“The canard “God never gives us more than we can bear” is one of the most poisonous platitudes I have ever seen, because it prevents people from getting the help they or their loved ones need to cope or recover.”________________________________________________________________God putting something horrendous in your path does not preclude getting help. No where does that statement say that you have to do it on your own. He might be walking you towards help. You might find help in the damnedest places. The point being, God did not put you here to fail. He put you here AND gave you all the tools you need to succeed. Some of those tools might be in seeking help from God, support groups, or someone you know and trust.

“As a widower who has participated in recovery groups”________________________________________________________________I am sorry for your loss. I am glad you were willing to and find help. God bless.

“I value ALL human life”________________________________________________________________Then why are you so willing to kill?

“I am a fine upstanding citizen but that was no thanks to anyone else except maybe my husband who has supported me through all the crap. But I spent a lot of time in therapy and still to this day I have to deal with the nightmares and flashbacks.”________________________________________________________________Outstanding. Very glad you found a life partner to stand by and support you. IMHO, God placed things in your path to help mold and define your life. Look at you now, helping others thru difficult times. Outstanding for you!!!! Did you ever stop and think for a moment that that might be WHY you went thru that stuff? There are people here who have very luxurious life styles and take life for granted. I am betting you are LIVING ten times or more than they are. I am very sorry you have to re-live the bad parts of your life thru nightmares and flash backs. But I bet the make you appreciate your life even more.

How many lives have you touched in your efforts? How many people have you helped? The suffering of the few for the needs of the many. Outstanding.

“first to condemn me and the last to help me.”________________________________________________________________I think this makes them more of a Church-goer than religious. Christians are supposed to help their fellow brethren, not spurn or judge them.

“very cynical about religion but I know God loves me.”________________________________________________________________Outstanding. I am very skeptical of religion as well. I practice my faith outside of churches for many of the reasons you listed. Very happy to hear you have not lost your faith in God. Bully for you !!!!!

“fundamental church and I met some of the most evil, judgmental, people there.”________________________________________________________________I absolutely agree and that is why I am not a church-goer.

Remember, I used to be vehemently “pro life”. But folks like you and in fact I would say most “pro life” folks are not truly pro life at all. Your compassion ends at the end of the birth canal. I value ALL human life and I have decided that views such as yours stink from hypocrisy and dishonesty. Oh you make yourself feel good and fulfill whatever agenda it is you have by advocating protection of the unborn. But like I said, you are pro life only to the extent a woman can be “a little bit pregnant.”

“You can’t defend abortion on demand so you attempt to divert the issue by tying on-demand abortion to other liberal social issues like welfare reform. As if most women who have abortions are on welfare.”

Absolutely I can defend abortion on demand. Our society either welcomes and supports each member or it does not. Currently it does not. Until it does a woman has every right to decide what is best for her. Who are YOU to decide for her?

JR: First of all, I could not possibly care less.

But let me compliment you because your intellectual dishonesty is truly outstanding. You can’t defend abortion on demand so you attempt to divert the issue by tying on-demand abortion to other liberal social issues like welfare reform. As if most women who have abortions are on welfare.

And you judge compassion by how much of OTHER PEOPLE’S money a person may be willing to support the government giving away in social programs? Real big of you JR.

I donate money personally to charitable organizations. You, in contrast demonstrate your compassion by supporting taking more and more other people’s money and spending it on social programs, such as increasing the number of folks rotting their lives away on welfare.

Sadly, JR, I must conclude that your alleged compassion is false.

What am absurd non sequitur.

People who get abortions because of their financial situation (and usually, decisions to get an abortion come down to more than one single factor) are still the choice of the women who get the abortions. “Forced” sterilizations, by definition, are not chosen.

Sol-”And Brenda, I am glad you are still breathing. Damn shame your child isn’t. I am betting you are doing OK now. Damn shame we can’t say the same about your child.”

This comment is beyond the pale. As are the idiotic comments that follow:

“As I’ve stated before, I believe in God.”

That’s fine. I have no problem with that statement. However, what follows is factually wrong.

“He does not give you more than you can bare. If he gives you the glorious opportunity to bring a human life into this world, then He has given you the tools to handle the situation.”

1) There are conditions and populations that exist by definition because people have burdens that they were unable to bear. Such burdens, internal and external, result in effects such as paralyzing depression to extreme emotional dysregulation, to neurological disorders that prevent a person from being able to function, to external tragedies that literally tear people’s emotional, financial, or cognitive resources from them. People are diverse, and some of that diversity relates to having different abilities to cope. I’ve seen all sorts of situations where the people involved have coped with tremendous hardships, but I have also seen all sorts of situations where people were unable to cope, with tragic or messy results. And people at different times in their lives have different abilities to cope. There is a reason for such sayings as “the last straw”.

2) The canard “God never gives us more than we can bear” is one of the most poisonous platitudes I have ever seen, because it prevents people from getting the help they or their loved ones need to cope or recover. You want to piss off widows or widowers who nursed their spouses through their final illness, or parents who did the same thing with their children, tell them that “God never gives us more than we can bear”. Not to mention people who lose their families and communities in parts of the world where anarchy, genocide, and/or starvation run rampant. Mere survival is not the same as “bearing”.

3) As a widower who has participated in recovery groups, I have seen people whose personal faith in a god was a coping mechanism that really got them through tough situations. I have also seen people whose faith in a god was catastrophic to their recovery. For example, the idea that “everything is part of God’s Plan” results in questions such as why God thought his “plan” would be best served by giving a thirty year old father of four children under ten liver cancer. The response “shit happens” (whether one believes in a god or not) is often a healthier response under such circumstances.

“People, especially children, are astoundingly resilient. I am assuming that Brenda is an upstanding citizen today despite being brought up in abuse. Who is is to say her child would not rebound as well. We’ll never know now.”

Typical post hoc reasoning. In all probability some of the factors contributing to why Brenda was able to overcome hardship to become an upstanding citizen today have to do with the decisions she made at key times of her life. Decisions such as the difficult one she made to have an abortion. No one knows what would have happened if Brenda had made a different decision, but Brenda is the person in the best position to make a reasonable guess.

Your beliefs, regarding the existence of a god who “never gives you more than you can bear”, should never be translated into policy.

In the case of pregnancy by rape, I’m not really sure. I don’t see how asking a woman to carry a baby after going thru something like that is showing them the love of Christ. I just don’t know.

Things such as Health care are different. If there is one thing we all agree on is the Gov’t is pretty much FUBR’ard. I don’t see that handing over control of the healthcare of our nations citizens is going to improve it. It’s a nice thought and I’m not really fiscally against it. The insurance companies wield far too much political power. It’s what will happen to the quality that is available now in the Gov’t’s hands.

Societal support of it’s citizens is not the governments job and again, all it can do it make it worse. Non profits (and IMHO religious based in particular) are the best at this.

What we have to address is reality.

Fact: Women have sex and get pregnant even if they use birth control.

Fact: Some of the women are raped, some have medical conditions, some are young, some are old, some are afraid of being pregnant with mom and dad finding out, some are afraid of their classmates finding out, some are afraid of financial and future ruin.

Fact: If abortion is made illegal, thousands of women will die from desperate acts.

Fact: Nobody but the woman has to face this and each situation is unique.

Those are the facts. Ignore them if you choose, but I won’t.

I understand where you’re coming from on the adoption thing, really I do. I would LOVE for more women to choose adoption.

I’ve just seen too many who chose that to change their minds at the last minute, and then go on to lose the baby to the state when he’s too old for most to want to adopt him (or worse, the kid was left in that enviroment).

Let’s understand where you are really at Kia.How pro life are you?

Are you in favor of societal support for every child? Are you in favor of healh care for all?

You can’t be a little bit pro life any more than a woman can be a little bit pregnant. Otherwise it’s hypocrisy.

That was directed to JR mom.But my question in general to Prochoicers was if you support abortion in the case of financial hardship then by the same logic shouldn’t you support a forced sterlization in the most improvished nations?Basically leading to the extermination of a people?

I don’t see however in the richest country in the world, where couples who are unable to have children are praying for a child, that someone who won’t be able to financially support a child, the government will pay for that child’s life to be terminated.I understand rape and incest cases. Definitely a moral dilema for me.I don’t understand abortion in the case of financial hardship. There are 1000’s if not millions that want that baby.

You’re darn right, there are MILLIONS of kids dying slow deaths of starvation over there, it’s insane. Would I prefer a woman having an abortion to that? Absolutely! Forced, not on your life.

And outlander, you just showed you absolutely do not give a damn about those children once they are born. WELFARE IS TIED to abortion, whether you like it or not. They are all relevant in this discussion. YOUR opinion is not. It’s THE MOTHER’S LIFE, not yours.

I just busted outie Kia. Now it’s your turn.

No one advocates sterilization.

YOUR president George Bush cut funding for contraception in African countries in favor of abstinence education.

Just don’t do it.

And like Outie and bush and you Kia? Well those that do are on God’s good humor I guess?

Come on back when you are REALLY pro life.

I am pro life. YOU are “pro life”. You are concerned with life only unborn. Your concern ends at the end of the birth canal. You just said so.

I call that “concern” phony. You’ve an agenda that has NOTHING to do with life. Why don’t you be honest about it? Which commandment is it that says “Thou shalt not bare false witness”?

You’re busted outie.

YOUR words”Kind of like saying, pay me now, and keep paying me or I’ll abort my child.”

Let me help you with honesty. You MEANT to say:

I support the unborn because I think women who have sex outside of marriage should be punished with a baby. Once that baby is born that woman is on her own with it and that is God’s punishment for her sin. Hey I got the kid born. It’s outta my hands now!

I just lost about all the little respect I ever had for you Out.

Really?

Do you think that she should have to live everyday of those nine months knowing that the child she is carrying is the product of a violet assault?

Rape is not a sexual crime - it is an act of extreme violence perpetrated on helpless women. To add insult to injury by making them carry the resulting child to term is beyond comprehension.

>>>who fights for the unborn?

I don’t know sol well. I am surprised to learn that he is against abortion even in the case of rape! I think that makes him unique among the regular posters here. Well the honest ones anyway.

I will afford sol the chance to inform us as to whether he is TRULY pro life. Surely he is in favor of national health care and the repeal of welfare “reform”?

outlander I know better. In more than a year I’ve not seen him call for national health care or repeal of welfare reform. SO we must assume that he is merely “pro life”. The quotation marks denoting that he pays lip service to the issue, but has dishonest motives.

mom: Getting killed is not real healthy either. You rationalize a terrible act. Basically you are saying that because this kid may be inconvenient, or may not have the most advantageous upbringing, it should not get a chance at life, at overcoming the odds. A good percentage of the great people in history have been born into difficult circumstances and have overcome them, thus molding their character.

That kind of reasoning is just trying to justify an act that you know is wrong. It is not a matter of women’s rights, it is a matter of doing right.

But regardless, if anyone has had an abortion, you should not dwell on the past. Everyone makes mistakes. You must let it go and focus on the future. God will forgive you if you seek forgiveness. That is why he died for our sins.

And Brenda, I am glad you are still breathing. Damn shame your child isn’t. I am betting you are doing OK now. Damn shame we can’t say the same about your child.

“But I do fight for the rights of women to choose.”

Pol_mom, who fights for the unborn?

As I’ve stated before, I believe in God. He does not give you more than you can bare. If he gives you the glorious opportunity to bring a human life into this world, then He has given you the tools to handle the situation.

People, especially children, are astoundingly resilient. I am assuming that Brenda is an upstanding citizen today despite being brought up in abuse. Who is is to say her child would not rebound as well. Well never know now.