I have always taken the position that abortion was a woman's issue and that I could never understand the issue completely as I would never personally live with that ultimate decision of life or death for an unborn child. Nothing has changed my mind. However, the liberal women in this country have decided that guns are evil and present such a threat to children that they must do something to remove guns from society. And that something is to attack the Constitution, specifically the second amendment, and anyone who defends our right to bear arms.

I'm not sure of the number of children they are saying guns kill every year but that is the issue. It's all about children being killed by guns. The million-mom march was about guns vs children. According to this liberal out-cry, guns are evil and so are the people who own them.

According to the statistics from the Center for Disease Control, in 1990, women chose to have 1,429,577 abortions in this country, ---" a 2.4% increase from 1989. The abortion ratio for 1990 was 345 legal induced abortions per 1,000 live births, and the abortion rate was 24 per 1,000 women ages 15-44 years. Most women undergoing abortions were young, white, and unmarried; most had had no previous live births and were having the procedure for the first time. Approximately half of all abortions were performed before the 8th week of gestation, and 87% were before the 13th week of gestation. Younger women were more likely to obtain abortions later in pregnancy than were older women." More, " In 1990, approximately 51% of reported legal abortions were performed before 8 weeks of gestation, and about 87% were done before 13 weeks (Table_6). Approximately 4% of the abortions were performed at 16-20 weeks of gestation, and 1% were performed at greater than or equal to 21 weeks."

Now this from an on-line source, AUSTRALASIA, April 11 2000 from a piece written by NIGEL HAWKES, SCIENCE EDITOR. "Some premature babies survive when born at less than the 24 week abortion limit; doctors generally believe that 22 weeks is the minimum needed for survival. "

So according to this, women in this country in 1990 chose to terminate 1% of 1,429,577 pregnancies, near or after doctors feel the baby could survive, or put another way, they killed 14,296 babies. Figures imply these figures have not changed dramatically since 1990, so one could say, women have terminated the lives of142,957 children in the last ten years. And not only is this a fact, they want to insure they can go on killing children by fighting to keep partial birth abortion from being banned.

The real hypocrisy of the Democrat party and their liberal philosophy is pointing the finger at gun owners and blaming them for the murder of children when no one group chooses to kill more children than women through abortion. They also expect you to accept that women who chose abortions are normal and people who own guns are criminals.

And to carry the issue even further, according to the article written by Mr. Nigel Hawkes, " AN ABORTED baby survived for 80 minutes while hospital staff waited for it to die, a coroner's court in Darwin, Australia, was told yesterday.

The baby was unexpectedly born alive after birth was induced between 21 and 22 weeks of gestation. Greg Cavanagh, the coroner, said that there was a "responsibility vacuum". He accepted that the baby was not going to live because of its prematurity, but said that the nurse on duty faced a "moral dilemma". In the end she simply covered it, made it as comfortable as possible and waited for it to die." Further, " Some premature babies survive when born at less than the 24 week abortion limit; doctors generally believe that 22 weeks is the minimum needed for survival. However, babies that premature need assistance in breathing, which may be denied by doctors if they assess the chances of healthy survival as small."

Here we have the newest of citizens brought into our world left to die because women demand the right, and yet, when we have a terminally ill senior citizen that wants to die, we say it is morally wrong to induce death and goes against a Doctor's Hippocratic Oath.

Hypocrisy reigns and no one group is more hypocritical than liberal women who demand the Constitutional right to suck a babies brain out and point their finger at gun owners and shout "Murderer".

-- UR2Blame (UR2BLAME@UPOWER.COM), October 25, 2000

Answers

UR2Blame,

Believe you may have hit a cord. Let's see, hmmm. Liberals are anti pollution and devout environmentalists, yeah? Who causes pollution and harms the environment? People? Is abortion the "final solution" to Pollution?

Ooops@slipofthetongue.com

-- Ooops (Ooops@slipofthetongue.com), October 25, 2000.

Perhaps you need to look at WHAT liberals believe before you start painting us all with your broad brush. *I* believe that life starts at first breath. YOU can believe that a caterpillar is a butterfly, but *I* don't. *I* still haven't come to a conclusion on whether the 2nd amendment applies to ordinary people or organized militia, but I don't care HOW many guns you have. We have laws to deal with what you do with them. On capital punishment, I feel it's justified for serial killers, etc., but think that if one's lawyer slept through the entire trial and didn't put up ANY defense, that poor people [or retarded folks] should NOT be put to death by someone who claimed that the judicial process did its job. IMO, it didn't. Give us a little more credit, eh?

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 25, 2000.

Anita:

[I don't care HOW many guns you have. We have laws to deal with what you do with them.]

Yes, we do, and always have. These laws aren't really the target of a proper Liberal. The proper Liberal is much more concerned with how many guns you have, and how many bullets they hold, and how fast they can fire those bullets, and what those bullets are made of, and whether you are permitted to actually carry your guns, and whether we have enough information about you to decide whether you are *likely* to handle your guns responsibly, and whether your gun can be made ready to shoot quickly enough to be meaningful (hint: NO, it shouldn't be).

Liberals are also interested in finding gun manufacturers at fault for criminal behavior on the part of the end users of their products -- NOT because they ARE at fault, but because finding them at fault anyway basically puts them out of business and thus eliminates guns without directly violating, like, the Constitution or anything.

All in all, I'd have to say you aren't yet devious enough to be a Liberal. Sorry.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 25, 2000.

Anita, > "life at first breath"< That is a weird, and scary opinion.....

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), October 25, 2000.

Anita,

I agree with much of your commie pinko rhetoric ;-)

A caterpillar is not a butterfly, true. But is a butterfly a butterfly one hour before leaving the cocoon? Life at first breath? Is it OK to kill a baby who is born so long as he has not yet breathed? OTOH, in all fairness, if we are human at conception why do we not count our age from that day? We count our age from the day we were born. I would not (were I king) take away a woman's right to choose whether or not to carry a child to birth, however I do not think that an abortion in the 9th month is right either. Where to draw the line?

If you wish to divine what the Founders intended by Amendment 2 read the rightings and letters of the Founders. From my reading I have concluded they believed that an armed citizenry was the best last line defense to governmental abuse of the citizenry. History backs up their point of view, dictators disarm their subjects. But I agree, put the people who hurt others with guns away for a long time, just like those who hurt others with knives, or sticks, or stones. Guns are not any more or less evil than any other tool, it's what the tool is used for that determines evil.

Also, I am not a huge fan of the death penalty. Too much leeway for folks with money and power.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), October 25, 2000.

In this country more safety standards are required for a teddy bear then a handgun. That's outrageous.

-- redneck city (passing@through.com), October 26, 2000.

I here the frustration,mankind will never solve the problem,s of SIN! NOT UNTIL *THY KINGDOM COME-THY WILL BE DONE=HAPPENS!! and it,s coming-PRAY homies PRAY! ********WE CAN,T DO IT--------ALONE********* we need HIS HELP!!!-----if you get it----you,ll get it!!

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), October 26, 2000.

Unk:

But is a butterfly a butterfly one hour before leaving the cocoon?

Not in MY opinion, Unk. In fact, the hour AFTER leaving the cocoon is [if I remember correctly] the period which determines whether what emerges from the cocoon will have time to successfully complete transformation or be picked off by predators.

Life at first breath? Is it OK to kill a baby who is born so long as he has not yet breathed?

This is a silly question, Unk. Humans are aerobes. They're not alive unless they're breathing.

If you wish to divine what the Founders intended by Amendment 2 read the rightings and letters of the Founders.

I already did, and I'm still not sure. It's not worth spending more time on, for me. [It's not like anyone is going to ask ME to interpret the constitution, ya know.] SO and I discuss these things whenever the subject comes up in our daily lives [usually from watching one movie or another]. HE firmly believes that the 2nd applies only to a militia. I'm not so sure on that one, as I said. OTOH, he ALSO interprets the 1st amendment differently than I, and it's HERE that we have our more enjoyable debates. Who says liberals don't honor the constitution?

Flint: Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't think the term Liberal can be defined as proper and improper. The term is loosely used to describe someone left of Attila the Hun by SOME folks. We had some fun one day on Poole's Roost trying to categorize ourselves on a continuum. We couldn't even agree on who we'd put at the left and who we'd put at the right. All of us like to THINK we're centrists, but we're certainly not to others. The other problem involved with such labeling is that folks have liberal thoughts on ONE topic, while maintaining conservative thoughts on others. For instance, one may think that conservatives value the constitution, yet the far right is, typically, the voice crying out for elimination of publications that THEY find objectionable. One may think that liberals think "anything goes", but it's the far right who supports middle- aged men marrying 13-year old girls. From my reading I have concluded they believed that an armed citizenry was the best last line defense to governmental abuse of the citizenry. History backs up their point of view, dictators disarm their subjects. But I agree, put the people who hurt others with guns away for a long time, just like those who hurt others with knives, or sticks, or stones. Guns are not any more or less evil than any other tool, it's what the tool is used for that determines evil.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 26, 2000.

Sorry...I left part of Unk's pasted response in with the last of mine. I'm sure you'll recognize the cutoff.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 26, 2000.

The liberal philosophy is right for everyone, that's why it is called liberal.

-- (united@we.stand), October 26, 2000.

Anita you said:

"From my reading I have concluded they believed that an armed citizenry was the best last line defense to governmental abuse of the citizenry. History backs up their point of view, dictators disarm their subjects. But I agree, put the people who hurt others with guns away for a long time, just like those who hurt others with knives, or sticks, or stones. Guns are not any more or less evil than any other tool, it's what the tool is used for that determines evil."

I couldn't have said it better myself...

They need to enforce the laws on the books. I just have a feeling the PTB want us disarmed and vulnerable... ala Hitler, Lenin, (your favorite dictator here)... etc...

"People with guns are citizens; without guns, subjects..."

snoozin' on the floor...

The Dog

-- The Dog (dogdesert@hotmail.com), October 26, 2000.

Dog:

You must have missed the part where I said that I left part of Deedah's post attached to mine. *I* didn't say that. HE did.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 26, 2000.

DOH!

Sorry Anita, I thought you might have changed your tune...

I can actually imagine Deedah saying those exact words though, and I heartily agree. Of course, Deedah and I seem to agree on a LOT of things though...

So Anita, we agree that we disagree?

(snicker)

hidin' my face with my paws...

The Dog

-- The Dog (dogdesert@hotmail.com), October 26, 2000.

OT - 'Nita nailed the butterfly pupae/chrysalis angle.

-- flora (***@__._), October 26, 2000.

Dog:

So far, there's nothing on which to agree or disagree. I would agree with two sentences of what Unk posted, and I'm not sure about the other two. [I already forgot which two sentences, but I agree with the ones about punishing folks who use guns, and am not sure yet on the ones about dictators trying to disarm us.] I'm not convinced that I'll be sure about this one in my lifetime, BTW. I have bigger fish to fry than wondering about how to interpret the 2nd. I'd like to think that the Supreme Court would put this one to bed, but they've ignored the topic THIS long, and I feel confident that they'll ignore it for the rest of my life.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 26, 2000.

Anita,

Actually it is not a silly question. Are you saying that a fetus should be open to being aborted during the mother's labor? Just so long as it has not yet tasted air?

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), October 26, 2000.

I am a firm believer that if you use a gun in a crime, that the book should be rammed down your throat, not just thrown at you.

As far as you last post Deedah, how do you determine when life exists? Is it the first trimester? Or is it the third? Is it murder at ANY time?

It is sort of like the debacle in Israel right now. Who actually owns the land? Do the Israelis have the "deed" from the BC times? Do the Palestineans own it because they "owned" it prior to the late 1940's?

I HATE hard questions like that...

I feel this second amendment thing though is pretty cut and dried...

Off my soap box now...

jumpin' off the box....

The Dog

-- The Dog (dogdesert@hotmail.com), October 26, 2000.

Unk:

Actually it is not a silly question. Are you saying that a fetus should be open to being aborted during the mother's labor? Just so long as it has not yet tasted air?

It seems to ME, Unk, that abort means TERMINATE. What would be the point of terminating something that was already terminating? [You know my memory isn't the greatest, but I'm quite sure my three pregnancies terminated when the kids popped out, followed by the placenta(s).] I seem to remember them breathing right away, as in none of that smack upside the butt stuff because the mom took drugs that caused the baby to be stupored. My GUESS would be that a stupored baby that wasn't smacked wouldn't breath on its own [and be considered stillborn.]

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 26, 2000.

I can only conclude that you are being obtuse on purpose. You know what I am asking, I am asking if you feel that abortions should be allowed in the ninth month, a simple question. Try yes or no.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), October 27, 2000.

Uncle D; The so-called "Liberal" needs a wider range of choice, like yes, no, or whatever. It's impossible to have a reality-based discussion with someone who is "in denial".

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), October 27, 2000.