you certainly don't have to convince me that a world without abortion is the ultimate goal for all respecters of the Great Miracle that is the creation of a human being.

it's just that life ain't linear, and to enforce this belief on others, no matter how convinced one is about the justness of the act, is to pretend the woman is not the decider of her future responsibility.

women have it hard enough already, some get pregnant because they're basically too nice to say no, and the men don't have anything like the same set of consequences to face, so should definitely not be the arbiters.

subscribing to this belief is great, and acts as an affirmation that we will work this out eventually to the satisfaction of all, but using legislation to regulate morality can be taken far too far, far too soon.

it's the loons this attitude aligns one with is a pretty big clue... no offence...

it comes back to the nigh-insurmountable challenge of guaranteeing that child a future good enough that the mother would willingly make that choice, over her own maternal instincts to keep the child, or abort it to save it from a horrible life. at which point such legislation wouldn't be necessary...

i really see a fork in the road between humility and arrogance here, and i've puzzled long and hard about it, because if one could square that political circle, one could create a huge, good-hearted voting block, that is presently blindly clinging to the right, and would probably, without that fly in the jam, swell the ranks of the left considerably, thereby upping the chances of creating the very type of society that might, one day, see fit to accord the Great Miracle more respect, by not men legislating putting women in such a 'sophie's choice', especially when most of said men subscribe to wars at whim, and show no sign at all of legislating much to protect the rights of children already born.

that's the soulsucking cognitive dissonance at the kernel of this argument, imo.

if one is so moved by the rights of a foetus, let one go take care of all the hungry, roofless, abused children already members of the born, and by the time we sort that out, the new Golden Age will have snuck right up on us!

it sucks, i know... it's one of those 'lesser evil' deals, methinks...

all this worrying about CAPITAL, when the real waste is in every undernourished child, and each clueless, undereducated pregnant mother-to-be cramming junk food and alcohol into her benighted bloodstream needs a bailout... imagine what it would do for the future generations if those fabled billions used to flush the toxic debt down the crapper were invested in prenatal education and care, it'd the no-brainer BEST investment we could ever make in the future happiness of mankind.

sometimes it seems anti-abortion activists miss the forest for the trees, and even remind me of those hindus who walk slowly with a soft broom, sweeping the dust in front of them in case they step on some innocent life form...

noble, but disproportionate.

abortion is a terrible thing and should be limited to an absolute minimum, and especially kept away from the coathanger, back alley brigade, whose black market always immediately fills the vacuum created by such short-sighted legislation.

christ, people are people, and they have so much to learn, making legal criminals moralistically just rubs salt into an already painful wound.

believing in reincarnation helps me here, every child of god will have as many chances as it needs to come learn the lessons of living here, in the fullness of time... that's what eternity means, i submit...

thanks for an interesting discussion, lily. this is a very important issue, how to reconcile spiritual conscience with political consciousness, in fact i don't think it gets any more important...

plus anything that gets colman to gift us with one of those witty one-liners this kind of diary tends to evince from him, well they're priceless, the one in this thread about being afflicted with faith...LOL

there truly is something divine about this type of humour, i sometimes think it must be god's favourite, since i think (s)he likes a good laugh at hir own expense, that's one bank that'll never fail!

you go colman! you might be even funnier than even you think!

:)

The power of knowledge is in mortal combat with the knowledge of power. It really is that simple... That's the Edenic apple we are all munching on.