Good morning to all- There's not much for me to say that has not been said. As a man, I have no right to tell any woman what to do in case of pregnancy. It is the woman's choice, and her responsibility to make that choice. If a man who is the cause of pregnancy commits to life-long support and care for a child, then he has a say. But do you know ANY man who commits life-long support for anything and then lives up to that commitment? It is rare- it happens, but often, the man doesn't live up to that commitment, and the woman and child are left alone to deal with life as it comes.. Nope. The woman's decision is hers and hers alone. you all be safe and keep well- Ed
As much as I male bash, it's kind of my schtick sometimes, I have had two men and both have lived up to commitment to my children. And I am difficult to live with.
When my mother was pregnant with her first (and only) child….me…..she was almost 40, and had waited because of the Great Depression, and then WW2 happened. Her doctor told her that she had a large tumor in her abdomen and it was growing, and needed to be removed right away, which would terminate the baby. She refused. Her doctor told her that there was no chance that her baby could survive, and they would have to remove the tumor as soon as possible, and very likely she would not survive either if the operation was not done right away. This was in 1944, and the doctor was recommending the abortion in order to save my mother’s life, and it would have probably been the most sensible and safe decision for her to make; but she instead asked the doctor to wait as long as possible to do the operation in the hopes her baby would have grown enough to survive. When I was born, early but alive, my mom prayed that she would also live and be able to raise me, and she did. I think that there are times when a doctor recommends an abortion, and probably the safest choice for the patient is to follow the doctor’s orders, whether it is for the mother’s welfare or the child’s welfare. I think that decision should be between a woman and her doctor, just like any other medical decision.
40 years ago, my next door neighbor had a similar experience having cancer and then refusing the medication till after the baby was born. My problem is with the 10's of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of babies that are terminated for convenience. I understand the stress and fear. I was a teen of the sixties. I can't make the choice for anyone, but I still don't want to pay for them. One of my best friends from HS was mugged and raped. A horrible time. The son that resulted ended up one of her greatest joys and her grandchildren are adored.
I don't feel it's any of my business if a woman chooses abortion for convenience. I think it's incredibly stupid, however. A former very close friend of mine used abortion as birth control. Look, I told myself, if you really believe abortion is a woman's right, then believe it all the way. Stupid, very very stupid. But not my business, no. I can't control this behavior, as well as many other behaviors I can't control.
@Bobby Cole All I meant about Mr. Carl was that he would use the Laws of God to control the Laws of Man. I believe in complete separation of church/state. Mr. Carl would endorse secular law be religious. That is open to contradictory interpretations of the bible. I'm sure he's a lovely man in other ways. Sorry for the delay (((Bobby)))
No worries. It is indeed a hard subject because when one is living according to scripture, there is very little wiggle room to play the games that mankind tends to play. There is another thread concerning a new sect of the Methodist church and how, because of society’s want for a more liberal and may I include, “woke” change, is severing itself from it’s base. The thing is, the Church is supposed to be a theocracy which has no wiggle room between the laws of man and the laws of God so the question is, if a man lives by the laws of God, can he accept the laws of man if they oppose the former? No. Now the other question is, can a government be a theocracy and survive as well? Nope. God has granted mankind free will and although we hope that our leaders are good men and women who try to follow scripturally based reasoning, if we are to be more “god-like” we also know that as God has granted man free will, so must we and hope people make the right decisions. But do note: God’s laws and the laws of mankind have consequences if people make the wrong decisions. All that said, does that mean that a man who tries to live by the scriptures should not say anything when he sees that the laws of God are being tossed aside? Not that either. A man or woman who lives by the scriptures has to say something or he or she is not living according to the scriptures. it’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t kind of thing. If he preaches the gospel wherever it is needed, he’s fulfilling his ordination or rather, the “command” he was given but alas, is shunned by those who choose the more secular stage of life rather than that of God. My stance on abortion? Do I personally believe killing a fetus is right? No and according to scripture, neither does God. But…… Free-will dictates that people are going to do whatever they are going to do. If a state legalizes it (with some stipulations) then the back door abortions cannot exist and because of a well monitored procedure, the surviving woman might have the chance to change her life and in time, hopefully accept the gospels. Some may say that I am legitimizing abortion but the fact is I’m not. I’m just admitting that again, people are going to do whatever it is they want to do so I just want the cleanest and best environment to be available when a woman makes the second worse decision she’s ever made.
Well you know, as another poster said in an earlier post (Beth I believe), no one's mind is ever changed. And the reason for that is because the arguments are always from a moral point of view, or whether it's a right, or whatever. But what if it is looked at from a point a view that most of us on this forum are presumably concerned with. And that is social security, and the proposition that abortion has helped social security become insolvent. Now you're probably asking yourself how. Allow me to explain. Between 1973 and 2000, there have been 27,755,000 legal abortions (and note the qualifying word legal). This number is based on information from the website Statista (https://www.statista.com/statistics/185274/number-of-legal-abortions-in-the-us-since-2000/). The years 1973 and 2000 were chosen because 1973 is the year Roe v. Wade was decided, people born then would be 51, and people born in 2000 would be 24. These are peak earning years. Now not all 27 plus million people would be working. Some would not live to adulthood. Some would be incapable of working, either for some medical reason or they might be incarcerated for crimes. Others would be refusing to work, preferring to sponge off of others via welfare. Some could be homeless. So not being able to really find what those numbers are, I'm going to use one-half of the 27,755,000 or 13,877,500 as people who were aborted that, if they had been allowed to be born, would be working and thus paying into social security. So abortion has prevented almost 14 million people from helping to support social security. Also, based on this article in 2022 from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2022/08/t...-is-at-a-low-and-projected-to-decline-further) as it stands now, there are only approximately 2.8 people working paying into SSA that pay the benefits of 1 recipient. In the early 1960's they were 5.1 payees for every 1 recipient. The same article says the minimum ratio of workers to beneficiaries should be between 2.8 to 3.3. So instead of trying to have American society not to have children through birth control, whether abortion or just not having children, I suggest we start encouraging America to have more children to help save Social Security.
Fortunately for the Conservative side, most of those aborted potential Democrats. If not for abortion, Democrats would rule the country even more so than they do today.
But Don, those Democrats that were aborted would be contributing to social security (the majority of Democrats do work). The point of my post was abortion (regardless of the party affiliation of the parents and what the offspring would be) has helped bring about the insolvency of the social security systems it now exists.
To those who'd excuse men from having a judgement right on abortion, or those who'd withhold judgement right on anything based upon God's moral values, I'd offer these comments pointing out the lack of rationale in either position. Men and women both enact or support laws that affect other genders, races, or members of society. A fair or moral legal system could not be established if only the ones limited by a law voted upon it. Laws by nature restrict individual freedoms for the benefit of the whole society. And thus, the same men who would condemn the brutal killing of innocent old ladies are certainly qualified to hold a comparable view on the killing of innocent young babies. In fact, I'd posit that everyone of sound mind and moral conscience has an obligation to support laws that help protect innocent members of society from unjust acts. Concerning separation of church and state and not wanting to impose God's laws upon all members of society, I understand such a view being held for abortion, LGBT rights, and any controversial issue. But, the basis in general lacks historical relevance and rationale. Anyone studying America's Christian heritage can quickly discover that our nation's legal system and underlying moral laws are derived from the Bible and from multiple documents going back 1000 years that were themselves derived from the Bible. The paper work trail of documents, memorialized Christian leaders, and architecture within our own Supreme Court building testifies to this historical reality. And thus, there has been no separation of church and state or God's laws vs man's laws in America's jurisprudence system - until 1947 when FDR liberal Democrat Hugo Black canonized Jefferson's misinterpreted phrase. If we remove Christian beliefs and Biblical values from America's political, legal, and cultural system, the greatest Republic the world has ever known would not have been established. Another way to look at this is: without God's objective moral standards, man has no viable moral standards to uphold. Relativism allows anyone to determine their own truth, their own moral values, and their own choice of which laws to obey. Such is an untenable belief system for a civilized society of law and order. So yes, God's 6th commandment to not murder IS the very foundation of own nation's homicide laws which affect the issue of abortion.