I don't think the words 'responsibility' or 'accountability' exist any longer!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Bumble and Shadow- if you are over 50 maybe your having some troubel remembering ( like me ) . In college I had a steady girlfriend- I can remember sweating out a certain time of the month- many times.
We were both very well educated . Sit back for a minute and think back- way back
Back in the time frame when I was in college we were more interested in an education not scoring points with the girls. There were parties and many school activities but the moral standards were a little higher than they are today and most of the guys respected the girls enough not to cross the line between a good time and ruining our lives, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Self control not exercised is not strong......and yes this little piece finally brings up 'THE PENIS'.......the battle/carnage still lies in the uterus.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
George Will World won’t end if court overturns Roe ruling George Will is a nationally syndicated columnist.
Almost 35 years have passed since the Supreme Court decided to end America’s argument about abortion. Because of the court’s supposedly therapeutic intervention in the nation’s supposedly inadequate democratic debate about that subject, the issue still generates an irritable irrationality that was largely absent prior to 1973. Then, America was operating under a regime of moral federalism. In the absence of ukases from the federal judiciary that generate continentwide eruptions of tension and anger, many states were re-examining their abortion regulations, and many were relaxing them. To sample today’s confusions, consider California. There the electorate so strongly supports abortion rights that no right-tolife candidate for governor, U.S. senator or president has won in California since 1988. This is so in spite of the fact that a governor, U.S. senator or president has only slight relevance to the status of Californians’ abortion rights. Nevertheless, it is said that if the Republican Party wants to be competitive in California in presidential politics, it must nominate a pro-choice candidate, of which there is only one — Rudy Giuliani. This is almost certainly true. It certainly is irrational because pro-choice Californians have next to nothing to fear — just as pro-life Californians have next to nothing to hope for — from a right-to-life president. The practical consequences of such a president concerning abortion would not differ significantly from Giuliani’s consequences. Here is why. Abortion policy is almost entirely in the custody of the U.S. Supreme Court, and will remain so unless or until the court decides to restore moral federalism regarding the issue. On Jan. 20, 2009, when the next president is inaugurated, the court will have one justice in his late 60s (David Souter, 69), four justices in their 70s (Steven Breyer, 70; Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, 72; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75) and one 88-year-old, John Paul Stevens. The two who will be oldest, Ginsburg and Stevens, are strong supporters of a constitutional right to abortion. The three who will be youngest — John Roberts, 53; Samuel Alito, 58; Clarence Thomas, 60 — seem unsympathetic to the court’s abortion jurisprudence. The next president probably will have an opportunity to significantly shape the court, which has frequently divided 5-4 on important questions, including abortion issues. But regarding abortion, the reasonable response to this fact from residents of many, perhaps most, states, and especially from Californians, should be a shrug of a question — “So what?” Suppose Giuliani or some other Republican becomes president and responds to a court vacancy the way all the Republican candidates promise to, with a nominee similar to Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito. And suppose a case gives the court an opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade. And suppose it does so. Pause here a moment. This third supposition is somewhat dubious, because one of the justices who thinks Roe was improperly decided might nevertheless reason, as Chief Justice William Rehnquist finally did concerning the “Miranda rights” of arrested persons — the right, arising from a 1966 ruling, to be notified of their right to counsel and their right to remain silent. Rehnquist repeatedly and strongly argued that the Constitution, properly read, did not require the ruling, which he thought impeded effective police work. But when in 2000 a case gave the court an opportunity to overrule Miranda, Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion in a 7-2 decision upholding it. He wrote: “Miranda has become embedded in routine police practice to the point where the warnings have become part of our national culture. While we have overruled our precedents when subsequent cases have undermined their doctrinal underpinnings, we do not believe that this has happened to the Miranda decision.” So, the overturning of Roe might not result from a Republican president’s alteration of the court’s balance. But suppose it did. Again, so what? Many, perhaps most, Americans, foggy about the workings of their government, think that overturning Roe would make abortion, one of the nation’s most common surgical procedures, illegal everywhere. All it actually would do is restore abortion as a practice subject to state regulation. But because Californians are content with current abortion law, their legislature probably would adopt it in state law. It is not irrational for voters to care deeply about a candidate’s stance regarding abortion because that stance is accurately considered an important signifier of the candidate’s sensibilities and sympathies, and of his or her notion of sound constitutional reasoning. But regarding abortion itself, what a candidate thinks about abortion rights is not especially important.
Movies begin to take intelligent look at abortion issue Dan DiNicola CRITIC AT LARGE Reach Gazette film critic and columnist Dan DiNicola at dandinicola@hotmail.com.
Abortions are back in the news again, and this time you might even note some progress on the issue. Instead of debating the issue on religious or legal ground, how about discussing it on a human level — that is, with compassionate consideration to the pain, suffering, remorse and, above all, the emotional and spiritual discomfort an abortion inflicts on all those involved? How about getting off the soapbox, all you pro-lifers and prochoicers who accuse, attack, insult each other to the point where one wonders whether your views are rooted in maniacal egotism rather than in compassion for human beings faced with horrendously complicated, life-altering decisions? At least three movies this year suggest that we can think about the abortion subject without resorting to diatribes or nasty name-calling. For me, they underscore the fact that one can be both pro-choice and pro-life without fear of contradiction. The moral and spiritual common denominator here is the concept of freedom and responsibility. LIFE-ALTERING DECISION A girl or woman is pregnant. For whatever reason, she fears that bearing a child is a no-win situation. If she decides to abort, no one on earth can say with certainty that she is disobeying the word of God, because no earthling can prove God’s existence, not to mention his precise wishes or commands. (Claiming the Bible or Koran is the Word of God is a matter of opinion no one on Earth can verify.) If there is a God and if God’s command dictates a wrong, or sin, or whatever negative term you wish to ascribe to the act of abortion, that is between the woman and God. We may have our opinions, but it is not for us to judge. If you insist that abortion is a sin, we must give her the freedom to “sin,” for without that freedom, she loses her integrity as a moral being. On the other hand, based on my beliefs, I have the right to hold that except for rare instances, abortion is wrong. If my conscience dictates that I am disobeying a sacred tenet if I am party to an abortion, I do so only with a severe sense of everlasting guilt, not to mention a fear of divine retribution. I have the right to enact this precept in only one instance, and that is if I am the mother of that fetus. If I encounter another woman who has chosen to have an abortion, I have a duty to respect her freedom, but I may also say that I disagree with her choice. Thus, it is possible to hold simultaneously two opposing ideas: Respect a woman’s freedom and disagree with her choice, even to the point of thinking she is in trouble with her maker, but in all cases understanding and feeling that for women and potential fathers, theirs is often a traumatic experience. THREE FILMS TO CONSIDER Maybe think of them as human beings, perhaps as Katherine Heigl’s character in “Knocked Up.” Her little present results from a one-night stand with a slacker, hardly the model of a responsible daddy. She has just been promoted to an anchor desk, and at this critical career juncture, what modern career woman would not think of an abortion? Yet, despite the apparent disconnects with the father, she keeps the child just as she and her slacker dude (Seth Rogen) navigate what may or may not end in a permanent relationship by the time nine months rolls around. In the delightful comedy “Juno,” we meet Ellen Page as a 16-yearold high school student who gets pregnant her first time. Her loving father gives her the “freedom” to abort, but something in her sends a signal that this is wrong. Instead, she plans to give her baby to a childless couple played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. What ensues is a tender and uplifting narrative. Here’s the catch and the paradox: In both cases, we feel and respect the characters and their decisions, mostly because they have the legal and moral freedom to do otherwise. There is an additional irony here, for it seems to me that even though both movies would not attract Bible-thumping arch-conservatives, the choices support their brand of morality. Finally, I cannot say enough about “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days,” the winner of the Palm D’Or at Cannes. Here, we observe the anguish not of a mother but of her university roommate who aids her with an illegal abortion. This is a movie that both pro-lifers and pro-choice advocates can claim as their own. But once again, women are regarded not as sinners or as feminist heroines, but as human beings faced with life-altering decisions.
Keep cost of birth control affordable for all women
Re Robert Therriault’s Dec. 8 letter, “Congress’ move on birth control pills the right one”: It’s about choice. The gains we have made in the area of women’s rights, and more specifically women’s reproductive rights, empower women and allow them to make their own choices. I, too, would encourage women to educate themselves about fertility awareness, not only as a method of birth control but also to help with conception. But this has nothing to do with restricting access to birth control pills. Natural family planning is an excellent choice for some, but certainly not for all. Increasing the cost of birth control pills effectively taking away an option for some women, is a huge step backward. MICHELLE EDWARDS Niskayuna
Give me a break Michelle. You want to play than I guess you will pay. Birth control pills are clearly not the only method of birth control out there. And hey...for all the women libbers....why not have the guy use protection? And you'd think that the medical profession would come out with a 'sperm control' pill for men wouldn't ya? I'm surprised the libbers haven't rallied for that!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
On Jan. 22, we sadly admit our country has lived with unfettered legal access to abortion for 35 long years. Fifteen states have scorned a half-million dollars in federal monies toward abstinence education. The demands of schools to push contraceptives education as the only effective method to prevent teen pregnancies continues. If you do get pregnant, it isn’t a big deal since you can kill the baby — if you feel the need to. Now we have teen idols — Jamie Spears and Nicole Richie — and new movies glorifying unplanned pregnancies and denigrating abortion: Juno, Bella, Knocked Up, etc. The characters who dominate these stories hardly qualify them as family-value propaganda. Abortion rights activists have decried these films. Gen-Xers, raised in the wake of the sexual revolution and legalization of abortion, mock these values of their upbringing and the clinical soullessness of their sex education classes. Broken hearts are collateral damage to the sexual revolution. Why don’t we now give comprehensive marriage education to the next generation? Everything else has failed. In the game of life, it is time to teach our youth character and skill — sterling character composites including good morals, intelligence, neatness, sportsmanship, sincerity, dependability, a sense of humor, consideration for others, emotional maturity, modesty, industry, courtesy — the list goes on and on. This is what our youth need from the parents and the schools. JOANNE CLOUGH Guilderland
By DAVID CRARY, Associated Press Saturday, January 19, 2008
NEW YORK -- The number of abortions in the United States fell to 1.2 million in 2005, down 25 percent from the all-time high of 1.6 million in 1990 and dropping the abortion rate to its lowest level since 1974, according to report issued Thursday.
The Guttmacher Institute, which surveyed abortion providers nationwide, said there likely were several reasons for the decline, including more effective use of contraceptives, lower levels of unintended pregnancy and greater difficulty obtaining abortions in some parts of the country. The institute's president, Sharon Camp, noted that despite the drop, more than one in five pregnancies ended in abortion in 2005. "Our policymakers at the state and federal levels need to understand that behind virtually every abortion is an unintended pregnancy, so we must redouble our efforts towards prevention, through better access to contraception," Camp said. The Guttmacher Institute supports abortion rights, yet both sides in the debate on the issue consider its abortion surveys the most comprehensive in the United States because they encompass California, the most populous state. California state agencies do not collect abortion data to contribute to federal surveys. According to the Guttmacher data, the number of abortions declined by 8 percent between 2000 and 2005, from 1.31 million to 1.21 million -- the lowest total since the 1.18 million abortions tallied in 1976. The 2005 abortion rate of 19.4 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 was the lowest since 1974, when it was 19.3. Abortion rates were highest in Washington, D.C., New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Florida, Maryland and California. Rates were lowest in largely rural states: Wyoming, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Idaho and Utah. However, the report noted that the rates reflected the state in which the abortion occurred, thus including nonresident women who crossed state lines to get an abortion. By region, the Northeast had the highest abortion rate, followed by the West, the South and the Midwest. One pronounced trend in recent years is an increase in early medication abortion -- notably through use of the RU-486 abortion pill. These types of procedures accounted for 13 percent of all abortions in 2005, more than double the level in 2001. The report said 57 percent of abortion providers now offer medication abortion services, compared with 33 percent in 2001. "Currently, more than six in 10 abortions occur within the first eight weeks of pregnancy," said Rachel Jones, lead researcher for the survey. "Medication abortion, which provides women with an additional option early in pregnancy, clearly reinforces this very positive trend."
The human male is predisposed to a need to control- his environment- emotions- his life in general-
The female has a certain ability - to charm- ( depending on your perception it may be intice or seduce- ) in a sexual way. At a particular moment the male looses rational thought and becomes an "impregnator " if you will- Maybe Society could deal with the impregnator -- immediate arrest on suspicsion of impregnation or-- Daddy/Father boot camps- where men/boys learn about getting a job and other responsabilities of being a father -
Point taken somebody, but males don't have sex to impregnate. They instinctively have sex for just that...sex!
Women on the other hand, instinctively have sex to become impregnated.
Modern society has just led them to believe differently. They are told that it's ok to 'just have sex'. And it is ok if you have sex as long as you follow government guidelines. Follow the age appropriate guidelines. Use the birth control provided to you We'll teach Johnny in school how to use a condom If you don't follow the above, the government will help you support the child And if you fail at all of the above, we will provide an option of abortion to you.
So it is basically....do what ever you want!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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