You say "Slavery was an integral part of the socio-economic system. There was virtually no way to escape participation in the consequences of 19th-Century slavery. Not only cloth and garments, but the price of land, commodities and services were affected by slavery. There was no escape hatch from the effects of racist exploitation of a captive work force held as property in involuntary servitude."
Is there any escape for the helpless child in the womb? Some people are making money out of abortion. Taxes are being used to sustain this industry and it is now being exported overseas and there are attepmts to get it approved and accepted at the UN level as a right when common human decency tells us it is simply wrong.
Every person reading your commentary or these comments began life as a tiny collection of cells in a womb.We do not allow the termination of the life of the most hardened of criminals without a fair trial yet these innocents are robbed of the protection of Law and allowed to die.
Forget the circumstances surrounding the conception that is not the child's fault they have the same right to live as we had and were given.Some slaves were well treated by their owners -fed,clothed, and in some cases were well educated and well travelled it did not change the fact that slavery was an abuse of human rights.If in your heart you know abortion is wrong you must vote in prolife politicians to bring about peaceful retoration of the rights of the unborn child. Any state built on the deliberate killing of defenceless innocents will bring about its own demise.

Dear Rev. Stephens-Arroyo,

Do you intend to address the Inquisition launched by the Vatican against American nuns? The New York Times publicized the campaign on July 2.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/us/02nuns.html?_r=1&em

Excerpts:

"The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition... many (nuns)fear that the real motivation is to reel in American nuns who have reinterpreted their calling for the modern world...'Some sisters surmise that the Vatican and even some American bishops are trying to shift them back into living in convents, wearing habits or at least identifiable religious garb, ordering their schedules around daily prayers and working primarily in Roman Catholic institutions, like schools and hospitals...'They think of us as an ecclesiastical work force,' said Sister Sandra M. Schneiders, professor emerita of New Testament and spirituality at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, in California...'our vision of our lives, and their vision of us as a work force, are just not on the same planet.' "

Look forward to your assessment.

"Slavery was an integral part of the socio-economic system."

The arguments of many pro-choice people includes the assertion that the vital position of women in our socio-economic system would be destroyed if women ever had to carry an unintended and inconvenient pregnancy to term. That may be the case, but if it is so, what has to happen is that the system change, not that the unplanned children are killed.

"Moreover, no one is forced to undergo an abortion."

Um, except the fetus, right?

Fortunate it is that women in the USA are not held slaves to their own reproductive capacity. Roe v Wade ensures that women continue to possess the legal right to biological sovereignty over their own bodies.

Further, reproduction is considered to be a private matter, by way of the same reasoning that bolsters and supports the pro-choice position. Males frankly should have a distinct minority voice in these matters.

Why ultra-conservative males of a particular mindset take such a propriatary interest in legislating what happens in a woman's womb is a conundrum - we need more women on sitting on the Supreme Court, and we can certainly expect to see that happen in the very near future.

Yes, I can clearly see the connection between slavery and potential anti-choice legislation.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
ARROYO:
"THE EMBRYO"

IRT:
"But while few deny that government should intervene to limit private choice for immoral acts such as the murder of innocent persons, pro-lifers face a lack on public consensus about when an embryo becomes a person."

ANS:
Justice Kennedy once said, "If it can be proven that the conceived is human, than all laws that approve of abortion are Unconstitutional. Though he has never acted upon it, the conceived has been unequivocally proven to be a person.

Congressman Robert Dornan said on the floor of the House of Representatives that the epitaph on the grave stone of America will read "Roe v. Wade."

The retrieval of human eggs is an assault on women, and a tragic assault on Third World Women. To find a cure for diabetese alone from Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR), even it is possible, would take some 80 million embryos from some 8 million women.

In the transfer of eggs from the womb, macabre things have happen. Women have become sterile, infected with serious diseases, lost their limbs, and some have even died.

Now this is in the presence of "Other Stem Cell Research" (OSCR) that has now produced over seventy different health benefits. Moreover, that is in the face of ESCR being fully funded by England for over ten years and now its funds are being shifted to fertilization research for sterile women. Consequently, nothing to date has ever been produced as a health benefit for health.

Further, the ESCR advocates are seeking government funding because all the money from the Medical Research Industry is going to OSCR. That should tell you something. Notwithstanding, it is predicted by the ESCR advocates themselves that they do not expect any benefits from ESCR, if there is any, for the next 10 to 20 years in the future.

ESCR researchers have been lamenting about the worry of their experiments killing people when they are tested and this might cause and adverse effect on its funding and acceptance.

If this isn't convincing to the public, then there should be no question why it isn't. It is because the public isn't being informed, and in the major media conduits the story is not being told.

Consequently, a nation that cannot see the truth is a harbinger for a nation's eventual collapse.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
ARROYO
"ABORTION IS MURDER"

IRT:
"While I reject the flawed comparison of abortion to slavery, that doesn't mean I abandon the fight against abortion. If it can be proven that abortion is equivalent to murder, the government that punishes murderers must do the same to abortionists."

ANS:
First, it can be proven that the conceived ia a human person. Even the sometimes called "Father of IVF," Dr. Landrum, said it is ridiculous to claim the conceived is not human.

The former Chairman of Eugenics at Mayo Clinic, Dr Gordon, and the renowned "Father of Modern Eugenics" Dr. Lejeune have stated that at conception there is no doubt that that the conceived is an independent human being.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
ARROYO
"OPINION AND ITS MORAL CONTINGENCIES"

IRT:
"Moreover, the argument that 'if something is popular, it must be moral' is a slippery slope. The same persons (e.g. Rick Santorum) who brag of how public opinion is moving towards a pro-life position in abortion, would probably object to the polls showing support for legalizing same-sex marriage and the smoking of pot."

ANS:
Rick Santorum wasn't braging about the opinion changing because it meant Abortion was immoral. Abortion is immoral because it is murder as Santorum has stated so many times. It would be juvenile and naive to believe such nonsense, and Santorum is neither ridiculous, or juvenile. On the conrary, it is those who accuse him of being naive that are the real naive ones.

Unfortunately, public opinion is the standard bearer of the Democrats who are sifted like wheat by the whims of their iconoclast amoral constituents.

Bill Clinton's pollster, Dick Morris, said Clinton would not do anything unless he had a poll informing him if it was politically expedient. He even needed a poll on whether to take out Bin Laden.

Jesse Jackson once said that Abortion is Black Genocide until it became politically expedient to defend Abortion. The same was the belief of Planned Parenthood in the early 60s until it too became expedient due to the prevalent opinion of our hedonist culture.

Today, some 90 percent of Blacks support the Culture of Death Dem Party. You would wonder why they are oblivious to the facts that 70 percent of Black Births occur outside of Marriage, and some 55 percent end in Abortion. So said Bill Cosby, in his effort to lead a movement for responsible parenthood.

Rick Santorum was happy that the Public was starting to wake up to the nefarious and macabre proliferation of an industry that progressed to the point of sucking the brains out of a child being born.

Partial-birth Abortion was a scheme demonically devised by flesh mongers to preserve a perfectly normal child's organs and their flesh to be sold on the open market for transplants and cosmetics.

Santorum, as all pro-lifers, doesn't believe public opinion is the measure of morality, though Dems do. Pro-life believes the measure of morality is reason, conscience, the Natural Moral Law, the Scriptures and Divine Revelation. Anyone who thinks differently are naive and morally blind to reality.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
ARROYO
PUBLIC OPINION & ABORTION
"WAR"

IRT:
"It is true that public opinion is moving away from permissive views of abortion and closer to a pro-life outlook. Some view this shift in polling as a moral victory akin to the way we now reject slavery. However, beware of such logic.

Slavery did not end on account of public opinion, but because of a bloody Civil War that killed hundreds of thousands of persons."

ANS:
I was always under the impression that to start a war you must have public opinion behind you, and those fighting the war had to believe in the war if they were to win it. Otherwise, without a high morale you don't win wars.

In fact, public opinion was so important that after we won the Vietnam War, we turned the South Vietnamese over to the Cong because public opinion was that America was tired of war. The Dems latched on to that opinion and refused to finance the enforcement of the Vietnam Peace Treaty.

The Cong simply waited a few weeks and took over the South murdering millions. The some 58,000 American casualties, who were part of our victory, only had the war thrown like dirt on their graves; and in effect died for nothing. Moreover, the dissident peacenicks were instrumental in influencing the national opinion that generated our incomprehensible surrender.

The Dems under the cretin Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, thought that public opinion was behind him when he declared, "We have killed the 'Patriot Act,' and then announced the end of the Iraq War. It wasn't over, and a few days later, the Senate schlemiel was forced to change his opinion because of public opinion.

Consequently, it appears that opinions has every thing to do with war.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
AROYYO
"NO ONE IS FROCED TO UNDERGO AN ABORTION?"

IRT:
Moreover, no one is forced to undergo an abortion. While the existing law does not protect every fetus, it leaves people of faith free to follow the dictates of conscience in their private life."

ANS:
Mr. Aroyya, have you ever been to China? Have you ever been to India, and have you ever been to Russia?

In a survey sometime back taken by HSS, they found the 90% of those who had abortions wanted to keep their babies but aborted because of peer pressure, parents, boyfriends, and the advocates of the Culture of Death.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
ARROYO
SLAVERY V. ABORTION

"Slavery was an integral part of the socio-economic system. There was virtually no way to escape participation in the consequences of 19th-Century slavery. Not only cloth and garments, but the price of land, commodities and services were affected by slavery. There was no escape hatch from the effects of racist exploitation of a captive work force held as property in involuntary servitude.

Abortion, on the other hand, is a private matter. If the salesgirl at K-Mart has an abortion, the nation's socio-economic system remains unaffected.

ANS:
Hmmm,I wonder how Mr. Arroyo explains this?

http://americanaffairs.suite101.com/article.cfm/abortion_recession_and_the_economic_crisis#ixzz0JWxUPEfy&D

"First, underlying America’s economy is the fundamental principle that the mechanism for economic stability and growth is consumerism. Currently, about two-thirds of all economic activity in the United States is consumer spending.

Consumerism is largely dependent upon population growth. In “The $35 Trillion Elephant in the Room” (Dennis Howard, The Movement for a Better America, 2008), the author reported, “We found that the 50.5 million surgical abortions since 1970 have cost the U.S. an astonishing $35 trillion dollars in lost Gross Domestic Product.'

In addition, he also said that 'If you include all the babies lost to IUDs, RU-486, sterilization, and abortifacients, the number climbs to $70 trillion!' (Estimates are based on GDP per capita per year, times the cumulative number of abortions since 1970.)

Moreover, no one is forced to undergo an abortion. While the existing law does not protect every fetus, it leaves people of faith free to follow the dictates of conscience in their private life.

Miscarriage is accidental loss of pregnancy.

My mom the English major was quick to point out that the medical definition of abortion subsumed miscarriage, stillbirth, medically necessary abortion, and elective abortion. She would have loved to debate the English semantics behind "gay marriage" or "athletic scholarship" as well.

Obviously we have nuanced the language. Abortion now only means elective abortion, marriage means any legally recognized union with greater rights than a civil union, and scholarship is a benefits package for a student based on a human talent not necessarily intellectual.

We are battling nature with carbon dioxide, pollution, garbage, and with reckless depletion of topsoil, water, and petroleum.

"We should take the half loaf rather than get nothing in return for insisting on the whole loaf."

Precisely the opinion I've come to over the years and watching how venomous and violent the whole abortion debate has become. A 'half loaf', rather a compromise or meeting somewhere in the middle, is what Obama spoke of at his speech at Notre Dame, and was great for him to do so. I hope he follows through with this, because I think a very significant percentage of Americans will agree on certain elements regarding abortion, and shift the laws accordingly.

Namely, I think if the debate could be set aside briefly to address common ground and get each side a deserved 'half loaf', it would probably be widely agreed that late-term abortions should be stopped altogether, and that the early-on pills would probably stick around. And no one should balk, because for both sides, something is better than nothing, and particularly for the pro-life crowd, that still means lives preserved.

Once again!!!

And Nature or Nature's God is the #1 taker of everyone's life. That gives some rational for killing the unborn or those suffering from dementia, mental disease or Alzheimer's or anyone who might inconvenience your life???

We constantly battle the forces of nature. We do not succumb to these forces by eliminating defenseless children.

CCNL:

What is a miscarriage?

What is/should be the penalty, if any?

Who should be penalized?

Pr Chris

Coloradodog,

Taking an ED drug and then mistakenly taking a drug to reduce/eliminate the sex drive at the same time would be more akin to Hell on Earth. :))

A new Catholic purgatory would be accidentally taking CCNL's pill to temporarily eliminate the sex drive along with the little blue erectile dysfunction pill (whose name no one dare mention here under punishment of being censored) at the same time.

To me they are precisely the same issue - he definition of who is a person. 150 years ago a slave was not a person, and catching a runaway and returning him/her to the owner to be tortured for running away was perfectly legal. Today aborting a fetus is perfectly legal. Both are legal because we define the victim as not being a a person.

Abortion boils down to one simple question, when does human life begin? And one paramount law:

" Thou Shall Not Kill/Murder"

And SA never offers suggestions on how to reduce the millions of global abortions done each year.

So once again some suggestions and observations for his perusal:

It is obvious that intercourse and other sexual activities are out of control with over one million abortions and 19 million cases of STDs per year in the USA alone.
from the CDC-2006

"Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) remain a major public health challenge in the United States. While substantial progress has been made in preventing, diagnosing, and treating certain STDs in recent years, CDC estimates that approximately 19 million new infections occur each year, almost half of them among young people ages 15 to 24.1 In addition to the physical and psychological consequences of STDs, these diseases also exact a tremendous economic toll. Direct medical costs associated with STDs in the United States are estimated at up to $14.7 billion annually in 2006 dollars."

How in the world do we get this situation under control? A pill to temporarily eliminate the sex drive would be a good start. And teenagers and young adults must be constantly reminded of the dangers of sexual activity and that oral sex, birth control pills, condoms and chastity belts are no protection against STDs. Might a list of those having an STD posted on the Internet help? Sounds good to me!!!! Said names would remain until the STD has been eliminated with verification by a doctor. Lists of sexual predators are on-line. Is there a difference between these individuals and those having a STD having sexual relations while infected???

"For those that think male condoms protect against pregnancy or STD's think again. The Guttmacher Institute that condoms fail almost 17 percent of the time.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html

"FIRST-YEAR CONTRACEPTIVE FAILURE RATES
Percentage of women experiencing an unintended pregnancy
Method Perfect use* Typical use†
Pill (combined) 0.3 8.7
Tubal sterilization 0.5 0.7
Male condom 2.0 17.4
Vasectomy 0.1 0.2
3-month injectable 0.3 6.7
Withdrawal 4.0 18.4
IUD
Copper-T 0.6 1.0
Mirena 0.1 0.1
Periodic abstinence – 25.3 "

Abstinence (not listed) 0 0
Maturbation in all
forms (not listed) 0 0

And:

Hmmm, so a growing baby is considered by some to be nothing more than an infection? Talk about having no respect for life!!!!!

And Nature or Nature's God is the #1 taker of everyone's life. That gives some rational for killing the unborn or those suffering from dementia, mental disease or Alzheimer's or anyone who might inconvenience your life???

We constantly battle the forces of nature. We do not succumb to these forces by eliminating defenseless children

Why don't we bestow "personhood" on someone when they're born? Tha makes the msot sense to me.