I'm going to ask for a recount

I think that's a safe bet, Pastor Steve!

Oh Pastor Steve, ye of little faith. Of course I listed your blog as I am a fair minded humanist secular.

Todd Epp
SD Watch http://www.southdakotawatch.net

Maybe they took a page from the ACORN playbook.

Bob/Travis - yep, Acorn, George Soros, Al Franken, Unhealthy Families, etc. etc. — all one big happy family, same money, same agenda, same leadership, same disdain for justice, decency, human life and the same spirit operating behind it all.

Todd, sorry to skew your poll and stir up the latest battle for more SD votes on the topic of abortion, but as I pointed out, they started it.

Or maybe people just like Dakota Women? Why is everything a big conspiracy to you?
What does Chris Cassidy have to do with Dakota Women? While you are waiting for a recount on Todd's blog, add that to your list of other things you are waiting for. Like an abortion ban to pass in SD, or the FBI to investigate the voter fraud case, or for the Unruh's to become sane.

"They started it" is his big argument, ladies and gents.

Hey, Steve….the 4th grade called, and they want their cliche line back.

Angie - a little levity is good this time of year, is it not? I can tell you are still sore that I've hammered all year on the second grade antics over at Dakota Women. In light of that I suppose I deserve your comment.

Yeah Angie, we'll let the fourth grade know that he's using their cliche. Then we'll call the name callers in the second grade, because I'm sure that calling him "Doohickey" is so orginal that they'll want to borrow it.

Grace - sorry your comment didn't go up sooner. I just happened to see it in the spam folder which tells me you've commented here before and I deemed it nasty enough to block. The same venom comes through here in your comment as well. Go read someone else's blog.

Why read someone else's blog when yours is so funny! It's in my favorites. It's hysterical. Merry Christmas.

Kids, don't make me pull the car over when we're on the way to Grandma's for Christmas! (Steve, notice I didn't say "Happy Holidays"?)

Now Angie, don't bother Steve. Steve, leave Angie alone. How about we sign a nice round of "Over The River and Through the Woods" and then play some license plate bingo!

Plus, I've got peanut brittle if you're good!

Or you can go on with your tiff and keep sending traffic to my blog.

Happy Festivus! (That was for you, Angie, my fellow humanist secular!)

Todd Epp
SD Watch http://www.southdakotawatch.net

Um, "sing" not "sign", though if we were deaf, that would be a good idea too.

Keep voting!

WOW, Grace. I completely agree with Steve. What is coming from you is a poisonous venom.
I recommend to you that you read a book called the BIBLE. Some, such as myself, also refer to this book as "The Book of Truth". It appears to me that your eyes are closed to the truth of what is realy going on with the abortion issue. I challange you to try to look at this issue from a pair of glasses that are not rose colored, rather glasses that are clear.

Jodie,
Merry Christmas to you! I took off my rose colored glasses, and guess what? I still believe that laws shouldn't be placed upon a women's body.
Merry Christmas!

Grace:

What a great name - I hope you find some.

I agree with you. Laws should not be placed on small women's bodies that allow small women, or girl babies as we like to call them, to be torn apart and thrown away because they are an inconvenience to a larger, but no more worthy, woman. All humans ARE equal, right? Law and science have determined and proved that the small woman in the womb is a HUMAN, and therefore equal with the larger human woman outside the womb.

If you want equal rights, you have to be equal in what is right, Gracie.

Amy,
So you want to take away a woman's civil rights and give it to a zygote? Genius idea. Fortunately the majority of SD voters agree with me.
Merry Christmas!

Grace… What about the laws that are on the books to protect your body? Against abuse, against rape, murder? Those are there to tell a person what they may or may not do with another persons body.

You can call a Duck a Chicken, but that doesn't make it any less of a duck.
You can call a human in the womb a zygote, but that doesn't make it any less of a human. That just proves that you must lie to yourself to justify your stance.

Ok, I give in.

Keep arguing and keep voting in the poll at the top right of South Dakota Watch at http://southdakotawatch.blogspot.com/ !

Complete Faith,
Laws are on the books to protect my body from what OTHER people can do to me. There are not laws to protect me from myself. I don't think I could rape myself, that would be masturbation. As long as the zygote/fetus is in my body, it's up to me what I want to do. Say you ban abortion. But a woman really wants an abortion for whatever reason, how are you going to enforce the law? Should we lock up all women who want an abortion to make sure they don't attempt to induce an abortion?
Merry Christmas!

Now…I'm pretty sure the originator of the poll says in their post "You can vote for more than one blog below (hopefully, however, only once, if I set this up correctly)."

I voted twice….and I didn't even have to delete cookies.

So Gracie:

How do you explain your position when you are no longer talking about a "zygote?" which is a stage of development, not a definition of species, BTW. Roe and Doe made abortion legal in the US up to the day of delivery. That's a fully-formed human, dear heart. You think we should be able to kill those babies when they would otherwise be able to live outside the womb? Where does that line get drawn? Do you not see the inconsistency of your position. That human is a human from the day of conception, Grace. He or she does not become a human being sometime down the road. That is a human being, just like you, only smaller. Everybody is smaller than somebody else, everybody is weaker than somebody else, everybody is dumber than somebody else, everybody at sometime is an inconvenience to somebody else, Grace. Should we all be subject to arbitrary extermination because of our "lesser than" status of the moment?

That is what you are advocating.

What's fascinating is that both sides are looking at this as a slippery slope concept. Pro-Choicers ask what would be next after abortion is illegal. Pro-Lifers are are wondering a similar argument that you just posted.

To be honest I'm kind of tired of both sides using the same arguments over and over where the other side has no desire to listen to, or even think about, the substance of the argument. Even if one side was wrong, I firmly believe that people have too much pride to lay down their arms (and arguments) and consider what really makes sense and what we can do with the REAL facts that have been provided for all to see (facts that doctors and scientists have provided for us since R v. W.

Now before I continue, let me make one thing clear. I am for life… period. I believe that life needs to be preserved for both the mother and the child. Given a position of life or death of the mother, if I were in a position to choose between the life of the mother or the baby inside her, I would think that both my wife and I would seriously consider her life over the child's.

As difficult a position as that might be, this is a very rare occurrence in our world with the improvements of modern medicine. Speaking of modern medicine, when R. v. W. made abortion legal, it was O.K. to abort a baby up to term. Well, we are now realizing that a child can survive out of the womb at 21 weeks (practically half of the term). In another thirty years, we may find out that we can raise a baby right out of a petrie dish (oh wait, we're already working on that now). So the argument is simple. If this in fact is true- that we can raise a baby out of the mothers womb at an earlier and earlier time before actual term- then when does a "fetus" actually become a living soul? How can we make this moral and ethical decision in good conscience? Bottom line, the argument for pro-choicer's is shrinking day by day.

I have to be honest, I am all about pro-choice. I believe that women SHOULD have the right to choose. However, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I believe that women, and men for that matter, should understand the full responsibility of the consequences of having sex. Last time I checked, a baby doesn't have that kind of choice or reasoning, so I would hope that our mom's and dad's have raised us well enough to understand that if you choose to do an action, something in return will happen, regardless if it is good or bad. So I believe that being pro-choice should be something that happens before the action takes place. Should you CHOOSE to have the action, in this case sex, then you must be prepared for the consequence. You should be ADULT enough to take responsibility for your actions.

This is the pinnacle of the argument that I am making. Choose to take responsibility for your actions. It seems these days that everyone feels "entitled" to a bailout of some sort because of the choices people make. This case is no different. Kids are told it's O.K. to have sex (thanks hollywood), but then when they do, then they expect a bailout. Screw adoption options, or the physical and psychological impairments caused to women who have abortions (and for those who disagree with this, step inside a women's clinic one time and listen to their stories). Forget about all the scientific facts about why abortion is more detrimental to the woman's body than if she were to carry the baby full term.

So what is left for the "pro-choice" argument. Simply put, it's about convenience. In our "have it your way" culture, everyone can do whatever they want and not have to worry about the consequences. After all, if you vote for the right person, they will make sure that all your worries are brushed away under a big FAT carpet. Read tomorrows paper and tell me just how well that is going.

Some people ask, "well what about if a woman is raped?". Last time I read the revision of the law that South Dakota attempted to pass, there were clauses for the protection of the mother under extreme cases such as rape and health. This, I believe, is what people have called a compromise. However, this is not good enough for those who have a different agenda. If you take out the convenience factor of abortion, over 90% of abortion would be stopped. We protect the mother AND the baby from useless and irresponsible abortions.

So go ahead "pro-choicers", Feel free to choose whatever you want to do, but when you choose the action, you need to be ready to understand what may or may not happen afterwards. My question is, do you CHOOSE to be responsible? Or do you CHOOSE to justify your arguments for your convenience?

Your choice.

Shalom

Mark. Good commentary.

It reminds me of some of my recent comments I posted here

To quote myself (I'm not quote mining then)…"I do not understand why there is so much trouble for people to realize, that even in cases of rape, incest, and even life endangerment - why would it be the woman's 'choice' to terminate the life of a baby. I can understand…and accept that it is certainly her choice what she wants done to her body - but it is not her choice in any case to decide what happens to the baby. If she doesn't want to carry the baby - she doesn't have to. We certainly have the technology (and have since the early 80's) for the baby to be removed while preserving both lives…the baby can develop in a surrogate or even an artificial incubator.

When has it ever been anyone's 'right' to terminate another life?"

With our current medical technology - viability of the baby at any stage of development isn't really a realistic argument. A baby is viable at nearly any stage of development.

Grace, my point in the examples listed in my last post was this. Those laws are on the books in an attempt to dictate what others can do to your body. If you were raped by someone other then yourself you would have the full backing of the law on your side, how ever if you never speak up about it no justice will be served.

The unborn human that God has given you the gift of caring for has no voice to speak out about crimes that are committed against his or her body.

The fact is that we are speaking about human life and no man or woman has the right to choose when another human’s life should end.

[…] Women is a surprising leader in the polling while Voices Carry believes out of state voters could be in play for the gals.  VC is already calling for a […]

Pastor Steve - Did you see that VC lost to Dakota Women and the second graders are back to saying suck it Doohickey?

http://southdakotawatch.blogspot.com/2008/12/sd-watch-readers-select-dakota-women-as.html

You should have put a link to the best blog contest in the bulletin on Sunday so it would have been 1007 to 107 for VC.

We are looking forward to when you get back - praying you'll be more fired up than ever.

Isnt it rather hypocritical to favor abortion when yo'uve already been born. My name is Vince, and I stood by my wife in 1993 at a clinic in San Diego, Ca. after paying $175 for my wife at the time to undergo an abortion. I was overwhelmed with shame, guilt and grief knowing I was participating in a murder of a defenseless child. A child that we had made with the help of a devine God. Due to the unbeknownst to me; drug use by her. My wife was of serious risk to her, and that the slim chance the baby was born alive, and if IT was to survive. The baby would have severe physical and mantal problems. She was entering her 10th week when she had set up the appt. I was there under protest. I hope all of you people who think abortion is the "Right thing to do" should attend at least 10 active abortions. I watched the female person set at a position as if to assist in birth. Except when she reached over to the stainless steel table and turn on a machine, uncoiled a transparent hose with some small apparatus on the end and insert it inside my wife. My entire life was inside out, spinning undesirably so. I lost it when I heard the machine sucking and whirring, and blood, and maety substances being pumped through the hose and into a steel container under the machine. I was numb with grief, as the burning guilt that clearly has a place in my mind. I didn't know what or how the machines operation was. I did know that it was a termination of my to be son. His name was to be Nevin Michael Vincent. I pleaded for my wife to give up her drugs, and friends. She said I was crazy. And that she didn't think abortion is a bad thing. I believe a person that has a child, or has ever tended one for a sibling could never conceive the process or methods the immoral animals that do this. It's okay to be gay, it's okay to take God out of public, it's not okay for me to pray that the Lord Jesus forgives all those that believe the ACLU (anti-christ liberation unit) to seek ways to bind the faith and strength this country was built on. I truly hope none of you banterers of RIGHTS of the woman never have to stand by your daughter or grand daughter and undergo the trauma of this procedure. Oh, 3 days later I came home from work to find my wife screaming in the bedroom, where she was balled up in the fetal position and the afterbirth was a mess between her legs and around her. You rights fighters make this American Veteran sick. Fight for the cure for IADS or Cancer. Not Murder. I hope you're glad your parents didn't have a clothes hanger party for you. I only wish you would have paid attention to your bible instead of your friends when your parents (if they did?)took you to church.