The part where I said oops, I should not have.

Thank you.

The part where I said oops, I should not have. Regarding comparing the way people behave regarding people who are gay to the way that other victims of discrimination have been treated in the past is how I view this. The worst of it does not end up on here of course, but there are religious orginazations that speaking in the same terms that lead to things such as segregation and lynchings. I don’t know if that is what they have in mind, but it is the only end that such behavior has ever seen.

I have just glanced at the clock and will have to wait to comment on the rest until later. I have not actually stated that you are using the murder thing as a cover. I actually believe that you, at least most of you actually believe that abortion is murder. I do not happen to share that belief, that is largely based on the fact that I do not belief life to be what you believe it to be. The only logical result of treating it as though it is murder, is to control a womans rights to choose what happens to her body, and therefore limiting the ability for her to act on her own conscience.

That you hold your belief does not inhibit any woman except those who share your belief. That is a chosen limitation and is therefore no more intrusive on womens rights than choosing not to drink or smoke. In fact, it comes as part of the package of womens rights. Speaking out against abortion, giving your understanding of how things works does no damage to womens rights, in fact, one of they key ingredients to excercising rights is carefully examining all evidence and making well thought out decisions. The signs you wish to show people do no damage to womens rights. They don’t harm me and they don’t harm you. If you persuade a woman to see things your way, you do no harm to womens rights, in fact the fact that she able to make that decision is an indication that womens rights are alive and well.

When you try to bring in the government regarding these issues and insist that I think as you though by legislative rule, that changes things. I have to go now.

Honestly Lucy, because instead of coming out saying what it is you want to say, you litter it with insults and rhetoric, so there is an attempt to get the meaning through that. (i.e. You should read the stuff they say to stop gay marriage…oops. ) It had nothing to do with Lauren’s question, and was just a chance again to insult an assumed perspective.

Here was a discussion where Lauren (thank-you) asked a simple, straighforward question:
I’m not saying that you don’t believe abortion is murder, but what if there are other reasons you are against abortion? Such as you don’t believe a woman has a right to her own body, that certainly is a reason to not believe in a right to an abortion. Don’t say all pro-lifers are in favor of taking away abortion rights because they believe abortion is murder. Everyone has different reasons for coming to a viewpoint.

It was valid, straightforward question. She did not say to me “Oh whatever, you use that murder thing as cover, but what you really want to do is enslave mine and all women’s bodies!” Do you see the difference?

Frankly, it is hard trying to get the true meaning of your point when your points are buried under this. Honestly, I don’t know why I try except to somehow I feel the need to defend our perspective “no, we are not pornographers, Nazis, murderers, slave masters, facists etc etc-we just believe innocent babies deserve a chance to not be killed…” I don’t believe at all these discussions will change anyone’s mind-God does that. I just for some odd reason keep trying to state we simply believe abortion is murder, period.

And you are right, I have no idea what that Bible passage has to do with all the tea in China, or whether or not we believe abortion is a woman’s right. I get your point, but I have no idea what that has to do with what is being said here. I think you are trying to say that saying a preborn baby is not human, but we claim it is, therefore changing reality to suit our purposes. I thought that was what you were trying to say with the predestination, predetermination thing, but you say I got it wrong, so I don’t know.

have never based any arguments for why a embryo, fetus, blastocyst, fertilized egg, (which come on, please acknowledge that science knows that we have to have a brain), wasn’t the same as the woman based on appearances.

Then I am confused, what is the basis of your argument for saying a blastocyst is not a human being?

You have leveled people to nothing more than a conglomeration of cells. This is sad.

But what is a human being but a conglomeration of cells with a soul? It is the same when there are two cells, it is the same with billions. All are capable of love and respect.

This isn’t about looking different. The bit from the bible up there might be worth noting. Do you notice the fact that the bit from the bible sites that the Sun moves and not the earth? Joshua ordered the Sun to stop. Which of course is useless and will yeild no results, because it isn’t moving. Sun stop!. I just did it. See, the same thing happened when I did it as had to have happened then.

I have never based any arguments for why a embryo, fetus, blastocyst, fertilized egg, (which come on, please acknowledge that science knows that we have to have a brain), wasn’t the same as the woman based on appearances. In fact, in arguments against people who want to bring up people born with bodies that vary from what we understand to be the norm, I say that there are wonderful painters in the world who do so without hands. I say Michaelangelo said noone paints with a brush. I say that everyone must learn to use the body that they are born with, for us it seems odd because we have a standard issue if you will, however, if you never had standard issue, then what you have is standard issue. I had to learn to use my legs, and to utilize my hands, why in the world wouldn’t anyone else have to learn to use their bodies.

People come up with all kinds of stupid superficial reasons to discriminate. You should read the stuff they say to stop gay marriage…oops. It sounds like the KKK. I mean really, at this point you’ve got people fighting against ‘gay people lovers’ Seriously, they are petitioning against Ford, and telling congregations not to buy Ford products.

You have what DNA that can be found in the grave. You have leveled people to nothing more than a conglomeration of cells. This is sad. Then you guys talk about spirituality. What spirituality. Where do you get around to that. I tell you there is a difference between being Alive and Living.

Your science to prove that human DNA is human DNA is staggering, and would not have happened if you guys had had your way. Did you catch the fact that Arnold is lending 150 million to the cause of Stem Cell Research in California because of G.W. and Blago is setting aside 5 million in Illinois.

Out of curiosity, when the cures aren’t developed because of a limitation on scientific research and people die that didn’t have to, and the embryos just sit and rot, who will be the killer?

But since Lauren addressed the question to me, I can tell you I am Catholic and do not believe in predestination. If you are Catholic, it is heretical. Life begins at conception. No where does science prove that life does not begin at conception. The best science can say is “well a fertilised egg doesn’t look like a 36-year-old man”. How can they say it is not a life simply becaue it looks different? Blacks at one time were not considered whole people because they looked different. A 1-year old looks different then a 20-year old. Men look different than women, yet they are all human. The same holds true with a preborn baby.

There is no extra science that you have the inside scoop on that we continue to deny. It is simply your opinion. Science though u/s just has strengthened what we already knew-there’s a baby in there.

“Pro-lifers believe abortion is the murder of an innocent child. (Not that you agree in being pro-life, but that is all you know is the common thread in the thinking of people who call themselves “pro-life”)”

I’m not saying that you don’t believe abortion is murder, but what if there are other reasons you are against abortion? Such as you don’t believe a woman has a right to her own body, that certainly is a reason to not believe in a right to an abortion. Don’t say all pro-lifers are in favor of taking away abortion rights because they believe abortion is murder. Everyone has different reasons for coming to a viewpoint.

Lauren,
It might be worth noting that there is a belief that people are who they are before the conception and therefore we are predetermined in the womb. This a fatalist belief, and held by Plato. It means that, (I’m sure you already know, but please allow me), that we are already who we will be upon conception. That we are in fact our bodies. All of the information that we have is born in us. You’ll find that Socrates was pushing this drivel. We don’t actually learn anything, we are simply remembering what was already there. The memories that we have based off of what we know are attributed then to what god has instilled in us. (You might say we know how to perform abortions because of this, if we can understand geometry by these methods). When we need the information it just comes to us.

Of course the catch is…oh who am I kidding, the catch that I choose to address now, or do I remember to address it now, is that this means that all of the rapists, and murderers and burglers and anyone else that can be agreed upon as a criminal was predetermined. Which means that we can narrow it down and determine who the bad guys are before it is to late and abort them in the womb…except, wait, that would involve learning something new, and we can’t learn something new, either we were born knowing it and just haven’t remembered it yet, or it is just not to be. Unless of course it is something that is now approved, and previously wasn’t approved….I know, my head hurts too.

[bbe] It was on the day when the Lord gave up the Amorites into the hands of the children of Israel that Joshua said to the Lord, before the eyes of Israel, Sun, be at rest over Gibeon; and you, O moon, in the valley of Aijalon.
10:13 [kjv] And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
[bbe] And the sun was at rest and the moon kept its place till the nation had given punishment to their attackers. (Is it not recorded in the book of Jashar?) So the sun kept its place in the middle of the heavens, and was waiting, and did not go down, for the space of a day.
10:14 [kjv] And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.
[bbe] And there was no day like that, before it or after it, when the Lord gave ear to the voice of a man; for the Lord was fighting for Israel.

When it comes to the scientific expertise of the Bible and the authority that is to be granted to the church on the issue this should be carefully considered. As Thomas Paine said in the Age of Reason, “The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublim makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again; the account however, abstracted from the poetical fancy, shows the ignorance of Joshua, for he should have commanded the earth to have stood still.”

Night Lauren.

Fair enough, you cannot get into everyone’s mind. But I can say that I have never, ever come across a pro-lifer that has any other motive besides stopping the murder of little babies. That is why we all seem to be quite content be labled “pro-life”. All the marches on Washington I have been to, all the Holy Hours for the Unborn, all the newsletters from American Life League, Feminists for Life, Priests for Life that I have read, and even entry on this very blog have one singular goal in mind-to stop the murder of babies.

The people I know personally who have come to this viewpoint are people like my father who is a developmental psychologist who has seen all stages of babies in the womb. Another friend of ours is a pathologist who was pro-choice until the day she had to do lab reports on tiny little babies ripped up into pieces.

I challenge you, seriously, not sarcastically, to google pro-life organizations (you can use the PP list of “terrorist organisations” as a starting point) and read what they are all about. It is a fair argument that you puport abortion is such a women’s right, there must be anti-women’s rights people out there. So I ask you-find one. I doubt you will to be honest. A movement like that would get bored with themselves after two months. The pro-life movement does not run out of steam because it is our duty to do what we can with the tools we have at our disposal (voting, protesting, writing letters to our legislature, prayer, helping women in need) to stop this genocide.

I’m not saying that you don’t believe abortion is murder, but what if there are other reasons you are against abortion? Such as you don’t believe a woman has a right to her own body, that certainly is a reason to not believe in a right to an abortion. Don’t say all pro-lifers are in favor of taking away abortion rights because they believe abortion is murder. Everyone has different reasons for coming to a viewpoint.

I have a theory that I want to approach Lucy with, but I’m nervous. I think it would explain a lot.
I don’t want to offend her, but I have a very personal question that I would like to ask her. Lucy, if you are reading this, I am not trying to talk behind your back, I’m just working up the right way to ask you. You have always been honest with us, even if we disagreed so if you don’t want to answer it’s okay. Just say so.

Give me a little more time. I want to phrase this just right…

MK

No, if your friend leaves her mother it isn’t murder. I know you were hoping to have me say differently. However, saying yes doesn’t mesh with reality.

I don’t quite know what makes you believe that your friend has any obligation to keep her mother there. I imagine that her mother would prefer to believe she wasn’t just an obligation. Would your friend have her there if she wasn’t dying and she could leave? Is your friends mother enjoying her life? Does she want your friend there? I’m sorry that your friends mother has cancer.

When she said this, it really struck me. I am so baffled as to why the notion of taking care of a sick loved one has been elevated to “cruel”, and ignoring them and letting them die is noble somehow. And some how this is “realistic”?

Lucy said ” There is nothing unrealistic about caring for a loved one. There is something unrealistic in arguing that there is an obligation to do so. There is something quite unrealistic in asking a woman, or man to believe that if they go out to the store and their mother dies they are a murderer. I believe that there is something cruel involved in that actually”

MK

I see you continue to ignore the questions I have asked:

What disease could cause a normal pregnancy to be fatal?
If there is one, then wouldn’t it be stupid for the person infected with it to have sex?
What is the difference between arguing for a universal right to abortion and arguing for a right to sex without consequences? How do you figure that sex is a right?

I don’t think she meant running to the grocery store, I think she meant if she decided to leave and live her own life. She goes on after that talking about letting her die is more merciful than taking care of her.

You said “Mary Kay,
No, if your friend leaves her mother it isn’t murder. I know you were hoping to have me say differently. However, saying yes doesn’t mesh with reality. ”

I didn’t mean if Kathy just ran to the grocery store. I mean if Kathy left her mother’s home (she is staying at her mom’s house, her mother is not at her house…) and made no provisions for someone to feed her or give her water or change her diapers or any of the other things that would make her last days more comfortable…would that be murder. Kathy would be directly responsible for her death because she abandoned her mother with no other means to support herself. I realize that the cancer is what will utilmately kill her, but if Kathy left her completely helpless then she would be responsible for her death due to starvation. Or what if a mother simply walked out on her two month old without telling anyone. When the baby died would she not be charged with murder?

You said,
” There is nothing unrealistic about caring for a loved one. There is something unrealistic in arguing that there is an obligation to do so”

Is that mother not obligated to care for her infant?

MK

But you have repeatedly told me I am racist for caring about what goes on with my people, and saying in that concern, I am promoting and perpetuating a problem.

But for the second time, I will play devil’s advocate. Practice what you preach! If you truly believe your argument: if you do not like the concept of people being lumped into a group, and have their feelings assumed rather than being asked if they actually believe in such and such, do the same with pro-life people and every other group you come across. You made an argument it should be done with blacks, it should be done with you, do the same for pro-lifers. Just state what you know:
-Pro-lifers believe abortion is the murder of an innocent child. (Not that you agree in being pro-life, but that is all you know is the common thread in the thinking of people who call themselves “pro-life”)
-Christians believe they follow the teachings of Christ.

No more adlibbing nonsensical little asides that we are pornographers, facists, Nazis, anti-women, murderers… You cannot know that we are all for those unless you personally interview everyone of us and ask “are you pro-facism, yes or no?” and the accusations.

People like me don’t give a hoot? Right. Justify your perpetuation of spreading ignorance by telling me once again what I think and how I feel. That’s fine. Just don’t include me. The next time that a white woman grabs her purse when your husband walks by, please remember that you told her that the odds were that she should.

We’re a mob who only makes choices by jumping on the bandwagon? Hmmm, let’s see what Lauren wrote on a another entry dated July 15:

Sure, protest all you want.. You know what happens? You make people loathe you. I’ve had so many people contact me privately that have read this site and read what I said in the Southtown and they THANK me for standing up to you. They think you’re a bunch of fools, a bunch of silly, silly fools that have no grip with the realities an d injustices in life. More stuff about how we should be happy abortion is legal and deal inst of having our own blogs expressing our own opinions, blah, blah, blah…

Seems to me her point was nothing more than “everyone else believes it, so should you”.

Should black men who work hard, are honest, responsible, loving and caring be offended by these statements, and the actions taken because of the statements. Certainly. They should be irrate.

I am going to consider this…considering…considering…Guess what? I already done told you how we feel about this! OK, I am not a man, but the men that fit this bill (hardworking, responsible black men) are plentiful in my family, and we are sad that Harlem was once a neighborhood of families, despite being lower-middle income, now is a ghetto. I showed what Bill Cosby feels, La Shawn Barber, a bunch of articles written by blacks on the subject-we our community deteriorating. I think your opinion about how black people feel over what you say they should feel is wrong, because I am telling you how we feel.

Again, instead of focusing ignoring the obvious, that there is a problem, the focus of the argument should be why there is a problem, how to fix it.

By the way. When you lump all black people together into ‘the black community’ and then declare that 80% blank, it leaves room for the assumption that 80% blank.

I guess we gotta lump ourselves together because people like you don’t give a hoot.

BTW, the statistic wasn’t 80% of black men leave their families, it was 80% of black children are born out of wedlock. That could be one black man making six babies and not taking care of them, and two black men handling their business with one kid with their respective spouses.

Why not point to success stories, human success stories, because they come in all shades, and say that is what you are to strive for. That is the goal.

I agree, but this only one part of attacking a problem (of course admitting a problem is the first). Have you noticed that people do this? You want to make dinner. First you identify you want to eat and to do so you have to cook (you would eliminate this step as it just causes a bigger problem). To cook, ingredients have to be assembled, prepped and prepared. Let’s say you want to make spaghetti sauce. Your step, random white people making positive affirmations is chopping the parsley. I contributes some, but does not get to the root of the problem.

The problem is a child’s perception of how they should act in adulthood is formed within the family. If they have a father who jets, a mother who never finds men and holds them to a certain standard of respect, has cousins and friends who all act the same. He lives in a house with Grandma, Aunt Jean and her son, and his mother whom he refers to as “Jackie”. There is a good chance he will continue on the same pattern as the rest of his family. Yes, there is always a chance he will break the pattern and “Do the Right Thing” so to speak. People who do, usually have a mentor to show them how” a father, a teacher, an adult friend of some sort who pushes them to something better. My husband who grew up with a super dead beat Dad, and a mother who could care less changed because the woman he wanted didn’t want no more Baby Daddies. I told him after dating for 6 weeks “hit the altar or hit the road”. I held him to that higher standard you speak of.

I also agree that that standard needs ot be in place with parenting, but it is more than just “thinking positive”. If I go around cussing up a storm, should I be surprised my two year old starts cussing because I “thought positive”? As a parent, a good base to keep his mouth potty-free would be to not cuss. (But once again, I would have to realize that he is cussing, or might be prone to cussing if I do, and you are against that because that would be to perpetuate a cussing problem).

I do not favor a dictatorship. I certainly don’t favor a Theocracy. We have a Constitution for a reason. There is no secular reason for preventing abortion. You believe in a gods gift. The Constitution says that our laws can’t be based on a belief in god. Because a belief in god cannot be mandated. Therefore laws that require a belief in god cannot exist. Science says that one must have a brain to die, therefore that which does not have a brain can’t live. Philosophy says that one must need to make decisions that determine the course of ones life in order to be alive. It does not say you have to do it, it says you need to do it. A fetus from conception till birth does not have this requirement to live.

Why is it Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, millions of post abortive women from Silent No More, Dr. Bernard Nathanson who was one of the founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and many abortionists who were all once Pro-Abortion are now Pro-Life? Why is this?

Mike

If you tell people that 80% of black men rob women can you really be surprised if a woman holds her purse a little closer when she sees a black man she doesn’t know. I’m willing to bet that she does not exhibit the same behavior with a black man she knows. He is part of the 20%. If she doesn’t know him, she doesn’t have anyway to know, and so she goes with the higher odds.

Should black men who work hard, are honest, responsible, loving and caring be offended by these statements, and the actions taken because of the statements. Certainly. They should be irrate. They should be irrate with the people spreading the rumors that Black is a Character trait and not a Physical feature. Afterall, the difference between skin colors in human beings is the same as the difference between eye colors. If you are not designating black a Character trait instead of a Physical feature then please explain how it is you justify persist in continuing Separation, by declaring the Black Community…

‘Black’ does not in itself inhibit intelligence. Mental or Physical ability. It does not in itself inhibit earning potential. It does not in itself decide the disposition of the person. It does not decide the values. No more than blonde actually decides intelligence, or any more than any other physical characteristic decides who a person is in and of itself. If ignorant people behave in a certain way because of it, the behaviors my inspire certain reactions, this is still not a derivitive of the coloration of skin coloring however, or of hair coloring.

Children learn about who they are supposed to be, and what is expected of them from those around them. Children who are expected to be intelligent are more likely to achieve higher grades and learn more. Children who have been designated as less intelligent are less likely to achieve in acedemic pursuits. The belief that has been instilled in them regarding who they should be has a great deal to do with who they become. A child who is black who hears that statistically black men do not take one the responsibilities of fatherhood, hear about what is expected of them. Therefore, perpetuating a cycle. Women, who believe this, do not expect them to stay and are less likely to hold them to their responsibilities. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen the young women who expect that black fathers do not stay, so she treats him as though he is not there, and shortly he isn’t. She mutters for a few minutes, and then apathetically declares that that is just the way life is.

Why not point to success stories, human success stories, because they come in all shades, and say that is what you are to strive for. That is the goal.

That black men work hard. They set goals and then work to achieve them. They seek to nurture their minds and bodies. They seek to behave as responsibly as possible. They note the circumstances around them. They assess them, determining their value to them, and then seek to achieve or ascend them. They judge the ideas they find for themselves, and determine idea by idea what to do with it and why. They hold themselves in high esteem, and seek to live in a manner that will ensure the respect of those who are worthy of seeking the respect of. That he seeks the respect of the woman he loves. That he knows that the a forementioned methods are the ways in which to obtain this respect. That he seeks a woman who he can respect as well. Because she holds herself in high esteem.

Why is this so difficult to see?