I have been saying, to the irritation of my friends on the left, that abortion has nothing to do with women’s health.
One of the original questions the Supreme Court had to deal with in the 1970s when it approved this “slaughter law” was, when does life begin? Well, all of the academics and doctors who were willing to take some money and testify said life did not start until the third trimester.
Remember, this was a time when cancer was almost always fatal. AIDS was a death sentence, and in some cases, people still died from the flu.
Medicine has come a long way since then. And now, many agree, scientists and doctors alike, that life begins at conception or shortly thereafter.
Dr. Bill Fifer, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, said, “Everything that a newborn baby does, a fetus has pretty much done already.” He said: “We know that a baby’s tiny heart is beating as early as 18 days after sperm-egg fusion. Brain waves are detectable by 6 weeks and babies can experience dream (REM) sleep by 17 weeks. Substantial medical and scientific evidence has demonstrated that unborn children are capable of feeling pain by 20 weeks, if not earlier.”
Not Joe Messina’s opinion, but science. This is now the understanding of many in the medical field. However, I am still perplexed. You see, the left continually beats on right-wing, conservative, Bible-thumping Republicans (like me) for not believing in science but rather the fairy tales of the Bible.
And yet, when confronted by science and facts – not theories like, let’s say, evolution – that don’t line up with their way of thinking, they ignore them and tell us we hate women (in the case of our abortion stance). Why? Because it is easier than discussing the facts.
So, if at 18 days that little blob of cells has a heartbeat, what can we call it? What will it eventually be? A canine? A fish? A tree? Nope. Simply, a human. Its only potential outcome is that it is a developing human.
Now with science we can see, with sonograms and 3D imagery, what the baby looks like. We can’t run from that truth. Our youth are seeing it more and more and are changing the way they view abortion.
So, then: It is a life. But what about the argument for years from the left and the pro-abortion groups that it’s not a life? As of late, some of the abortion proponents are saying life begins when the mother says it does; that the unborn blob of cells can be snuffed out even up to the time it’s exiting the birth canal.
Wow. That’s a stretch.
But wait. Jodi Jacobson, editor in chief of RH Reality Check, a “reproductive and sexual health and justice” blog, says it was never when life beings because “life begins at conception.” Huh?
OMG. Wasn’t the abortion debate all about women having access to clean, safe medical facilities so that when they were seeking this “medical procedure” the mother’s health would not be at risk? The fetus, or as it has been called, this “blob of cells,” needed to be removed to save the mother.
You were duped. Like all things Democrat, there were chapters and chapters between the lines that they hid from you.
According to Ms. Jacobson, this has always been a right to give a woman total control over her body. Well, one thing we can agree on, women should have control of their own bodies. Yes, she should definitely control it. If she doesn’t want a baby, then she should keep her clothes on. If she can’t do that, then at least have protected sex. And if she can’t do that, well then, what kind of control does she really have over her body anyway?
We have come to that point in society where life has no value. If you believe in science, then the baby exists at a minimum within the first 20 days. What makes that life less valuable than the mother’s life? Because the mother says so? Talk about playing God.
Now, understand, even to the irritation of my Christian friends, I am pro-choice but anti-abortion. I believe God gave us choice, so who am I to take it away? God allows you to love or to hate. Love your kids or abuse your kids. Kill or give life. Lie or tell the truth. Help others or help no one. It’s your choice. So, to my Christian friends, the law changes nothing. God saw that His people weren’t abiding by the 10 Commandments He gave them, so He sent Jesus with two simpler ones, and they work just fine.
When it comes to the abortion debate, it boils down to this. People want what they want, and they don’t want to be told what to do.
Ladies, if it’s all about you wanting to control your body, then control it. When you lose control, don’t tag us with the cost of your abortion or contraception pills or the medical and mental treatment you might need because of what you did. Why do we have to pay for your inability to control something you have forced us to allow you to choose?
Be an adult. Be responsible. There are 35 couples waiting for every one baby put up for adoption in this country. More than half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. Really? Are condoms not available in some parts of this country? From what I can see, they are at every gas station.
Even though abortion is actually on the decrease, abortions are up among poorer Americans, mostly the black community (Margaret Sanger must be very proud). Four of every 10 pregnancies end in abortion. Nine of 10 abortions happen within the first 12 weeks (when the heart is beating and many of the “human” functions are forming). Fifty-six percent are unmarried and 70 percent say they have a religious affiliation (although I don’t know which one).
I have said all of that to say: We were lied to. If this were really a women’s health issue, then prove it. Currently, the fights are about abortion on demand for just about any reason, and that now includes gender and race selection. Yep, you read that right: race.
Does life have value or not? Is one life worth more than another? Says who? And why do you get to play God?
Joe Messina is host of The Real Side (TheRealSide.com), a nationally syndicated talk show that runs on AM-1220 KHTS radio and SCVTV [here]. He is also the current president of the Hart School Board. His commentary publishes Mondays.
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76 Comments
SCVTV can you please stop giving this idiot a platform to speak on? You’re embarassing us.
-Santa Clarita
I second that!
Me too.
I disagree. Someone like Joe Messina has the right to write whatever he wants, however predictable. It’s only Facebook, he isn’t changing minds. Let him drag his knuckles, he’ll just keep walking in circles by himself.
I disagree. Someone like Joe Messina has the right to write whatever he wants, however predictable. It’s only Facebook, he isn’t changing minds. Let him drag his knuckles, he’ll just keep walking in circles by himself.
No, sorry, I don’t always agree with this guy, but he has an absolute right to express his views even if you don’t like them. I hate his politics, but I absolutely defend his right to express his opinions. In the present case, I for once agree with him, but that really does not matter – what matters is the principle of free speech.
lol Jared Gardner no one has a right to be represented by SCVTV that’s not how freedom of speech works. SCVTV has the right to choose who they want to write for them, but Joe has no legally protected right to writing articles for SCVTV. If they fire him he can’t go to the courts to reinstate him because SCVTV is oppressing his freedom of speech. I, however, have the right to ask SCVTV to stop letting him spew his idiocy and with enough people agreeing with me perhaps SCVTV will realize he’s more of a bumbling burden on business than a spokesman who helps bring in viewers.
lol Jared Gardner no one has a right to be represented by SCVTV that’s not how freedom of speech works. SCVTV has the right to choose who they want to write for them, but Joe has no legally protected right to writing articles for SCVTV. If they fire him he can’t go to the courts to reinstate him because SCVTV is oppressing his freedom of speech. I, however, have the right to ask SCVTV to stop letting him spew his idiocy and with enough people agreeing with me perhaps SCVTV will realize he’s more of a bumbling burden on business than a spokesman who helps bring in viewers.
Alex, I rarely agree with Joe, but you have to admit, he stirs up a lot of discussion. I think that discussion is a very healthy thing.
I know how freedom of speech works. All I’m saying is that sometimes it’s better to let people like Joe have posts on a dinky little local access “TV” shows Facebook page. It’s like containing a old rabid dog to a crate.
Ok, I think you finally wrote something I can agree with, although it would have helped if you had expounded a bit on the actual definition of “life”, difficult though that is.
That said, one definition frequently used is when the fetus “can survive on it’s own” – which actually has led to some real horror stories about babies who were aborted and then heroic efforts were made to save their lives. I think a better definition is the one that you (sort of) suggested – life begins at conception, a definition I subscribe to. If this is true, then anything that a person does to harm a fetus constitutes murder.
Why is it that a woman’s life is somehow deemed more valuable than the life of an unborn child? Why do we allow women to decide when to kill babies and when to keep them ? (It occurs to me that just because the baby is growing inside of you, that does not confer on you the right to kill it – yet most women argue that it does.)
Perhaps you can write some more about this whole issue – it’s very important.
Oh – I forgot. As much as I disagree with you politically, this is one area where we have common ground. Even if we did not, I commend you for having the courage to write this column. You are going to get a LOT of blowback, I suspect – be ready for it, and keep writing about this issue.
I like how he completely neglects to mention unwanted pregnancies at the result of rape, a situation where protection was used and didn’t work, or any sort of pregnancy that features health issues of the mother and/or baby. Instead he tells women to “keep their clothes on” and “control themselves.”
Rape is a crime, and a serious one. It is not solved by committing yet another crime.
Last time I checked, the majority of sex offenders in prison are men. Who has difficulty controlling themselves?
This is completely off-topic, and has nothing whatever to do with abortion.
Wow I am really confused? Is this writer a woman with reproductive organs does he know what it is like to be a woman with the choice to bare a child?Again this is not news in regards to what is going on current events in the Santa Clarita Valley.
100% the woman’s choice! Hey Joe stay out of women’s vagina’s!
This guy should be raped and forced to have a baby! @SCVTV
AHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
This is the funniest thing I have ever seen Jared Gardner I was thinking of that movie too
“…when confronted by science and facts – not theories like, let’s say, evolution…”
See, the problem is that “theory” in the scientific community does not mean “mere conjecture.” A “theory” in science is subjected to rigorous criticism and corroborated by swaths of empirical data. So, I’m supposed to believe a “scientifically founded” argument from a person who clearly lacks a fundamental sense of scientific literacy? You could see why even looking past his rhetoric, I’m skeptical. It would serve Joe Messina well to understanding another term: “confirmation bias.”
Of course, his supporters will say he included that quip to irritate people like me and that he clearly succeeded. To which I respond, if he doesn’t take his writing seriously, why should we?
You’re so ignorant, you don’t even know you can have sex and get pregnant with your clothes on. Thanks for the weekly laugh!
You sir are a moron!
Why do you give this guy space? He’s a total________ (fill in the blanks)/Vote him out of office the next time.
Why do you give this guy space? He’s a total________ (fill in the blanks)/Vote him out of office the next time.
Hahahahahahahahaha I love this guy. Can always count on him for a good laugh. Hahahahahahahaha
Hahahahahahahahaha I love this guy. Can always count on him for a good laugh. Hahahahahahahaha
Thanks Joe. As usual, the Me Me Me crowd cannot think of a 9 month sacrifice for the sake of a life that could change the world. I used to think like them too. Thank God I matured. May God change their hearts as well.
It’s not a matter of changing hearts. It’s a matter of choice. Period.
While I’m not a big fan of Joe, he raises a reasonable point that many on the Pro-Choice of the debate like to ignore.
In my mind, the question is not about “a woman’s right to choose” what to do with her body. The question is at what point does the fetus/zygote/baby/ect become a human life. At that point it should have the same legal protection as any of us. I don’t know at what point this happens. Smarter people than me cannot figure it out, but it’s a question that needs to be examined. Whichever sexual organs I might have does not influence the truth of this.
And, before I get the inevitable hate spam from those who cannot stand when somebody disagrees with them, I’m generally pro choice, but with a lot of reservations about it.
Phil you have to decide when life begins. Once you do that, you reach the inescapable conclusion that anything that is done to a fetus after it is alive to harm it constitutes murder, since if it is alive, it is a person.
I think decisions like this should be based on as much science as is available, not on political considerations, such as the convenience of women.
If you review the science, I think you will conclude, as I have, that life begins at the moment of conception, primarily because there is really no other meaningful marker that would indicate that life has appeared.
Thanks Joe. As usual, the Me Me Me crowd cannot think of a 9 month sacrifice for the sake of a life that could change the world. I used to think like them too. Thank God I matured. May God change their hearts as well.
It’s not a matter of changing hearts. It’s a matter of choice. Period.
How righteous of you to mature into thinking that you should have say over another person’s decisions and health.
Good point, Jose. Except – why is it better for a woman to have the right to kill a baby ? Doesn’t that give her the ultimate say over the baby’s health ?
Actually, I agree with you both, about the choice. But we disagree on who should have that choice. I side with the innocent life.
Thanks, as do I.
You obviously didn’t mature out of your superstitious religious beliefs…
It’s the other way around.
“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” http://bible.com/116/1co.13.11.nlt
I say grow a vagina and then talk about the problems with tenants
Grow a vagina
Vagina
Grow
@
V@gina
Then
Complain
About
The
Tenants
With
In
You
Tool
Hey Joe, remember I spoke about blowback ? Well – you seem to be getting it, in spades, from a bunch of very angry women who don’t want their right to kill babies taken away. Don’t let them push you around, and keep writing on this issue no matter what is said to you.
Joe, men are NOT being responsible for THEIR ACTIONS. Women do not get pregnant on their own. Hiding behind religion is a pitiful excuse.
Young women were dying by the hundreds of thousands from illegal abortions before 1974. Before 1900 or so, there were no laws against abortion and even the Catholic Church tacitly condoned abortions performed before the “quickening” around five months–curious that abortion was outlawed at the same time women were demanding the right to vote, divorce, and own property.
Women have gotten too uppity for the chauvinists: “Back in the kitchen, girls!”
Y’all shouldn’t let Joe push your buttons. It’s what he’s trying to do with his typical posts. Which makes it obvious how sincere his words actually are. Gotta laugh!
The more vehemently you object and call for SCVTV to “fire” him, the more SCVTV realizes that lots of people are actually reading his column (which I’m 100% POSITIVE that the majority of his dissenters did NOT do). Read the article, he has some good points. How many of you dissenters even read the line saying that he is pro choice? HMMMM????
I’m not even going to read this. I already know what rubbish you spew! Again, not sure why you’re given a platform!
Well his logic starts off by saying remember when people (in some cases) died from the flu? You mean like in 2014? What an idiot, I’m a man and I know unless I am going to be the one risking my life and health to carry a baby, I have no right to tell a woman how to live with that issue. Women who are raped get pregnant everyday, are we going to force them to carry the spawn of Satan? Close your legs? What the hell? Was he a virgin until he was married?
Well his logic starts off by saying remember when people (in some cases) died from the flu? You mean like in 2014? What an idiot, I’m a man and I know unless I am going to be the one risking my life and health to carry a baby, I have no right to tell a woman how to live with that issue. Women who are raped get pregnant everyday, are we going to force them to carry the spawn of Satan? Close your legs? What the hell? Was he a virgin until he was married? I do not agree with abortion and I do feel it is wrong. But that is my view and I do not feel it is my place to pass judgement on women who make that choice. I understand that as a man it is easier for me to have an opinion against it, men get to go out and have sex without worrying about waking up pregnant. I know that as a guy I wouldn’t want a woman telling me I couldn’t get a vasectomy, or wear a condom. It is ignorant and closed minded to say such things.
He has “friends on the left”??? Couldn’t read beyond that.
Yes, he has friends on the left, at least in this case. You would be surprised at how many people on the left are against murder. Remember, we are the people that think that war is unacceptable. Many of us also think that abortion is unacceptable as well.
If one uses abortion as a sex selection, I question that person’s ability to be a good parent to a child of either sex.
Janie, I agree, but not just gender selection. Also for convenience, race selection, to conceal it from the husband or boyfriend who clearly is not the father, and a plethora of other things – all selfish.
I think things change when someone is going to have a baby that cannot possibly live because of illness, or when having the child may kill the mother and the child, but thankfully these things are statistically rare.
That said, I have no interest in preserving a “woman’s right to choose” – for her convenience.
Alex – what class…..NOT.
Oh, and Michael erickson, the individual who referred to a child conceived as a result of a rape as “The spawn of Satan” isn’t fit to care for a houseplant let alone a human being. that was just disgusting.
Abortion can WELL be a health issue. but it is sadly misused.
I don’t and have ever denied that it can be a health issue, and when it is, under some circumstances, it is justified and in some cases even merciful.
What I object to is when it is used capriciously which more often than not is the case. Does everyone know about the woman who posted a complete video of her abortion on youtube ? There are many more videos on youtube for those that have the stomach to watch a perfectly healthy baby being killed for some woman’s convenience. I call it murder, and I will continue to call it murder, because that is what it is.
Abortion doesn’t have to be a religious issue. You don’t have to be a bible thumper to believe that abortion is murder.
Chris, as an Agnostic myself, I completely agree with you. This has nothing at all to do with religion, and I wish Joe had left that part out – it’s not relevant.