Brutha: This thread contains post about abortion from http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/w...going-win.html and http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/w...-opinions.html
I think it's better when we discuss that issue in a single thread.
Ron Paul is pro-life. In constitutional terms, your response should be, "so what". The federal government has no authority on abortion... (but we all think it does).

Roe v Wade is unconstitutional. There is no power set aside in the constitution for the government to approve or deny abortion. That choice is left up to the individual states. Ron Paul would get rid of the Federal ruling on abortion because the feds have no right telling you what to do in this arena.

The issue of abortion would go to the state-level where it belongs. You and your local legislators decide what is right for you. This was the idea way way back in the first place. The federal government was designed to safeguard your rights and only given limited powers. Ruling on abortion is not one of them.

Why, then, is it important when a Supreme Court Justice is appointed, what their political beliefs are towards reproductive rights?

It's unfortunate that you'd let this one issue "rule him out" for you. You don't think there are issues more important than this? The corruption and scandals that surround most of the major candidates are what rule them out for me.

Anyhow, he opposes Roe v Wade on constitutional grounds rather than moral grounds.

If you want your freedoms back, you should definitely check out his platform. ;)

It isn't important. But as long as we let the Supreme Court determine law (which is the legislature's job) instead of judging if the law has been followed, vague, etc., a justice's moral leanings will make a difference.

At least six states have legislation in place to make abortion illegal if Roe v Wade is overturned.

I cannot support him for this reason. It *is* that important to me.

People are allowed to change laws. They are also allowed to move if they want. They are not victims of their government. Their goverment is a reflection of themselves.

So, that being said: 6/50ths of me is actually AGAINST abortion, while 44/50ths of me is ok with allowing abortion. I guess I'm for both sides, when I thought I was all for choice. Does it make me a bad person? No.

For me Roe v Wade is a bad precedent. I don't want one part of me (federal govt.) scuttling the voices of all of me (the states).

I know how you feel though. I can be a one-issue gun voter. If a candidate has ever voted for a restriction on firearms, I won't vote for him. So I guess I'm doing the same thing as people who have their key issues, though I don't follow that logic 100% of the time.

But you realize that this all encompassing legislation is how we ended up with this law you disagree with? Try to put yourself outside the issue and decide what would give people the most freedom in our country.

The solution is letting individual states decide.

I strongly disagree. That's like letting individual states deciding whether or not to allow slavery. Indeed, opposition to a woman's right to freedom over her own reproductive functions is the same as being in favor of slavery.

Personally, I don't have a problem with abortion, I'm pro-choice. However, I'd much rather the power to choose be in the power of states then in the power of the federal government. At least, with the states, even if 49 states choose to make abortions illegal and one state is pro-choice, then you can always travel to that one pro-choice state. On the other hand, once the federal government makes abortion illegal, then damn, you're screwed. I feel more comfortable having my eggs spread in 50 baskets, then put in one basket.

Again, to me, seeker5, that would be like having slavery legal in one state but not the other 49. So the people in that one state are SOL. Women who need abortions often cannot afford to travel to another state. I'm not willing to be complacent about even a small pocket in this country, which claims freedom as its highest value, keeping its women in a state of slavery.

I'd rather have one state be SOL, then have the entire country be SOL when the tide against abortion wins on the federal level. At least with one state being SOL, charities and foundations can be set up to transport woman out of there to have their abortions. With the entire country under an abortion ban then every single state is SOL. It takes 50 states to ban abortion in this country if we go state-by-state. If we simply go by the Federal Government, it only takes a majority of congressmen and supreme court justices to ban abortion.

However, I agree with you that in an ideal world, no one would be able to ban abortion.

ps. I don't agree with your slavery = ban abortion metaphor.

No? When one person or a group holds dominion over a human being's body, merely because they claim it, that's not slavery?

(Just to keep my logical OCD in check, it's not slavery equals ban abortion, it's slavery includes ban abortion. )

To me slavery is forcing someone to do something. It's not banning someone from doing something.

For example for me, stuff that is a form of slavery:
Taxation, draft, forcing kids to go to school until a certain age.

Stuff I don't consider slavery when those items are banned (yet I still believe these things should be legal):
- All drugs
- Abortion
- All types of living arrangement
- pornography
- gambling
- selling your organs
- Doing what you want outside of the U.S. instead of being restricted because you're a U.S. citizen
- Visiting the countries you want to visit regardless of the U.S. relation with them.

I haven't really thought of what exactly equals slavery or not until just now. It just strikes me as odd to claim banning abortion is slavery because someone else is forbidding you to do what you want with your body. That's like me saying that it's slavery for me not to be allowed to sell my kidney organs. Yeah, I think it should be allowed (freedom n all), but that doesn't mean it's slavery for the government to ban me from selling my organs.

I'd rather individual states be the one to choose whether to allow people to sell their own body organs then the federal government. Because right now, the federal government bans it and I have much greater chance of having at least one state allow organ selling if it's up to the state to choose. Not that I'm currently or in the past have been interested in selling my organs, but I believe in freedom over your body as you wish.

(you mean "opposition to abortion", right?)

It IS forcing someone to do something: It's forcing a woman to bear a child against her will. It's forcing her to subjugate herself to the religious beliefs of others.

Yeah, thanks, I corrected it.

Hmmm, I hadn't thought of it from that angle. It is forcing someone to go through labor process and pop up a kid.

OK, so if you claim banning abortion is slavery, then you have to agree with me that taxation, draft, forcing kids to go to school until age 16 is slavery?

I hadn't considered that, although I felt like it was slavery when I was in high school. On the other hand, I'm glad I got an education. On the other other hand, the whole lower education system stinks.

Taxation, I'm okay with kicking in part of my income in support of the stuff I get in return. The draft -- I'm with ya. It is definitely akin to abortion!

Here's how we fixed slavery -
If you want something country-wide, amend the constitution. Roe v Wade depends on the personality of justices in the Supreme Court. A constitutional amendment takes three-fourths of states to vote yes. Sounds do-able to me.

I guess the argument would be regarding this part:

....because as long as there are oppressive folks in a position of leadership, they will put laws on the books that enable them to loophole people into slavery. I would argue for dominion over one's own body to be part of the constitution, including, as Seeker5 mentioned, use of drugs.

I haven't read the Constitution with an eye out for that. Is there anything in there that guarantees Americans dominion over our own body?

Nope, not to my knowledge. Human rights never fully caught on in America. However, you could look toward the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable [sic] Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

It's all a matter of interpretation.

The Tenth Amendment spikes out the fact that the Constitution limits the federal government to the powers only granted in the Constitution. Congress is given powers to coin money, create an army. navy and such stuff.. Nothing about our bodies. Laws are fiction.

As a "natural person" most laws don't apply to us. The problem is we make ourselves, legally, into artificial people by the way of contracts and redefinition of words in our laws. I couldn't find any good USA based links about it. If you google there's lots from Canada.

• you are not a person
• you are a human being who has a person
• a person is a legal entity they use to make you act and obey their statutes which are not enforcable if you declare your freeman-of-the-land-status
• under common law statutes apply to persons not to you
• (A ‘statute’ is defined as ‘a legislated rule of society given the force of law.’)
• things you think of as laws are in fact statutes and have no power over you unless you give them power over you

So, I am a free person, and I want to hide that from myself, so I make a fictitious self to enslave me and pretend I'm not free. How's that for a reflection of the current state of consciousness. Wow.

But at the same time those laws give you rights.
Without being a person (in that sense) you have no legal rights.
Those people in Guantamo have a similar status.
No laws have power over them as long as they aren't legal people.

In general the advantages (having rights) of being a person outweigh the disadvantages (having duties).
Everyone makes errors (like Hillary's war votes).
It's politics. The important thing is that he publically distanced himself from the letters.
Having the NAACP President say that he is no racist is probably enough for a lot of those blacks to accept him if they agree with his other issues.

I believe our beingness gives us all rights.
Saying we are a person, as defined by many governments, gives away some of our rights in exchange for the government accepting responsibility for us.
The people in Guantamo are slaves, they have no rights. That's what life looks like when you give them all away.

I'm speaking about legal rights.
The beingness of a dog also gives he dog certain natural rights but the dog has no legal standing to heard at a court when some goverment imprisons it.
To have that legal right you have to be a legal person.
Without legal rights you are in the state of nature where different properity claims (the goverment usually claims to own everything in their borders) get settled through war (the excercising of force through the goverment).
So they are responsible for being imprisoned because they gave their rights away?
To be a slave you need to have a master. Most of those who are imprisoned in Guantamo would see Allah as their master and not the US goverment.
The US goverment also doesn't claim such a master-slave relationship. It's war against people without legal rights.

The base of our laws (USA, Canada, and probably Austrailia and NZ is English Common Law. To break the law you harm another human being, damage someone else's property, or use fraud in contracts. That's about it. If you are a free man, that's all you answer to. All the other stuff we call law is actually statutes and acts, which are not law. It effects persons (corporations) not free people. Your name in all caps on your driver's license is your "person" -- a false self that you use when dealing with the legal system, permits, etc... You use this fake self by choice (you are not forced to get a driver's license) but forget we are free to travel without one.

[this is a mirror of how consciousness uses denial to think it is separate: the ego, the false self, the I am so and so]

Their current situation is a mirror to an imprisonment happening inside themselves.

I call them slaves because they can't just walk away. They have a master IMO, and it is not themselves, it is our government. They are making someone outside themselves the creator of their experience. We should look at them and say, "my gosh, look what happens when I give my power away, I can move so little and it appears I'm not free."

I'm sorry, why do I have to choose between ending the war on drugs and having reproductive freedom? These issues do not appear to be mutually exclusive.

I'm all for ending the war on drugs. But I'm young, fertile, and I NEVER want to have children. I'm married and financially secure. But I'd have an abortion in a heartbeat. I find the decision more moral than having a child and turning it over to religious nutters for adoption and contributing to overpopulation, but my morality doesn't really flipping count, certainly not as much as Ron Paul's.

Ron Paul doesn't have the support to end the war on drugs. He sure has the support to turn me into a baby factory.

I don't mean any offense by this at all, but have you considered getting the tubal ligation surgery? I mean if you never want children, wouldn't that be the best option, provided you can afford it? I'm totally with you on not having kids, and I may consider getting a vasectomy in the future.

Yes, never wanting children, of course we've considered sterilization. Should that be my only choice because abortion makes old Christian Republican men uncomfortable?

It's not that big of an issue because I really don't think Ron Paul has a good shot at winning. And I think the man himself is more concerned with ending the fed and the war on drugs. Which I don't think has a good chance of happening, sad to say.

It seems he'd have a much better chance at stamping "Property of the US Government" on my cervix. And most Ron Paul supporters totally skirt that issue.

I'll try to ask this as straightforwardly as possible...

What if life really does begin at conception? Wouldn't the abortion issue then be more complex than just one person's decision?

Dan, I actually do believe that life begins at conception and I personally would not ever have an abortion.

Having said that, I believe that outlawing abortion would have disasterous concequences, particularly when you consider that many of the people who would see it done do not support public assistance once the child is born, do not support increasing the availability of birth control options or sex education and actually would make it harder to get birth control if given the opportunity while teaching kids to "just say no" to sex.

The best scenario in my own view is to thoroughly provide education to ALL children throughout the school years as well as provide access to birth control. However the same people who would outlaw abortion would not support this plan. As much as I personally hate to think of killing a baby, I am much more disturbed by the idea of millions of unwanted children being born into poverty, neglect and violence without access to good education, healthcare or love.

That's what it comes down to for me.

I think it mainly about the conflict between abolute God given Morals and more progressive relative morals.

If you follow relative morals there simply is a difference between a fully grown person and a bunch of cells that clumb together with have human DNA.
That doesn't mean that those cells that clumb together have no rights but it does mean that you have to balance their right with the rights of a fully grown person. The right to control your own body is a very strong one, so it triump over the right of a bunch of cells.