sweasel.com

My reasoning: The human, at it’s first stage of development – conception – has it’s own unique DNA/characteristics that it will have at birth and that it will have when it gets married or when it retires.
That DNA can be distinguished from a chicken’s or a sea sponge, as a human.
Abortion is killing a human at some stage in it’s development. Abortion harms women psychologically as it is against (most) their hormonal/genetic programming. It isn’t natural for a (most) woman to destroy her young.

Embryonic stem cell research has resulted in tumors. Subsidizing it when private companies won’t touch it should tell you everything you need to know about the success of embryonic stem cells in the lab. It is just another tactic to keep abortion justified.

McCain needs some fiber.

You beat me to it porknbean. That’s my reasoning too.

I believe abortion should be legal only in cases of rape, incest, or where the life of the mother is threatened and the fetus is not far enough along to survive outside the womb, but ONLY under those circumstances.

I was 13 when Roe v. Wade came down. My feelings on abortion were strongly colored by my terror of teenage pregnancy (which terror helped me keep my knees together better than girls manage these days, incidentally).

I get more protective of life as I get older. I’m horrified at the number of well-educated women I’ve known who have used abortion in lieu of birth control, for example — a carelessness that is inexcusable.

I’m still not quite in favor of a blanket ban, but I’m absolutely opposed to Roe v Wade and have been all along. It was a terrible blunder. An awful precedent, reading pretend rights into the Constitution. And an unbelievably arrogant act on the part of the court. Rolling it back wouldn’t make abortion illegal; it would push the decision back to the state level, where we were 35 years ago. So I’m guessing it would end up legal in New York, not so much in Alabama.

For me, it always seemed like abortion benefits men much more than it benefits women.
It’s laughable to me that it’s a feminist issue, because it’s only made it easier for guys to get laid without consequence or much effort, and much easier to avoid that chick from the bar last week.

What a woman does with her body is her business. My objection to abortion is qualified by the age of the fetus (I oppose late-term abortions that require actual dismemberment of the fetus prior to removal, and I admit this is probably purely an emotional response), and I oppose state funding for abortions (since taking money from me for anything makes that endeavor my business). Outside of that, as I said, its the individual woman’s bidness.

As far as the psychological damage that a woman may be doing to herself by having an abortion, so what? People do psychological (and physical) damage to themselves all the time. We’re not a particularly bright bunch.

Don’t care what a woman does with her body, the question is…at what point is a fetus no longer part of its mother’s body? The problem with using viability outside the womb as a test of this is that it keeps moving as our medical technologies improve. That makes me philosophically…uncomfortable.

The ‘psychological damage’ observation was a hypothetical; a way someone might justify being anti-abortion but pro-fetal stem cell research. Not my opinion.

Oh, I wasn’t contesting what I suspected was your opinion (which I didn’t, anyway), Weaz, just stating mine. I’m with you on the viability issue, but again, I have a hard time telling someone what they can or cannot do with their body, even if it is the host to a prospective human being.

Of course, I’ve never examined the relationship of my thoughts on abortion with my belief that our herd doesn’t get nearly enough culling.

…and btw: I keep clicking on that “Screwed up” thing and—no joy: I’m still screwed up.

Apropos to nothing whatsoever: I’m wondering if any you fine folks know of which ballpoint pens are the best. I want something that’s good, writes on a variety of surfaces, and that I can have five or six of in case I lose one.

I recommend clicky-tops.

The rest of the peeps in our office will use them too. (There is a grand total of 3 of us in the entire company.)

The pens we have right now are downright horrible. 90% of them don’t work. Most that do, work badly. We have very few good pens, which are kept safely in drawers and used only when a good pen is needed (like, when a document has to be signed). The pens we have were ones we commissioned from those “put your company name on the pen!” companies. At home I have a box (actually, three boxes) of generic ballpoint pens, but most don’t work either.

Interestingly, the non-expensive pens we have that do work well are all from vendors, the type people hand out at conventions and exhibitions.

I thought the gel ink, or whatever, would be nice, but they don’t work on certain types of glossy paper.

I personally usually use a fountain pen. I bought a Conklin fountain pen and ballpoint pen set, but the fountain pen hardly works. I don’t want to use my other two fountain pens all the time: they’re too good. I did get a Pelikan fountain pen…maybe I should use that more.

re: stem cell research, I just like to piss off liberals by making the fiscal argument: it’s just another subsidy the gubmint shouldn’t be engaged in. That way, I get to stay conservative and kick the prickly moral can down the road. Courage.

Of course, I’ve never examined the relationship of my thoughts on abortion with my belief that our herd doesn’t get nearly enough culling.

I say leave the innocent and the most vulnerable alone.

On the other hand, I am fine with postpartum abortion to those members of society who prove that they cannot play nice in society by screwing/molesting children, murder, genocide, and fucking up nations. Starting with some members in congress.

at what point is a fetus no longer part of its mother’s body?

Said fetus is a separate being via it’s genetic makeup at conception.

I was pro-choice, ‘it’s my body and noone can tell me what to do with it’ (not that I would put myself in that position since I was having a hard enough time taking care of myself), until I was 19. One day, while walking across campus, someone passed me a pamphlet on ‘choice’. In it were pictures of aborted babies and my opinion did a 180 so fast I felt the room spin. When you are not shown the reality, it is easy to look the other way. Why do you think newspapers refuse pro-life ads?

Since then and since having been pregnant and feeling that life, my opinion has solidified. I knew my kids before they were born. They didn’t like loud noises. One liked being tickled, the other not so much. One was mellow. One feisty -a noise or me being upset with something would set her off, that sometimes I had to pat her gently to calm her down. They haven’t changed. And for the two I lost, I think of them sometimes. I would have never forgiven myself if it was by my hand they perished.

it always seemed like abortion benefits men much more than it benefits women.

The biggest supporters of abortion are males from the age of 16-50. Most abortionists are men. More women than men want restrictions on abortions.

I agree that it’s a very personal thing, opinion on abortion. Even leaving out the “spiritual” argument, it’s undeniable that the fetus is a living human being (and as far as the viability argument goes, babies born normally are not truly viable; they require constant care for a years), even when it’s just a couple of cells.

A cousin of mine paid a lot of money going to fertility clinics so he and his wife could have a natural child. It worked. (Well, sort of. Their daughter has significant developmental issues.) Hearing their ordeal made me quite sad at those who can easily have a child but then want to get rid of it. Hearing/reading pregnant mothers talking about their unborn child as “my baby” also makes me queasy about the abortion of pregnancies.

Regarding the stem cells issue: the American Diabetes Association is one the organizations that is at the forefront of pushing stem cell research. Especially embryonic. They seem to ignore that the most progress made thus far was from non-embryonic sources. ADA routinely sends kids (kids with diabetes or kids who know people with diabetes) to Congresspeople to lobby for embryonic stem cell research. Vile.

When does a fetus become a human?
At 20 years of age when he moves out.

But what about the ballpoint pens?

Re: ballpoint pens. Yes, indeed. I am still confused as to what to do. Help a clueless person out, folkses.

Well, it’s funny that should come up. Somebody came by my desk today and dropped two new ballpoint pens on my desk, and they’re .5mm. That’s a breakthrough, I think. Up to now, .7 mm is as small as they’ve been able to go. I love fine point pens.

But I’m sorry, Musli — I gather they’re gel. At that size, it’s hard to tell, but if they won’t write on stuff, they won’t write on stuff.

And I’m a little hesitant to lay out my beliefs in broader terms, because I’m sure it seems morally bankrupt to the religious, but I’m actually more concerned about pain than death. I would like to know if babies of legally abortable age can feel pain. I’d like to see us medicate for pain just on spec, but of course we won’t. The implications are too awful.

Whenever we learn something new about infants, it’s to revive downward the age at which they are aware of things.

I was going through the Joon pens website. Oh, I have sinned. Sinned, indeed. Greed. Lust. Envy. I want!

Good points, Your Grace.

Oh, my. Those are some beautiful pens, Musli.

AoS just posted that Arthur C Clarke bit the dust. Rats.

Don’t you pay that Weasel no heed, Muslihoon! She knows nuffink about good pens! In fact she buys the cheapest she can get then butchers their nibs with savage implements, so she can write in a tiny, thin scrawl that looks like the writhings of a mortally wounded spider!

I, let it be said, write so badly that I should have been issued with an MD at the age of five. Even when I print, people look like they have been handed something written by a drunken Chinaman.

Good ballpoints? Funnily enough, the smoothest writing I ever had was a Papermate. Fabulous pens – write on anything!

Uncle B: What type of Papermate, if I may ask?

I don’t think it actually matters with Papermates (or most ballpoints, come to that). For the most part you get the same refill, whatever pen you put it in. Essentially, it’s the refill that does the work, so as long as the grip, look and feel of the pen is right, you really need to decide whose ink system you like. Cross, for example, which is often reckoned to be a top brand, always seem dry and scratchy to me and Parker too blobby. Those essentials are characteristic of the ink system, not the pen.

But each to his own 🙂

Well, I’ll be damned! Who knew Uncle B paid the slightest attention at all to writing instrument technology? Why, that’s just plain touching in its pointlessness.

One of my first memories of our time together was an attempt to interpret one of his shopping lists (which he wrote, as he always does, on a sliver of shirt cardboard).

We’ll always have “hibeans and spoo.”

Musli, I am a big fan of Sanford Uniball Micro. I can’t find them on the Uniball website, but they do have a pen chooser application thingy.

The Uniballs are nice. But it’s hard to draw stuff like this with them. If that’s a consideration at all. 🙂

I like a Pilot fine point. Seems Target and Wallyworld only carry them at back-to-school time.

Thank ye all!

I can’t tell you how many people I know who’ve had abortions because having that kid (as far as they were concerned) would have really fucked up their lives.

I can’t tell you how many people I know who would do anything to have a baby, but the availability of healthy newborns is slim to none.

I have a girlfriend who’s had two abortions because she felt she was too young, but decided to have the next pregnancy 9 months later. Apparenlty she matured in that time.

It’s a shame people use it for birth control. It’s selfish to extinguish a beating heart becauseyou don’t want to be inconvenienced.

Dang I knew I should have read the comment thread, we’re already onto pens now.

🙂

I do not know anyone who aborted a pregnancy. I don’t know if I could still be friends with someone who did it for capricious reasons.

So, PJM: which pen do you like best?

Actually, we’re sort of back and forth from pens to abortion. And it’s working.

I love you guys…

I like pens with ink best.

Wow, that whole click to edit things is cool.

So I can say FUCK OFF EVERYONE!!!! You’re all a bunch of scandi whores and I have almost 15 mins. to delete it?

SWEET

delete, delete, delete……….dammit!

um, oooops! apparently I have to put something in place I can’t just leave it blank.

This is what happens when the special ed class gets access to computers.

*blushes

Hehehehehehe.

The edit thing doesn’t show up when I comment from my phone. I enabled pictures and the whole whazoo on my phone and my phone browser crashed the phone OS.