohibits it.

Family planning/birth control is an area of uncertainty in LDS doctrine. Maybe their granting of personal discretion on several aspects of it is an indication of how we should grant others the same discretion.

[canard78]

For two years I taught in an alternative school in America. Our pink-haired and pierced student population gave every impression of leaning left in their emerging political lives: they thought that drugs should be legal, that monogamy cramps one's style, and that someone owed them a livelihood whether they were inclined to work or not. Consequently, I was dumbfounded when, as part of an English exercise in the lead-up to a federal election, I got them to read party platforms and write persuasive pieces in support of one: easily more than 90% of the students wrote that they would vote Republican if they were old enough. The reason given in every case: abortion. Student after student wrote basically the following: I've spent my entire life hearing mum/dad/mum's boyfriend say that their lives would be easier if I'd just been aborted.

That last line is tragic.

[bluebell]

I agree with you. It's abhorrent. But in the desire to explore the issue I want ask myself/you some questions.

What is the difference between 18-week abortion and the morning after pill or even a condom?

I would suggest it's simply 'affinity.'

Western society avoids eating dogs and horses because of affinity and association. But is fine with dirty/dumb animals being eaten and abused in their rearing process (pigs, cows and especially chickens). We prosecute people who treat dogs like battery farmed chickens, but stop via fast food joint for a bucket of chicken wings on the way back from the courthouse. We criticise people who put kittens in a sack with a brick in the river but we haul fish out of the sea by the 1000 and leave them gasping for breath while they suffocate.

Affinity defines us. We are barbaric to one species but treat others as almost equals.

A 18-week old foetus looks like us. Seems like a living child (even though if miscarried is not treated as such). But a single sperm looks nothing like us so the "murder" of that potential life is acceptable with a condom.

I don't believe it's only affinity (though i'm sure that does play a part). A sperm, or a six week old embryo does not feel pain, and is not autonomous (while a fetus is capable of doing things that are not directed solely by dna programing-they have a small ability to act without being directed upon).

[ERayR]

Like I've said in several posts: I'm going round in circles on this issue. So I recognise that eventually I'll catch up with my tail and not like the looks of it.

The church is both against abortion and yet permits it in certain circumstances. It seems they're facing the same circular dilemma.

If the church wants to permit in exceptional circumstances then it can't very well ask for society that prohibits it.

Family planning/birth control is an area of uncertainty in LDS doctrine. Maybe their granting of personal discretion on several aspects of it is an indication of how we should grant others the same discretion.

Wouldn't it be great if every issue was that clear cut. However since it is not we must at times(and these times when compared with the whole are very rare) weigh two competing problems. In those times it is better left to those involved and their spiritual counselors. The majority of abortions are convenience abortions and like the biblical account of sacrifice of babies to the heathen gods abortions for the most part is the sacrifice of babies to the gods of convenience, lust.and greed. As far as I have found no society that has thus sacrificed their children has survived.

[canard78]

I don't believe it's only affinity (though i'm sure that does play a part). A sperm, or a six week old embryo does not feel pain, and is not autonomous (while a fetus is capable of doing things that are not directed solely by dna programing-they have a small ability to act without being directed upon).

And is that through agency/spirit being present? Or is that only biological reflexes?

[Calm]

I'm a little confused: do you then agree with the proposition that men, as men, are to have no say in the public square on the subject of abortions in general?

Nope. They have as much right to discuss it in general as women do.

Just to be clear---in the cases of specific pregnancies, I believe there are a very few circumstances where the man should not be held responsible---specifically be forced to pay child support or have a say in raising the child---if he was clear that he was making efforts not to have children and in the first case, the woman actively interfered with those efforts or in the second, he decides after the fact he wants to be involved and gets in the way of an adoption. However he should never be able to try and force a woman to have an abortion by refusing to pay for child support when he shares equal responsibility for the pregnancy. Nor do I believe a woman should be automatically allowed to have an abortion without informing the father first and discussing it with him. While I don't believe a man has the right to force an abortion, I don't believe a woman has a right to insist she get one just because she wants it. I think there may be viable circumstances where a woman should be required to carry the child to term and then give the child to the father if she would have aborted the child if left alone. Under those circumstances, the father needs to assume as much of the burden of the pregnancy as possible, including compensating the woman for her time and effort as a 'surrogate mother', so to speak.

Edited July 4, 2013 by calmoriah

[canard78]

Wouldn't it be great if every issue was that clear cut. However since it is not we must at times(and these times when compared with the whole are very rare) weigh two competing problems. In those times it is better left to those involved and their spiritual counselors. The majority of abortions are convenience abortions and like the biblical account of sacrifice of babies to the heathen gods abortions for the most part is the sacrifice of babies to the gods of convenience, lust.and greed.

You're using some incredibly emotive language in your post. I recognise this is an issue people feel strongly about. Out of interest, you support a Mormon woman's right to an abortion based on careful/prayerful consideration of two cometing problems. But you also feel it's appropriate to legistlate against other people's decision to have an abortion?

As far as I have found no society that has thus sacrificed their children has survived.

So are you predicting the downfall of the US and European society (not to mention China) based on its growing acceptance of abortion. Do you equate Mormon abortions to sacrificing children or only those that you feel you can judge as an un-involved third party to be based on greed/lust?

I suppose we can come to a middle ground of some abortions in exceptional circumstances. Would those exceptional circumstances be limited to the following:

Church leaders have said that some exceptional circumstances may justify an abortion, such as when pregnancy is the result of incest or rape, when the life or health of the mother is judged by competent medical authority to be in serious jeopardy, or when the fetus is known by competent medical authority to have severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth. But even these circumstances do not automatically justify an abortion. Those who face such circumstances should consider abortion only after consulting with their local Church leaders and receiving a confirmation through earnest prayer.

http://www.lds.org/topics/abortion?lang=eng

On that basis, only Mormons would qualify for an abortion as they're the only ones who would council with 'local Church leaders.'

If the church accepts it's permissible in certain circumstances, should we then campaign to make the LDS standard the legal standard?