Giuliani plans to outline views on abortion rights.
I can commend his view, because it's the same as mine (though mine's a little more, uh, personal): *I* wouldn't choose to do it, but if someone feels that that's the best route for them to take, then that's their decision, and it's not my place to tell them what to do.
I just don't know why this is being debated during elections. The main reason people argue about it is for religious reasons. Isn't this why separation of church and state was supposed to be upheld? To prevent bullshit arguments from surfacing to sway people based on their faith rather than their common sense and values? And yes, there IS a difference between faith and values. I have a pretty strong moral compass, but I'm not religious. It IS possible.
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GOP pulls in lowest amount of money for their gala in years.
Aww, puddin'.
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Did somebody die on "Lost"?
Does anybody give a shit?
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Gay Bishop to hold civil union ceremony with partner of 18 years.
Fuckin-A, dude. Good luck to you.
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Japan opens drop box for babies.
Okay, so it's not the country, it's actually just one hospital. But that's...weird. I guess whatever works, though, to keep people from drowning unwanted kids.
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Speaking of drowning, flood waters are rising again in Missouri.
My family's from Missouri, so this is something I pay attention to, but I wonder if I'm the only non-resident who has noticed the frequency of the major floods increasing ever-so-slightly? 20-ish years between the flood they had in the 70s and the one in 1993. Now, 14 years. Hrm. Well, I guess it's not THAT much of a difference, it must just seem that way to me, with my warped sense of time.
Hopefully they can get people outta there. I have a feeling the residents are like, "Ho-hum, another flood...honey, grab the dog and the ammunition!", but still - it never hurts to have a few more helping hands present.
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STOP REFERRING TO POLITICAL PARTIES IN A RELIGIOUS SENSE! Jesus Fucking H. Christ on a Cracker! Seriously!
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And because I like to end things on a personal note, I have secured summer employment, making twice as much as the job itself is worth. America: Fuck yeah.
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Obligatory quibble:
No matter what set of criteria you use to define when a fetus becomes an infant- religious, semi-scientific, or just plain gut feeling- the abortion debate is fundamentally about when abortion becomes infanticide as opposed to just a woman dealing with some really mitotic cells in her own body.
The definition of murder is, like it or not, very much a critical civil issue.
(And I really don't like it- I don't think there are any good sets of criteria for going "okay, personhood begins HERE" that lend themselves to legislation.)
The quibble, as I see it, is between scientists and religious people. Science says that anything before 12 weeks has no freakin' chance of surviving outside of the womb, so anything before that would just be like the mother having an extra-heavy period. Religion says that life begins with conception, hence, any pregnancy termination is murder, regardless of when it happens.
Hence, the "religion is the stinkbomb" lean of that section.
I'm morally opposed to abortion as a means of birth control. If you're old enough that you think you can have consensual sex, then you'd damned well better be able to deal with the consequences if you don't use protection. If I got pregnant after sex, I'd keep the kid. But it's a person's personal choice what they want to do. I just don't see making such a big stink about it. Let each person decide for herself what she wants to do.
We probably have more or less the same position (personally uncomfortable, think it should be left legal for other reasons) and I'm just being a pedant.
Speaking as an agnostic biologist...
1)Viability outside the womb doesn't really have much of anything to do with whether it's a person or what, it just serves as an arbitrary marker. Using that as a marker would put preemies in a serious gray area- and there are non-viable premature births that are definitely about a million times more serious than a heavy period.
2)Whether you want the kid or not doesn't have anything to do with whether it IS a kid or not, which is why pure choice doesn't really work as an argument for me. It's not a quantum kid, existing in a state between fetus and infant until a choice is made.
So, ultimate point... biology doesn't actually give us a clean point, so I can't honestly say that my position on when I'd stop being morally comfortable with termination is less arbitrary than the "life begins at conception" crowd. Religion may lead a person to one conclusion or another, but that's not really any better or worse than a gut-feeling of "Okay, the fetus is a baby at... this point of development!"
This is the bitchiest comment you'll ever hear me make about a baby: If it's born before it's viable, it probably doesn't need to survive.
HOWEVER, if it was my kid, I'd be fucking pissed if it was born early and couldn't survive other than in an incubator, and I'd probably want to fight for its life just the same as anyone else. My boyfriend was a preemie. I don't need to say anything else about that. So obviously my beliefs and my practice don't coincide, just like with abortion. The whole thing is a gray area. I don't think there's a really clean answer, but it's like drug use in that way...you can argue that it's natural selection (and I do), but there might be someone out there who actually cares about the crackhead that's twitching under the freeway, and that's when things get complicated.
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