A Man Has a Right to Control HIs Own Wallet

[shereads]

I guess your right. There is nothing in between toltarianism and anarchy.

We have laws to protect the born. We can have laws to protect without being intrusive.

Allowing a natural process to proceed along it's natural course is not intrusive, interfereing with it is. I know that 'natural' doens't equal good. I'm simply showing the difference between intrusive and not intrusive.

No, you're actually not.

And your arguments are getting more anti-child by the moment. This isn't about children's rights at all, is it? It's about being bitter that some women seem to have more choices than others. At least that's how it sounds.

 

[sweetnpetite]

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Wow. No arguing with that.

So it's acceptable for an unwanted child to suffer through whatever misery his parents might inflict on him for the next 18 years or so - or until they receive their "punishment" - which we all know is inevitable; the law protects children beautifully, as we see in Florida, where if you abusive dad doesn't kill you, the department of family services will.

What a strange thing to hear from someone who purports to care about children.

As I said, having a child is not irrisponsible. Infllicting misery on said child is. You can't garantee that 'wanted' children will have responsible parents either. should we, as you suggested, have a pannell decide weather or not you are responsibe enough to be allowed to have your own child, before you give birth? It's the only way to truly protect every child.

Irrisponsible people shoudn't have children, is true, but is an entirely other topic. Besides you've ignored the option of adoption.

The world's not perfect, I think we can both agree on that. We are not garanteed perfection, just a chance. Being born gives you a chance, being aborted doesn't.

 

[sweetnpetite]

No, you're actually not.

And your arguments are getting more anti-child by the moment. This isn't about children's rights at all, is it? It's about being bitter that some women seem to have more choices than others. At least that's how it sounds.

How is this:

***I guess your right. There is nothing in between toltarianism and anarchy.

We have laws to protect the born. We can have laws to protect without being intrusive.

Allowing a natural process to proceed along it's natural course is not intrusive, interfereing with it is. I know that 'natural' doens't equal good. I'm simply showing the difference between intrusive and not intrusive.***

Antichild?

 

[lucky-E-leven]

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The world's not perfect, I think we can both agree on that. We are not garanteed perfection, just a chance. Being born gives you a chance, being aborted doesn't.

A chance? A chance to know hunger, pain, abuse, neglect and general disdain for your very existence? Sorry. I'm a diehard optimist and normally when people say give him/her a chance I'm all for it, but the realities of such a chance for an unwanted baby that a woman is 'forced' by her government to have are grim.

Adoption is always the wildcard isn't it? There are many arguments to be had about this as well, but I am Le Tired and do not wish to shovel up statistics about all of the children already out there that are without families. But I know they're there and that makes me not want to add to the problem.

~lucky

 

[shereads]

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As I said, having a child is not irrisponsible. Infllicting misery on said child is. You can't garantee that 'wanted' children will have responsible parents either. should we, as you suggested, have a pannell decide weather or not you are responsibe enough to be allowed to have your own child, before you give birth? It's the only way to truly protect every child.

Why not? Is that too intrusive?

Irrisponsible people shoudn't have children, is true, but is an entirely other topic.

No, it's the same exact topic. You want people who became pregnant by accident - ostensibly because they were irresponsible - to give birth. And no, I haven't ignored adoption. You've ignored the fact that there are no adoptive homes for hundreds of thousands of children - handicapped, HIV-positive, alcohol-damaged children, babies born drug-addicted, mixed-race children. There are nightmares of foster care and state supported facilities all over this country. You're ignoring the facts and wishing for a Reaganesque, "it's morning in America" world where everybody does the right thing. You're living in a fairytale. Lucky for you.

Unfortunately, the kids you will cause to be born if your side gets their way - as you inevitably will, with two Supreme Court seats to be filled in the next four years - don't get to share your rose-colored view of the world where "we can protect children without being intrusive."

We can? And how does that work?

There are no answers in anything you've proposed. You just want to see women who had sex and didn't think about the consequences beforehand - and those whose birth control failed, as well - give birth. It's the responsible thing to do.
There's a child shortage.

 

[Seattle Zack]

I work for a non-profit agency that provides an after-school program for low-income kids in the south Seattle area, and I see this same kind of ignorance and stupidity every day. Our average client is a single mom, no college education, two or three kids by two or three different men, who was first knocked up at 20 years old.

Of course, the fees for the program are partially subsudized (by tax dollars, of course) but the amazing thing to me is that they refuse to acknowledge any responsibility for their actions, and expect the tax dollars to just fall into their laps to take care of these kids that they had no business having in the first place.

These kids, statistically, are about twenty times more likely to end up in jail than children born to college educated parents. Twenty years of incarceration costs about a million bucks (more tax dollars at work), last I checked.

We do what we can with the program, trying to provide some stability and life skills that the kids can use in adolescence, but it's a losing effort, looking at the statistics.

There's a reason I don't have kids -- one, I see no need to bring another consumer into an already overpopulated world with depleted resources, and two, I have no wish to pay a third of my income for the next eighteen years for a child I won't have any hand in rearing.

To claim that spawning, in and of itself, is some sort of noble calling is complete bullshit. Anyone truly responsible would make sure that the child will have a nurturing, caring, stable environment to grow in, and not expect some governmental agency to step in and take care of everything. Birth control is not that difficult. The naivete of bringing a child into the world that you're unable to care for is not only irresponsible but abusive.

 

[shereads]

I work for a non-profit agency that provides an after-school program for low-income kids in the south Seattle area, and I see this same kind of ignorance and stupidity every day. Our average client is a single mom, no college education, two or three kids by two or three different men, who was first knocked up at 20 years old.

Of course, the fees for the program are partially subsudized (by tax dollars, of course) but the amazing thing to me is that they refuse to acknowledge any responsibility for their actions, and expect the tax dollars to just fall into their laps to take care of these kids that they had no business having in the first place.

These kids, statistically, are about twenty times more likely to end up in jail than children born to college educated parents. Twenty years of incarceration costs about a million bucks (more tax dollars at work), last I checked.

We do what we can with the program, trying to provide some stability and life skills that the kids can use in adolescence, but it's a losing effort, looking at the statistics.

There's a reason I don't have kids -- one, I see no need to bring another consumer into an already overpopulated world with depleted resources, and two, I have no wish to pay a third of my income for the next eighteen years for a child I won't have any hand in rearing.

To claim that spawning, in and of itself, is some sort of noble calling is complete bullshit. Anyone truly responsible would make sure that the child will have a nurturing, caring, stable environment to grow in, and not expect some governmental agency to step in and take care of everything. Birth control is not that difficult. The naivete of bringing a child into the world that you're unable to care for is not only irresponsible but abusive.

Thank you. Well said.

A so-sad-it's-almost-funny aside: I have a friend who works at a state social services agency in a southern state with a high rate of unemployment and illiteracy. A few years ago, she was sent to monitor "welfare-to-work" training programs around the state. Watching people like herself try to help welfare moms learn how to get and keep a job. She would call me sometimes and talk about how frighening it was to know that some of these women would be on their own when their welfare ran out in a few months. At one session she monitored, a class was on its third weekly session about how to complete a job application. She walked in as the social services agent was holding up someone's neatly printed application and explaining, "Please don't get quite this specific. Yes, you have to be honest when it says, 'Have you ever been convicted of a crime;' but you don't have to explain that it was for strong-arm robbery and that you served six months."



These were moms, I remind you. Women who did the responsible thing.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I can't believe that you work for this agency. There's nothing like needing help and going to someone who pre-judges you for needing help.

Only rich people should have kids. Hell, a college degree should be required.

No compasion for the born or the unborn. Maybe that's why I love the pro-choicers.

You sure seem to aprove of one specific choice over another.

I work for a non-profit agency that provides an after-school program for low-income kids in the south Seattle area, and I see this same kind of ignorance and stupidity every day. Our average client is a single mom, no college education, two or three kids by two or three different men, who was first knocked up at 20 years old.

Of course, the fees for the program are partially subsudized (by tax dollars, of course) but the amazing thing to me is that they refuse to acknowledge any responsibility for their actions, and expect the tax dollars to just fall into their laps to take care of these kids that they had no business having in the first place.

These kids, statistically, are about twenty times more likely to end up in jail than children born to college educated parents. Twenty years of incarceration costs about a million bucks (more tax dollars at work), last I checked.

We do what we can with the program, trying to provide some stability and life skills that the kids can use in adolescence, but it's a losing effort, looking at the statistics.

There's a reason I don't have kids -- one, I see no need to bring another consumer into an already overpopulated world with depleted resources, and two, I have no wish to pay a third of my income for the next eighteen years for a child I won't have any hand in rearing.

To claim that spawning, in and of itself, is some sort of noble calling is complete bullshit. Anyone truly responsible would make sure that the child will have a nurturing, caring, stable environment to grow in, and not expect some governmental agency to step in and take care of everything. Birth control is not that difficult. The naivete of bringing a child into the world that you're unable to care for is not only irresponsible but abusive.

 

[shereads]

I can't believe that you work for this agency. There's nothing like needing help and going to someone who pre-judges you for needing help.

Only rich people should have kids. Hell, a college degree should be required.

No compasion for the born or the unborn. Maybe that's why I love the pro-choicers.

You sure seem to aprove of one specific choice over another.

Don't you dare go there.

I do volunteer reading with kids at a Salvation Army shelter. You claim to be the compassionate one here? How close have you been to children living in poverty?

Your statement that childbearing is never irresponsible demonstrates a degree of naivete or maybe just self-justification that is far from compassionate. You would create a world with even more unwanted, unfed, uncared-for children than there are already, and you accuse someone who confronts their misery every single day of lacking compassion?

Are you drugged? This is beyond the realm of reality. Have you watched or read the news this year? Do you think that an abortion clinic in Uganda would be a bad idea? What planet do you live on, where bringing more unwanted, unplanned, hopeless children into the world is a good idea?

 

[shereads]

And btw, since you brought up "compassion," why don't you devote your energies to solving the problems of children whose parents can't, or won't? Is that what "they" should be doing? The mysterious "they" who are telling ignorant women to get abortions? Or should you be doing something about it yourself? When's the last time you visited a homeless shelter packed to the rafters with kids who've never seen an Oreo cookie, or a book?

Compassionate? You're kidding.

 

[Boxlicker101]

I work for a non-profit agency that provides an after-school program for low-income kids in the south Seattle area, and I see this same kind of ignorance and stupidity every day. Our average client is a single mom, no college education, two or three kids by two or three different men, who was first knocked up at 20 years old.

Of course, the fees for the program are partially subsudized (by tax dollars, of course) but the amazing thing to me is that they refuse to acknowledge any responsibility for their actions, and expect the tax dollars to just fall into their laps to take care of these kids that they had no business having in the first place.

These kids, statistically, are about twenty times more likely to end up in jail than children born to college educated parents. Twenty years of incarceration costs about a million bucks (more tax dollars at work), last I checked.

We do what we can with the program, trying to provide some stability and life skills that the kids can use in adolescence, but it's a losing effort, looking at the statistics.

There's a reason I don't have kids -- one, I see no need to bring another consumer into an already overpopulated world with depleted resources, and two, I have no wish to pay a third of my income for the next eighteen years for a child I won't have any hand in rearing.

To claim that spawning, in and of itself, is some sort of noble calling is complete bullshit. Anyone truly responsible would make sure that the child will have a nurturing, caring, stable environment to grow in, and not expect some governmental agency to step in and take care of everything. Birth control is not that difficult. The naivete of bringing a child into the world that you're unable to care for is not only irresponsible but abusive.

I don't know if you realize it or not but the situation Zack describes would be worse if it weren't for easily available abortion. Instead of women who were knocked up at twenty and had no college education, we would have women who were knocked up at 15 and were high school dropouts.

 

[shereads]

I don't know if you realize it or not but the situation Zack describes would be worse if it weren't for easily available abortion. Instead of women who were knocked up at twenty and had no college education, we would have women who were knocked up at 15 and were high school dropouts.

She realizes it, all right. She thinks it's an excellent idea.

 

[sweetnpetite]

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There are no answers in anything you've proposed. You just want to see women who had sex and didn't think about the consequences beforehand - and those whose birth control failed, as well - give birth. It's the responsible thing to do.

There's a child shortage.

I know that there's not a child shortage.

I believe in protecting children at *all* stages of development.

Here's an idea, since there are so many children in the world who aren't being taken care of properly, let's kill those kids too. We have too many anyway. There lives suck, we don't have homes for them. There are worse things that can happen to a kid than having his life end. He could have to live with AIDS, or starvation, or God Forbid have to deal with Seatle Jack in a time of need. It's better to spend my time and energy puting an end to there miserable lives than trying to make them better.

 

[Seattle Zack]

I don't know if you realize it or not but the situation Zack describes would be worse if it weren't for easily available abortion. Instead of women who were knocked up at twenty and had no college education, we would have women who were knocked up at 15 and were high school dropouts.

Very true, Box, and that apple never falls far from the tree either. Children of women who had kids at an early age are almost ten times more likely to have children of their own in their late teens or early twenties.

And SnP, I find your sneering disregard for the work we do at our Boys and Girls Club absolutely pathetic. Once they're born, it's all right to lock them up, is that right? Prisons are one of the biggest growth industries in the past twenty years. Conservatives want as many little Christian prototypes as possible, then toss them away (or kill them, if you're in Texas) when they they don't turn out right.

I love the kids in our program; even as disadvantaged as they are, they're so smart, so full of promise. The things we've been able to provide, just in the past few months when the program's getting up and running, have been amazing. The Sonics donated thirty tickets to a game in January, and we took the kids. Only two had ever been to a pro sporting event before in their lives. In February, we went on a field trip to the Seattle Aquarium. In March, we're doing an overnight sleepover at the Museum of Flight, funded by Boeing.

We even have a college scholarship, for the kids who stay with the program and become instructors throughout high school. It's a way out of the cycle of poverty that cripples so many of the ethnically diverse communities in our country.

It's a fact that rich people have fewer kids, and poor people spawn like rabbits with little or no regard for the consequences on their kids. When I'm king, women who are on public assistance will be sterilized after the second child. At least that way, the social cost will be minimized.

 

[shereads]

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I know that there's not a child shortage.

I believe in protecting children at *all* stages of development.

Here's an idea, since there are so many children in the world who aren't being taken care of properly, let's kill those kids too. We have too many anyway. There lives suck, we don't have homes for them. There are worse things that can happen to a kid than having his life end. He could have to live with AIDS, or starvation, or God Forbid have to deal with Seatle Jack in a time of need. It's better to spend my time and energy puting an end to there miserable lives than trying to make them better.

No, you're doing your part alreaedy, by assuring that there will be replacements for the ones who are dying already. 30,000 per day, from malnutrion-related illness and disease. Forget the ones who are born HIV-positive into every single family in some of the countries where your movement assured that there are no longer any Planned Parenthood clinics. Thank you for that; the sick and dying appreciate your help in giving them new baby brothers and sisters to play with.

What exactly are you doing to improve the lives of the countless unwanted children in the U.S. and the world at large? Aside from battling to keep the supply of unwanted children up?

What has your compassion for underprivileged children accomplished so far? Let's compare compassion by actions here. I read bedtime stories and hand out milk and cookies at a shelter occasionally; it's not a lot, but it's enough to get a dose of someone else's reality now and then. Seattle Jack works for a non-profit social services agency where he is understandably frustrated by the endless supply of irresponsible parents. What is it that you're doing to make the lives of unwanted children better? Please give us lessons in compassion.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Abortion is legal. Why is there still child abuse?

Don't tell me were to go. I've been homeless. Homeless and Pregant if you'd really like to know. I've stayed in a shelter. I've also slept on a laundry mat floor. BUt of course, I'm one of those irresponsible women who choose to have children and ended up needing help. WIC, welfare, foodstamps, Medicaid; been there done that. It helps a lot when the people at those agencys think that you are just a leach to society. But hey, they give me bread why should I care if they snere while they do it?

Don't you dare go there.

I do volunteer reading with kids at a Salvation Army shelter. You claim to be the compassionate one here? How close have you been to children living in poverty?

Your statement that childbearing is never irresponsible demonstrates a degree of naivete or maybe just self-justification that is far from compassionate. You would create a world with even more unwanted, unfed, uncared-for children than there are already, and you accuse someone who confronts their misery every single day of lacking compassion?

Are you drugged? This is beyond the realm of reality. Have you watched or read the news this year? Do you think that an abortion clinic in Uganda would be a bad idea? What planet do you live on, where bringing more unwanted, unplanned, hopeless children into the world is a good idea?

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Abortion is legal. Why is there still child abuse?

Don't tell me were to go. I've been homeless. Homeless and Pregant if you'd really like to know. I've stayed in a shelter. I've also slept on a laundry mat floor. BUt of course, I'm one of those irresponsible women who choose to have children and ended up needing help. WIC, welfare, foodstamps, Medicaid; been there done that. It helps a lot when the people at those agencys think that you are just a leach to society. But hey, they give me bread why should I care if they snere while they do it?

I'm not here to bash your life experiences, SnP. But is it safe to say that a large part of the reason you're pro-life is because you can't imagine life without your particular kids and believe that since you managed to make it work beneath such hardships that all others can and will as well?

~lucky

 

[sweetnpetite]

I don't know if you realize it or not but the situation Zack describes would be worse if it weren't for easily available abortion. Instead of women who were knocked up at twenty and had no college education, we would have women who were knocked up at 15 and were high school dropouts.

We already do have 15 year old high school drop outs, even with redily available abortions. So what's the excuse?

Also, this is what I'm talking about as far as retoric about what happens if you *don't* have an abortion. NOt having an abortion does not mean that you have to drop out of school. Having an abortion doesn't mean that you won't. Right there is an example of what I mean by this commonly held belief that "all your hopes and dreams are going to die" if you have a baby, rather than an abortion.

 

[shereads]

We already do have 15 year old high school drop outs, even with redily available abortions. So what's the excuse?

Also, this is what I'm talking about as far as retoric about what happens if you *don't* have an abortion. NOt having an abortion does not mean that you have to drop out of school. Having an abortion doesn't mean that you won't. Right there is an example of what I mean by this commonly held belief that "all your hopes and dreams are going to die" if you have a baby, rather than an abortion.

If you were one of the people whose children Seattle Zack was trying to help, you could cop a bit less of an attitude about his frustration.

Yes, it's irresponsible to have children you can't care for. I'm glad your life has worked out so that you can care for yours, but that doesn't give you the right to condemn women who chose not to do so.

That really is what this is about for you. You called women in this forum murderers - called their doctors murderers - to justify your own choice. No one would have condemned you for saying, "I couldn't imagine having an abortion, but I can understand why other women might have chosen differently." But instead, you decided to demonize one of the resources that exist for women who find themselves pregnant and can't deal with it in your particular way.

Choice.

You made yours.

Let others make their own.

 

[sweetnpetite]

And btw, since you brought up "compassion," why don't you devote your energies to solving the problems of children whose parents can't, or won't? Is that what "they" should be doing? The mysterious "they" who are telling ignorant women to get abortions? Or should you be doing something about it yourself? When's the last time you visited a homeless shelter packed to the rafters with kids who've never seen an Oreo cookie, or a book?

Compassionate? You're kidding.

Now we have an unailienable right to oreo's too?

As I've said, I've stayed in a homeless shelter. I volunteered at a soup kitchen and at a second hand store who's proceeds go to the homeless/abuse shelter I stayed at (this was before I needed there services)

Maybe I should be doing more, but I'm rather busy at the moment with potty training and so forth.

 

[shereads]

Now we have an unailienable right to oreo's too?

As I've said, I've stayed in a homeless shelter. I volunteered at a soup kitchen and at a second hand store who's proceeds go to the homeless/abuse shelter I stayed at (this was before I needed there services)

Maybe I should be doing more, but I'm rather busy at the moment with potty training and so forth.

And if you have your way, Roe v. Wade will be overturned, and more women will be too busy to solve the problem of unwanted children.

Since "they" are not busy - all those evil pro-choicers - they can solve the problem of women who can't take care of their children. It makes perfect sense. it gives everyone a role in childcare, including those of us who chose not to have children.

 

[shereads]

Before I leave this futile exercise, I'd like to remind you that before Seattle Zack "sneered" at the people he's generous enough to devote his life to helping, you did substantially worse than sneer at women here who have had abortions. Your resentment of women whose choices gave them some freedoms that you don't have might be behind your adamant "moderate" view on abortion rights.

What worked for you won't work for every women. You're going to get your way. Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned as soon as there's another right-wing zealot on the Supreme Court. They only need one. Then the states, starting with Florida and Texas, will ban abortion. The next step is to find ways to keep women from sekeing abortions elsewhere. Fortunately, most women won't have a choice. They don't now, because they don't have access to the same medical treatment that wealthy women have. Wealthy women will never suffer from a lack of choice.

And btw, there are places in the U.S. where pregnant girls aren't welcome in school classrooms, but are segregated into "special" classes so they won't contaminate their peers with the concept of sex. Maybe not what you'd want for your daughter, but then, she has to pay the price for what she's done.

 

[Seattle Zack]

We already do have 15 year old high school drop outs, even with redily available abortions. So what's the excuse?

Having an abortion doesn't mean that you won't. Right there is an example of what I mean by this commonly held belief that "all your hopes and dreams are going to die" if you have a baby, rather than an abortion.

Well, unfortunately, that's exactly what it means, SnP. Oh, sure, we've all read the uplifting stories in the women's section of the newspaper (the "Life and Arts" section, I believe it's called nowadays ... anyway, the one with all the recipies) about the brave high school senior who overcame the obstacles and graduated despite the burden of childhood.

There's no profile of the thousands of girls who turn to prostitution, or drugs, because of the situation they find themselves in.

I'm sure we all understand and appreciate the difficulties and sacrifices you've gone through to raise your own progeny, SnP, but why is it so difficult to admit that it might not have been the best choice? Maybe going to college (which was never an option once you had a child), actually planning for children rather than having them suddenly thrust upon you?

There are millions of women in this country in that exact situation. Women who are fully able and willing to give a child the environment that he or she needs to succeed, if only given a chance.

To absolve oneself of any responsibility for one's choices once the child is spewed forth seems to be exremely naive, in my view. Perhaps the "education" that should be rendered is the consequences of one's choice, and the life-changing outcomes that result, rather than a dogmatic mantra and a reliance on social services.

 

[shereads]

Perhaps the "education" that should be rendered is the consequences of one's choice, and the life-changing outcomes that result, rather than a dogmatic mantra and a reliance on social services.

Ironically enough, the pro-life movement draws most of its support from the right-wing extremists who want to end funding for those social services. That's the most frustrating thing about this. We're fighting an uphill battle against a group of Reagan-worshippers who think they can wish away teenaged pregnancy by "protecting the sanctity of marriage" and removing sex education from the schools and limiting access to birth control and condoms to students (because offering affordable or free birth control will make kids decide to have sex) and who don't want their taxes to pay for school breakfasts, afer-school care for working mothers who work the wrong hours to be at home with their children.

it's the same school of thought that says "make it difficult to acquire hypodermic needles, and you'll reduce drug abuse," ignoring the fact that people will simply reuse and share their needles and spread hepatitus and HIV. SnP, you may be in the less right-wing minority of pro-lifers but the group that's exerting its power now is the branch that wants to wish away the problems that face unwanted children, not fix them.

 

[sweetnpetite]

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No, you're doing your part alreaedy, by assuring that there will be replacements for the ones who are dying already. 30,000 per day, from malnutrion-related illness and disease. Forget the ones who are born HIV-positive into every single family in some of the countries where your movement assured that there are no longer any Planned Parenthood clinics. Thank you for that; the sick and dying appreciate your help in giving them new baby brothers and sisters to play with.

I am not involved in there movement, other than sharing *some* of there oppinions.

I do not agree with this at all. Planned Parenthood does a lot to educate people about birthcontrol and sex and reproduction. I assume they also perform abortions, which at this point is legal. I do not support an action that cuts off funding to an organization that helps people because they do something which is legal with part of there money. Even though I'm pro-life I don't support criminilizing abortion without making it illegal. As long as it's legal, it's not right to punish anyone for there involvement. I hope that makes sence. Its' getting late.