More from the Conservative Vent

Great Vent Lashawn. A very calm and intelligent conversation on very controversial subject. BTW you did great. Last time you said you were a little self-conscious. Don’t be. You have a very good presence on camera. Maybe we’ll see you as guest on Fox soon.

This is the thing the feminazis don’t understand: Four intelligent, thoughtful, reasonable women – who all happen to be beautiful as well! Makes me proud to be a female in 2006, elderly though I may be!

Feminists: you don’t have to smell badly, sound like fingernails on a blackboard and look like a reject from a trash dump in order to be taken seriously!

Excellent job!

“because she’s “poor.””

~Oh wait, you mentioned insane already.

This is what I posted on the feedback section of that episode of Hot Air TV:

So, what shall we call these ladies?

A) The Fantastic Four

B) The Dream Team

C) The Four Queens

D) All of the above

My choice: D) All of the above

Awesome Vent! LaShawn, I’m with you on the abortion issue. Way to go!

If the girl wasn’t charged because of her abortion “rights” why wasn’t the boyfriend charged with practicing medicine without a license?

Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Any thoughts on moving to Canada La Shawn?

Ooops…. I guess I’m post 18 now.

Kudos, La Shawn. You fearlessly told it like it is.

Congrats on having the courage to call abortion what it is — murder!

Prepare for a barrage of hate mail — though I sure you’re used to that.

Great job!

Hi, LaShawn, and congratulations for telling it like it is. Those who tell you that you should “soften” your words may not have heard of the spiritual works of mercy. One of them is “admonish the sinner,” and that is what you’re doing when you come right out and call abortion the murder it is. God bless you.

PS: If you want bonafides, check with The Anchoress; I post frequently at her blog.

La Shawn, I just “The Vent” Right on! I truly appreciated how you called things as they were. It’s a refreshing change from the euphemisms or glaring omissions the left offers. The woman who referred to her own child as a tick obviously is incapable of love.

The discussion is intelligent and strong, which is hard to find–it seems that the conservative women in the media are shrill, and elsewhere, it’s hard to find intelligent, intellectually curious women.

I, too, want to thank you for bringing up such an important issue.

If we as a society can come up with the notion that certain people are unworthy of the basic right of life, then NOBODY’S life is safe in the long run.

The reason for this lies in the very reasoning the pro-abortion advocates use to rationalize and excuse the act of taking an INNOCENT person’s life. If the pro-abortion advocates can get away with lying, deceiving and twisting facts, data and reality in order to achieve their objectives regarding aborting innocent life, then those that are NOT innocent may suffer the same fate in the future, regardless of the fact that the pro-abortion forces currently oppose capital punishment now.

Since their reasoning concerning the death of innocent life is illogical and otherwise completely flawed, then what would stop them from condemning innocent life OUTSIDE the womb at some point in the future?

When logic and reason no longer stand supreme, then ANYTHING is possible- maybe even probable. They will simple use common biases and prejudices of the masses within the framework of their lies and deceptions in order to brainwash people into justifying more killing of innocent life. Don’t bet your life it couldn’t happen here.

Great VIEW vent…you gals are awesome!! I sure hope you are able to keep this up. About the woman in Norfolk who shot her baby TWO hours before it was to be delivered…the JUDGE dropped all the charges on Friday. If any of you are fed up with the RP and thinking of sitting this one out..please don’t. We will just get more judges like this one. Linda S. in Va.

Denny (#32), you bring up a great point about how the pro-abortion folks would look at post-birth life. I’m always amazed to see that it’s the same people defending the “right to choose (to kill their baby)” and at the same time definding the “right to life” for murderers facing execution, because the murder might be innocent.

La Shawn, another great Vent! You’re simply the best.

Okay people, my views on abortion may be very conservative and informed by religious faith, but the sort of talk I see going on in these comments is the reason why I never like to discuss abortion with pro-lifers. The language becomes extreme and the logic strained. Abortion is NOT ALWAYS murder. Not by a long shot. That’s my first point. The second point is that many women have had abortions, some of whom now regret it and have repented but still feel a lot of pain and guilt, and some of whom had no choice for medical reasons, etc. And yet look at the way you talk about them, making blanket accusations! Would you like to come to this comments section and read these kinds of things if you were a woman in one of those two categories? Please, if you call yourselves people of faith, you need to find a way to convey the moral strength of your beliefs without causing harm to people. I am more with you than against you, but the extreme rhetoric isn’t really helpful and doesn’t even do much to further the cause to stop or at least decrease abortion.

Also, the woman who shot her baby to death is disgusting, as is the ruling that she did not commit murder but rather exercised her “choice.” I think we can all agree on that, HOWEVER, I am not at all sure that the judge had the option to rule differently, because currently, the laws on the books do not allow for murder charges when a fetus is killed. So maybe it is inappropriate to be angry with the judge. The laws need to be changed. I am not a lawyer so I don’t know for sure, but do you even know if the judge had the ability to rule this as a murder? Something to think about.

How can there be logic with this reality?

A woman has a premature birth in her dorm room, decides to dump the baby in a dumpster. Baby dies and she is charged and convicted of murder.

If that same woman, on the same day she gave premature birth, went to an abortion clinic and aborted the “fetus” would be praised for her clear-headed decision. It can’t be reconciled with logic. It seems that if you pay, with taxpayer’s dollars, the big abortion industry their money, they will leave you alone. If you cheat them of their abortion fee, they will punish you. It like mafia protection money, just pay the man and you will be “protected”.

For those who are interested, I copied and pasted the exact question currently before the Supreme Court regarding partial birth abortion. It is my understanding that proceedings will begin next month.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/qp/05-00380qp.pdf

The SCOTUS home page also includes a listing of all documents filed on this matter and who filed them.

This will certainly be a decision that will affect the future direction of this country.

Suek, don’t be silly. If you are really asking a serious question, then you desperately need more education.

There are many situations where abortion is necessary. It is not murder, but rather, killing in self defense. A woman who has a history of breast cancer and is at high risk for recurrence cannot be exposed to high levels of estrogen, because breast cancer is estrogen dependent. Pregnancy is a high estrogen state. It is absolutely dangerous for her. I knew an Orthodox woman who had dreamed of having 10 children — instead she found herself in the position of having to consult her rabbi and arrange for an abortion of an accidental pregnancy, because she was only one year out from chemotherapy and radiation and could not risk the estrogen of pregnancy. The doctors were not even sure if she would survive without the added stress of estrogen/pregnancy, much less adding those factors in.

There are women with cardiac conditions, kidney disease, liver disease, for whom pregnancy could likely be a death sentence. There are women who have an extreme form of “morning sickness” called hyperemesis gravidarum, which can be life threatening because it depletes electrolytes (which can lead to cardiac arrest) and causes liver stress. By the way, I have this condition when I am pregnant, so I know what I’m talking about. I have never had to abort because of it, but it sure is miserable and created a lot of health problems for me that continued for weeks after the pregnancies ended. Treated very aggressively in the hospital with a panopoly of medications and intravenous fluids to replace electrolytes, often the woman can get through this with her health intact, though she will absolutely feel miserable. It may last 2 months or it may last the entire 9 months. Sometimes the vomiting is so severe that esophogeal rupture occurs, and that in itself can kill you from hemorrhage. There are some women with intractable hyperemesis, which means that the medications and IV fluids just aren’t doing enough. The medications in themselves can cause liver failure, and the liver is already under stress from the high estrogen of pregnancy. I have also known women who aborted WANTED and PLANNED babies because of this condition, even though they were being treated very aggressively by knowledgeable doctors. (Sadly, some docs are stupid and women lose babies that could have been prevented if only they had been treated properly.)

In case you are wondering, I am a nurse so I’ve seen a lot — pregnancy just ain’t that “natural”. I know it feels good to have moral convictions and never waiver, but please, just don’t be IGNORANT. Pregnancy is not a safe condition for all women and it is sometimes necessary to end it which means, yes, killing the baby.

I’ve only touched upon physiological conditions and not mental health or trauma due to rape and incest, but will leave that since I doubt the crowd here is receptive to considering that issue.

It is true that MOST abortions do not fall under the medically necessary category, but that is NO EXCUSE for you, as commenters, to ignore the facts. Leave a little room in your thinking for such realities. Be aware that one reason why a segment of the population ignores your argument is because extreme, inflexible arguments based not on medical fact are not sound and intelligent; change that, and you will find that you have a LOT more power of persuasion. We need to end immoral abortions, but to do that, you need to be able to present yourselves as knowledgeable and thoughtful.

A few points:

– BB’s situation was grossly misprepresented in this segment. According to her blog posts, she called her own doctor and all the ERs in her area only to be told that most of them did not prescribe emergency contraception. She was also led to believe that those ERs that did prescribe emergency contraception would not prescribe them to HER because she was unmarried and because she hadn’t been raped. She couldn’t afford to pay a $100 copay to each ER in the hope that one of them might relent. Ultimately, she did obtain emergency contraception on the third day of pregnancy but it didn’t take. As a prior commenter noted, pregnancy would be dangerous and/or very difficult given her prior surgeries, not to mention that she can’t afford a fourth child.

– Under these circumstances, it makes sense for BB to be angry given that the ERs COULD have taken measures so that she wouldn’t have to have an abortion but declined to do so.

– As for the expressions of shock that BB isn’t agonizing about this more and the fact that she has “no shame,” well obviously BB does not view abortion as murder. Therefore, it wouldn’t make sense for her to feel shame if she doesn’t believe she is doing anything wrong. That’s the whole POINT of the divide on abortion. If pro-choicers believed abortion was murder, they wouldn’t be pro-choice.

– As for the references to Planned Parenthood, of COURSE they counsel women on all their options including adoption and parenthood. To suggest otherwise is a gross misrepresentation.

John, your point that MOST abortions are not done for medical reasons is well taken but please note that I stated this very point in my own comment.

Most abortions are done for immoral reasons. It would be great if we could influence society to change so that those pregnancies would not occur in the first place, but, barring that, it would also be nice to have restrictions placed on abortion so that women AND men are forced to deal with the consequences of their promiscuity and bad moral choices. (I’m on your side, hint, hint.) But what bothers me about many of the comments here, and even the way LaShawn dealt with the issue in her entry (LaShawn, I think the world of you, so grant me the right to give a little criticism) is that there is a very condemning and assuming attitude about women in general who have abortions. Remember that people hear you when you are talking at the office or in the elevator or they may even be sitting next to you in the pew at church; people read your comments on your blogs — some of those people are going to be men and women who lost babies that they wanted to medically necessary abortions. Would you like them to hear these kinds of comments, so that they can feel condemned on top of being reminded of their grief? I am sure that most of you are kind hearted people who don’t really think of such folks as murderers, but they don’t hear your inner thoughts; they hear what you say and they read what you write. They don’t know that you are really talking about those “other people” who have no moral justification.

And my last and most important point is that when you talk in such extreme ways, that all abortion is murder, then a large segment of the population turns a deaf ear to you. THAT IS NOT THE WAY TO WIN! Allow for situations in which abortion is not only permissable but mandated by a higher moral code. Be reasonable, speak reasonably, and you will have more power ultimately in this legal battle. Because the fact is, all abortion is never going to be outlawed in this country. No one is going to buy the perverted ethic that some prolifers are selling, which is that killing an innocent woman (i.e., letting her die) in order to avoid aborting her baby is preferable to aborting the baby instead. Of course, this whole idea is so absurd because if you kill the mother, the baby goes too. Yet I have heard some prolifers declare in all seriousness that abortion should never be allowed for medical reasons because “those medical reasons are just false anyway” and “you can’t be sure that the pregnant woman will die from her medical/pregnancy complications, so she should opt to continue the pregnancy and take her chances.” Hmmm. I certainly hope that I’ve just run into a few fringers of the prolife movement, but since I don’t see this issue even alluded to, much less intelligently and compassionately discussed in these comments, I’m feeling skeptical and pessimistic. When you don’t freely (not begrudgingly, but freely) allow for abortion in certain circumstances, the prolife argument stops sounding like a rational plea to return to Gd’s laws of sexual morality and sanctity of life, and more like the ravings and rantings of lunatics.

John, I have no idea what the statistics are. I’m sure they are out there if someone really wanted to find them, because doctors do record when an abortion of a wanted pregnancy is being done for medical reasons. I worked as a gynecology nurse for two years at a major state hospital/med school/research center, and while we had the usual run-of-the-mill irresponsible and promiscuous girls using abortion as birth control, we also had a fair number of medically complicated pregnancies that ended in an unwanted and heartbreaking abortion. We saw more of them because they were referred to our medical center for its expertise, so I’m not claiming that the numbers I saw were an accurate representation of all hospitals across the board, but I have to guess that there must be thousands and thousands of medically necessary abortions each year.

One last thing, there is a complication of pregnancy called HELLP which causes liver failure. It has a high mortality rate, sadly. It strikes usually in the second trimester, sometimes later, and ending the pregnancy, by either birth or abortion, is the only cure for it. I had a patient die of this condition when I was an ICU nurse. It was horribly traumatic for me (luckily, her baby had been born the month before and was healthy). It was a turning point in my career and was the beginning of the end — long story, but I felt I just couldn’t take the emotional stress of nursing anymore and seeing this young woman die was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I am sure she was given the option to abort when HELLP was diagnosed, and she continued the pregnancy. If it were me, I would have done the same thing. But is that a RATIONAL decision? Is it the morally right decision? We are dealing with infertility and I desperately want a baby so yeah, I’d risk my life to have one. That doesn’t make me more moral than the next woman; it just makes me a desperate infertile who yearns for a baby. I also don’t have small children at home who are relying on me. This woman had two small children at home PLUS the newborn she had just birthed. Three children are now motherless. Other children at home is also something that women with extreme pregnancy complications must consider when they are trying to decide whether the risk of THIS pregnancy is worth it, so please don’t ever smirk at the notion of medically necessary abortion or assume that these people are just looking for a convenient excuse to “kill their baby.”

>>…when you talk in such extreme ways, that all abortion is murder, then a large segment of the population turns a deaf ear to you.>>

The problem is that calling a voluntary “choice” abortion murder is not extreme. The problem is whether we define a foetus as a person who also has rights that should be protected by society. If the foetus is defined as a person – even if it’s determined to be a foetus past a particular point of development – then to kill it is a homocide. Whether that homocide is manslaughter or murder would be for the courts – or the law – to determine. If a foetus is not a person, what is it about birth that changes that condition? How can a viable foetus be a non-person at this instant, but a person at this other instant?

Gayle, I’m with you there. I would like to focus more effort on changing societal attitudes toward morality and sexuality than focuses just on stopping a woman from having an abortion. But I also understand that for those who believe it is absolute murder, then you can’t just stand around and “talk.” We need so much more than just outlawing on-demand abortion; we need a revolution, seriously.

Suek, the difference between a fetus and a born child is that the fetus still needs the mother in order to live, and the mother’s health and life is still potentially affected by the presence of the growing fetus. Once the baby is born, the woman is no longer pregnant, and therefore no justification for killing the baby can be based on the woman’s health. The baby also doesn’t need her either, as someone else can step in and provide for the baby’s needs.

If a man in a tower is shooting bullets on the people below, can we shoot him to kill him? Of course, because we want to prevent him from causing further death and destruction. We would rather stop him before he can hurt anybody, put him in psychological counselling, try to appeal to whatever conscience he has, hope he will repent and turn his life around and not repeat that behavior. But sometimes, you just have to act fast and shoot the shooter, in order to save the lives below. What is the difference between the shooter and the guy down below? Aren’t they both men? Aren’t both of their lives valuable? Yes, but one is threatening the life of the other. That is the difference. Perhaps the shooter isn’t even a criminal; perhaps he’s having a bad reaction to a new medication that is causing him to have hallucinations. He’s really innocent, a good guy, but just doesn’t know what he’s doing. Nonetheless, HE IS A DANGER TO OTHERS. A sweet little baby doesn’t mean to kill his mother, but he can’t help it that his existence is posing a serious threat to her life. We have to stop him in order to save her. It doesn’t mean that we think he is a guilty bad person who deserves to die!

Suek, your definition of abortion is not accurate even if we give it a lot of latitude for being a “layman’s definition.” Simply put, an abortion is the expulsion of the fetus from the womb. It can be spontaneous, as in what we commonly call a miscarriage but is in medical terms a “spontaneous abortion,” or it can be a medically induced abortion. That’s all there is to the definition. There is no other, distinct, different word for an abortion that the mother did not want but needs for medical reasons. An abortion is an abortion, period, and the definition has nothing to do with the woman’s personal feelings or motivations. Furthermore, women with medical conditions that may be exacerbated by pregnancy ARE given a choice! It is still voluntary, even for them. There is not a doctor in the land that will strap a woman to the table and perform an abortion while saying “I’m doing this to save your life.” Women still have the option to take the risk with their health and their lives and try to bring that pregnancy to term. I have also known of women who wanted to continue their pregnancy even though conception had coincided with a new diagnosis of cancer, delaying chemotherapy and radiation until after the baby was born. Sometimes they die during pregnancy, if the cancer is fast growing, or sometimes they are able to have the baby and then die, because the cancer has progressed too far by that point to respond to treatment. In some other lucky cases, both baby and mom come out just fine and everyone is really happy that she took the risk.

The medical scenarios are very complicated and individual and in many cases, there is no way that a doctor can know for sure that a woman will absolutely, positively croak if she continues that pregnancy. He can only make the best prognosis that he can given the knowledge that he has. The numbers of medically necessary abortions are small compared to the numbers of women having abortions for no other reason than that they do not want to be pregnant or have a baby; I have conceded this many times. But when you use the word “abortion” you have to use it responsibly and not assume that everyone is buying into the “layman’s” definition, because I can tell you, they aren’t!! I certainly don’t accept that definition and it is not medically accurate either.

When you go to lobby Washington, and you take a firm position that you oppose ALL abortion, no one can read your mind and know that in reality, you actually have all these “exceptions” that you would allow, too. When people who have lost babies overhear you talking with firm conviction, they also don’t know that in your heart, you understand the decision they had to make and that you bless them. I understand the appeal of taking a stand and verbalizing an intention of not allowing any exceptions, but that is not really being moral; that’s just being dangerously radical and in its own way, immoral. I always get the feeling that prolifers are terrified of openly stating that they understand that sometimes abortion is necessary, because they fear the “grey areas.” But you should NOT be afraid of this. As I keep saying, it will only strengthen your position as you try to limit or do away with abortion on demand when you present a reasonable argument.

And certainly the refusal of the blogger’s health care provider and local ERs to dispense emergency contraception has caused the blogger to seek an abortion that otherwise would have been unnecessary.

Although some pro-choicers believe otherwise, to me it comes down to whether the fetus is a human being. I do not believe that the fetus becomes a human being until later in the pregnancy (after the mother’s body has done quite a bit of work to nurture the fetus’s development). If the pro-life movement were less absolutist in terms of considering ALL abortion murder regardless of the stage of pregnancy, I would be open to an honest discussion of whether the second trimester dividing line is appropriate.

But, certainly, at the earliest stages of preganancy, when the fetus has no consciousness, no feelings, and no past, I cannot consider it human and therefore I am able to fully back the notion of “abortion on demand.” If one believes that abortion is a medical procedure rather than a murder, abortion on demand isn’t even remotely shocking.

>> By asserting that the shooter is not a criminal, I mean that he has no criminal intent.>>

Intention is not relevant. The actions are.

>>“You continue to focus on the foetus who endangers it’s mother’s life.”

Yes, because that’s what I’m talking about!!!!!

“Most abortions do _not_ carry that liability.”

Yes, I’ve said this how many times now?>>

So why do you still approach the problem as if medical abortions were predominant and therefore excuses all abortions?

>>When did we start talking about aborting viable babies? I certainly never did! I thought we were talking about abortion prior to viability.>>

So…if we could find a point at which viability could be considered to be determined (which I admit in advance is something of a problem), would you agree that prior to that point, abortion is not murder, but after that point, it is?

>>Wrong. I know some who insist that the mothership must go down, even if the baby goes down with her.>>

And there are right to choosers who would defend the right to abort while a woman is having labor pains. Can we agree that there are extremists on both sides? Would you agree that aborting a fully viable baby for reasons other than medical is murder?

>>…some abortions are, indeed, morally mandated.>>

Permissable, I agree. Mandated – never.

I think that a lot of the problem is not clearly differentiating between the moral and the legal. There are clearly some actions that may br legal, but which are immoral. Some actions may be moral, but are still illegal.

La Shawn, have you checked out the response ad to Michael J. Fox’s stem cell pitch? It is awesome! I am so glad somebody responded!