Somebody Tell Me I'm Wrong

[Socrates]

[quote name='jaime' timestamp='1351446159' post='2499157']

personally I think the biggest enemy of the Pro-life movement is pro-lifers. Too many of us focus on fetus and nothing after. Too many of us want to tell a teenage girl not to have an abortion and still want the right to call her a whore and a deadbeat when she needs help. Too many would rather sit in a room with other pro-life people and do exactly what we are doing on phatmass. Too many of us want to preach to the choir.

I think if we talked more about respecting women, supporting them when they have a child, helping them to find a way to a better life, we would have more pro-choice people supporting our efforts.
[/quote]
Pretty much all the people I've seen running pregnancy centers and doing other work to help women in difficult pregnancies have been pro-lifers. And I've yet to hear a pro-lifer calling a woman a whore (outside of that dumb Everlast song).

Can we all be doing more? Absolutely.

I just get tired of people falsely complaining about pro-lifers as a group as being awful heartless people who don't care about women.

[Ash Wednesday]

In my personal experience, lot of fiercely pro-life people I know that feel very strongly about pro-life legislation also do a lot of volunteer work. My mom volunteered at a pro-life pregnancy care center but nobody really knew about it at all until they told me after she died.

In the end, yes, legislation, helping people understand the gravity of issue, AND compassionate service all have to go hand in hand.

I don't think it's that pro-life people don't care about quality of life for women and children during or after pregnancy, I think people just have a hard time agreeing on how those issues should be resolved -- in the case of Dems or GOP, whether that's best done privately or if it's a government matter.

[To Jesus Through Mary]

[quote name='Ash Wednesday' timestamp='1351474738' post='2499400']
In my personal experience, lot of fiercely pro-life people I know that feel very strongly about pro-life legislation also do a lot of volunteer work. My mom volunteered at a pro-life pregnancy care center but nobody really knew about it at all until they told me after she died.

[b]In the end, yes, legislation, helping people understand the gravity of issue, AND compassionate service all have to go hand in hand.[/b]

I don't think it's that pro-life people don't care about quality of life for women and children during or after pregnancy, I think people just have a hard time agreeing on how those issues should be resolved -- in the case of Dems or GOP, whether that's best done privately or if it's a government matter.
[/quote]

Props- very nicely worded and spot on.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Anomaly' timestamp='1351180495' post='2497542']
The Federal Government is not the Do-All and End-All solution to these issues. The problem of Abortion is not going to be solved if a law preventing it was enacted this afternoon. The problem of Abortion isn't that it's legal, it's because people see it as the only solution to a difficulty. Real assistance with money, support, a shoulder, a sympathetic ear, will never be provided by a Government Agency. The Righteous People who shun the un-wed mother in the Church Community, who gossips about the pregnant teen, who kicks their daughter out of the house because she's having sex, who views a bastard as a different class of person are the fundamental reasons why people turn to abortion. What flooping law fixes that?
[/quote]i mostly agree with you, Jaime. I don't think the Government will ever be able to solve the problem of abortion. It can only aid abortion by making it a legal and easy choice. The mother is always the one with the ability to make the choice. It's our attitudes and actions in society that help determine the difficulty of the decisions. I've never seen a pro-abortionist throw their daughter out for bringing shame because the alternative is quicker and easier.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

I don't think your doing anything wrong by voting for a third party. It's your choice, and if that third part gets a few seats in the senate they can have a say, i'm guessing thats how your system works. But than again i'm toatally unsure.

[Aloysius]

nah, that's not how it works in the US. the US system is unfavorable towards third parties.

there are pros and cons to the US system, but I don't think it should be converted to a more European style favorable-to-third-parties system, at least on the Federal level. Well, I don't think it really could be without screwing up the principals of our governance. The House of Representatives is supposed to consist of representatives from 435 small districts around the United States--they're meant to represent the people of those districts and therefore should each be decided at the level of selection closest to those districts. The Senate is supposed to have 2 representatives from each of the 50 states, those are supposed to represent the states themselves (and used to be decided by the state legislatures, but are now decided by popular vote in the state)... I can't see how we could possibly do proportional representation by party without destroying the principals under which the members are elected. funnily enough the system was made this way largely because the founders didn't like political parties and therefore didn't set up a system which actually acknowledged them, so the parties are erected more or less outside of the framework of the government rather than within the framework of a government as you have in systems where a certain party wins seats rather than a certain individual member of a party winning the seat.

best one could hope for in a third party is a substantial enough showing that they get to participate in Federal funding next time around... something like 5% of the vote would qualify them for that.

so the only point of withholding one's

but of course, the point of jaime's thread is not about politics; it's about why we expend so much more energy debating politics and forget that the much more substantial thing to do than the currently hopelessly fruitless political process is to volunteer and/or donate in the substantial charity work done to curb the evils of abortion.

Edited October 30, 2012 by Aloysius

[Adrestia]

[quote name='jaime' timestamp='1351446159' post='2499157']
I think if we talked more about respecting women, supporting them when they have a child, helping them to find a way to a better life, we would have more pro-choice people supporting our efforts.
[/quote]

I seriously doubt this would happen. One of my friends, who is ardently pro-choice, compared the commitment of the pro-choice organizations (like NARAL) to the NRA - she said that they wouldn't support anything associated with pro-life organizations because they are afraid that if they give an inch they will lose a mile. These are her words, and they are just the opinion of one person, but she is very plugged in to that community.

We agree that abortion is bad and we both want demand for abortion to be reduced by supporting women, but she doubts that any pro-choice group would work with a pro-life group to reduce demand.

[PhuturePriest]

You're wrong. Weep in a corner and give up your man badge.

But I agree. We should share our pro-life activism stories and share how it impacted us and others, rather than tear each other to shreds about it.

[Jaime]

[quote name='Adrestia' timestamp='1351619061' post='2500390']

I seriously doubt this would happen. One of my friends, who is ardently pro-choice, compared the commitment of the pro-choice organizations (like NARAL) to the NRA - she said that they wouldn't support anything associated with pro-life organizations because they are afraid that if they give an inch they will lose a mile. These are her words, and they are just the opinion of one person, but she is very plugged in to that community.

We agree that abortion is bad and we both want demand for abortion to be reduced by supporting women, but she doubts that any pro-choice group would work with a pro-life group to reduce demand.
[/quote]

When I ran the counseling center, I had ardent pro-choice people giving donations because of what I was focusing on

[quote name='FuturePriest387' timestamp='1351619863' post='2500401']
You're wrong. Weep in a corner and give up your man badge.

But I agree. We should share our pro-life activism stories and share how it impacted us and others, rather than tear each other to shreds about it.
[/quote]


At least I'm old enough to own a man badge

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1351446894' post='2499165']
Sounds similar to what someone said in the second presidential debate:

[i]"But let me mention another thing. And that is parents. We need moms and dads, helping to raise kids. Wherever possible the -- the benefit of having two parents in the home, and that's not always possible. A lot of great single moms, single dads. But gosh to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone, that's a great idea. Because if there's a two parent family, the prospect of living in poverty goes down dramatically. The opportunities that the child will -- will be able to achieve increase dramatically. So we can make changes in the way our culture works to help bring people away from violence and give them opportunity..."[/i]

I'll let you take a guess on whether it was Obama or Romney who said it.
[/quote]

Of course, im pretty sure that was romney's answer to gun control... which makes it seem much more like a dodge from a tough question.

[Adrestia]

Donations from individuals or groups?

[Jaime]

[quote name='Adrestia' timestamp='1351682799' post='2501049']
Donations from individuals or groups?
[/quote]

I had pro-choice poeple give donations to my pro-life pregnancy counseling center.