Not aborting fetuses will soon be a crime in San Francisco.
At least that’s what the city government is pushing for in its bizarre new attack on pregnancy counseling centers.
Actually, “bizarre” is too mild a word to describe San Francisco’s latest outburst; even from my pro-choice perspective, the city’s attempt to essentially banish any counseling center which doesn’t encourage or perform abortions is simply beyond belief.
San Francisco leaders are launching a coordinated attack against what they call “one of the most serious threats to reproductive rights today” — so-called crisis pregnancy centers that advertise as though they provide abortions, but counsel against them.
In a joint press conference with Supervisor Malia Cohen, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said the “right-wing, politically motivated centers” use false advertisements to target vulnerable populations and can cost women valuable time as they decide whether or not to end a pregnancy.
“Women’s reproductive rights are under assault,” Herrera said.
The two officials both took action against the centers Tuesday: Cohen introduced legislation that would prohibit centers from making misleading statements about the services they provide, while Herrera took the first step toward legal action against a center he accused of doing just that.
…
Cohen’s bill, which was co-sponsored by supervisors David Chiu, Jane Kim and Scott Wiener, would give centers that use misleading advertisements 10 days to correct the problem. After that, the organizations would either be fined or given a court order requiring them to comply.
Also on Tuesday, Herrera sent a letter to First Resort, a San Francisco center whose advertising he described as “particularly egregious.”
First Resort’s sponsored advertisement appears in the results of a Google search for the terms “abortion” and “San Francisco”.
When women search for terms like “abortion” and “San Francisco,” a Google ad sponsored by First Resort appears, even though the organization does not provide abortions or referrals for them, Herrera said.
The letter asks First Resort to change its advertisements and website by the end of August to clarify that it does not provide abortion services.
Hold on just a moment. Everybody freeze. What exactly is “First Resort” accused of doing wrong? Buying a Google ad? Let’s look at the specifics.
If you scour First Resort’s Web site, nowhere do they claim that they provide abortions, or even advocate for abortions. In fact, quite the opposite: they use various code words like “values” and “adoption” which make it pretty clear they’re coming from a “keep the baby” perspective in their counseling.
So what’s the problem? San Francisco’s municipal government apparently had a conniption fit over the placement of First Resort’s Google ad. In particular, if you Google the words “abortion” and “San Francisco,” the very top result is a listing for the First Resort clinic:
Does the ad itself say that First Resort provides abortions? No. Does it even mention abortions? No. It just says “First Resort – Unplanned Pregnancy.” Nothing more. But gosh darn it, the ad pops up if someone does a Google search!
Now, I’m not enough of an expert on Google Ads to know how the placement works. Does First Resort get a good placement simply because of an automated relevancy algorithm built into the Google search engine? Or did First Resort give Google money specifically so that they would get high placement in various search term combinations?
I don’t know. And I’m pretty certain that the S.F. City Attorney doesn’t know either. Because it’s easy to target a nonprofit counseling center, but woe unto any entity as small as a city which tries to sue the behemoth Google, which probably has more lawyers on staff than all the pregnancy counseling centers in the world combined. (Only sovereign nations have the resources to sue Google, as is happening now in various privacy lawsuits.)
If First Resort’s Google Search listing had come in, say, 17th, behind various abortion mills, the city of San Francisco would have just shrugged it off and not gone to all this trouble. But those damn non-aborters somehow managed to finagle the top result for certain search terms! Take them to court!
This could be a legal first. Has any other business or organization ever been sued over their Google search ranking? Because that’s what this is all about. Remember that neither First Resort’s Web site nor the ads linking to their Web site make any claims about providing abortions. No, the only basis for a “false advertising claim” against them is not the content of their advertising, but the placement of it. But it’s not even clear if the company has any control over the placement of their ads — for that info, we’d have to sue Google, which is simply unfeasible.
So, based on basically no evidence whatsoever, the city of San Francisco is planning to sue a counseling center for false advertising, even though their advertisements are not false.
De jure, it’s possible to distinguish between the two stances. De facto, approximately everyone but yourself, good sir, considers them synonymous.
There are significant moral and philosophical problems with being tolerant of abortion at all stages of pregnancy. Even without recourse to religious doctrine, one must be troubled by the question: “Does the possession of a right to life depend solely on being outside the womb?” The question becomes especially incisive as we advance the frontier of viability — the earliest age at which a developing fetus can be sustained outside its mother’s body.
But let that pass. One can also say: “I favor legalized abortion at all stages of pregnancy because the consequences of intruding on mothers in the attempt to restrict abortions would be fatal to individual liberty and privacy.” Now, that’s not my stance, but I’ll admit that the argument deserves sober consideration. What’s important is that one have a defensible reason for one’s position, and the capacity to articulate it clearly. Then, if someone says, “You’re not pro-choice but pro-abortion,” at the very least you’ll have a chance to defend yourself.
Here’s where I try to draw the line.
I agree with the pro-choice crowd that a woman should not be compelled by force of law to carry a pregnancy to term. I also agree with the pro-life folks that a fetus sufficiently developed to survive ex utero (because it’s further along than a lot of premature babies that lived) should not have a hole punched in its skull and have its brain sucked out. Furthermore, a botched abortion that becomes the birth of a breathing baby should not end with the baby dying in a linen closet.
The clear compromise point is that a first trimester abortion is pretty much fair game, but once the fetus reaches the point where it might be able to survive outside the womb, it gets that chance: All such abortions should be in the form of inducing early delivery, with a second doctor ready to attend to the fetus(ae) and give it that shot at life. (Missouri passed a law very much like this years ago, and the courts found some reason why it was unconstitutional. Go figure.)
A landlord’s right to evict a tenant doesn’t extend to a right to kill the tenant. A woman’s right to evict a fetus shouldn’t either.
Now watch BOTH sides call me the nastiest names you can imagine, and worse.
What you’re overlooking is that the pro-life view holds that abortion is morally equivalent to murder–that the baby has a right to life equal to that of any born person. It’s hard to compromise when holding that view.
You said: “I agree with the pro-choice crowd that a woman should not be compelled by force of law to carry a pregnancy to term.” What the staunch pro-lifer in me heard was: “A person should not be compelled by force of law to let other people stay alive.” There is no freedom of “choice” regarding the lives of born people; IF the unborn have the same right to life as the rest of us, I hope you can see how the argument of “choice” regarding abortion is unacceptable.
After a paragraph focusing only on the fetus, I feel compelled to add an aside to counter the common misconception that pro-lifers only care about the fetus and not about the mother. Nothing could be further from the truth. Crisis pregnancy centers–such as those San Fransisco is seeking to outlaw–frequently offer help and encouragement for struggling parents in the form of material items (diapers, strollers, toys, clothes, and more) and intangible assistance (such as education and advice regarding child-rearing, job skills, etc). Centers that offer abortion, as far as I know, offer no such services.
Good post!
a small addition: Crisis Pregnancy Centers also offer post-abortion counseling / help for women and men who years later begin to regret their decision and think to themselves, “My child would have been 10 years old now…”
Exacty right. The labels Pro-Choice and Pro-Life are both attempts to win the debate by control of the language. If you accept the “Pro-Life” label as legit you have already conceded a life is in the balance and there isn’t an argument left. Or to accept the “Pro-choice” label presupposes a life isn’t under consideration (since infanticide isn’t a choice we normally permit) so it follows as night follows day that the mother can do whatever she wants.
The question of when is a second life involved is a moral, philosophical and religious question we will debate until the Sun goes out.
The question of when a new Citizen is created is one a Constitutional Republic can, should and must answer. The current Constitution as written can only be read to say born or naturalized. In light of modern medicine the question before the citizenry is whether that line needs moving and then where we redraw the line.
I see what you did there, John Morris. You equivocated “citizen” with “living human being” and, by implication, have equated “non-citizen” with “disposable at whim.”
Even though I am a Catholic and anti abortion, I end up about where you end up. Now the pity of it is if the US Supreme Court had not found a constitutional right, where none had existed the previous 180 years or so, the laws of the US would probably end up where we are. Think about the energy, money and time that would not be spent on this issue and used elsewhere. Besides, don’t fool yourself much of the lack of civility results from decisions like this being decided by courts and removed from the political arena.
Just take this as a hypothetical… Dr. Smith induces labor in Jane Doe who is 30 weeks pregnant and wants an abortion. Dr. Jones is there and treats the baby. The baby has underdeveloped lungs, and has lots of problems common to preemies, and ends up with cerebral palsy.
Twenty years later the 20-year-old with cerebral palsy sues Dr. Smith for personal injury, and sues Dr. Jones for malpractice.
Do you think that this will ever happen, or will every insurance company put their doctors under a contractual agreement not to participate in delivery-in-lieu-of-abortion as a condition of getting insurance?
What you are advocating bears some resembelnce to Roe. But Roe is a red herring; it’s DOE (vs. whom, I forget) that completely removed the restrictions. (Doe calims to have been more-or-less coerced, by the way.)
There is no such thing as “choice”. Somewhere along the way, a woman will be incompetent, in a coma, etc. and someone will make the choice for her.
At any rate, most “pro-choicers” are clearly pro-abortion. (By the way, is someone who wants to kill only half the babies in the world not por-infanticide.)
The original terminology was abortion-on-demand and anti-abortion. Maybe we should go back to that.
I can only assume that this legislation is an attempt at “protecting” all those poor folks who most “need” abortions, because as we all know, the poor are too illiterate/stupid to read the words on a website and make sense of them, or to be able to overcome all those nasty pro-lifer arguments, like “a fetus is a living member of Homo Sapiens” and “maybe you should consider putting your child up for adoption”. Damn you, anti-choicers, tricking these poor people into breeding and costing us even more tax dollars! How can the government keep NPR going if we have to write welfare checks to all these peons?
I’ve seen the abortuaries have ads like, “Our doctors are licensed OBGYN specialists”–and the average person thinks it means “board certified.”
In fact, in my home town, NONE of the doctors (who worked as independent contractors and were paid in cash at the end of the day) were board certified and had hospital admitting privileges.
And I myself saw ambulances pull up to these “safe, legal” clinics that were cited by the County board of heath for having rats and roaches in their procedure rooms and reusing disposable plastic cannulas and curettes.
Veterinary clinics have higher standards than these.
The legislation is also aimed at shutting up those of us smart enough to recognize that the legalize-abortion crowd’s talk about abortion being a last resort was all phony all along.
If the abortion-legalizers are sincere about their claim that abortion is a last resort, they’d be insisting that First Resort get first placement.
Happened to me! As I lay there on the table…waiting….the fella setting up the instruments knocked the little metal tray over and they spilled on the floor. I was quickly going ‘under’ from the drugs and all I remember is looking at him and him looking at me. I went to sleep. Did he get clean instruments? I’ll never know. But I do know that I developed a serious infection afterwards.
Like Mr. Porretto, I will say that it is in fact _possible_ for an individual to make a meaningful distinction between “pro-choice” and “pro-abortion”. A person with a logically defensible argument similiar to the one he posits is someone I disagree with, but can talk to under a presumption of mutual honesty, and possibly come to some agreement about the best plausible outcome of the question in the political sphere.
In politics, however, this is the position of such a ludicrously tiny minority that it is not safe to assume that any given person one is not already VERY well-acquainted with holds such a position.
Many, possibly most, of those who describe themselves as “pro-choice” would, if individually questioned about it in private, freely admit to being pro-abortion. Fine…they’re my enemy, but at least they’re willing to don the philosophical uniform of a soldier and fight our battles with something like honor.
But given that this sort of dissimulation is _common_, in fact nearly _universal_ among those on the “pro-choice” side who are actively involved in the abortion war, my first assumption (subject to individual refutation in the face of sufficient evidence, but nevertheless quite strong) about anyone who claims to be “pro-choice” but denies being “pro-abortion” is that such person is a liar.
So what if a person is against the federal government being in the abortion business either direction. Does that make them pro-choice? However, under my understanding of the Bill of Rights, the state can ban abortion via the legislative or referendum process.
I’ve had this actual discussion with local Republicans who are pro-life because of their religious views, and they agreed they would support a candidate who campaigned to get the fed out of the abortion business (repeal Roe v. Wade) while supporting a state-wide abortion ban, excepting certain clearly-defined medical conditions, rape, and certain other special circumstances.
You are correct in that the Federal Government have NO business being involved in abortion at ANY level.. not even stealing our tax dollars to pay for it in ANY circumstance. What the Roe vs Wade decision did is unconstitutional… a woman’s “right to privacy” resides nowhere in that founding document.. not even within its “umbrae and penumbrae” where those black-robed legislators claim to have “found” it. The ONE class of WE THE PEOPLE they utterly neglected in that tragic decision is the unborn person. What about THAT person’s “right to privacy”? Nor can this “decision” be retained by the states, or the people, as that Document clearly protects the right to LIFE for ALL people within our borders… yes, even the illegal resident or temporary tourist. Until, and unless, a given individual of ANY age or location (ten weeks since conception, yet within the Mother’s womb) is tried and found not worthy to live on the basis of evidence against them (and sorry, the Mother’s “convenience” or “preference” can NOT be admissible, on the grounds that it is not relevant to the case… those being the MOTHER”S crime, not her child’s) that LIFE cannot be terminated lawfully.
I’m waiting for the bumpersticker that shows an obviously not-yet-born child and has the tag line “keep your laws off MY body”.
Yes, Howard, you’re right. As we see in Zombie’s article, “pro-choice” rarely means that the person in question is willing to allow pro-lifers to operate on the same playing field; “pro-choice” laws tend to mean that I must pay for abortions, fund ESCR, NOT KNOW if my minor daughter is a victim of statutory rape and becomes pregnant as a result, etc. I tend to agree with Matt’s last sentence above.
Realistically, abortion won’t become illegal in he US until it’s politically acceptable for it to happen. (Please think that through before you accuse me of nasty things.) If Roe v Wade were overturned, abortion would go back to the states like pre-1973. Then you’d have states like Massachusetts and Vermont, and cities like San Francisco, slide into irrelevancy as they were depopulated even faster than they are now. To be honest, there’s only so much more energy I have to devote to keeping liberals from killing themselves off and engaging in completely sterile relationships, ya know? Heck, I think we’re better off with fewer liberals anyway.
For practical purposes “pro-choice” has become an oxymoron. Much more often than not it means “we the (self) annointed will choose for you”.
One of the most ludicrous pronouncements came from then Assemblywoman (now Congresswoman) Jackie Speir who once announced that she was against natural rights because that would interfere with “a woman’s right to choose”. And she made it plain that in her world natural rights did not exist unless legislative bodies created them. It seems that the word “natural” was not part of her vocabulary.
“Oxymoron” is the wrong word. The correct word is, “lie” because it has never meant anything OTHER than “we the (self) annointed will choose for you”.
Margaret Sanger who was the mother of Planned Parenthood, a pro-abortionist and a driving force in American Eugenics wanted to rid our country of the ‘undesirables’.
When healthy, attractive white women started having abortions, that’s when the whole anti-abortion movement really started.
Playing Devil’s advocate here a bit, but…
How many people are against black, welfare sucking crack-whores aborting their retarded, drugged up fetuses? How many people here are against inbred hillbillies aborting their womb fruit? How many people here are ready to take those children in when the mother abandons them to the state?
I am!
I always have been!
I always will be!
But I’d rather the tending to be left to the Religious Community rather than the CPS Foster System and Government funding method.
That’s very admirable of you, jd.
You must have your hands full! How many have you taken in so far?
I can’t even fathom what a heavy responsibility that is!
I am replying to your rhetorical query because I would have responded with the same answer. It’s tough taking in foster kids or adopting. It is worth it. Why ask that question in such a confrontational manner? I have been foster parent to many children over the years. Some came as children and left as adults, some were in our house for only one night. All of them were welcome, all of them were loved and appreciated.
My mother taught me well, she was a staunch anti-abortion feminist who took in many children and sometimes their pregnant mothers as well. She warned me when abortion became legal that it would be a slippery slope that would lead to mandatory abortions, euthanasia and death panels. She was right she was killed two years ago by her hospital that refused to even consider treatment that would have saved her life. They did offer a very nice ‘death with dignity’ suicide package so, I guess everything was on the ‘up and up’.
Not nearly as many as we’d like to because the state has a boatload of insane rules regarding each child having their own room of a specific size and to include x amount of closet space and y amount of drawers.
Heaven forbig you ever put two kids in the same room with a bunk bed or some such.
Limited budgets can only go so far, and the state insures that volunteer groups and privatly funded attempts to do something with a Religious overtone cannot do too much good because it might make the state look bad.
God bless you, jd.
My “Devil’s Advocate” argument was the one that Leftists use ALL of the time to try and shut down a discussion.
I hope you don’t mind if/when the next time I get in an anti-abortion argument with a Lefty, I can use your post here as an example of someone who puts their money where their mouth and beliefs are.
I’m with you.
Is anyone out there not appalled that such a high number of black babies are aborted? If you’re not, you’re not paying attention.
Healthy infants get snapped up very quickly by adoptive parents in the US. There are a lot more wanna be parents than there are babies, which is why so many infertile couples don’t even try to adopt here, but go to other countries instead.
In Texas, liberals had made rules against white adults adopting black babies, which left many black babies unadopted, since black adults do not adopt at the same rate as white adults. Governor Bush helped get rid of that stupid racist rule.
Whoa! I just looked it up!
I can’t believe that, in the NINETIES, it was illegal for a white couple to adopt a black baby. And who was arguing against it? Blacks!!!
http://articles.latimes.com/1997-01-12/news/ls-17791_1_interracial-adoptions
“At the opposite end of this debate is David Watts, a biracial social worker in New York who was raised by an adoptive white family. “It’s a bad idea to put a black child in a white home. . . . I think it’s impossible for someone of one culture to teach another culture,” he said. “You have to live it in order to absorb it…
Race matching is supported by those who believe that ethnic identity and pride can be best preserved if, for example, an African American child grows up in an African American family. Since 1972, the influential National Assn. of Black Social Workers has taken this stance, suggesting that interracial adoption is a form of genocide and that “black children in white homes are cut off from the healthy development of themselves as black people.”
WHAT THE FRICK????
Yes, only someone who has marinated in the “black culture” of anger and bitterness against Western Civilization can really feed that poison to an innocent child.
Why are you so so surprised? Anyone paying attention knows the racial separatists and supremacists WHO HAVE ANY POLITICAL POWER are black.
“Why are you so so surprised? Anyone paying attention knows the racial separatists and supremacists WHO HAVE ANY POLITICAL POWER are black.”
And how would you classify the WHITE Liberals who – seem to have a great deal of political power – yet support ethnic separatists and supremacists. Last I checked La Raza and other illegal alien and reclaimist organizations also weren’t black
I always note to Liberals that they consider the 3/5 Compromise to be an ugly, demeaning thing to have applied to other human beings, yet they follow a standard that considers other human beings as 0/5, no compromise.
Haven’t heard a good response yet; still waiting…
I didn’t realize that by not wanting someone to be killed, you were then responsible for them forever. If I saw a homeless man being beaten to death, would I be responsible for his welfare if I prevented his murder? Whether you are able to care for an individual or not should not inform your opinion as to whether they should live or die. One thing at a time. Life first.
Actually, ZeldaC,
We the People *DO* end up being responsible for many of these offspring via our tax dollars regardless if we take in those down-trodden folks.
I know we do. Legal abortion doesn’t prevent that at all, and only makes it worse because it systematically takes away the consequences of an individual’s choice. According to progressive logic, given the percentage of abortions committed in the black community, they should be at least the most upwardly mobile ethnic group in America. But they aren’t. And it’s because they are stuck in the downward spiral of white progressive social justice. I don’t think we really understand how degrading to the human spirit it is when the government and all their proxy organizations and social programmers tell you that killing your offspring is something to be seriously considered. It’s humiliating and dehumanizing.
Devil’s advocate back at you… Did you know that the average person on the TANF rolls is white, has one child, and receives for less than one year? I used to believe that stereotype about black, drugged-up, welfare-sucking baby machines, but the truth is that that person is an extremely marginal case. Maybe “Devil’s Advocate” isn’t the right word here… Maybe “correction” is closer.
I don’t doubt it one bit.
Delia, playing devil’s advocate here at bit, but… wasn’t abortion illegal for people regardless of race prior to Margaret Sanger’s campaign of death? Doesn’t the fact it was illegal everywhere regardless of race imply a healthy majority of people opposing dead babys on demand at that time? The only reason an anti-abortion movement was noticed after Sanger started her death advocacy was that it was simply assumed prior to her campaign. Just like you don’t see much in the way of an anti-pedophilia movement only because it is illegal everywhere and is not currently necessary. The more the pro-pedo movement gains in strength the more you will see an anti-pedo movement grow. It is not racism.
Actually, the main reason that abortions were rare in the pre-Sanger days is that they were extremely dangerous operations. Remember that all throughout history up until the 1880s when Joseph Lister invented antiseptic procedures, most invasive operations generally resulted in infection and death. As a result, operations were only given in extreme/emergency situations, like battlefield amputations, cancerous tumor removal, etc., where the patient was going to die without the operation anyway.
But to give someone an operation for a non-life-threatening condition would have been lunacy back then; no need to kill someone with a post-surgery infection over something minor. But starting in the 1880s, and spreading worldwide in the 1890s and early 1900s, antiseptic procedures became standard practice in operating rooms.
But remember that Sanger’s birth-control/eugenics movement was started only a few years later, in the Teens (ca. 1914), so that there had only been a very few years — just a decade or two — in which medically safe abortions were even possible. Although abortion was “illegal” prior to Sanger’s career — its ban I think was based more on the fact that it was extremely dangerous, rather than on moral grounds (it was the American Medical Association who pushed for the ban, not religious groups).
Also, my understanding is that the “safer” (for the mother only, of course) abortions in the 1970′s onward were because of widespread antibiotic use, not so much because they were legal.
I tihnk you have no knowledge of history at all. I beleive Sanger was pro-life, to start. And abortion laws were certainly no written for Blacks.
I can’t speak to your racial stereotyping, but I will happily take in a Black child. (My wife is African-Amrican, anyway.) We live in Haifa; can we do a foreign adoption from the U.S.?
So many Americans have committed murder and this caused them to vote for Pharaoh Hussein who is now irretrievably destroying the Republic. It does seem well-deserved, what a bloody-handed nation, it cannot survive much longer.
“Preadventure there be found ten there. I shall not destroy it for the sake of ten.”
Take Caution when you interpret for The Lord.
He may have more mercy than we!
50 million people have been murdered since Roe vrs Wade. 50 million….people. I doubt a handfull of those had anything to do with the mothers health. It was all out of inconvience…selfishness. A “Mother Teresa” was killed, a “George Washington” was killed, a “Sir Isaac Newton” was killed…….
Pro-choice means Pro-death. Our governments control of the Health Care system is Pro-death. Obamacare will evolve into bureaucratic executive orders determining who will live and who will die. Healthcare will be based on a persons age and usefullness to the Federal Government. Eugentics…euthanasia…population control.
God WILL judge America…He will spare the 10 righteous.
Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. Thomas Jefferson
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.
“Is “pro-choice” always just a euphemism for pro-abortion, or is there a middle ground?”
No, there isn’t. Eventually, you move to pro-life or a pro-death, er, “pro-abortion” position. I think you are slowly but surely moving in the “pro-life” direction with articles like this, Zombie.
Also, as far as Google placement, I would say that First resort has a good search engine optimizer (SEO). Google places links based on relevance to the search topic discussed, as well as the popularity of the webpage. I don’t know which comes first, but a good SEO makes sure to setup his webpage with the most popular words available.
The psychology of the legislators driving this effort is skin-crawlingly creepy. I don’t have kids so maybe I don’t have a dog in the fight (no disrespect intended to mothers, dogs or children) but the increasingly rabid “pro-choice” elements in places like San Francisco have proven that they are quite prepared to use any and all forms of governmental censorship to prevent even the mildest presentation of the “anti-abortion” view.
Once again I have to ask – “What is it that drives these people?” How can so much passion, indeed fury, be worked up for ending the life of a fetus in the womb? The whole abortion process makes me queasy on moral and physical grounds but what really scares the hell out of me is the cold, steely-eyed, (let’s say it) fanaticism of SF’s “pro-choice” forces. As we all know the Baby Boomer generation is hitting it’s retirement and adult-diaper phase. I can’t help but thinking that in a few years the “progressive” leaders of places like San Francisco will be advocating forcible euthanasia for selected classes of useless old coots who use far more resources than they produce. I can see SF’s civic leaders bringing the same fire-in-the-belly advocacy to such a proposal. It’s not that much of a jump.
I got two words for you:
Death Panels.
It’s already creeping up on us.
Well I hope that I can get the sendoff that Edward G. Robinson got in “Soylent Green.” I think I would rather go out with Brahms than Beethoven however. Much warmer and more soothing.
The only comfort to be found in those two words is the possibility that the Baby Boomers, the generation most responsible for the death panels’ existence, will be ravaged by them the most thoroughly of all.
I never thought I’d say this, but thank God my grandparents are already dead.
But dont these aging hippies, part and parcel of the “Baby Boomer generation…hitting it’s retirement and adult-diaper phase” realize its going to be THEM?
Hippies never think that far ahead. It’s all that LEFT-over pot brain-fog.
You do have a dog in the fight, if you intend to draw Social Security. The most basic economic internal contradiction of the left is that first, they set up this mother of all Ponzi schemes, which can only be sustained by an ever-increasing population, then second, they work to reduce the population. Only the Ivy League vanguard could be so brilliant.
That is brilliant and I will remember it forever. Thank you.
Think that makes no sense?
How about this.
The green types want us all to drive electric cars, but they will fight tooth and nail against the building of any new power plants.
Yeah I know, windmills and solar energy. Sort of sucks though when every one comes home AT NIGHT to charge their Volts on a calm day.
If you ask them directly, they will disavow the motivation of eugenics. If you ask them probing questions around the edges of the matter, you’ll find their “reasoning” to be based primarily on eugenics mixed with a healthy dose of thinly-disguised Marxist-inspired economic determinism.
Their crime is what they think and believe.
That fact that they are (temporarily) beyond control,
by appearing above centers of the Official View, is an outrage.
They must not simply placed last, no.
For this unforgiveable humiliation of the State,
they must be destroyed.
Herrera: “Women’s reproductive rights are under assault.”
Sounds misleading. Isn’t he talking about a woman’s right to not reproduce? Or to avoid reproducing?
Why do they insist upon calling them “reproductive rights”?
Why not be candid and call them “abortion rights”?
I think they’re afraid to do that. If one is proud of something, why be afraid of it?
There are women who think that abortion is literally a form of birth-control:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1238612/Girls-using-abortion-birth-control.html
:\
If abortion is a reproductive ‘right’ then the right must extend to men as well. I don’t have the right to insist that my wife or girlfriend get an abortion, nor do I have any say in the matter at all (legally). Seems to me that ‘rights’ in this country apply to everyone or no one.
This isn’t about a right. It is about killing a child without guilt or regret. Why get up in arms about Casey Anthony when millions are killed every year without a backwards glance? When does abortion become murder morally? Six months, nine months, never? An infant is just as dependent upon others the day it is born as it is a month before that. Why is anyone under obligation to actually do something to keep the little guy alive? Mom didn’t have to do anything before he was born. Now she had to feed, shelter, change diapers, keep him safe, etc just to keep him alive.
Why is it okay to vacuum out his brains before his head is out of the birth canal and illegal when he pops out the rest of the way? The whole issue reeks of hypocrisy and blood.
“An infant is just as dependent upon others the day it is born as it is a month before that.”
But it isn’t dependent on ONE other. The mother can give that infant up for adoption, and someone else can feed it, shelter it, etc. If we can provide a middle ground allowing a pregnant woman the right to give her fetus up without tearing it limb from limb or sucking its brain out, we could probably get an overwhelming majority of voters. But as long as the “pro life” people insist on an absolute position, that drives voters to the “pro choice” side.
What age is it okay for mom to suck out a child’s brains? Four months? Six? All nine? From a libertarian standpoint how is nine months of carrying a child more onerous than being sliced up alive and thrown into a trash can? Society gets to ask us to do a lot of things we’d probably never want to. They can send you to a foreign country to get shot by some stranger, they can haul you out of your car to fight on a fire line or pull you off the street to serve on a jury. Society can ask that you not kill your children regardless of how old they are. We have to go through endless hoops and expense to execute a deserving adult, we can’t even wait nine months to kill a child?
Sure, I’m with you as long as a woman can fob off her obligation on someone else without killing her child I’m for it. Of course, a man who tries to fob off the obligation of being a father will be fined, arrested, and jailed. If society can demand at the point of a gun that a father be obligated until the child is an adult (even in the case of rape of the father by the mother) why is it wrong to expect only nine months from the mother? No one is suggesting she be jailed for the nine months, no one wants to even put her in any financial or social obligation after the child is born. Apparently dropping a child into a bin at the local hospital or fire station is acceptable parenting. So why say the mother has a right to kill her child?
How dare you question White Female Privilege!
It’s quite simple. “Abortion” is a rather brutal word that perfectly conveys it’s meaning. (That is the purpose of language after all.) Those who clothe the term in euphemisms do so because of their rock-like belief in their own “niceness.” Every progressive believes with a Lenin-like certainty that their values are good and kind and nice. This means that langauge that doesn’t appear to be “nice” must be disguised as something else. Wasn’t that Orwell’s point about the invention of “Newspeak?” Once you change language into something that is intended to convey something other than the truth you can do anything with it.
Exactly,
It is no accident how things become “labels” in the MSM.
Hence the smooth sounding and easy pronouncable two sylable “pro choice” for the killers of infants.
They will not attach the word “abortion” to themselves, even though they are the ones advocating it. The more difficult mouthful “ends in vowel, starts in vowel” pronunciation of “Anti-abortion” is reserved for the ones who wish children to NOT be killed.
The Word “Anti” generally has negative or “unpleasant” associations in our common language, as in calling someone “anti-gay” or mentioning “anti-aircraft (fire)” or even “anti-bacterial”. Nothing huggable there.
“Abortion”, well, it speaks for itself.
Two not so pleasant words, strung together to subliminally “color” one side of the argument with immediate negative connotations.
That is why a supporter of life is NEVER referred to as “pro-life” in mainstream print or electronic media.
Always “Anti-Abortion”
First they came for the penises, and I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t a penis. Then they came for the fetuses, and I seem to dimly recall being one once.
LOL!
Just so! How anyone living can be pro-abortion defies logic.
Well, the refusal to abort certainly does throw a ringer in mandatory sex selective abortions for ameliorating the Chinese proclivity for aborting females, apparently a legacy of Chairman Mao. As with American carbon caps to offset the growing industrial grade Chinese carbon “pollution,” apparently we need to abort more male babies to offset the Chinese one baby per family eugenics program. We need fewer cowboys and more cowgirls for our more sedate, if dull, bovine future. Besides, state mandated slower and smaller American cars mean smaller families in the future, and who needs all those redundant predatory males prone to starting wars and doing domestic mayhem? More same sex marriages, fewer babies. Of course, that means fewer lads and lassies paying into social security, but that’s what open borders and no immigration control is for, although those third world males tend to be patriarchal sexist pigs and wife beaters. Life is a trade off.
Ah, so they only want left-wing poltically motivated crisis pregnancy centers that push abortion! Left/libtard logic: We harrass, exclude and prevent the speech of conservatives for being intolerant!
“We look forward to a robust discussion about the appropriateness of this legislation and urge them not to test the constitutional boundaries of free speech,” Plunkett said.
This government-sponsored harassment of privately funded institutions is so dangerous. Do you think pro-choice clinics are awash in money they can throw at pernicious lawsuits? Perhaps SF knows they can’t legally drive them out, but what about just forcing the life clinics to pay out, and pay out, and pay out to lawyers? It’s taxpayer money being used against private donors.
I love SF, truly. Best food anywhere. But this stuff offends on so many levels, I dread to see the city’s name in the news.
Ah, the need for an editor. Above, I meant to write, “Do you think PRO-LIFE clinics are awash in money they can throw at pernicious lawsuits?”
My apologies for the confusion.
i am pro-choice NOT pro-abortion….i believe that abortions should be legal, making them safe, and rare…i believe women should have the CHOICE of counseling about their other alternatives (adoption, etc) to deny them this is NOT pro-choice but pro-abortion.
and it pisses me off when conservatives dare to generalize me and speak for me as much as it pisses me off when progressives do it.
leciat: “i believe that abortions should be legal, making them safe, and rare”
I’ve never understood that slogan. If “legal and safe” abortions are simply a “choice” between two legal and safe options, why should they be “rare”? Is it somehow okay to suck the brains out of and dismember unborn babies as long as we do it “rarely”? If there’s nothing morally wrong with abortion, and it’s safe and legal, why should it be any more rare than Botox injections or liposuction?
If it’s a simple as a choice, and it’s not a baby, why do your type feel the need to always quantify the procedure as “rare?”
—
Zombie, though you and I agree more than disagree and are generally aligned politically, that we disagree on is fundamental. However, I appreciate your honesty concerning this issue. You are one of the few “pro-choice” proponents that actually is willingly to honestly discuss this divisive issue.
Tip of the Cap.
But I don’t think you should necessarily be surprised by the militancy of the pro-choice crowd. This is always the path of amorality and its only reaching its natural conclusion with the militant. These demands and threats will become more common.
You approve of the murder of the unborn. No matter how you try to couch your lie, it is exactly what it is. MURDER.
On the upside, between homosexuality and forced abortion, the good people of San Fransicko are well on the way to taking themselves out of the gene pool. In theory, some day we’ll be rid of them just through attrition.
It’s already happening:
San Francisco becoming a child-free zone as youth population declines
“Breeders” are now the rare exception in San Francisco. Within just a few years, i will become an adults-only city — no one here is having kids. And those that do, flee the city for ideological and financial reasons
Wow—the “fast breeder reactor” is a reality. Who knew?
Actually, there are very few people now in the city of San Francisco and from the city of San Francisco. What SF really is is a lint remover for the rest of the country. Surprisingly, it really does serve a useful purpose. You don’t want those kind of people polluting Omaha, do you?
You ask: Is “pro-choice” always just a euphemism for pro-abortion, or is there a middle ground?
Not in San Francisco.
If ever anyone wonders why San Francisco has so few children, this is one of the reasons. The City is actively hostile to parents and children.
First Resort’s advertisement is surprisingly positive; I suppose that’s part of why the Board of Supervisors cannot bear the thought.
Its actively hostile to families, because:
Wholesome, well adjusted, morally grounded, confident (not arrogant) hard working, fair minded children from strong, caring families, eventually grow up to me the kinds of adults that will abhor the Fascist S.F / Berkley monopoly on thought and policy.
“Its actively hostile to families”
But SF has those nice parades of totally naked people (usually of the same sex) huggin’, kissin’ & hangin’ all over each other…surely, you don’t mean such expressions of “love” are hostile to families? You’re probably one of those racist, bigoted, homophobic TEA Party terrorists. You could learn a lot from liberals who understand the true meaning of “family”…when they’re not busy aborting them.
Ultimately, the “pro-choice” position must be “pro-abortion” by definition—because the “choice” being discussed is whether or not to choose abortion. Without the availability of abortion, there is no “pro-choice” position, as the term is currently used.
I’d prefer that the conversation focus on the fascistic tactics of the SF city government, and not on the (irrelevant) position of me the messenger, but…
I’m “pro-choice” in that I don’t want the government dictating the intimate details of which medical procedures they deem allowable or not. It’s the small-l libertarian pro-choice position: Once we allow the government to outlaw certain personal medical choices, it’s a slippery slope to total government control over our bodies.
But that doesn’t mean I like abortion or find it preferable. I wish as much as many of you that abortion was extremely rare. I wish that women in that position has the moral outlook to keep their babies to term. But I feel uncomfortable forcing them by law to make the moral choice.
This issue is even addressed in the Bible/Old Testament/Torah: God allows man to choose between good and evil. Sure, God hopes that man chooses good, but He doesn’t “outlaw” evil or banish it from the Earth. God leaves the evil option there, almost as a tool for mankind’s moral growth. In the scriptures, God rewards those who choose good, and punishes those who choose evil, but he does not prevent them rom choosing evil. Having to make that choice is what makes us human.
Now that I’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest, please ignore me and everything I say.
I wasn’t trying to direct the comment at you, Zombie—merely pointing out that if one of two choices is X then inevitably one is “pro-X” (to some extent) by virtue of permitting X to be one of the choices available. That said, to be “pro-abortion” to the point of considering it mandatory is in effect an anti-choice position.
More to your point, the actions/interference of the SF city government should be appalling to anyone who values the concept of freedom, wherever they happen to stand with regard to the Great Abortion Debate.
Bingo. That’s the whole point of my post.
I’m no lawyer, and I don’t even play one on the internet, but it strikes me that the language “misleading” is overbroad, when talking about limits on speech. This wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it past the SCOTUS. That being the case, the agencies in the crosshairs may very well have a SLAPP suit if the city tried to enforce this. They obviously are simply trying to chill speech, and they could be made to pay. Too bad the politicians themselves aren’t likely to pay out of their pockets.
And the voters of SF probably think this monkey business (sorry, Buzzsaw) is dandy.
Good points, Z. I am against government intrusion, but support a 10th Amendment option of a state’s right to legislate.
As to SF: We moved to Texas from Marin and haven’t looked back. When I first moved to the Bay, SF was a warm and friendly place. When I left 18 years later, idiots of all stripes used SF as party central, with cops zoning off ‘wild’ areas and standing around like baby sitter/chaperones.
All the good people, and cops, have left. All that remains are fools and the predators who prey upon fools. A good advertisement for abortion rights, a la Sanger.
This new twist will only serve to help drive out any remaining sentient beings.
Bronx boy by any chance?
I really like you zombie but the government is expected to provide justice. In the course of justice the government is allowed to intrude upon people’s personal lives, especially when harmless defenseless people have been purposely killed. Calling it a medical procedure does not hide the truth. Anyways, keep up the good work, you are a lover of truth.
Zombie, do you not use your real name because of your “pro-choice” position? The real problem with “pro-choice” is that the very tiny unable to protect itself person in the womb does not get a choice. It is barbaric and no government should be funding or promoting it.
Hmmm;
You sound pro-life to me, from your own description. The most vocal wing of the pro-life movement is the one that focuses on pro-life laws, but there are many of us who recognize that laws won’t work if people’s hearts aren’t changed and minds aren’t informed. When you look around, most pro-life laws are attempts to outlaw things like abortion of viable fetuses, and informing parents of pregnant minors when the girls seek abortions. The other pro-life groups are involved with crisis pregnancy centers and such. What troubles me most here is that so many women, when asked why they had an abortion, say “I didn’t think I had a choice.” and San Francisco is making sure that situation stays the same.
The term “fascist”, in reference to this city’s decision is not out of place. Remember, the first victim of the Third Reich was not a Jew, but a disfigured child named Gerhard Gretschmar.
Correct spelling, and background info for the uninitiated:
Gerhard Kretschmar
So what — the novel thing is that he asked Hitler.
It was symbolic but not unusual at all.
Back then euthanasia was quite normal as it was accepted that raising a severely disabled child is a huge burden.
Almost every culture had the quiet way of dealing with this problem, and they still do, go and check the statistics in countries to see how many disabled people they look after and how many they should have…
Regards blame, I’m not sure it’s anyone’s to place — after all, I’m not seeing droves of committed people offering to adopt severely handicapped kids(of which there are many parked in institutions), nor do I see a huge support net spring up to help parents with disabled kids meet the challenges. When I see volunteers to take care of those kids for (say) respite services, then I think that we’re getting somewhere.
Until then, talk is cheap.
Let me throw this out there….
“The right to life is the foundation of every other human right. If that right is not inviolate, then no right can be guaranteed” – Archbishop Chaput
You do not have to be for or against abortion to be against Roe vs. Wade. Reverse that ridiculously-reasoned Supreme Court decision and then leave it up to the state legislatures to make laws for abortion, against abortion, partially for abortion, partially against abortion, etc. In short, return the power to make these sorts of laws to the people. This is a perfect way for a Republican candidate to run for national office — no position one way or the other on abortion but against Roe vs. Wade because it uses faulty legal reasoning to take away from the American electorate their inherent right to legislate.
Well then they should punish Planned Parenthood using a misleading name. They perform more abortions than they do help people actually plan for parenthood. “Planned Termination,” or “Unplanned Pregnancy Disposal” seems more appropriate.
Margaret Sanger presumably selected the name “Planned Parenthood” from her own writings. She was of the idea that no one should become a parent unless she specifically planned to become one at that point in her life; any deviations from a woman’s plan for herself should be gotten rid of. This view is still evident today in pro-choice rhetoric that “every child should be loved by its parents… so lets abort the ones they won’t love.” Personally, I’m a fan of “Every child should be loved… so let’s find someone to love this one.”
One wonders were a ‘homosexual gene’ discovered what the response would be then by the Mandarins, (uh…sic., person-darins) of SF to ads offering to off the not yet born gay, undifferentiated tissue masses.
I hear some words…”As ye have done it to the least of these…ye have done it to Me.” Think about the four last things. (And to any anti-religious or other types, eat your own snark, I don’t care.)
If that happened, then most gays would be Catholic?
No, just as most other sinners aren’t Catholic either even though its in their best interest to get themselves to what’s been called “not a museum of saints but a hospital for sinners.”
By the way, as you’re using the word “gay”, Jeannette, it labels not a sexual preference but a lifestyle and a politics. Nobody is born unalterably with a pre-determined lifestyle and politics. Realize that and your thinking about “gays” will become much clearer and closer to reality.
This should dispel the idea that the pro-choice crowd is really just that, they are actually pro-abortion and in an absolutist sense. The only “choice” they will tolerate is the one that ends in the death of the unborn baby. They are so pro-abortion they are prenatal science deniers to the point of tolerating infanticide.
http://www.bluecollarphilosophy.com/2011/07/funeral-held-for-baby-girl-killed-by-late-term-abortion-picture.html
This explains their attack on CPC’s. They cannot allow any alternatives to women that do not provide abortion. They even see abortion as better than adoption.
This is reason number 301 California needs to slide off into the Pacific.
As a Californian, born here, let me respectfully wish that – in return for your wish of my home sliding into the sea – you see your home destroyed by whichever force of nature is most prevalent in your area.
Let me also suggest that you take your freakin’ relatives, who moved here and wrecked my state, back into your homes.
Please.
I’m profoundly tired of reading how my state – wrecked by your relatives who moved here – should slide into the sea.
Thank you.
Well said, Dianna!
The Google ranking maybe from either a paid ad or simply a high ranking in the ranking criteria. I am not sure which this is. If it is an ad, whomever offers to pay Google the most for that search term gets placed highest. So if company A offers $1 and company B offers .50 when the words abortion and San Francisco is entered, then Company A shows higher on the paid ads.
Now if it is not a paid ad then the ranking is determined by Googles ranking criteria which changes over time but is intended to give the best most relevent links at the top. Some of how that is determined is based on what key words are used on the page the link leads to and some of that is determined by how many other related pages link to that page. For example if a company has the words abortion and San Francisco and related words on the page and there are a bunch of links to that same page from other pages from other web sites, they will be ranked higher than web pages without the words and the links. Part of the linking also has to do with the quality of the coding behind the page. A poorly coded page with broken links and such that makes it hard for the web crawlers that go around ranking pages to evaluate the page is going to get a lower ranking.
There is a whole industry, Search Engine Optomization, SEO, devoted to this topic, getting towards the top of search engine rankings and I know just enough to pretend I know something about it.
So the irony is, the act of SF city government and the lefties drawing attention to First Resort, and in so doing linking to its page from many news articles and blogs, may in fact contribute to its high Google ranking! As a a result of being so “well connected” (from lefties who hate it), First Resort gets a higher ranking from Google than if it had just been ignored!
That would be correct.
I am not a lawyer but I am guessing if this is a paid ad, then maybe there is a chance somehow that the S.F. politicians could do something claiming an attempt to deceive or whatever. If this is just a high search ranking…. part of which is caused by the publicity, not sure how you can go after them.
Likely, every one of those San Francisco Democrats moaning about an alternatives-to-abortion center named “First Resort” has at one time or another claimed something like “women choose abortion only as a last resort.”
So, where’s the false advertising when the “last resort” is listed last?
This is also a first amendment issue. Given that there is nothing false in the advertising. And there isn’t. What is happening here is that they are being targeted for having views unpopular with the left. This has always been true: that the left is only for freedom of speech that it favors. When the speech is not leftist or socially destructive speech, they want to shut it down. The thin veneer of civilization on the left often peels away to reveal the fascist underneath. This is a very big STFU to people who are pro-life. We will sue you. We will put you out of business and even if you win, you will have spent so much in attorney fees that some of your supporters will want to give up. The left, funded by the leviathan state keeps trying to get rid of us, but like grass that insists on growing through the cracks in the concrete, we keep coming back.
So true. Freedom of speech doesn’t apply when we start saying unpopular things… the left yells “bigotry!” and “hate speech!” and while occasionally they have a point, the vast majority of the time I wonder where the First Amendment went.
So, when they “have a point” (when you agree with them?), it trumps freedom of speech?
Hate to tell you folks, but what is happening in SF is the Progressive plan for the entire nation. This is the Hope and Change Obama was speaking about. And this is only the beginning. Next comes your complete loss of liberty, freedom, and rights. Aren’t you glad you voted for him?
Does St Luke’s Women’s Center perform abortions? I wonder how ol’ St. Luke would feel about having babies killed in his name.
Go to a SF Giants or 49ers game and count the number of kids in the stands. Won’t take long.
Leftists are all in favor of a woman having options…..as long as one of the option does not prevent her from murdering her child
Same thing happened in San Diego, even before the days of Google; (http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/27/us/lawsuit-calls-4-groups-bogus-abortion-clinics.html),
The law suits were successful, as I recall.
You know there were attacks on children of leftist mothers in San Fran, right? Hipmama.com was a bulletin board primarily for single, welfare dependent mothers. It was based on a magazine, by a single, welfare- dependent college student. The website was facilitated by single, welfare dependent college student mothers. “child- free” activists would hunt down the mothers, and their children, and harm them in public places. It’s one of the reasons the site shut down, to protect the mothers from hunters.
I’d like some linkage. I’ve lived in the Bay Area since 1981, and I never heard of any such thing. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but I’d like some links.
But “Planned Parenthood” as a moniker for a group under fire for providing abortions to avoid unplanned parenthood is NOT false advertising?
You know something? It’s the liberals and the future welfare class that abort most often….so screw them. Let them go to whatever their version of hell may be for their deeds and we’ll be spared more future Cohens and Herarras. Maybe they can encourage more Latinos to get in on the act.
Sorry, but scum will be scum and will do scummy things. If their scummy deeds reduce the future scum population, let the games begin.
Zombie- is any of this a surprise to you? You should know by now that there is good and evil in the world, and there can be no neutrality between them. Good defends the lives of the innocent, while evil seeks their destruction whenever it is convenient. Did you not watch as hospice killed a man just a few months ago? That evil and this evil are one and the same. Stop trying to pretend otherwise and pick a side.
The San Franciscans have to step over tons of human rubbish every day. They are well aware of the societal costs of men and women having children they are not prepared to take care of
What you call “tons of human rubbish” are adults not babies, dougx. And those adults arrived in San Francisco largely on the promise that the City of San Francisco’s government of liberals and leftists was prepared to take care of them.
Try again.
Ah…..the slippery slopes of deception that has been white-washed. It is always a rapid descent into the twisted, confused, repugnant bottomless pits.
There is no sense in thinking it can’t get any worse. That is always a mistake because there is no such thing. Worse can just keep happening.
Perhaps one day SF may decide to return to common sense. But I kind of doubt it.
The screen cap of Google results included above is a bit confusing because it actually doesn’t show any ads, just search results. The screen cap in the linked article does show the ads, with this ad headline: “Abortion Info – Women’s Pregnancy Clinic | Firstresort.org”. The above link to Google search also shows the ads. However, the ad for First Resort now has the headline “Abortion? | Firstresort.org” (note the question mark).
Ramesh Ponnuru predicted this in his book “The Party of Death” back in 2005. I can’t say I am surprised, but it’s disturbing that this section of the county has so whole heartedly embraced this culture of death. It casts a pall over the Bay Area and diminishes the natural beauty to the point where I recently recommended to some European friends to skip it, and spend more time in FL. I doubt they’ll listen…
Bay area? Try Catholic Boston if you want to see a real culture of death. The left has deliberately infiltrated the Church and shifted the goals from salvation to “social justice” and it’s working just fine. Just look at that Notre Dame love fest for the abortion poster child. Groan!
Of course it’ll survive a First Amendment challenge; there is NO crime, the website is being listed at or near the top because of things web designers call “keywords” that are included in the page code .. and that are used by search algorithms to rank sites by the type, order, and subject of keywords listed on a website. This is something everybody does, there is no violation of the law, and the case from that standpoint should be eventually kicked.
Here’s the problem, though; San Francisco is a part of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the most liberal appeals court in the nation. It routinely incorrectly judges cases on constitutional issues, and will probably agree with the City of SF – which means this case will then reach the Supreme Court (which reverses the Ninth Circuit a disturbingly high no. of times as routine). This is bad for the city, because the final result will be a victory for free speech, and liberals (and especially “pro-choice” advocates) will find it harder to place what they see as fair boundaries on the rights of clinics and medical centers that do not provide, or assist in, abortions.
The city and the Ninth Circuit will proclaim this as a guard against “pro-choice” discrimination by non-supporting groups, while the inevitable result for abortion protesters will further their cause.
Several years ago, I mentioned to my wife that sometime soon, ALL Women would have to have abortion regardless they wanted it or not. She slapped me silly after that.
Sorry to say this little observation seems to be coming closer to reality.
A Sad and Sorry state of affairs..
“She slapped me silly…”
There’s no excuse for domestic abuse – even when its most common perpetrator, a female, is doing the abusing.
Take care, GT, that she’s not training you to accept such behavior as ok because if you fall into that trap and answer back in the same way all of a sudden it won’t be ok anymore. Females are two-faced that way, sorry to say.
I never understood why the abortion issue isn’t framed in racial terms. The pro-abortion, leftist, democrat folks want to continue to slaughter millions of black babies. They hate blacks and always have or, at least since they lost ownership. You have to know that, if the positions were reversed and leftists OPPOSED abortion, they’d argue that Republicans favored abortion only because they were racists.
Christians need to stop using the non-Christians’ watered-down, politically correct terms such as “gay” and “abortion.” It’s sodomy and infanticide. There is no power in the former terms against evil and we will get nowhere in our battle against wickedness by acquiescing to the ungodly’s terminology. See Part 1 of “Word Wars & Captive Thoughts” at http://www.missiontoisrael.org/tapelist.php#T849.
After five seconds at your wesite I’ve figured you out for what you are. With “friends” like you the USA and Israel sure don’t need enemies.
Out of my foxhole, a-hole.
See Archbishop Cranmer on “The Guardian smears pro-life charities”.
50 million dead since Roe v Wade? Meh. What’s two entire generations murdered before they had a chance, have to do with anything anyway? Call it pro-choice or pro-abortion, in the end they’re still dead and we will regret it in ways that no one has figured out yet.
I have to get ready for work, so not taking time to read everything in the discussion thread- so, my apologies for potentially being redundant…
Anywho…the true lunacy of this is that there is no ‘ad’. If you search on google, it turns up cached web pages, and that First Resort turned up at the top means it’s been getting lots of hits. The more hits a site gets, the higher the page ranking. So, just by making this a fight, the council members are raising the page ranking, ensuring it will be high since a lot of people are now going to look for it (many using Zombie’s search). And companies have little or zero control in most cases over their google page ranking- it’s all done pretty much automatically.
It’s possible to buy a sponsored ad, but that doesn’t look like it. The numbers on the side should be links to a google map, and normally the sponsored ads appear over in the side, or in a separate section. So, unless there is a print ad out there we don’t know about, chicken little is crying again. If there is a print ad, wouldn’t false advertising already be a legal issue?
Yep, it’s unbelievable,and these are the folks that will soon be manning the death panels America.
Meanwhile the GOP is telling all the voters to lay off the social issues because they are irrelavant now.
(a) depends which social issues (I’m pro-life but laissez-faire about homosexuality).
(b) depends on whether you’d rather be right or win. The Dems are making such a pig’s bottom of the economy that their only hope to win is getting us distracted with abortion, homosexual “marriage”, and racial identity politics (trying to bait one of us into sayingsomething they can spin into “proof” that conservatism is raaaacist).
BHOzo and his Insane Clown Posse must go in November 2012. If they stay, everything else is for naught anyhow.
I don’t think America can solve its problems by elections any more. The present course is unsustainable, and any change in course is politically impossible. Just buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Those who govern with no regard for the lives and freedom of Unborn Americans have absolutely no regard for life and freedom for the rest of us. For millions denied their birth, freedom is meaningless. For the rest of us it is also becoming meaningless. Pogo was right. “We have met the enemy and it is us.”
America, pagan, perishing and reaping the whirlwind it deserves. To paraphrase Winston: “Never have so few imposed so much on so many.”
This is not an abortion issue; it is a free speech issue. The city that gave us Dianne Feinstein might pass a law making it a crime for any Republican to speak. They may claim that proclaiming any views other than their own is false advertising. But they run into the First Amendment to the same Constitution that governs San Francisco.
The pro choice zealots are attempting to chill speech in liberal jurisdictions without much luck, if competent lawyers can be engaged.
And the same “hate speech laws” that the left so much would love to enact, would one day be used against them after the regime changes.
Reread Thomas More’s “the Devil has the benefit of law” speech.
The main problem with “pro-choice” is that it only differs from the “pro-life” stance by including death for the unborn baby. The two positions should more correctly be anti-abortion and pro-abortion…but it looks oh so nasty to be pro-abortion (particulary when one has to be so wordy as to include the “safe, legal, rare” language). As to NARAL helping to draft this piece of nonsense – of course! They will do anything to anyone who they perceive may be taking money from their business of killing.
‘Is “pro-choice” always just a euphemism for pro-abortion, or is there a middle ground?’
It depends. The individual claiming to be pro-choice needs to be truly pro-choice in all choices. Are they pro-choice when it comes to smoking, drinking, eating fast food? Do people have the choice to drive an SUV even if they don’t apparently “need” one? If your answer is no on those but yes on abortion, then you are not pro-choice, but simply pro-abortion. If you believe that people have the right to make their own decisions about their lives in all areas, then yes, you are pro-choice.
#45 Ted R. Weiland: “Christians need to stop using the non-Christians’ watered down, politically correct terms such as “gay” and “abortion.” Finally, one person has the honesty to put this discussion where it belongs; as a discussion of personal religious beliefs. I find it interesting that those who want laws banning abortion seem to overlook the 1st Amendment regarding establishment of religion. Or is the Constitution to be followed only when it doesn’t interfere with personal political agendas?
Also, funny that no one mentions the matter of artificial birth control devices. Even condoms are forbidden by the Catholic Church. Personhood amendments, supported by many as a means of stopping abortion, could have an unintended consequence of banning IUDs and morning after pills because such “interfere with the creation” of a human life. For those who oppose Row v. Wade, do you also oppose Griswold v. Connecticut?
Zombie: you’ve raised an interesting question. Despite being a strong pro-choice secular conservative, I tend to agree with you. Banning an anti-abortion counseling center in SF is just as bad as the now struck down South Dakota law that mandated a visit to counseling centers by anyone seeking an abortion in that state. Turned out that the only such centers in South Dakota are strongly anti-abortion.
#53 TomB: you raise interesting points, from an apparent libertarian perspective. I generally agree with your last sentence about people having the right to make their own decisions (without interference from big government or big religion). But as always, there is no simple answer. People, for example, have the right to smoke if they want. But that right ends at the entrance to my lungs.
Relax, SteveB/Colorado. There’s no right of the nonexistent to exist. (Otherwise Obama would have his unicorns, yes?)
Being what you label “a strong pro-choice secular conservative,” perhaps you could list what’s worth conserving among the purely secular. Science? Nope, that’s a product of Christianity’s influence on the West. Human rights? Nope, that’s also something that originated from the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage.
What amazes me is that Planned Parenthood, the abortion giant, advertises themselves as a “pregnancy counseling resource”. They aren’t providing both sides of anything either. All they want to do is make more money by performing more abortions. I seriously doubt that if asked, they would have an adoption counselor on site to provide women with pictures and bios of couples who want to adopt, or a counselor who can tell a pregnant woman what resources and social services she has available to her if she goes through with her pregnancy. They may have a brochure or two, but they are in BUSINESS to MAKE MONEY, not to send women on their way.
Rick Santorum on Abortion, Rape, Incest
Former United States senator from Pennsylvania and current candidate for the GOP nomination for president Rick Santorum posed a very pertinent question at last Thursday’s Republican debate, pertinent but largely ignored by Obama’s mainstream media. Santorum asked why it was unacceptable in our nation to execute a convicted rapist yet legally condoned and fully permissible to kill the innocent product of rape.
Many states in America spare the lives of everyone from sadistic rapists to mass murderers because capital punishment is deemed barbaric in civilized society although snuffing out pre-born life is considered civilized even though the methods employed in abortions cause excruciating pain for the aborted.
That truth hasn’t fazed the City of San Francisco which is attempting to close pregnancy counseling centers which don’t provide and advocate abortions, http://bit.ly/qJgLGR, nor has it dissuaded abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood and others from pushing for more business.
Long before fetal pain was documented, former abortionist-turned-pro-lifer Dr. Bernard Nathanson released his graphic “Silent Scream” video which showed to any reasonable viewer the atrocious reality of abortion but, for political and personal reasons, relatively few people cared or chose not to care.
Santorum evidently cares a great deal and last Thursday cited a recent Supreme Court case in which the majority ruled a rapist could not be executed for that crime. That would be the same Court that decided in 1973 that a woman’s vague constitutional right to privacy superseded the right to life of a pre-born infant.
As Santorum said with regard to saving the rapist, “That to me sounds like a country that doesn’t have its morals correct. That child did nothing wrong. That child is an innocent victim. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5213)