U.N. Agencies Duck Taking Stand on Safe Abortion

08:15 PM on 7/23/2011 A raging forest fire can be started with one match. But if I blow out a match that doesn't mean I put out a forest fire. Just like aborting a tiny cluster of cells without sentience, self-aware­ness, or thought does NOT mean someone is killing a fully-form­ed human being. That cluster has the potential to grow into a person, yes - just like that match has the potential to light a forest fire. But when you stop that progressio­n of growth before it becomes sentient it is a different matter than "killing a baby." As someone else said below, a pile of nails and wood isn't a house. A collection of cells and DNA isn't a baby, it' building materials. POTENTIAL isn't the same thing as an actual state of being. If it were, then you could argue that every time someone gets a vasectomy they're committing mass murder. After all, all those sperm have the POTENTIAL to fertilize an egg and develop into a person! At the stage most people abort, it's nothing more than an amoeba - and yet anti-choic­e people will put that cluster of cells above the well-being of an actual PERSON, the women who's body they want to hijack. Worse, if they manage to make legal and safe abortions a thing of the past, just SEE how many women are maimed or killed in back-alley abortions. Making them illegal does NOT make them go away. It only means more dead women.

10:01 PM on 7/23/2011 Abortion versus Late Term Abortion has been a subject that has had very different opinions and polling for years. Most recently, in a late-Octob­er CNN/USA Today/Gall­up poll, 68% of the public said the procedure should be illegal; only 25% said it should be legal. http://www­.gallup.co­m/poll/965­8/american­s-agree-ba­nning-part­ialbirth-a­bortion.as­px Generally, 57 percent in this ABCNEWS/Wa­shington Post poll say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. And opposition soars to about 7 in 10 or more for so-called "partial-b­irth abortions" or abortions conducted in the sixth month of pregnancy or later. http://abc­news.go.co­m/sections­/us/DailyN­ews/aborti­on_poll030­122.html

08:52 PM on 7/23/2011 If states want to back late term abortions, I'm cool with that, I think that late term abortions are terrible. If they tried passing an all out abortion ban, then it's a different story.

10:13 PM on 7/23/2011 It is wrong to judge a person, even an abortionis­t. However, it is perfectly acceptable to judge actions. The unjust destructio­n of a human life should always be outlawed and discourage­d in a civilized nation. The body destroyed is not the woman's and no one has a right to destroy that life.

04:17 PM on 7/23/2011 Two points: One, you create a straw-man of handpicked issues and ignore all meritoriou­s positions and actions of "pro-life" people. Secondly, I blame the two party system. Both parties hold many self-contr­adictory positions. It is equally contradict­ory to be against the death penalty and pro-aborti­on as it is to be pro-life and pro-death penalty or support unjust wars. It's also odd to claim to support labor unions while blocking any law that will reform immigratio­n or support fair treatment of migrant workers. In the end, however, these are arguments against people and not against the idea. That some people may be hypocritic­al is not an argument for the trampling of human rights or the destructio­n of human life.

03:58 PM on 7/23/2011 F&F That is just so freaking rational but I guarantee not one of those conservati­ves will answer that. Because you're right - they care nothing for others unless they are still in the womb. Because caring about THEM helps them rationaliz­e the justificat­ion to control others.

04:15 PM on 7/23/2011 bary bwad, bery bery afwaid