For the record I am pro-choice 100%, and I too had a small leak when I read Imelda Matt’s comment (not good as I am at work……)

Clio – come on, you are the least stupid bitch here! Feel free to have your say.

http://www.childrenawaitingparents.org/?gclid=CJ-7l5KHuZUCFRNOagodWi_BQg

Re disabled rights – I feel it’s a woman’s choice whether to give birth or not. If she discovers that she’s carrying a severly deformed fetus with no expected quality-of-life, she must have the option to abort the pregnancy. Her choice, no one else’s.

If she wishes to end a pregnancy that does not carry this risk, it is still her right to do so. A six month old fetus is not a child. It’s lungs are not developed enough to breath unassited. If assisted, a baby of such prematurity has a high risk of blindness, brain damage, cerebral palsy and other serious problems.

Patrick is right that Sarah Palin will be a lightening rod for abortion arguments on both sides of the fence. She wants to reverse Roe vs Wade.

I would rather hear Stalker Talk from Patrick than argue about abortion rights, but anyone wishing to carry on, may freely carry on!

And speaking of tolerance, I really really want to take you gently into my arms, with your arms draped delicately across mine, your hands on my shoulders, as light and precise and delicate as the touch of a feather. And then I would like to draw you close and kiss you deeply and gently, but deeply for certain.

You are a beauty. That picture still takes my breath away.

Just keeping priorities straight here. Kissing first…politics later.

Patrick

Mark my words, this is an angle into something deep and strong dividing women in the US today. I’m a guy, and I don’t really give too much of a lukewarm damn about the issue…but women do. It’s virtually all they talk about.

1. Where does your certainty about people’s unwillingness to adopt disabled infants come from? One of my relatives searched high and low for any child in Canada, but eventually had to turn to another country (a poor one), in order to find children to adopt. She has five of her own; she has adopted three, though none happens to be disabled. Nor is that a story I hear from people who work for pro-life groups. Please do not dismiss them out of hand. (I have checked but have not been able to find reliable statistics.)

2. Disagree about the difference between a fetus and a child? On what grounds? How is an infant “born alive” after an abortion not a child? How is a six or seven-month fetus not a child? Because its mother says so?

3. You have ignored my points about how the expectation that disabled infants are too difficult for their mothers to care for, or to adopt, may end by destroying support for the disabled. This is a real issue, and the late disability rights activist Harriet McBryde Johnson was greatly troubled by it.

4. Most abortions are performed on healthy fetuses; only 3% of women state that fetal health problems are their reason for abortion. (Statistics on this subject are hard to come by; that’s from 1987.)