I can understand it perfectly, I can also understand why people think they can convince other people of the rightness of their ideas by blowing buildings (and people) up. These are all perfectly understandable things they’re also acts of pure irrational evil.

The people in that video are doing evil, they are callously and deliberately inflicting pain and suffering on other thinking and reasoning beings in the service of their ideology.

Any kind of a higher power demanding those kinds of actions from his/her/its followers is also doing evil.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/31/us/anti-abortion-killings-overview-gunman-kills-2-abortion-clinics-boston-suburb.html

From the above article:

“Richard Seron, the security guard who chased the gunman until he was wounded, remembered his saying something religious, said a Brookline police officer, Robert Allen. ” ‘In Jesus’ name,’ or ‘Mother of God,’ something to that effect,” Officer Allen said, quoting Mr. Seron.”

Religion: Fucking Up Humanity since forever!

Four years ago, we finally got pregnant after more than a year of trying the natural way. Towards the end of the first trimester, we started getting bad test results, and around 20 weeks were told that our child had an unbalanced translocation of the eighth and ninth chromosome. This condition was “incompatible with life”- apparently we need terminology that is more adamant than simply saying “fatal”. At 22 weeks, we had to terminate the pregnancy.

It was not what you imagine. There was no storefront clinic and none of the gory dismemberment these assholes are so fond of displaying to other people’s children. We checked into the maternity ward of our local hospital, and my wife was given a drug to induce labor. The nurses put a small photo on the door showing a leaf and drop of water, so the rest of the staff would know it was a tragic situation and not accidentally say “congratulations” or ask how happy we were. It took several doses over about 40 hours before what essentially felt like a natural stillbirth. We held our daughter for as long as we wanted before she was taken away for autopsy, after which she was brought to a nearby funeral home and cremated. The funeral home also donated a room for a brief memorial service a few days later. We had our family around and supporting us throughout the entire week.

We ended up spending a couple months in a support group for pregnancy and infant loss, where I learned just how many “one in a million” things could go wrong. A particular condition may be very rare, but when you add up all of those conditions, it leaves a sizeable chance of something tragic. At least one other couple had a story just like ours, but with a different genetic defect. A year or so later, we spent nearly a year and far more than we could afford undergoing fertility treatments, and trying to get pregnant again. We were unsuccessful. My sisters average 4 kids each. We got a dog.

This summer, we became pregnant again. It was a surprise pregnancy after having given up hope. At 12 weeks, we went for a CVS test- similar to an amniocentesis, but taking a tissue sample for genetic testing. The results came back with the same defect. This time, the doctors had more information: Severe heart and lung problems, and a 98% chance of “profound” mental retardation, of the unable-to-feed-themselves degree. Something like Down’s syndrome we could have dealt with, but what our child had to look forward to was no life that a parent could inflict on them with a clear conscience. So this week, four years later, we had to go through the same thing all over again. We’ll be scattering the ashes in the same place, near a nice lake a couple hours north of us.

I came away from this with a certain respect for the pro-life protesters. I understand them, I really do. What I don’t support, what drives me to a frothing rage and makes me want to strangle these people, is the implication that this decision was made lightly, or callously. Our children were *people*. They have names. They were loved and wanted, and we would have done anything in our power to give them a good life. We go up to the lake every year on our daughter’s birthday and leave flowers. I completely understand their desire to protect the helpless and recognize them as people.

What they don’t understand is that the job of a parent is to *protect* their children and give them the best possible life. It is a tragic fact that as wrong as abortion is, there are cases where it is still preferable to the alternative. Risking my wife’s life or a third trimester miscarriage just so that we can watch our child suffer and die over several days, putting us into debt for life, is not something that any sane person could force someone to undergo.

Honestly, I don’t think I could have shown the same restraint as the man who shot this video. My heart goes out to him, it really does. I hope he finds some sort of support- The wound never fully heals, but it does get easier to make it through the day. I wouldn’t even wish it on the protesters.

In my personal experience, the world over is gray, and it is the loudest and most annoying that want you to believe it is black white. Any time I see a polarizing issue, instead of picking sides I dive into the middle area, as that is usually where the truth lies. People who insist on black and white are simply blind to what ever is not in their paradigm.

One other comment (unrelated to your post), making abortion illegal won’t end abortion. All the effort protesting should be spent on education and aiding the social ills that lead to elective abortions. Abortions done for medical reasons are between the parents, their doctor, and God.

I want to back track/correct myself on the cost thing. I guess some abroad adoptions are more expensive than locally – and other times they are cheaper. One of my friends said they saved nearly $18k by adopting from East Asia.

To my knowledge, there is no state in the USA where it costs $18K to adopt a child from states’ care. Your friend can not possibly be correct, unless the comparison is to a private “baby mill” or a surrogate mother service.

Adoptions available here through governmental agencies cost less than the plane ticket to anywhere in East Asia. In addition, you will receive at least a $5K tax credit (that’s $5K cash back, straight up) from the US federal government, at minimum. If you adopt a special needs child or a sibling group you will receive significantly more, possibly including a life-long stipend if you adopt a child with severe issues. The various states also have similar subsidies.

http://tax-credit.adoption.com/

The nation, the state, and your local community benefit when children grow up in families. It costs the taxpayers less to support a child in a family than in an institution. Children benefit in many objectively measurable ways when they grow up in families (such as level of education reached, level of income/taxpaying reached, rate of crime and incarceration, for example).

It makes financial, moral, and practical sense for our taxes to support adoption. That’s why it’s cheaper to adopt inside the US than abroad, as long as you’re dealing with a tax-funded or non-profit agency.

Some states allow for-profit baby mills that cater to prospective parents’ fears and religious or social prejudices. They cost a lot more, obviously.

He’s being a little harsh on those abortion protesters, don’t you think? They are only doing what their imaginary god tells them to do. They are like Bin Ladin’s followers, Jim Jones’s koolaid mixers, the catholic soldiers during the crusades, the enslavement of the new world and the inquisition. – but just petty.

Let’s be grateful that their crappy little god didn’t tell them to get an ak and start shooting sinners.

Why are they wasting their time with abortion when there are hundreds of thousands of actual murders taking place on a daily basis in places all over the world that would be more than happy to stop?

Again, I am pro-choice, but that’s not a very good argument against those who oppose abortion because murder is illegal and relatively few pro-lifers would want to change that.

For the record, many pro-life people I’ve known do extend that philosophy toward all living human beings- opposing not only abortion but also murder, war, euthanasia and capital punishment.

Along these lines, apparently nobody in the anti-liberty camp can absorb the information that things go wrong in pregnancy. Not always (obviously), but both newborns and their mothers used to die like flies before we had modern obstetrics (that’s why we have modern obstetrics). (2)

These idiots insist on believing that pregnancy is all unicorns and rainbows, with little putti angel babies waiting in heaven for their shot at an earthly existence, because gosh, isn’t that nicer than dealing with the fact that some fetuses don’t get a urinary system? And golly, aren’t they nicer people for refusing to deal with it?
________
(1) And what do such people call those of us who prefer facts? Say it with me, folks: Elitists.

(2) Just as a matter of scope, consider the number of women you know whose kids were born by caesarian, or forceps, or induced labor. A century ago, those women or their kids or both would have been either dead, or seriously and permanently messed up.

My heart goes out to Aaron and also Mike the Bard here in comments. Bravo to Aaron for talking back.

Did you know a fetus can die inside a woman and she won’t necessarily go into labor? If the extremists have their way ALL abortion will be legal, including removing the fetus before the 9th month. Imagine being forced to carry a dead body for months, then go through labor pains knowing it’s already dead?! Or, as in the video, the fetus with terminal birth defects. What’s the point of forcing the fetus to breathe air for a few hours so it can slowly die?

Read this: http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/topics/transracialadoption.htm

The fact that there are many more black babies than white babies in care does not mean that there are any short-cuts to proving your fitness to adopt. Your bargain-bin metaphor is ugly and I hope you never use it in front of your black cousin.

But what about the people who get abortions simply because the fetus is inconvenient? That seems like a horrible reason.

Who told you that that ever happens, or that it’s even an appreciable number of the total abortions every year? If Christianity can be used to fleece people stupid enough to follow an evangelical preacher, can’t your argument against abortion be extended to prohibit Christianity? I mean, the fleecing seems to happen a lot, so, like abortion, the only solution is to eliminate the entire thing. Sorry.

So instead of fighting about something we will never, ever completely agree on, why don’t we join forces and put our energy and passion into something we do agree on.

After all, children that haven’t been aborted deserve a chance at life. They deserve full bellies, a decent education, a home to belong to, someone to look out for them.

How many children within a five-mile radius of your house go to bed hungry? How many kids are waiting for a family in your city? How underfunded and understaffed is your branch of Child Protective Services?

So, do you really care about kids, or do you care about punishing people you don’t agree with? Because I think if you really really care about kids, you put down your sign and actually do something to help a child. Period.

Links: One in 50 kids in USA are homeless:
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-03-10/us/homeless.children_1_homeless-children-family-homelessness-child-homelessness?_s=PM:US

That is incorrect. Until it is capable of surviving on its own outside the womb, a fetus is a non-individual – a dependent biological entity with only the potential of becoming a distinct, living human individual.”

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Well, seeings how young a premie can go when the doctor does a premature delivery via cesarean, I’d say that’s a hard line to draw. If we have to cut the cord first before the fetus is a separate individual, then I suppose Siamese twins, however they’re connected, have to be regarded as a whole individual. Though I expect you might have a hard time getting them to agree to that simplicity for your convenience.