What of the new feminist shift that agrees abortion is murder?

[Simurgh]

Every now and then I consider starting a thread about why I find this issue so difficult. I get emotional about it. I have thought about it a lot. I have very nuanced opinions about it.
One of the most annoying aspects of discussing it here on RF is that most (all really) of the people who agree with my conclusions are like @whirlingmerc. Poorly informed and not too honest. I don't know that there is anyone on this forum who actually agrees with me, and all the arguments are pretty bad.
Such as the OP misrepresenting Ms. Wattleton.

Sigh,
Tom

well, maybe it's time to change your stance and look at those who disagree. may be that they have something valid to say ever so often.......

 

[columbus]

well, maybe it's time to change your stance and look at those who disagree. may be that they have something valid to say ever so often.......

You clearly don't know me at all.
I just want to keep this thread about the misquote in the OP.
Tom

 

[sayak83]

Every now and then I consider starting a thread about why I find this issue so difficult. I get emotional about it. I have thought about it a lot. I have very nuanced opinions about it.
One of the most annoying aspects of discussing it here on RF is that most (all really) of the people who agree with my conclusions are like @whirlingmerc. Poorly informed and not too honest. I don't know that there is anyone on this forum who actually agrees with me, and all the arguments are pretty bad.
Such as the OP misrepresenting Ms. Wattleton.

Sigh,
Tom

Feel free to include me when you feel like discussing it again. I would be interested in what you have to say. You have my link to what my idea and arguments are. This thread is pointless anyway, so a derailing it for a substantial and rational discussion might have actually been a better use of this thread. That's why I made the request.

 

[Simurgh]

You clearly don't know me at all.
I just want to keep this thread about the misquote in the OP.
Tom

of course, i don't know you . how could i? i merely stated that sometimes there are people we disagree with who still have something to contribute but if you cannot entertain the thought that someone who disagrees with you has something to contribute, then make sure the cave you keep your mind in is securely locked and no fresh air ever gets in.

 

[tytlyf]

To be anti-abortion doesn't require a religious premise.
Some atheists are.

Yep, that's true. But the pro-life movement is funded and driven by religion. They want to legislate religious law as well. That's the #1 problem. People aren't keeping their religion to themselves, they are dictating what others do.

 

[columbus]

But the pro-life movement

There isn't much of a pro-life movement, at least not in the USA. Being Pro-life is really being anti-abortion. It's like a brand name. True pro-lifers oppose people choosing death for other people, whether it's pre-emptive war, capital punishment, or fiscal policies that harm the needy.
Pro-Choice is similar. It's really pro-abortion. The Un-Choosing of a choice that was already made.

Stop making me derail @whirlingmerc 's thread about dishonest arguments!
Tom

 

[Revoltingest]

Yep, that's true. But the pro-life movement is funded and driven by religion. They want to legislate religious law as well. That's the #1 problem. People aren't keeping their religion to themselves, they are dictating what others do.

The secular left does the same thing....the dictated restrictions just differ.
So I don't blame religion alone...it's also that some people are just
controlling busybodies, always wanting someone's neck underboot.
("Underboot" is like underfoot, but with more boot.)

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

There isn't much of a pro-life movement, at least not in the USA. Being Pro-life is really being anti-abortion. It's like a brand name. True pro-lifers oppose people choosing death for other people, whether it's pre-emptive war, capital punishment, or fiscal policies that harm the needy.
Pro-Choice is similar. It's really pro-abortion. The Un-Choosing of a choice that was already made.

Stop making me derail @whirlingmerc 's thread about dishonest arguments!
Tom

The Consistent Pro-Life Ethic.

I'm not sure where I fall in the pro-life/pro-choice categories. I think abortion is sad and tragic, but I don't think banning it is the way to go and I also realize that sometimes it's needed (health reasons and such). I feel the same about the death penalty.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

To be anti-abortion doesn't require a religious premise.
Some atheists are.

As an atheist myself, I am certainly not "pro-abortion." As a method of birth control I think it's appalling. But I have to concede that earlier on in the pregnancy, I defer to the wishes of the woman concerned and the circumstances she finds herself in -- and allow her to be the final arbiter.

I do wish that sex wasn't such a scary subject for so many people. I rather suspect that children brought up with healthy attitudes to natural functions of our own human nature might well have fewer unwanted pregnancies, rather than more. (Kind of like foie gras -- love it, but I know about the cholesterol and fat, and potential health issues at my age, so just a nibble, thanks.)

 

[tytlyf]

The secular left does the same thing....the dictated restrictions just differ.)

The secular left is pushing religious law?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Yep, that's true. But the pro-life movement is funded and driven by religion. They want to legislate religious law as well. That's the #1 problem. People aren't keeping their religion to themselves, they are dictating what others do.

Yep. Like I keep telling people, here in America our greatest threat isn't Islam, Muslims, and Sharia, it's Christianity and the Christians who want to impose their own personal interpretation upon the general public. The ones who want to make it law of the land that hatred comes above the rights of others just as long this hatred is in the name of "religion." Muslim extremists pale in comparison to the threat LBGT youth potentially face from religious parents and religious-based conversion "therapy." Here, they don't kill with bombs, they kill with words.

 

[dawny0826]

The former head of planned parenthood , Fay Waddleton, admits pro choice people decieve themselves if they think people don't know abortion is murder. Likewise feminist thought leader Naomi Wolf says the same along with others.

Why the shift? and will it be seen as a movement towards enlightenment or a hardening of hearts against an innocent life?

see How Should We Think About Abortion?

How should we think about abortion? Rationally.

I don't understand arguments against life beginning at conception. A zygote, an embryo, a fetus - all developing life forms. Abortion is the termination of that life form. But, I'm not comfortable labeling it murder before personhood can be reasonably assigned. Murder is an unlawful act. Technically, abortion could only accurately be termed murderous if illegal.

I believe that a woman maintains the right to choose for her body during a pregnancy until the fetus is capable of life independent from the mother. Once able to develop and thrive (even if medically assisted) apart from the mother's body, I believe that it's at that point that personhood can be reasonably assigned. Feminism spans a spectrum of viewpoint. Individual views of abortion and how people relate it to spirituality and morality, etc. spans a spectrum as well. I'm sure that there are feminists who opine that abortion is murderous, but, value individual freedoms above personal opinions.

Clearly, society does place a great deal of value on unborn human life as abortion rates continue to decline in the United States.

Approximately 91% of abortions are performed before 13 weeks gestation. Less than .5% of abortions occur during late term pregnancy. Biology is more apt to be the culprit behind the termination of a pregnancy than abortion. 1 in 4 women will lose their pregnancy due to naturally occurring miscarriage. I know these statistics well, having read them repeatedly while reading up on pregnancy stats during my own recent pregnancy.

The majority of pregnancies that are ended either naturally or via abortion occur long before the embryo has developed into a fetus, before the fetus is developed enough to sustain life independent of the mother and before science suggests that the neurological system is developed enough for the fetus to feel pain. Over half of the states within the US prohibit third trimester abortion.

Alot of the anti-abortion propaganda that I see is dishonest and promotes shaming and fear mongering. Abortion isn't something that women look forward to. It can be physically and emotionally traumatizing. What needs to shift is the dishonest projection of what abortion actually looks like in the United States. Restriction on reproductive rights is unconstitutional unless/until the rights of the fetus can be reasonably considered above the rights of its mother.

 

[Flame]

Muslim extremists pale in comparison to the threat LBGT youth potentially face from religious parents and religious-based conversion "therapy." Here, they don't kill with bombs, they kill with words.

Reminds me of this movie. kidnapped

 

[whirlingmerc]

Is there a transcript?
As much as I oppose elective abortion, the terminology in your OP is misleading at best. "Murder" has different definitions, most commonly "extralegal killing of human beings". There is no functional Scriptural definition that differs from that. I have my own definition, but it isn't the legal one.

Generally, I avoid using the word murder in discussions about abortion because it doesn't have a clear universal meaning.
Tom

There may be many forms of pro choice and feminist positings, but Fay Waddleton a recent former head of Planned Parenthood or Naomi Wolf would be significant figures in those movements.


quote

Faye Wattleton, the longest reigning president of the largest abortion provider in the United States – Planned Parenthood – argued as far back as 1997 that everyone already knows that abortion kills. She proclaims the following in an interview with Ms. Magazine:

I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.
On the other side of the pond, Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the largest independent abortion provider in the UK, said this in a 2008 debate:

We can accept that the embryo is a living thing in the fact that it has a beating heart, that it has its own genetic system within it. It’s clearly human in the sense that it’s not a gerbil, and we can recognize that it is human life… the point is not when does human life begin, but when does it really begin to matter?
Naomi Wolf, a prominent feminist author and abortion supporter, makes a similar concession when she writes:

Clinging to a rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self-delusions, fibs and evasions. And we risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us with being: callous, selfish and casually destructive men and women who share a cheapened view of human life...we need to contextualize the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral framework that admits that the death of a fetus is a real death.

unquote


see article Medical Testimony

 

[whirlingmerc]

How should we think about abortion? Rationally.

I don't understand arguments against life beginning at conception. A zygote, an embryo, a fetus - all developing life forms. Abortion is the termination of that life form. But, I'm not comfortable labeling it murder before personhood can be reasonably assigned. Murder is an unlawful act. Technically, abortion could only accurately be termed murderous if illegal.

I believe that a woman maintains the right to choose for her body during a pregnancy until the fetus is capable of life independent from the mother. Once able to develop and thrive (even if medically assisted) apart from the mother's body, I believe that it's at that point that personhood can be reasonably assigned. Feminism spans a spectrum of viewpoint. Individual views of abortion and how people relate it to spirituality and morality, etc. spans a spectrum as well. I'm sure that there are feminists who opine that abortion is murderous, but, value individual freedoms above personal opinions.

Clearly, society does place a great deal of value on unborn human life as abortion rates continue to decline in the United States.

Approximately 91% of abortions are performed before 13 weeks gestation. Less than .5% of abortions occur during late term pregnancy. Biology is more apt to be the culprit behind the termination of a pregnancy than abortion. 1 in 4 women will lose their pregnancy due to naturally occurring miscarriage. I know these statistics well, having read them repeatedly while reading up on pregnancy stats during my own recent pregnancy.

The majority of pregnancies that are ended either naturally or via abortion occur long before the embryo has developed into a fetus, before the fetus is developed enough to sustain life independent of the mother and before science suggests that the neurological system is developed enough for the fetus to feel pain. Over half of the states within the US prohibit third trimester abortion.

Alot of the anti-abortion propaganda that I see is dishonest and promotes shaming and fear mongering. Abortion isn't something that women look forward to. It can be physically and emotionally traumatizing. What needs to shift is the dishonest projection of what abortion actually looks like in the United States. Restriction on reproductive rights is unconstitutional unless/until the rights of the fetus can be reasonably considered above the rights of its mother.

Dishonest would not be a correct word since the feminist and pro choice leaders did make these statements
the question is why and what does it mean

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

To be anti-abortion doesn't require a religious premise.
Some atheists are.

As an atheist myself, I am certainly not "pro-abortion." As a method of birth control I think it's appalling. But I have to concede that earlier on in the pregnancy, I defer to the wishes of the woman concerned and the circumstances she finds herself in -- and allow her to be the final arbiter.

I do wish that sex wasn't such a scary subject for so many people. I rather suspect that children brought up with healthy attitudes to natural functions of our own human nature might well have fewer unwanted pregnancies, rather than more. (Kind of like foie gras -- love it, but I know about the cholesterol and fat, and potential health issues at my age, so just a nibble, thanks.)

 

[columbus]

There may be many forms of pro choice and feminist positings, but Fay Waddleton a recent former head of Planned Parenthood or Naomi Wolf would be significant figures in those movements.


quote

Faye Wattleton, the longest reigning president of the largest abortion provider in the United States – Planned Parenthood – argued as far back as 1997 that everyone already knows that abortion kills. She proclaims the following in an interview with Ms. Magazine:

I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.
On the other side of the pond, Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the largest independent abortion provider in the UK, said this in a 2008 debate:

We can accept that the embryo is a living thing in the fact that it has a beating heart, that it has its own genetic system within it. It’s clearly human in the sense that it’s not a gerbil, and we can recognize that it is human life… the point is not when does human life begin, but when does it really begin to matter?
Naomi Wolf, a prominent feminist author and abortion supporter, makes a similar concession when she writes:

Clinging to a rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self-delusions, fibs and evasions. And we risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us with being: callous, selfish and casually destructive men and women who share a cheapened view of human life...we need to contextualize the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral framework that admits that the death of a fetus is a real death.

unquote


see article Medical Testimony

Ok.
So

he former head of planned parenthood , Fay Waddleton, admits pro choice people decieve themselves if they think people don't know abortion is murder.

was a misrepresentation of the person you quoted. She said "killing", which you changed to "murder".
Tom

 

[Revoltingest]

The secular left is pushing religious law?

Their own version, eg, forcing their own sense of charitable obligation upon others..

 

[dawny0826]

Dishonest would not be a correct word since the feminist and pro choice leaders did make these statements
the question is why and what does it mean

Abortion is a very serious choice, often with severe emotional and physical consequence. What evidence do you have of pro-choice feminists having refuted in the past or at present the fact that abortion is the termination of life?

You've replaced the word "killing" with "murder". Why?

There's a difference between being pro-choice and pro-abortion. I don't know any feminist who rallies for people to seek abortion. The purpose of pro-choice politics is to ensure that women are not denied reproductive choice and denied access to safe and accessible medical care when abortion is deemed their best option, given their circumstances.

We're being fed bull by pro-life advocates who present as if women are killing their almost full term babies at an alarming rate without any emotional consideration - without any consequence.

The statements that you've referenced indicate mindset that's been in place, but, has been undermined and ignored by those who ignorantly place emotion above rationality.

 

[sayak83]

There may be many forms of pro choice and feminist positings, but Fay Waddleton a recent former head of Planned Parenthood or Naomi Wolf would be significant figures in those movements.


quote

Faye Wattleton, the longest reigning president of the largest abortion provider in the United States – Planned Parenthood – argued as far back as 1997 that everyone already knows that abortion kills. She proclaims the following in an interview with Ms. Magazine:

I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.
On the other side of the pond, Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the largest independent abortion provider in the UK, said this in a 2008 debate:

We can accept that the embryo is a living thing in the fact that it has a beating heart, that it has its own genetic system within it. It’s clearly human in the sense that it’s not a gerbil, and we can recognize that it is human life… the point is not when does human life begin, but when does it really begin to matter?
Naomi Wolf, a prominent feminist author and abortion supporter, makes a similar concession when she writes:

Clinging to a rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self-delusions, fibs and evasions. And we risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us with being: callous, selfish and casually destructive men and women who share a cheapened view of human life...we need to contextualize the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral framework that admits that the death of a fetus is a real death.

unquote


see article Medical Testimony

When will folks like you realize that nobody is convinced by such obvious and dishonest quote-mining. Provide the links to the original statements in their entirety or nobody here will bother.