Response to a response and the FOCA

In response to my thoughts about the debate, a relative of mine, whom we'll call "J", responded with a lengthy, intellectual comment. This then is my response to her response, and is directed at her, but intended for all readers. I'll put her comment in its entirety and then respond to each point after:

robert -- i'm not trying to be antagonistic here, but in fact i'm very curious and would like to hear more about your stance on abortion. i also pose these questions to anyone who is reading your blog who can give me their 2 cents on pro-life views.

if i was raped, would you be opposed me to terminating a pregnancy that i absolutely could not bear the psychological trauma of carrying to term? (and honestly, i imagine if i were ever in such a situation i would probably be suicidal, which i assume you also believe to be a sin... but that would end both lives...)

if i was addicted to drugs or alcohol and was going to give birth to a baby with crippling and life-long physical, neurological, and emotional problems, would you be opposed to my decision to terminate the pregnancy in its early stages?

furthermore, if you are one of the individuals that says abortion should be available only in special and extraordinary circumstances (such as the above) but not to the population at large, where does my privacy about my sex life and my body begin and end? ...the same privacy that you enjoy as a man, which, i'll remind you, is not under threat by radical law makers and voters. do we not have equal rights as men and women, or, by virtue of my fertility, am i entitled to less privacy than you?

why does a state have a right to govern what i -- as a woman and a sexually responsible person -- do with my own body?

most importantly, how is it fair that a state should impose laws grounded in your religious beliefs upon me, when i don't believe the same things? do you not agree with the ideas of our forefathers that church should be separate from state?

when you say you worry that obama has "confidence in a woman's choice" you're implying that you (and those who share your beliefs) are somehow superior in intellect and reasoning than the population of women as a whole. is that really fair? does being a fundamentalist christian make you more fit to decide than an atheist or a jew or even a reformed christian?

you say we ought to protect the rights of unborn fetuses over those of gays (which is another discussion i would LOVE to have sometime in the future -- but that too means you think we ought to protect the rights of unborn fetuses over those of women, does it not?

just wondering though, why will it be a dark four years? roe v wade was passed in the 70s...

can it get any darker if abortion is already legal?

There really is no point in debating any of these questions if we disagree on the point at which a baby is deemed alive. Those who feel a life is not a life until the start of the 2nd trimester when an embryo becomes a fetus I'm am in obviously disagreement with. I'm sure anyone who has sat in a doctor's office and listened to and saw a heartbeat 6 weeks after conception would agree with me. How could I not have thought my son was alive when I saw him moving inside of Katy at week 8? The thing about being pro-life for me is that I was pro-life before being shown Nick on the ultrasound. I was pro-life not because I saw it with my own eyes, but because of the Bible and my full belief in it as being God-breathed. Nowhere in the Bible does it describe the unborn as anything but humans, people who are alive and have a soul. If you don't think a child is alive even by the second or third trimester, as partial birth supporters would, Google aborted babies and see how developed they really are when they come out during those trimesters, complete with hands, fingers, eyes, organs, etc. So, when do you believe life begins? If we don't see eye to eye on this, there's no way to debate your series of questions fairly, but I'll try.

(I'll put the question "J" asked in italics before my response.)

robert -- i'm not trying to be antagonistic here, but in fact i'm very curious and would like to hear more about your stance on abortion. i also pose these questions to anyone who is reading your blog who can give me their 2 cents on pro-life views. if i was raped, would you be opposed me to terminating a pregnancy that i absolutely could not bear the psychological trauma of carrying to term? (and honestly, i imagine if i were ever in such a situation i would probably be suicidal, which i assume you also believe to be a sin... but that would end both lives...)

First, God forbid you are ever raped, and I would be in vigilant prayer for you if you were, but I would absolutely be opposed to you terminating a pregnancy and obviously opposed to you committing suicide and here's why. How could you, after suffering such a malicious and atrocious act against your person, commit an equally if not more heinous act against an innocent child? A child that is literally a part of you? I don't believe you could if you understood that. In addition, how could you not being able to bear psychological trauma be an acceptable reason to commit the murder of an unborn child. Statistically, how many women actually get pregnant from being raped? To answer your second question, while I do believe suicide is a sin, I am not Catholic and don't believe it is just a sin in and of itself. I believe the selfishness that it would take to commit suicide, thinking solely of your own life and not how your action may impact others, is what I would consider sinful.

if i was addicted to drugs or alcohol and was going to give birth to a baby with crippling and life-long physical, neurological, and emotional problems, would you be opposed to my decision to terminate the pregnancy in its early stages?

Should parents who use drugs/alcohol during pregnancy whose babies are known before birth to have life-altering debilitating physical/mental/emotional/etc. defects be able to abort? Absolutely not. Talk to a family who was able to spend even a week with their baby, like our friends the Meyers' whose baby Megan was born premature and ask if they would take away even a day. Talk to a family who has a special needs child, and ask if they could go back to when they were still pregnant and abort their child, like our friends the Kostjuk's whose baby Reese was born with a diaphragmatic hernia and Emmanuel's disease. No family would take the life of their child if given a second opportunity to decide on aboriton, and no family should. How can we play God with lives, determining who should live and die, regardless of the life they might lead? Should we murder the elderly because their quality of life has decreased?

furthermore, if you are one of the individuals that says abortion should be available only in special and extraordinary circumstances (such as the above) but not to the population at large, where does my privacy about my sex life and my body begin and end? ...the same privacy that you enjoy as a man, which, i'll remind you, is not under threat by radical law makers and voters. do we not have equal rights as men and women, or, by virtue of my fertility, am i entitled to less privacy than you?

In regards to privacy about your sex life and body, you should be entitled to the same rights as a man, equal in all regards. However, if a man kills a woman, and the only evidence of the murder, due to the fact that she was cremated, was left on his body, are his rights to his body not forfeited? To me, this situation and abortion are the same, both murder. By virtue of your fertility, you aren't necessarily entitled to less privacy, but you are entitled to more love. No one can overcome the love a child has for its mother, or, at the very least, the connection the two have directly out of the womb. This isn't something that goes away with time, it possibly becomes buried deep down, but it doesn't go away. The father however, does not get this same connection with the child. Is that fair? No. But it's life and how God intended it and therefore necessary to accept. So are there things women get and not men? Are there things men get and not women? Of course. But the issue of abortion isn't about gender equality or the rights of a woman to privacy, health, her body, etc. It's about the right of the baby to live.

why does a state have a right to govern what i -- as a woman and a sexually responsible person -- do with my own body?

First of all, can you lump all pregnant women into the sexually responsible category? I don't think so, just like you can definitely not lump all of us men into that category. A state does not have the right to govern what you do with your body, but it does have the right to dictate what the consequences can be. Let me pose a question to you. Am I, as an officer and representative of the state laws of California, responsible to attempt to stop someone who is attempting to kill themselves? If I didn't try, I would be heavily punished especially if the reason I didn't try was because it's their body and they can do what they want to it. You may say, "Well that's suicide and they are going to harm themselves. You're protecting them from themselves." What about the person about to kill another person? Am I not supposed to attempt to stop them as well? "Well that's murder and they are going to harm another person. You're protecting the victim from the murderer." In both cases, I'm controlling what another does with their body. And this could be any person, man or woman, even a sexually responsible person. Yet, who protects the unborn? Who can hear them and help them? We, as humans, out of the womb, have the responsibility to protect them, humans in the womb, from being killed, even if it means governing someone else's body, woman or man.

most importantly, how is it fair that a state should impose laws grounded in your religious beliefs upon me, when i don't believe the same things? do you not agree with the ideas of our forefathers that church should be separate from state?

When did this ever become a question of religion? Not every pro-lifer is a Christian or even religious person so that's quite a blanket statement to make. Of course my views are persuaded by what I believe. But so are yours. What right do you have to impose your religious views on me? None. So is it fair for you to push your pro-choice agenda on me? Yet you do. We all do. It's inevitable. Even if someone is an atheist, their non-religious views still shape what they believe, vote for, fight for. To answer your second question, I very much do agree with the separation of church and state. Without it we could become a nation forced to practice atheism like Russia did. However, don't assume that your view of separation of church and state is exactly what our Christian forefathers believed and intended when they wrote about it.

when you say you worry that obama has "confidence in a woman's choice" you're implying that you (and those who share your beliefs) are somehow superior in intellect and reasoning than the population of women as a whole. is that really fair? does being a fundamentalist christian make you more fit to decide than an atheist or a jew or even a reformed christian?

I have a feeling you were beginning to get a bit emotionally tied to your "non-antagonistic" attempt at this point in the critique. Nonetheless, I will answer your questions on a woman's choice. You read this the wrong way and assumed I made an implication that I did not. In no way am I and those who agree with me more intelligent or reasonable than "the population of women as a whole." I would be the first to admit that. But do you not, in your disagreement, believe that you are more intelligent and reasonable than I am and those that believe as I do? You should, otherwise you would have a weak and watered down system of beliefs. I hope you do believe so strongly in something that you feel others are wrong in as to confront them and hopefully educate them in the process, as you are doing to me. With that said, pots can't call kettles black. It was not a lack of confidence in all decisions made by women, but as I already stated, I do strongly disagree with anyone who is pro-choice, therefore any person who gives advice to anyone else on the benefits of abortion over, say, adoption or keeping the child. And I'm not more fit to decide than any other religion, but I believe Jesus is and He wrote those opinions down for us. Also as a side note, I tend to think of myself as a fundamentalist reformed Christian, so I guess I fit in both of those categories.

you say we ought to protect the rights of unborn fetuses over those of gays (which is another discussion i would LOVE to have sometime in the future -- but that too means you think we ought to protect the rights of unborn fetuses over those of women, does it not?

I don't mind answering questions, but please read what I write instead of putting words in my mouth that I did not write. I did not say we ought to protect the rights of unborn fetuses over those of gays, I said we are willing to protect the right of "sexual orientation" but not the right of the life of an unborn child. That does not mean we protect the rights of the unborn over the rights of women, merely that we protect the right of life of the unborn over the right of choice of women. I hope you can show me a scientific study showing how many women's lives are actually in jeopardy while giving birth with modern medicine in a modern hospital. A quick survey of an OBGYN nurse I know, lead to a revelation that she has seen thousands of births and only one woman has died of complications. So we definitely aren't putting a women's right to life over a baby's right to life. But how many babies were killed because women "feared for their health?" This quote from Justin Taylor's blog helps to show how "health" is defined per Roe v. Wade:

Roe v. Wade was handed down on the same day as Doe v. Bolton, and Justice Blackmun said they were to be read together. Doe defines maternal health to include virtually any factor: "emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age." The effect is abortion on demand--abortion for any reason.

How can we protect a woman's "health" in this instance, when it is so broadly defined as to contain a woman's emotional state, over the life of a person? Oh, and I do hope we can discuss homosexuality in an open forum one day, it could be interesting.

just wondering though, why will it be a dark four years? roe v wade was passed in the 70s...can it get any darker if abortion is already legal?

Finally, how can life get any darker since it's been 30+ years since Roe v. Wade. Again, I refer you to Taylor's recent post on the Freedom of Choice Act. That, to me, is quite a bit scarier, darker, and sadder world that Obama promises to make his first act as president.

Thanks for reading this to its completion. Sorry for the length, but such a lengthy comment deserves a lengthy answer.