Tim Blair

Are you saying that being pro-abortion is a vote-loser? Support for and against abortion is roughly even, so wouldn't he be as likely to gain votes as lose them?

"Life begins with the mother's decision"

At first glance I thought that was something being said by a pro-lifer, something like
Anyway, I'm pro-choice. I believe women should have the right to choose not to have sex, and they should choose to deal with the consequences if they waive that right.

Aides attributed the remarks to an overly tight necktie...

You know at first I thought he was saying that stuff cause he's a paranoid android, and then link to an unflattering picture over at Allahpundit, but I got there and I found an even better one.

I'm having a little trouble believing Clark is in favour of late term abortions on demand. Anyone got a link to the full text of the interview? Be nice to have a look at the context in which he said it.

Here, Stewart:

http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=31422

Stewart, following are links to a transcript of the relevant part of the interview, and De-ahem-Clark's clarification. Flip - flop.

Clark is turning into the Quantum Candidate, he can exist in two states at the same time. At this rate, the White House pet under Clark would be Schroedinger's cat.

What is really scary is this man was a four-star general. What was Clinton thinking when he made the decision to promote this unbalanced moron.

You are clearly wrong about Clark's London Times op-ed piece being a springboard for a flip-flop. He says that the

"US commander must quickly deliver humanitarian relief and re-establish government for a country of 24 million people the size of California."

People the size of California?
24 Million of them?

Clark was pointing out that clearly, the Bushies did not do their homework on this invasion business.

Clark's latest dumb lie:

http://www.opinionsarelike.com/archives/000162.html

I saw Moore interviewed by Wolf Blitzer today and he sounded strangely muted and restrained, as though trying very hard not to make his endorsement a liability. His logic is that Clark has the best chance of beating Bush, supposedly because he's less angry/more mainstream than Dean, so Moore was, I thought, in the awkward position of lending his extremism to the cause without overwhelming it.

Republicans will never get Democrats into trouble over abortion. I'd really have to see that to believe it, and then view the instant replay a few times just to be sure.

"I believe women should have the right to choose not to have sex, and they should choose to deal with the consequences if they waive that right."

Remind me never to have sex with you. I can understand people having objections to abortion, but people who don't believe in contraception are too weird for me to even contemplate.

Who said anything about contraception?

I guess it's a good thing Clark's mother can't mulligan.

I miss the Bboard Moore used to have at his site.
Didn't read it every day, perhaps once a week.

It was very entertaining reading debates people would have with the 'Moore Faithful'.

Wonder if he'll ever bring it back? I think it went down for 'technical reasons', originally. Has never been back.

Andjam wrote:

"Are you saying that being pro-abortion is a vote-loser? Support for and against abortion is roughly even, so wouldn't he be as likely to gain votes as lose them?"

Support for abortion rights is not a vote loser. Support for abortions "until the head comes out" is a vote loser, even in the Democratic primary. An overwhelming majority of Americans support restrictions on late-term abortion, and Clark will regret this, especially if he makes it to the general election.

I used to visit MM's board too. I remember there was a disproportionately high number of Aussies on that site. And some real moonbats they were too. I remember one girl was talking about how they were going to row out on a little boat and protest the docking of some US naval ship that was getting refueled there. And the American crazies who posted there were just as bad.

I wonder if Moore shut the site down because he didn't like the fact-checking of his work. He seems to be very sensitive about that.

"I'm having a little trouble believing Clark is in favour of late term abortions on demand"

I am not surprised you do,Stewart.K.

"Life begins with the mother's decision."

Shit, that's pretty open-ended. I wonder if my Mom's on record yet. I'd better send her some flowers or something just to be safe.

Here's the part I never understood-

a) Mom doesn't want baby; Dad does. Baby aborted.

b) Dad doesn't want baby; Mom does. Baby lives. And Dad must financially support it for 18 years.

Sumthin' wrong with that. I thought us men ruled this here patriarchy? What dumbass let that one slip through our gender hegemony?

The nutball Clark is actually right on life begins with the mother's decision. I don't know where he picked it up though. It comes out of ordinary language philosophy, looking into the question of when the inclination to use the word ``soul'' comes up, that is, what is its function. It's the grammatical reflex of ``having a body.'' The body isolates and individuates; the soul then connects to others. The mother's decision is that connection, the arrival of a soul, not something you might discover by examining the fetus carefully. The baby fits in plans and so has a soul.

That will get nowhere but nevertheless is correct. I don't know how to argue it so it makes headway.

The seeds of it are in Stanley Cavell, _The Claim of Reason_, p.372ff on abortion and slavery, and p.411 on the soul and its grammar. Maybe somebody else can do better than I can.

The anti-abortion argument always starts with the baby being cute. It needs a that connection. The pro-abortion side exhibits a mass of cells. It needs no connection.

The right argument is that the connection of the anti-side is empty, it's wish without particular substance, that somebody (else) concrete turn up to care in this case, to have plans. If society wants to protect that, protect the soul, it might want to look at that instead of the fetus.

The poem ``Right to Life'' by Marge Piercy would be the argument on the pro-abortion side to deal with.

Clark is wrong on the mother though; it could be the father, or a grandparent. The soul comes up when there actually are plans.

And wasn't that site the abortion bit quoted from ultra-credible? Re-elect Bush-Cheney banners plastered everywhere on it and all..

The anti-abortion does not start with the baby being cute.
It just starts with the baby.
A human sperm joins with a human ovum and becomes a separate human being.

The anti-abortion position is that a human of any age has human rights - you could say they are "anti-ageism".

Some pro-abortionists, such as Peter Singer, don't believe in human rights at all.
Granting rights to humans, just because they are human, is "speciesism".
According to Singer, speciesim is just a bad as sexism or racism.
(By the way, Singer also thinks that taboos against sex with other species, are speciesism, too)

Other pro-abortionists take the view (reflected in the Common Law) that you are not a 'person' until you are born. Since the unborn are not 'persons', they have no legal rights.

Recently in Australia there have been cases where pregnant women have been assaulted, resulting in the death of the foetus. The assailants could not be charged with manslaughter, murder or the like, because of this Common Law principle.

At this rate, the White House pet under Clark would be Schroedinger's cat.

Posted by: scott h. at January 16, 2004 at 01:22 PM

Oh, man, non-stop laughing again...

Funny thing is, most polls of us naive, un-nuanced Americans show that we're supportive of abortion rights, with restrictions. Collectively, we understand that there are areas of gray, but we know that a) we don't like having the government mucking around in our personal lives and b) especially given advancements in medicine and NICU care, the viability age for babies has been dropping.

O.K., "Scott H.", that's creepy...

I'm reading a chapter in a book that discusses quantum theory (The Elegant Universe) and you linked me with an argument using references to quantum theory.

Yehudit,

"Remind me never to have sex with you. I can understand people having objections to abortion, but people who don't believe in contraception are too weird for me to even contemplate."

I didn't say I agreed with those views. I don't have problems with contraception (except that people have to realise it can be fallible) and I'm opposed to anti-sodomy laws and opposed to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

So it's ok for me to have sex with me! (Well, except I'm not Jewish, so we'd probably have to use contraception)

(When I first noticed your tag, I was a little surprised. Most people who use the nickname Yehudit (which, along with Allah and ahkbar and possibly dhimmi, and khaffir, are among the few arabic words I know) tend to be conservative.)

The abortion topic fundamentally resolves to a single, two-part question:

When does a person acquire the right not to be killed unjustly, and why?

This is a question requiring a moral judgement. Various answers include conception, viability, and birth, with various justifications for those answers. What do you think?

Hi.

What Peggy Sue said.

On Wesley Clark's statement: does "life begins with the mother's decision" mean if the mother-to-be says "I've decided to have the baby" she can't change her mind later, because life has now begun? Or is the decision inconsequential unless it's the the decision to kill? In which case Wesley Clark was talking nonsense.