Battle Over The Aurora Planned Parenthood: Is God Pro-Choice?

Not to completely hijack this thread, but a quick comment to Suzanne-

No pro-lifer wants to deny women access to pap smears and other legitimate feminine tests necessary for her well-being.  However, there is nothing "healthy" about terminating a pregnancy, and in fact, the results are positively fatal for every "successful" abortion.

Yes, some abortion clinics do perform legitimate tests, such as pap smears.  Does that mean we should allow them to continue to operate?  Would a hospital that cures 50% of their patients but executes the other half remain open?  -Of course not.

Your inference that these normal tests somehow lend themselves to the legitimacy of abortion is bogus and disingenuous, and you know it.  No pro-lifer objects to a woman's right to a pap smear or other such normal test and treatment.  Why not just eliminate abortion so women will have as many options for legitimate health care as they do now?

No one has the right to take anothers life.................NO ONE!!!!!!

If you are a Christian, nothing else comes before that.....NOTHING   NOT family, Not friends, Not skin color, Not money, Not politics, Not a job................ NOTHING>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>AT>>>>>>>>>>>>>>ALL !!!!!

GOD is our Judge!  What will we all  say when we stand before him? Oh I love you God, but I supported killing 100000000 babies but I did save some other lifes.......I know God does not work like that!

Please, in the name of God reconsider what you are doing or thinking and ask God to forgive you please.

I will post a TRUE STORY that will rock your world and maybe change the way you think. As soon as I finish typing it I will post it. So keep your eye out for it. Thanks 

             In Christian love, Kandi

Basic embryology tells us what abortion is - it's taking the life of
another human being.  To assume God is pro-choice is to say the truths we know through science are false.  You can nuance it, qualify it, do whatever you
want to it in your mind in an attempt to leverage your conscience into
thinking the procedure is actually acceptable, but you're only fooling yourself.  And, you're certainly not fooling God.

If you are truly a Christian, you are a Christian before you are a
democrat, republican, American, man, woman, black, white, red, etc.  Being a
Christian trumps all of those things.  There's no such thing as a part-time Christian.  It may be possible to be a good person part of most of the time, but being a Christian means you strive to model your life as Christ did, 100% of the time.

The biggest challenge of Christianity is restraining yourself from what want to be right and just (abortion) and what actually is right and just.  Temptation will try to muddy the issue so that you can live with your conscience peacefully.  You may get through the rest of your life coping with your excuses, but how will they hold up when you stand before God?  Do all the good things you've done in your life offset the destruction of God's most innocent and helpless children?  Does voting for a politician that wants to provide you healthcare offset this mass destruction of innocent life?  Think about it.

 This is a touchy subject but where I draw the line is when people start telling other people they are not Christian.  That is not your job nor your right!

~Susan

http://lilmomthatcould.com/

The idea that abortion is a religious argument is a ruse propped up by the billion dollar abortion industry in order to keep themselves in business.  Go out to your library, pick up an embryology textbook and see when it says human life begins.

Most evangelicals vote pro-life because they are simply acknowledging and affirming what all of us know to be true through medical science, and therefore, cannot in clean conscience vote for an abortion rights politician.

If you are truly a Christian, as you claim, you should ask yourself this: do you honestly think Christ would support abortion?  If you are open and honest with your conscience, the answer is obviously, no.  Remember, Jeremiah 1:5, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you"

Do you consider yourself a Christian before you're an American?  Because, if it's the other way around, you are not a Christian at all.  Do you think Christ asks you to carry his cross everywhere except in the voting booth?

If you think abortion is just one issue among many, consider this: without the right to life, there are no rights at all.  The "best" healthcare, energy policies, job markets, etc. do nothing for someone who never gets to see the light of day.

I hope you think about these things and reconsider your position.

A few weeks ago I saw a bumper sticker that said

"Freedom of Religion means all religions."

Jim Heivilin

Hi Suzanne. You make an excellent point...So many children don't even get what I would consider basic human rights (health care, safe home, and quality education). It's so sad that even in our country so many children are neglected and abused, this is an area that could use some of the attention and money that is being spent protesting at women's health clinics. There are actual children out there that really need help, just getting born doesn't assure any kind of quality of life for these children.

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
also at Women 4 Hope ( http://women4hope.wordpress.com/ ) and CatherineBlogs.com ( http://www.catherineblogs.com/ )

While many people have different beliefs about when life begins based on different religious teachings and different scientific measures (hence you call a fetus a child and I call call it what it technically is - blastocyst, zygote, fetus, etc.), I personally believe that the right to life begins at (or very near) birth, and that right includes:
1. Health care
2. Safe housing
3. Quality education

I am fully prepared to support each child's right to life when he/she is born.

Suzanne Reisman ( http://www.blogher.com/member/suzanne ), Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender ( http://www.blogher.com/topic/feminism-gender )
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS)& Other Rants ( http://cussandotherrants.com/ )

Hi Dana.

I'm Catholic too, but I still have trouble assuming that I or any other mere mortal (Christian or otherwise) can speak to what "God would prefer".

Religion is a wonderful thing, but no one belief should rule over all others...God gave us free will, but he didn't make us the judge and jury of each others choices. Each one of us should do what is right for us, and not judge others over the choices they make.

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
also at Women 4 Hope ( http://women4hope.wordpress.com/ ) and CatherineBlogs.com ( http://www.catherineblogs.com/ )

Suzanne, you said "but I do believe that women have the right to health care and to life."

Don't unborn humans have the right to life, too?

I don't have a problem with women using birth control -- even though as a Catholic I'm supposed to be against the pill. I like to rationalize that God would prefer that an egg not be fertilized than an abortion be performed.

Why do we as women feel we have the right to choose which child will live and which will be terminated?

I agree. You really do get the impression that people who consider themselves "pro-life", are really just "pro-forcing their religious beliefs on others".

Thanks for your comment.

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
also at Women 4 Hope ( http://women4hope.wordpress.com/ ) and CatherineBlogs.com ( http://www.catherineblogs.com/ )

I also appreciate this post.

Personally I think God is "Pro-People". However he does give us the opportunity to both make bad choices (hurting people, especially people who are trying to help others) as well as good ones (like PP and you guys).

I prefer to refer to these people, who call themselves "Pro-life" as proponents of Forced Pregnancy rather than Pro-Life. I want to say Suzanne was the one who coined the phrase but I don't recall offhand. (so by this logic Pro-Life is also Pro-Choice)

Jim Heivilin

I'm glad you like the post, thanks for the comment.

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
also at Women 4 Hope ( http://women4hope.wordpress.com/ ) and CatherineBlogs.com ( http://www.catherineblogs.com/ )

This post makes me want to run out and offer my services to Planned Parenthood. You sum it all up very nicely in this overview.

And I would add to the excellent points that you and Suzanne had made that I would not be surprised if the protesters succeeded in increasing the numbers of later term abortions...

laurie
www.notjustaboutcancer.blogspot.com ( http://www.notjustaboutcancer.blogspot.com )

Hi Suzanne. When I wrote this post last night, I didn't intend for it to focus so much on the pro-life issue of the controversy. In fact I had a whole post completed and ready to post at about 1am and when I tried to add a picture I lost the entire thing (links and all). After almost an hour of trying to figure out a way to get it back, I gave-up and started writing a new post...and this was the outcome.

Anyway, I agree with you 100%. Planned Parenthood provides so many important services to women, and I think the protesters just choose to blindly overlook that in order to promote their "anti-choice" agenda.

Not only are your statistics absolutely right...but it's also proven that many more abortions take place when low income women don't have access to birth control. So when you think about it that way, the protesters are actually contributing to an increased need for abortions, by denying Planned Parenthood's ability to open and dispense birth control to women who need it.

Thanks for your comments.

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
also at Women 4 Hope ( http://women4hope.wordpress.com/ ) and CatherineBlogs.com ( http://www.catherineblogs.com/ )

I don't believe in "God" as traditionally defined by mainstream religions, but I do believe that women have the right to health care and to life. And setting aside the issue of abortion for the moment, it is clear that preventing the Planned Parenthood in Aurora from operating is endangering the lives of women. For example, if women don't have access to pap smears, they won't be able to detect and treat cervical cancer. According to the American Cancer Society ( http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_... ), approximately 3,700 women will die of cervical cancer in 2007. Further:

The cervical cancer death rate declined by 74% between 1955 and 1992. The main reason for this change is the increased use of the Pap test. This screening procedure can find changes in the cervix before cancer develops. It can also find early cancer in its most curable stage. The death rate from cervical cancer continues to decline by nearly 4% a year.

So it is clear that pap smears save lives. It is thus pro-life to want women to have access to pap smears. Shutting down a clinic that provides this life-saving test to many who would not otherwise access it is pretty hypocritical.

Taking the cervical cancer analogy to its logical conclusion, I assume that anyone who is trying to "save lives" by keeping this clinic closed supports universal health insurance. Because once a woman is diagnosed with cervical cancer, she's going to need treatment to save her life. And if she has no other access to pap smears other than through Planned Parenthood, I'm willing to be she has no insurance since they offer the tests to people who otherwise can't get one elsewhere because they can't afford.

There are many ways to be pro-life. I proudly define myself as a person who saves the lives of women, and I am sure if there is a God, the God would approve of that.

Suzanne Reisman ( http://www.blogher.com/member/suzanne ), Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender ( http://www.blogher.com/topic/feminism-gender )
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS)& Other Rants ( http://cussandotherrants.com/ )