Mr. Saleten is dismayed at the loss of the taboo against abortion-for-sex-selection? Has he stopped to consider the original taboo – against killing a baby? That’s not just a slippery slope that leads to breaking other taboos -- that is a sheer cliff that the culture stepped off of into a disasterous abyss. But lift up that hand to Jesus and God will save.

By the way, there was indeed a slippery slope that led to the abyss of abortion -- the mainstream acceptance of contraception.

"By the way, there was indeed a slippery slope that led to the abyss of abortion -- the mainstream acceptance of contraception. "

Apparently you don't realize that using contraception prevents unwanted pregnancies, and therefore abortions.

1) The slippery slope I was talking about was society's acceptance of abortion. Until the Anglican Lambeth Conference of 1930, all mainstream religions were against contraception. Pope Paul VI, when he rejected the acceptance of contaception in Humanae Vitae, described the slippery slope it would lead to (lowering of moral standards, the treating of humans as objects, the devalueing of human life, acceptance of abortion). People called him crazy

2) Regarding whether contraception prevents abortion: Look at the data. The majority of women who get abortions were using contraception when they got pregnant.

Abortin has ALWAYS been accepted by society. Until modern contraception it was the ONLY way that women in traditional societies could have any control of their bodies.

You are also misquoting the statistic on contraception. Most who get pregnant were using contraception regularly, but had made a mistake in the regiment of some sort - be it the breaking of a condom or forgetting to take their pill.

As for invoking Jesus and the bible. That's fine for you. But that has no basis upon which to build a public law. Explain to me how your faith gives you the right to pass laws that violate the 13th Amendment's prohibition against involuntary servitude?

Degsme, by what right does anyone pass any law? Every law is meant to compel others through force, either to do what they do not want to do, or to not do what they do want to do. By what right does anyone compel anyone else in such a way?

Kevin Clark

"Look at the data. The majority of women who get abortions were using contraception when they got pregnant. "

and all the women were breathing. I guess that makes a good case for mandatory necrophilia, huh? no abortions there!

jazzguitarman:

You would be better off jacking off.

I don't think bible-thumpers are allowed to do that. Are they?

The US Constitution enumerates those rights that we as a society have ceded to The Government. That's where all the laws in the US derive from.

If you cannot trace the right to legislate either explicitly to the US Constitution or the inherited Common Law that was included in that ratification, then there is no right to regulate.

Am 13 explicitly precludes involuntary servitude.

Prove that accepting contraception directly led to abortion. After all, many things have changed since the 1930s. You could just as well say that the acceptance of TV, or interracial marriage, or women voting has led to an acceptance of abortion.

And how many abortions would happen if there weren't contraception? Women abort because they have an unwanted pregnancy. These days they can try to avoid the pregnancy by using contraception, but if that weren't available that wouldn't make them want the pregnancy any more than before.

I've seen no studies where they have looked at why people have gotten pregnant who didn't want to. Did they use contraception? Did they make a mistake? What exactly happened? For instance, there are medicines that can cause the pill to stop working. Sometimes condoms break. Sometimes contraception does fail.

But with the increase in sex education and the availability of the MAP, abortions have actually gone down. It will be interesting to see if this trend reverses as more people are stuck with abstinence only education.