>You have got to be kidding
>me... You don't know me
>or nothing about how i
>feel about the cause of
>women's advancement. First off if
>you don't like the quote
>then your problem is with
>Common. If i recall Common
>had a song called "Retrospect
>for Life" that gave his
>views on the abortion issue.
>But then again, he's a
>man so he doesn't know
>shit. And he smacked a
>women on his new album
>so he must hate women.
>How about you don't make
>assumptions about me and after
>you read this you can
>write a letter to Common
>and tell him how he
>is sexist and oppresses women.


No, I'm not kidding. Even Common can slip up, that quote is not indicative of beliefs in equality. And for your information, I didn't like that little interlude on his album either...he also had Slum Village using the word "bitch," which shows you that he can be a hypocrite, ("I'll never call you a bitch or even my boo...") the same way you or I can. (By the way, I think Common's tight, but by far not perfect...not that you're saying that...I just wanted to make myself clear). This shit is supposed to be funny? Would it be exceptable for white folks to make fun of slavery? In my opinion, the answer is no, and I don't think it's very entertaining for a man to make fun of hitting women either. And there are some women who buy into it too. It's all totally ridiculous and hypocritical. Moreover, did I say that you hate women? You can be sexist without "hating women" just as you can be racist without "hating blacks." Get the semantics right to avoid confusion.

>I don't feel that I get
>to dictate the definition of
>"life". I just feel that
>the word concieve, by definition
>means begin. So based on
>that i feel that life
>begins at conception (whether we
>recognize it as our definition
>of life or not)

First of all, I firmly believe that you can be pro-choice and anti-abortion, meaning that you wouldn't want your woman to have one, but you wouldn't tell others what their choice should be. When you label yourself as pro-life, you send the message that, not only would you not make the choice for yourself, but that you would force everyone to adhere to the same choice, i.e. supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which made abortions a recognized right under one's right to privacy...jurisdiction over one's own body, legal talk, yadda, yadda, yadda. If you are like most pro-lifers, you would like to see legislation that prohibits abortion, and this is what I have a contention with. I think that everyone's entitled to their own moral convictions, but when someone is trying to impose those beliefs (moral and religious convictions) on me and what I do with my body, that's when the line is drawn. If you keep your own beliefs within your sphere of action, wherein your actions only affect you, than that's cool with me. But, if you want other people to adhere to your moral convictions, you need to come up with something better than the way you "feel." I'm saying that in a country where religious freedom is supposed to be the creed, the first amendment protects the woman's right to choose because it bars the enforcement of laws specifically based on religion, which a ban on abortion would be.


>Well if Christians are bombing abortion
>clinics and killing people...that would
>be murder. I think i've
>stated that i'm not cool
>with murder.

My goal with that example was to point out the contradiction of a "pro-life" stance. The same people who shame a woman for making the choice to keep her child, are the same people who want to ban abortion...

>As far as
>the male role in this
>I do think that brothaz
>should keep it in their
>pants. But if we had
>better education and community responsibility
>then many of these abortions
>would not be necessary. So
>we need to look at
>ourselves in the mirror. If
>more people were waiting to
>have sex until they were
>in a committed relationship(high school
>does not count)Then pregnency and
>abortion would be something they
>would be talking about and
>would be clear on. Maybe
>my moral views are starting
>to show through, but i
>feel sex is for 2
>committed people as is pregnancy
>and child raising.. If brothaz
>would stop trying to fuck
>everything with a vagina then
>the problem would indeed start
>to remedy itself.

I agree with you 100% on this tip, but I still think that the vocabulary through which we discuss abortion is terribly sexist, and we need to get passed talking about it in this manner. What manner, you ask? The manner in which women are crucified for any choice they make...whether she chooses to be a mother or not. We need to change up the way we address abortion by addressing the surrounding issues of institutional sexism, and for women of color, institutional racism, as well as classism. But nobody wants to do that. You didn't do it in your first post. And if you had these views underneath, (male responsibility, etc.) I wonder why they weren't the first things you typed. You should wonder that too...Women who choose to have abortions are made into scape goats for issues that go deeper that whether a woman terminates her pregnancy or not.

>
>> You're against abortion, but
>>are you willing to relinquish
>>your male privilege to help
>>women in their struggle for
>>equality?
>
>Yeah...
>
>>Women don't "feel" that a fetus
>>isn't technically alive. It's
>>been proven.
>
>So you are the spokesperson for
>all women now??

Wait, you were the one who went there first, but, respect, i should have said "Some women who have abortions don't "feel" that..." But, it's true and you didn't refute it...It's a scinetifically valid assertion that a fetus is not "alive" until about the sixth month. If you can disprove this outside of a religious context, then go for it. Otherwise, there is absolutely no ground on which to constitutionally validate a ban on abortions.
>
>>In standing
>>against abortion, without even addressing
>>the other political issues involved
>>in a woman's choice, you
>>are standing for every sexist
>>institution that continually beats women
>>down, just for being women.
>> You don't believe in
>>men oppressing women, but that's
>>exactly what you are advocating.
>> Your are revelling in
>>your male privilege and forcing
>>women to "stay in their
>>place" and the hypocrisy of
>>brothers who claim to be
>>for the cause makes me
>>sick.
>>
>
>When did i say anything about
>women staying in their place.

You don't have to say it. It's implicit in the pro-life stance. Especially among those who do not address the issues surrounding abortion.

>I don't think that being
>pro-life is beating down women.
>I am 100% for women
>to be free of the
>oppression that they have faced
>by the hand of males
>for so long.

So you don't think that a bunch of old white men on Capital Hill making laws about how a woman should live her life is furthering the systematic oppression of women? Men have made the rules in this society and abortion is a part of the game if women want to be allowed to play. These, of course, are the same men who are morally repulsed by abortion, but will not make laws that effectively protect women from abuse, rape, or other socially ills that disproportionately affect women.

.And you
>were right in stating that
>we need more women in
>positions of power. But everything
>has a balance.

What do you mean by "balance"?

>I also
>did not go in depth
>about the social conditions that
>make abortions sometimes neccessary.

Why not? Why didn't you address those issues at first...this is more of a rhetorical question, but you may want to evaluate why the social conditions didn't come up first in this conversation.

>I
>dont think a women should
>have to be forced to
>carry a child that she
>had no say in the
>conception of (Rape) and i
>don't think that women should
>have to carry a child
>if her life is in
>danger.

Why not? I find this a contradiction in the pro-life stance. Most pro-lifers argue that the fetus is a child and that it should not be murdered because it's a precious life. What makes a child concieved through rape any less precious than a child concieved through love? A life is a life, or is it not. If it is true that the woman's life isn't more valuable than the child's, why shouldn't a woman carry a baby to term regardless of the risk to herself? If she dies, she dies. It's God's will. Her life is not worth any more than the child's, right?


>The society in which
>we life is bullshit. But
>i don't think niggaz should
>be killing each other over
>tennis shoes, no matter what
>the socail conditions are. I
>don't think niggaz should be
>fuckin' up their communities by
>selling crack. But then
>agian i'm not a drug
>dealer so i should have
>no say in people fuckin'
>up my neighborhood right? Whatever
>makes you feel good just
>do i guess is the
>motto for some.

You can have your say in anything, but understand that your opinion is invalidated TO A CERTAIN EXTENT because you are not there. You didn't answer one of my original questions...do you like it when white people tell you how to act when it comes to race in America? How about when they say, "What's the problem? Just forget about the past and move on"? Is their opinion on being black in America as valid as a black man or woman's? Notice, I didn't say that it wasn't valid at all...I just asked is it as valid. I would argue no, just for the simple fact that the white has no clue what it is to deal with the pressures of being black 24-7? Same thing goes for the male/female dichotomy. You shouldn't think that your opinion isn't valid at all, but don't think you can be the defining voice in the debate.

>
>When there is another person is
>in your body you have
>the "moral" duty(assuming you have
>morals) to provide teh best
>possible invironment for the child.
>No drinking, no smoking, and
>no killiing the child also.
>
You are assuming that the fetus is really another person, without any proof. Again, with stuff like this you just can't go on how you "feel"? Everyone has their own morals, I'm just not down with folks telling me what I can't and cannot do with my own body, especially when I have science on my side. As for my "moral duty," what if I had no means to support a child? Which moral duty supercedes the other: My duty to have the child or my duty to provide for it? Think about this in the context of women in the Third-World, where over-population and impoverishment go hand in hand?

Sorry if I was at all disrespectful in this post or the last one (I tried to tone it down a bit this time around). This is a topic that is very close to me, and it incites a lot of passion. I just see a lot of contradictions in the traditional pro-life stance, and I feel that anyone who is truly ready to push of the yokes of racism, sexism and classism would be able to see those contradictions too. However, this is not always true, and I know that. Much love and respect

rhonda


>PLAY ON... PLAY ON...
>Props 2 my Fam...The Badd Azz
>Muthafuckaz
>Brainchild
>Da Knife
>Restlesspoet
>Sonlight
>
>Ya'll Know tha Motto Murder on
>that Azz!!
>
>"I heard a hoe say Ice
>Cube's her favorite rapper...so i
>had to smack her" -Common
>(Sense)
>
>"Crack iz back in tha hood"
>- Andre 3000