• There is no discussion possible until all parties agree on "when life begins."

• None of the following are "absolutes" , "truths" or "givens."
  • Life does not begin at intercourse.
  • Life does not begin at the moment of conception.
  • Life does not begin at birth.
  • Life does not begin when the first cell has divided twice, resulting in four cells.
  • Life does not begin when the fetus' heart starts beating.
  • Life does not begin when brain activity can be detected.
  • Life does not begin when the fetus is viable outside the womb.
  • Nor does the fetus become a "person" or a "baby" or a "human being" at any of these milestones, either.

• Life or "personhood" or "human being-ness" begins at whatever point you believe it begins .... but only for you.

• Until you realize that, the entire argument is over "my belief is right and your belief is wrong," the battle will go on forever, with no possible end.

• I suggest that until all anti-abortionists commit to adopting all unwanted newborns, they have no moral right to oppose abortion; i.e., the right to tell someone else what they can do to or with their bodies, or things growing inside their bodies.

• Inherent in the entire discussion is "who owns the mother's body?"

• Until all of those questions are clearly answered, I believe it is immoral to oppose a woman's right to choice.

Added 10.18.2007: George Bush is an idiot.

From the Wall Street Journal Online... Contraception Foe Named to Contraception Post
Laura Meckler reports on Health and Human Services.

The Department of Health and Human Services appointed Susan Orr — who has spoken out against contraception — to a post responsible for U.S. contraception programs.

Orr, who will be acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs, has been directing child welfare programs in another branch of HHS. Prior to joining the Bush administration, Orr was senior director for marriage and family at the Family Research Council, a conservative group that favors abstinence-only education and opposes federal money for contraception.

In 2001, she was quoted in the Washington Post favoring a Bush administration plan to drop a requirement that health insurance plans for federal employees cover a broad range of birth control.

“We’re quite pleased because fertility is not a disease,” she said at the time. “It’s not a medical necessity that you have it.”

Idiots. Fundamentalists. See more here.

Added 08.01.2006: Quote from Planned Parenthood.

[Score=] ZERO: Senator George Allen - Anti-Choice Incumbent from Virginia

It's hard to know where to start with this anti-choice fanatic. Senator Allen has been on the wrong side of every choice-related issue since he joined the Senate in 2000. He voted to let violent clinic blockaders avoid paying fines associated with their illegal acts by declaring bankruptcy. Not only that, he's rubberstamped each of Bush's extreme anti-choice judicial nominees, including J. Leon Holmes, the infamous nominee who compared pro-choice advocates to Nazis and abortion to slavery.

This month, Senator Allen's anti-choice record earns him the honor of Election 2006 Zero of the Month. Hear this, Senator Allen -- your unyielding assault against the values of personal freedom and responsibility is coming to an end.

Added: 07.25.2006: Quote from Molly Ivans.

Amen!

Added, 04.24.2006. Thanks, Planned Parenthood Action Fund!

Beware!

Liars, cheats and hypocrites in the name of their God and their religion:

An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend to one of Indiana's Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a so-called "crisis pregnancy center" run by an anti-abortion group, one that shared a parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic and was designed expressly to lure Planned Parenthood patients and deceive them.

The group took down the girl's confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their "other office" (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby). When she arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there. The "crisis pregnancy center" had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will.

The "crisis pregnancy center" staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl's home and calling her father's workplace. Planned Parenthood's clinic director reports that the girl was "scared to death to leave her house." They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.

The anti-choice movement is setting up these "crisis pregnancy centers" across the country. Some of them have neutral-sounding names and run ads that falsely promise the full range of reproductive health services, but they dispense anti-choice propaganda and intimidation instead. And according to a recent article in The New York Times, there are currently more of these centers in the U.S. than there are actual abortion providers. What's more, these centers have received $60 million in government grants. They're being funded by our tax dollars.

Beware! These are a bunch of scum-sucking, yellow-bellied liars, and their actions verify this, every time they stoop to such stupid lying tricks in order to control other people's lives.

There is a sickness upon our land [The United States of America] and the following quotation epitomizes it:

"State Sen. Bill Napoli (R-Rapid City) gave this shocking description of the circumstances under which he thinks abortion should still be permissible when he told The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer:

"A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life."

These are the words of a sick man, and these are examples of the images which are in his mind. He is sick, should seek therapeutic help, and should not be allowed to foist his views on innocent people..... In My Opinion.

From the New York Times, 08.30.2003...

An absolutely new low in the use of minds or brains by allegely upright-walking species known as humans: A federal judge in Houston....

A federal judge in Houston, in a little-noticed decision, declared this month that part of the 1994 law, known as the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, is unconstitutional because it exceeds the power of Congress to regulate commerce. The decision freed a man who had rammed a van through the front door of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston in a protest over abortion.

Anti-abortion leaders called the Texas decision an affirmation of the First Amendment rights of protesters.

But advocates of abortion rights said the decision, if upheld, could seriously curtail efforts by federal prosecutors to impose criminal and civil penalties on protesters who seek to intimidate users of abortion clinics.

"Pro-life people expect John Ashcroft to be just and fair and act in the interests of the right to life whenever possible," said Ms. Parro, whose group is based in Texas. "If the Justice Department is standing up for this law, that is not going to give people confidence that John Aschroft is looking out for the babies. This will cause disappointment."

It will, on the other hand, give people confidence in their right to drive their van through the front door of establishments they disagree with, in the name of free speech..........

Makes me ashamed to be a member of the same species that produces morons like those.

10.09.02... Here's some evidence from the New York Times that we're really screwed, now. Thanks, George "Shrub" Bush.......

Discovered 02.06.2003 at Amazon.com: "....murder in the name of life."

And they're still not done lying to you in the name of their "beliefs"......... Thanks, Rep. Henry Waxman and Planned Parenthood and Susan Yudt:

Reality Bites: The Truth About Sex, Teens, and Abstinence-Only Education

by Susan Yudt

What would you do if you found out that your daughter's math teacher told her that 2 + 2 = 5? Or your nephew's geography teacher said that the earth was flat?

Now imagine that teenagers learned in school that HIV can be transmitted through tears and sweat. Or that touching another person's genitals can result in pregnancy.

News flash: they are learning that.

On December 1, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) released a report that reveals shocking information about the state of abstinence-only education in schools, including these erroneous "facts" about HIV and pregnancy. In 2005, the federal government will spend $170 million dollars funding programs like these, while comprehensive, medically accurate sex education will receive no dedicated funding.

Rep. Waxman's report found that more than two-thirds of these government-funded programs misinform young people and manipulate information. Some falsehoods from these curricula:

• "The popular claim that 'condoms help prevent the spread of STDs,' is not supported by the data."
• "In heterosexual sex, condoms fail to prevent HIV approximately 31 percent of the time."
• "Premature birth, a major cause of mental retardation, is increased following the abortion of a first pregnancy."
• "Twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create [a] new individual." (Humans actually take 23 chromosomes from each parent, not 24.)
• "Women gauge their happiness and judge their success on their relationships. Men's happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments."

Susan Yudt is the editor of teenwire.com.

[or maybe you think all those things are true because you learned them from the same illiterate, ignorant morons who still teach it?]