True or False -- an email to your "pro-life buddies"

[Czolgosz]

True or False?

1. Some people think abortion is murder.
2. They therefore think abortion should be made illegal.
3. They consider themselves “pro life”.
4. Many "pro-lifers" support George Bush for President of the United States.
5. Many people think George Bush is the “pro life” candidate.
6. George Bush has been president for three and a half years.
7. During his presidency, there has been a voting Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.
8. During his presidency, there has been a voting Republican majority in the U.S. House.
9. During his presidency, there has been a voting majority of Republican appointees on the U.S. Supreme Court.
10. Not once during his presidency has Bush advocated a Constitutional amendment to ban abortion.
11. He could have.
12. Not once during his administration has Bush floated a bill to make abortion illegal, other than the so-called “late term abortion” bill.
13. He could have.
14. Not once during his administration has Bush stated in a press conference that he would like to make abortion illegal.
15. There is a voting majority in the U.S. who favor abortion being legal.
16. John Kerry espouses the majority position on abortion.
17. George Bush also espouses the majority position on abortion.
18. As Governor of Texas, George Bush presided over a dramatic increase in the use of capital punishment.

Did I miss anything?

[jean]

yes - just today, Al Franken and a guest quoted stats that abortions

have increased under bush and were extremely low during Clinton's years.

[Howardx]

1. i prefer the term "anti choice"

to "pro life" myself;)

[Czolgosz]

4. Me too, that's why I put "pro-life" in quotes

[KittyWampus]

8. How About "Fetus Worshippers"

[Jo March]

9. Ask the "pro-lifers" these two questions:

1. "Are you for the death penalty?" They'll probably say yes.
2. "Do you support the war?" They'll probably say yes.

You then say, "Then you are not pro-life." Smile sweetly and walk off.

[AIJ Alom]

2. How is one pro-life and pro-death penalty at the same time ?

[bunkerbuster1]

13. It's complicated, but start with the idea of a vengeful God

who thinks we human beings are all basically sinful, evil scum, and advocating on behalf of the death penalty and war becomes way easier.

Being "pro-life," meaning anti-elective abortion, is really a way that these people manage to justify their hatefulness and bloodthirstiness. They don't want to admit getting their jollies by seing people vaporized by bombs, gunned down by M16s, and executed in prison, so they compensate by getting all weepy about terminated pregnancies, involving life forms that have, roughly, the IQ of a tadpole.

Fucked up, eh? but logical. And ripe for the pickin', if you're a reThug.

[trotsky]

3. Correction with #7

The Democrats controlled the Senate for about 18 months from when Jeffords defected until January '03.

[Czolgosz]

5. Here is a funny response to this email

True on all counts.

But how about this:

True or False?

1. Some people think preemptive war based on false assertions is murder.
2. They therefore think preemptive war based on false assertions should be made illegal.
3. They consider themselves “pro life” like the Pope (commie!).
4. Many "pro-lifers" support George Bush for President of the United States (but not the Pope. Papist commie!).
5. Many people think George Bush is the “pro life” candidate.
6. George Bush has been president for three and a half years (well, not the ELECTED president but certainly the resident at 1600 Pennslvania Ave.).
7. During his presidency, there has been a voting Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.
8. During his presidency, there has been a voting Republican majority in the U.S. House.
9. During his presidency, there has been a voting majority of Republican appointees on the U.S. Supreme Court.
10. Not once during his presidency has Bush advocated a Constitutional amendment to ban preemptive war based on false assertions.
11. He could have.
12. Not once during his administration has Bush floated a bill to make preemptive war based on false assertions illegal, other than, well, nothing.
13. He could have.
14. Not once during his administration has Bush stated in a press conference that he would like to make preemptive war based on false assertions illegal.
15. There is a voting majority in the U.S. who favor preemptive war based on false assertions being legal. NO WAIT . . . . NEVERMIND ABOUT THIS ONE.
16. John Kerry espouses the majority position on preemptive war based on false assertions.
17. George Bush also espouses the majority position on preemptive war based on false assertions. THIS ONE IS WRONG, TOO. JUST SKIP THIS ONE.
18. As resident of the White House, George Bush presided over a dramatic increase in the use of preemptive war based on false assertions.

Did I miss anything?

[jhain]

6. 19. Do The Math

**************

Voting Our Conscience, Not Our Religion

October 11, 2004
By MARK W. ROCHE
New York Times
South Bend, Ind. - For more than a century, from the wave of immigrants in the 19th century to the election of the first Catholic president in 1960, American Catholics overwhelmingly identified with the Democratic Party. In the past few decades, however, that allegiance has largely faded. Now Catholics are prototypical "swing voters": in 2000, they split almost evenly between Al Gore and George W. Bush, and recent polls show Mr. Bush ahead of Senator John Kerry, himself a Catholic, among white Catholics.

There are compelling reasons - cultural, socioeconomic and political - for this shift. But if Catholic voters honestly examine the issues of consequence in this election, they may find themselves returning to their Democratic roots in 2004.

The parties appeal to Catholics in different ways. The Republican Party opposes abortion and the destruction of embryos for stem-cell research, both positions in accord with Catholic doctrine. Also, Republican support of various faith-based initiatives, including school vouchers, tends to resonate with Catholic voters.

Members of the Democratic Party, meanwhile, are more likely to criticize the handling of the war in Iraq, to oppose capital punishment and to support universal heath care, environmental stewardship, a just welfare state and more equitable taxes. These stances are also in harmony with Catholic teachings, even if they may be less popular among individual Catholics.

When values come into conflict, it is useful to develop principles that help place those values in a hierarchy. One reasonable principle is that issues of life and death are more important than other issues. This seems to be the strategy of some Catholic and church leaders, who directly or indirectly support the Republican Party because of its unambiguous critique of abortion. Indeed, many Catholics seem to think that if they are truly religious, they must cast their ballots for Republicans.

This position has two problems. First, abortion is not the only life-and-death issue in this election. While the Republicans line up with the Catholic stance on abortion and stem-cell research, the Democrats are closer to the Catholic position on the death penalty, universal health care and environmental protection.

More important, given the most distinctive issue of the current election, Catholics who support President Bush must reckon with the Catholic doctrine of "just war." This doctrine stipulates that a war is just only if all possible alternative strategies have been pursued to their ultimate conclusion; the war is conducted in accordance with moral principles (for example, the avoidance of unnecessary civilian casualties and the treatment of prisoners with dignity); and the war leads to a more moral state of affairs than existed before it began. While Mr. Kerry, like many other Democrats, voted for the war, he has since objected to the way it was planned and waged.

Second, politics is the art of the possible. During the eight years of the Reagan presidency, the number of legal abortions increased by more than 5 percent; during the eight years of the Clinton presidency, the number dropped by 36 percent. The overall abortion rate (calculated as the number of abortions per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44) was more or less stable during the Reagan years, but during the Clinton presidency it dropped by 11 percent.

There are many reasons for this shift. Yet surely the traditional Democratic concern with the social safety net makes it easier for pregnant women to make responsible decisions and for young life to flourish; among the most economically disadvantaged, abortion rates have always been and remain the highest. The world's lowest abortion rates are in Belgium and the Netherlands, where abortion is legal but where the welfare state is strong. Latin America, where almost all abortions are illegal, has one of the highest rates in the world.

None of this is to argue that abortion should be acceptable. History will judge our society's support of abortion in much the same way we view earlier generations' support of torture and slavery - it will be universally condemned. The moral condemnation of abortion, however, need not lead to the conclusion that criminal prosecution is the best way to limit the number of abortions. Those who view abortion as the most significant issue in this campaign may well want to supplement their abstract desire for moral rectitude with a more realistic focus on how best to ensure that fewer abortions take place.

In many ways, Catholic voters' growing political independence has led to a profusion of moral dilemmas: they often feel they must abandon one good for the sake of another. But while they may be dismayed at John Kerry's position on abortion and stem-cell research, they should be no less troubled by George W. Bush's stance on the death penalty, health care, the environment and just war. Given the recent history of higher rates of abortion with Republicans in the White House, along with the tradition of Democratic support of equitable taxes and greater integration into the world community, more Catholics may want to reaffirm their tradition of allegiance to the Democratic Party in 2004.

Mark W. Roche is dean of the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/opinion/11roche.html?ex=1098486602&ei=1&en=ee82ecb14c656457

[forgethell]

7. I don't think your logic works.

For one thing, * may be "bad" from a pro-life position, but John Kerry would be infinitely worse, based on his judicial choices alone. that's one reason why we love him, isn't it?

Republicans are not stupid, despite what some people say. They can tell about the "lesser of two evils".

Then, also, what does the pro-life position have to do with capital punishment? I mean, how many pro-lifers do you know who are also against capital punishment? Damn few, if your experience has been like mine. There are a few, of course, but very few.

The problem with a lot of progressives is that we like to make up these little stories about a position, and how, if the conservatives would just follow our logic, they see how it all fell together. It ain't so. they have their beliefs, and we have ours. And at bottom, both are based not so much on facts and logic, as on how we think the world is, and our emotional response to it. In my opinion, the only way to tell which world view is correct is to determine which is most externally consistent with the real world. Are our predictions about the results of our programs, and theirs, more accurate, or are theirs?

[Czolgosz]

11. "What does the pro-life position have to do with capital punishment?"

I may be a bad person to ask because I'm a Planned Parenthood type recovering Catholic (a/k/a a sinner). But the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops seems to think there is a link between the pro-life position and capital punishment. Here's what the Bishops say:

"Human life is a gift from God, sacred and inviolable. Because every human person is created in the image and likeness of God, we have a duty to defend human life from conception until natural death and in every condition. . . . Abortion, the deliberate killing of a human being before birth, is never morally acceptable. . . . For the same reasons, the intentional targeting of civilians in war or terrorist attacks is always wrong. In protecting human life, "We must begin with a commitment never to intentionally kill, or collude in the killing, of any innocent human life, no matter how broken, unformed, disabled or desperate that life may seem." . . . Catholic teaching calls on us to work to avoid war. Nations must protect the right to life by finding ever more effective ways to prevent conflicts from arising, to resolve them by peaceful means, and to promote post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation. . . . While military force as a last resort can sometimes be justified to defend against aggression and similar threats to the common good, we have raised serious moral concerns and questions about preemptive or preventive use of force. . . . Direct, intentional attacks on civilians in war are never morally acceptable. . . . Therefore, we urge our nation to strengthen barriers against the use of nuclear weapons, to expand controls over existing nuclear materials and other weapons of mass destruction, and to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as a step toward much deeper cuts and the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. We also urge our nation to join the treaty to ban anti-personnel landmines and to address the human consequences of cluster bombs. We further urge our nation to take immediate and serious steps to reduce its own disproportionate role in the scandalous global trade in arms, which contributes to violent conflicts around the world. . . . ur nation's increasing reliance on the death penalty cannot be justified. We do not teach that killing is wrong by killing those who kill others. Pope John Paul II has said the penalty of death is "both cruel and unnecessary". The antidote to violence is not more violence. In light of the Holy Father's insistence that this is part of our pro-life commitment, we encourage solutions to violent crime that reflect the dignity of the human person, urging our nation to abandon the use of capital punishment. We also urge passage of legislation that would address problems in the judicial system, and restrict and restrain the use of the death penalty through use of DNA evidence, a guarantee of effective counsel, and efforts to address issues of racial justice.

http://www.usccb.org/faithfulcitizenship/bishopStatement.html

[forgethell]

12. Well, I not a Catholic,

and don't give a damn what the bishop's positions are.

I'm not expressing an opinion here about either abortion or capital punishment. My point is this: the pro-life people consider the fetus to be an "innocent" human life, not deserving, in any way, of death. On the other hand, convicted murderers, whose crimes were heinous enough to warrant the death penalty (in the USA just murdering someone won't get you executed), do deserve the death penalty, in the opinion of death penalty advocates.

The pro-life and pro-death penalty advocates are not always the same people, but often enough they are. The positions, while there are many arguments to be made against both, are not logically inconsistent with each other.

Catholics, by the way, are not the only pro-life people. To assume that they are is religious bigotry.

[Francine Frensky]

10. This is great! I would add:

12. Bush's "late-term abortion" bill, his only attempt to legislate abortion, was so poorly written that it was thrown out by the first court that looked at it.

13. He could have easily made the bill legal if he had included one sentence about allowing the doctor to consider the woman's health.

14. Abortions dropped by 30% during the 90's.

15. Abortions have risen by 5% during the past four years.

16. Two-thirds of abortions are for financial reasons.

17. Abortion is republicans number one wedge issue with catholic swing voters and they are not about to give it up by passing ANY concrete legislation!