Discussion on:

Obama Reverses Rules on U.S. Abortion Aid

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/us/politics/24obama.html?hp

?For too long,? he said, ?international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back-and-forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate.?


Is Obama's exporting of the culture of US paid for abortions his idea of improving the world view of the US? How does pushing abortion as birth control make us look good?

This goes against his earlier statements that he would work to reduce the number of abortions. Looks like he just found a larger "customer base".

but I would like to go off at a tangent. The agencies which push abortion, notably International Planned Parenthood Federation and its associates, do not teach Billings, the most effective method of family planning, but concentrate their efforts on the Pill and condoms and so forth. Why did not Bush feed the family-planning money into WOOMB and the like?

they didn't give enough money for his "office for faith-based initiatives" to help out with that.

Obama said he intends to INCREASE faith based initiatives.

Being a community organizer (as you repeatedly bragged), he knows first hand that government can't do ANYTHING half as efficient as private organizations. More money and better care gets to the end user this way.

And the great thing, HE is intelligent enough to know that it IS constitutional for government to give this aid.

faith-based doesn't necessarily mean "community". churches aren't required to let anyone participate. public funded programs require equal participation by law.

Oh, and btw: if Obama doesn't believe that government "can't do ANYTHING half as efficient as private organizations", then why is he trying to nationalize to some extent healthcare? Hm?

Please explain his concept of a "National Health Insurance Exchange" to be run by the federal government as part of his plan, if what you say is right?

You can't dispute it. He's looking to implement more government oversight of the operation of insurance to stop the system raping people (patients and doctors) for profits.


As for aid programs:

He is also intelligent enough to understand the Supreme Court decision that says you can't use your programs to push religion as well. He is, after all, a constitutional professor of law.

Unlike Bush, I don't think Obama will be as likely to overlook transgressions in the law in favor of organizations who "helped out" his campaigns in trade for a "faith-based" check-in-the-hand.

BTW, when did you think him to be so intelligent about government? I thought he wouldn't be able to do a good job cause he wasn't experienced enough in government?

again, reading into it what you want.

only, unlike many others of clearly limited intelligence in this country, Obama understands that if the Supreme court rules something to be constitutional, then it is.

There are many of questionable intelligence that have actually tried to say otherwise.

You still don't understand the concept of caveats placed upon the program by law.

You think because someone professes they are of God, then they have divine right to free reign to do as they wish.

If they start teaching God as a part of the program, they lose funding. As well, they can not exclude anyone from participating in it even if they are not of the religion they prescribe to.

Hence, it's not really faith-based. It's volunteer.

Just Bush was giving kickbacks through a loophole to religious orgs who contributed to his campaigns.

and since it was just evil kickbacks on the part of Bush, it must be REALLY evil kickbacks on Obama if he wants to increase it, right?

Or can't you be honest and consistent on a topic?

Since Bush did it means Obama is gonna do it?

You have just made ZERO sense.

You really are losing it. Go home and have your booze and play your video games.

I assume he is going to do it.

Since you only remember what you very selectively what you wish, let me remind you what he said in his own words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3mWX8RNrug

"They are ALWAYS free to hire who they wish"

You implied:

That since the Bush-initiated "Office of Faith-Based Initiatives" was shown to have been giving the vast majority of it's funding to religiously-affiliated organizations who contributed time and/or monies to his campaigns...

That Barack Obama is going to do the same thing?


That's a stupid thing to assume, since Obama has done everything he can to recuse his staff and appointees from all lobbying and special interest.

And, it is something Bush never did.

The Billings ovulation method of family planning is not faith-based but scientifically proven. WHO long ago tested it and found it successful, but does not promote it much, presumably because of IPPF influence.

also depends on women having regular cycles.

The absolute most effective way to 100% prevent unwanted birth is abstinence.

Period.

the Billings method does not depend on a woman having regular cycles. You are mixing it up with something else.

The Billings ovulation method (BOM) is a method which women use to monitor their fertility, by identifying when they are fertile and when they are infertile during each menstrual cycle. Users pay attention to the sensation at their vulva, and the appearance of any vaginal discharge. This information can be used to achieve or avoid pregnancy during regular or irregular cycles, breastfeeding, and peri-menopause. Described by the BOM organization as "Natural Fertility Regulation", this method may be used as a form of fertility awareness or natural family planning, as well as a way to monitor gynecological health.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billings_Ovulation_Method


Ovulation is not always tied to external body indicators, nor do eggs always drop on regular cycles. It has very much to do with cycles happening in regular patterns with indicators based on a standard assumption.

It is used to *avoid*...not prevent.

And therefore, is not 100% effective.

It has been empirically tested to be more reliable than the Pill. I mentioned this earlier. In China the method is spreading and "Recent surveys of all areas where the BOM is taught has shown a very pleasing seven-fold decline to 0.61% in artificial abortion-rate as compared with 4.06% rate where the BOM has not yet been introduced.".
http://woomb.org/bom/chinareport.html

Pick one. Either it can be used during irregular cycles, or it can't.

The Billings Method also depends on women having regular cycles.

This information can be used to achieve or avoid pregnancy during regular or irregular cycles

etu

Give the girl a dime, and have her hold it between her knees at all times that she wishes to engage in intercourse.

It has been found to be a big deterer of pregnancy.

are pro-abortion people so against what you have just said is the "absolute most effective way"?

Why do pro-abortion people want so many others to have abortions?

Do proabortion people really WANT people to have abortions? Now I am speaking of true pro-abortionists, not just doctors who stand to gain a lot of income through it.

Having an abortion is risky and dangerous for the mother, of course a proabortionist would never say that. Having an abortion is more reliable than the day after pill or the birth control pill, I'm sure proaboritonists offer that info too.

Yeah, those pro abortionists, they are at it again killing people with their lies...er, no actually that would be the ones who ban abortion funding not the ones who support it.

between having a safe procedure available, and making it free (financially) and free (from guilt).

It is a barbaric thing, and should never be done casually.

Have you gone completely mad?

What mother do you actually believe would abort her child and be "FREE OF GUILT?"

Just one, even the hookers and horrific crack ****** with the lowest morals will not be FREE FROM GUILT if they abort a pregnancy.

Abortion is one of the most horrific and life damning operations ANY woman will EVER experience in her ENTIRE existence. Nothing will ever make that go away it is a scar she will always have on her heart.

To suggest, even lightheartedly, that ANY woman in such a situation would be free from guilt just illustrates how completely devoid of any real knowledge of the subject you actually are.

How can you even suggest having a rational opinion when you demonstrate such an outrageous misconception of the practice which you condemn?

when the low lifes a few years back were handing out "I had an abortion" Tee shirts, as if it were something to be proud of.

Why do pro-abortion people NOT want a perspective customer to know EXACTLY what the procedure is?

I don't know who your miniature mind works, but it certainly is scary to consider.

I am speaking of mothers who bear intense guilt at the thought of aborting whats was to be a child of heir own creation.

You equate it to a bunch of radicals handing out 'kin t-shirts at a pro-abortion rally?

When you fight against repression, then see that fight come to fruitition of course there is reason for celebration. Cigarette manufacturer's like to advertise and promote smoking but how many smokers do you see proudly parading that they are smokers?

Your example shows just how singular and simple your mindset is towards the issue, you are seeing radicals and protesters and trying to expose them as the majority or the or even the norm.

To suggest that women are "GUILT FREE" when they have an abortion, just because some people handed out t-shirts to celebrate their change in human rights, shows just how out of touch with reality you really are in this case.

I'd honestly like to see more female input on this subject also, it is THEM we are discussing afterall. I wonder why most have conveniently chosen to avoid your post lke the plague?

where pro-abortion people (all, most, or significant numbers) have said "we are against abstinence"....

please?

You can't do it. Because, most pro-abortion people wants *choice*.

Right-restricting pro-lifers want to impose their ethos on others and have control.

And also, please show me proof of the majority of pro-abortion people taking the stance of "we want others to have abortions!"

Again, you can't.

That is total sensationalism and hype.

pro-abortion people harping that "abstinence doesn't work" or that it is unrealistic to expect that anyone could abstain from having sex.

I have never heard them say that.

I have heard them say that it should not be the only option.

So, you're right.

Abortion is big business.

now that after they kill the babies, they can sell the parts.

They are Ghouls.

Can't sell my organs, but we can sell the dead baby? When do women start to get PAID to get abortions? Not until after the government stops gleefully picking up the check, I bet.

Heck, it will become like selling plasma, although you don't have as fast of a turn around.

Watch your eyes, here it comes, arms and hands inside the bed, hang on, here we go!

Unfortunately we live in a real world.

Unless you also support locking up young girls until they are of age to be forcibly married to whom YOU deem the correct mate for her, what makes you think for even a second that abstinence is going to be the answer?

Sure, he best way to create world peace is for everyone to simply put down their guns, and its game over, but reality has to fit int there somewhere too.

I just said that it was the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy.

After reading your other comments I get a better picture of your stand, my mistake.

does not take into account those societies where if the man wants sex, he gets it - or those marriages where society might not sanction that attitude but the man does, anyway.

It suggests to me that the IPPF are just a little more pragmatic than those groups who see the world through the filters prescribed by their Imaginary Friends.

does not take into account those societies where if the man wants sex, he gets it - or those marriages where society might not sanction that attitude but the man does, anyway.

2.3 Subject-screening Procedure. After the training, every subject was interviewed to see whether she could proficiently master the BOM. Those who could not identify the mucus symptoms were either allocated a special tutor to help them or screened out. This measure was intended to ensure everybody participating in the study mastered the BOM.

It is wrong for a woman/couple to terminate a pregnancy of a child they can't/won't take care of?

But, it's okay for me and every other American who doesn't have children to pay tax monies to pay to keep your children in a public school, have a school bus, have sports activities, school buildings, books, etc?

I didn't choose to have your kids. Why is it fair for you to get MY tax dollars for 13 years of your childrens' lives to put them through school, when I didn't make them or choose them?

Guess it's okay for you to get my money to upkeep your children, but not okay for a woman and father of a child to have the option not to have a child she/they can't take care of.

See my point?

BTW...note: it's an option, not a mandate. No one is "pushed" or "coerced" or any other term you want to use to make it look like government is forcing or intimidating women into having them.

BTW, most other industrialized, civilized countries on this planet have legal, government funded family planning programs including abortion as an option. So, most "world views" of us right now are that we are far too hung up on implementing religious ideology into government than to properly care for the health of people in our country or to think first of the welfare and well-being of children not born yet.

Even most Muslim states allow for limited condition abortions.

Except for, that is, places like: Iran and Iraq.

Guess you wanna have an abortion policy like Iran and Iraq?

If someone wants to get an abortion because they are knocked up again, that is for them to have to live with knowing they killed their baby out of convenience.

Tax payer dollars should no more be used for this than to give someone a nose job.

In a time of financial crisis, we DEFINITELY should not be wasting US tax dollars on other countries to abort their youth. Let them pay for it themselves. People are losing their homes HERE, and we are worried about being able to pay someone to kill someone elses baby?

Something you can't understand, refusing to use taxpayers money for abortion is not the same as refusing to allow women to repeatedly get their abortions. Just make them pay for their own. Simple, really.

In a time of financial crisis, we DEFINITELY should not be wasting US tax dollars on other countries to abort their youth. Let them pay for it themselves. People are losing their homes HERE, and we are worried about being able to pay someone to kill someone elses baby?

If that's so, why have we spent $100Bs in Iraq saving babies there? Why haven't we got out of there and taken care of our own?

Why are we worrying about someone else's babies and country, when ours is going down the $hitter?????

to compare the value of saving a life with killing unborn babies.

How many Americans were killed from 2003-2008?
25,119 dead as of July 15th 2008.

"Forces: U.S. & Coalition Casualties". CNN, From March 2003 onwards.

Number of Iraqis dead? Over 90,000

Saving a life, eh?

We've made that country more deadly now than before we went in there.

We've caused more deaths than we've saved.

Saddam may have been a tyrant and a psycho, but you didn't see the terrorists running his country.

We'd have done better keeping our butts here and having done our own little insurgency to take over the government rather than blow it up.

Shows ya how good that "go git 'em boys!" attitude you take has done.

This is in the UK because that's what I know.

The "morning after pill" is an abortefacient drug. The coil and other IUD devices are also abortefacients so all ought to be proscribed the the Extremely Religious.

Early term abortions - up to 14 weeks - used to be all vacuum aspiration but this is being replaced by the drug misfepristone that blocks the hormones that maintain the uterine lining.

High-dose Prostaglandins in later pregnancies force a birth within a few hours.

The thing worth remembering about abortions is that when you have a society that sanctions early abortion, the late ones are fortunately much rarer. In the UK, 90% of abortions were carried out at under 14 weeks gestation; 60% were at under 10 weeks.

that people decided to make this a discussion about abortion rather than a discussion about funding abortion and abortion groups.

Quite two different things.

Generally, those who are against abortion are against government funding of it. I accept that there are those, like yourself, who are more against the funding on principal but in the case of this thread I was generally answering John Wills' anti-abortion posts.

It was your "elective surgery" that prompted my response to you as I was suggesting that the cost - monetary cost - of an early abortion is not as high as you might imagine if you don't have to protect your abortion clinics from pro-lifers or your society doesn't stigmatise people to the extent that they delay.

As for the psychological cost to the woman and the cumulative cost to your society, I leave up to you to decide.

if we wouldn't have "put down" the millions of babies over the last few decades, would we have a large enough work force to keep our social security from going under?

more than likely would have expanded the cost of the welfare system, because most of those babies would not have been born to women who could afford to take care of a child on their own.

it's obvious to me that would be the more likely case. women/couples who can afford a child most often don't have the abortion.

most abortions are for young women with no established career, or who are not old enough to get work to support a child.

anyways, the debate either way is:

Abortion has a use, and yes it's abused by a vast minority of those who use it.

Cutting off its funding totally because of the misuse by a vast few, would be like cutting off funding to all government departments because the Department of Defense has let so much misspending happen on $600 toilet seats and $1000 hammers for various military projects.

Or, maybe it'd be like...

Police shooting everyone in a grocery store because one of them was a robber. lol

A lot would depend on the demographics of the women who had their babies aborted.

If most of the women would have ended up on welfare because of having a baby, the cost of entitlement programs in the US might well be many times what they are now.

If most would have ended up as part of lower middle class working families, we would either have higher unemployment, or a lesser need for South American immigrant workers.
(An interesting aside here is that illegal immigrants using forged Social Security cards may actually be what keeps payments going into Social Security.)

Only if these unwanted babies had gone to loving and nurturing homes would there be an expectation that they would improve the world.

Not to say that there is not a value to every life and every soul. Just that the "what if" game is very complex.

Chas

that entitlement programs are a bad thing?

Are you saying that only people from wealthy, loving homes ever amount to anything?

Mom was on welfare when I was young, and some think I turned out alright. Oh, and she has her Masters degree now in computer science and is one year away from retirement.

It is the individual, not their income level, that determine if they have any worth or not. I know some great, hard working people that just don't make a lot of money.