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S. 1173, The Freedom of Choice Act (19 comments ↓)
S. 1173 would protect, consistent with Roe v. Wade, a woman's freedom to choose to bear a child or terminate a pregnancy.
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shortstuff
Abortion is against the fifth commandment given to us by Yahweh.
rita
I believe a woman should have the right to choose if she has intercourse or not. Once she gets pregnant than her babies rights should also be protected under the United States of America Law. PLEASE DO NOT PASS THIS BILL
Charles Moore
Wow. What a horrible bill. When did congress stop protection the lives of all Americans, from conception to the grave. Or did they forget that life begins at conception not at deliverance. I feel so sorry for those trying to enact such a henious act into law. Rather they should be spending their collective times together finding ways to encourage women to carry their childern to full term rather than carry out the full scall exterimation of the next generation of Americans. I would rather see birthing centers with viable parents standing in line to receive the new borns with open loving arms than to try and protect what they claim is just mere commerece. When did the whole sale or should I say for sale slaughter of children, babies, become commerce in American?
CHARLES MOORE
I pray for this land of ours that we not become a people so far removed from the idea and pure principle of life, liberty and justice for all, that somehow we have moved toward and not only moved but in many ways as is now apparent with this group of Congress that those ideals of purity and preciousness and righteousness have some far left them with nothing more than a cold hard and a blackend consienceness. So darkened have their hearts become that they can not longer see the simple differences between what is right and what is wrong. And my heart goes out to them.
Frank
This is a political, not a religious, issue. Stop praying to remove another's rights. Keep your nose out of other's business. Your hypocrisy is showing!
Robert
This is not a religious issue, it's a moral issue. Murder of an innocent is immoral, no matter how many fancy words you try to hid it under.
John
Thankfully this country is not governed by the laws of the Koran, the Torah, or the Bible. Our species appears to finally be evolving out of the era of superstition and hocus pocus of religious dogmatism. Unfortunately the species is not yet free of biological forces that left unchecked can lead to our own extinction. So just as we need a government of checks and balances, we need checks and balances on our all too primitive behaviors of uncontrolled reproduction and sexual coercion of less powerful individuals in our society by those that wield more power. I will hope for and work toward the day when Roe V Wade will no longer be necessary to control reproduction and I will continue to support such legislation until that day.
Deb
Religion and state are separate. It's a women's right to choose, and no one's *RIGHT* to enforce their thinking onto others, as it states in the constitution. It is not a 'human being" as covered under the constitution until birth and viable. Religious people are so confused, and profess to be religious identifying themselves with the body too much. The soul (which is actually the thinking person), comes to a complete/viable body, not an incomplete one, just before, during or after birth. NOW, it's a human being. BUT - Regardless of anyone's religion, it's not right to take away a woman's constitutional right to her own body, even if it's not rape or incest. Her body is her property and no one owns her nor has the *right* to dictate her life. Not the gov't, not the neighbors. Once a woman's rights are gone, so are the man's. So are everyone's. NEVER give the gov't the *rights* over your lives on ANY issue.
Crispy
Sorry, Deb. It is one of the government's roles to protect its citizens. You may view that as "enforcing their thinking onto others". Well, some people used to think that people of color were not protected by the Constitution. The 14th Amendment made that clear. Establishment of religion has NOTHING to do with it. You seem to have a dogmatic belief that a person's not a person until they're born. There is no question that an unborn child is a human being, distinct from, but dependent upon the mother. They are able to react to stimuli and appear to be able to feel pain. We prosecute cruelty to animals, yet still allow a child to be killed up to, and sometimes after delivery. It's a government's duty to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
Deb
The gov't, nor a person's neighbors have the *right* to force people to live the way they wish them to live. I am not your slave, and you have no *right* to dictate how I, or anyone else must live. No, it's not a 'human being' yet. The definitions of *rights*, and 'human being' are at fault here. I am a trained midwife. I know. Banning right to choice, will not stop it.
Deb
"The essential POLITICAL (not religious) question is:
does the fetus have a *right* to be in the body of the woman
- against the will of the woman?
OR
does the woman's body belong to her,
OR
to the government to FORCIBLY dispose of [her rights]
in favor of the fetus?
- Lenard Peikoff
Lee
Fetal rights, are a gimmick to destroy a woman's indiv CONSTITUTIONAL rights. If a woman has no rights to decide what to do with HER own body, then she has no rights at all-then neither do the rest of us. It is a woman's constitutional *RIGHT* to HER LIFE that gives HER the right to terminate her pregnancy, from HER body. It is a woman's indiv const right to HER life,HER liberty,& the pursuit of HER happiness that sanctions HER right to have an abortion. Anti attitude is, the actual life of the parents be damned! Give up your life, liberty, property and the pursuit of your own happiness. Sentencing a woman to sacrifice HER LIFE to an embryo is not upholding the "right-to-life." Anti-abortionists are not lovers of life-lovers of tissue, maybe. But their stand marks them as haters of real human beings. They have created the specter of communist Chinese-like gov't coercion -L. Peikoff
Crispy
Deb, Lee, and Leonard: In your Objectivist utopia, it's your right to do anything you want in order to pursue YOUR happiness. In the US of A, the government DOES "force people to live the way they wish them to live". At 18 you are required to register for Selective Service, so that you are available in case the "master" in Washington decides to have a war. You are required (in most places) to pay a portion of the price of what you buy to the gov't. You are required to pay a portion of all that you earn. If you want to drive a car, you have to get permission from the government. If not an actual slave, you're at best a sharecropper. The rationale for this "slavery" is that you do have obligations to others, and the gov't will FORCIBLY dispose of your rights if you do not meet them.
wombat
Isn't it funny that most laws tell you what you can't do, or what you must do, and then list penalties for not complying. Perhaps they've gotten tired of that and are now just going to list the things that you ARE allowed to do.
TMO
You who disagree with this bill are brainwashed. Nothing is going to stop a woman from aborting when she feels threatened, not your laws or your opinions, women were having abortions before Roev Wade made it legal and if you take it away they will still sekk abortions. The reason RoevWade must remain in legislation is to protect women and girls from seeking unsafe abortions, we must keep abortion safe and available from certified doctors, otherwise women will die from doing things like they did in the 50's, sticking metal hangers into themselves to perform it at home. Keep it legal, and keep opinions to yourself. Noone wants to kill a baby, but noone wants women to loose their lives over pregnancy either.
Crispy
Excuse me, TMO, but who made you dictator?! You seem to enjoy using your 1st Amendment freedom of speech, but want others to "keep opinions to yourself". First, Roe v Wade did not suddenly make abortions legal, it just took away the right of states to determine their own laws on the subject. Abortions were legal in many states before Roe, and whether legal, quasi-legal, or illegal, most abortions were performed by doctors anyway. Second, there are still unsafe abortions, even from doctors, even today. Just google "Cemetery of choice" to inform yourself. Third, you claim that "[n]oone wants to kill a baby", yet Barack Obama voted down a law to give live babies born after an abortion attempt the same right to be kept alive as other babies. Fourth, very few of the women seeking abortion are in danger of losing their lives from pregnancy. If this were the case, Roe would not have created a "right to privacy", but would have addressed it as a right to life.
RLE
Here's a quote for TMO: "We fed the public a line of deceit, dishonesty, a fabrication of statistics and figures. We succeeded(in breaking down the laws limiting abortions)becasue the time was right and the news media cooperated. We sensationalized the effects of illegal abortions and fabricated polls which indicated that 85 percent of the public favored unrestricted abortion, when we knew it was only 5 percent. We unashamedly lied, and yet our statements were quoted(by the media) as though they had been written in law." Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, one of the origianl members of the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws. I think it's time for the people of the U.S. of A. to go back to reading and stop being fed by the media!
John
If this bill passes, it will be a tragic day for America.
There is no such thing as a "safe abortion". All abortions are unsafe for the child.
Andrew
Abortion ends the life of a human being. No woman has the right to end the life of her child.