Abortion is immoral. Period.

You don't know my views on anything.

Yuo have only trite soundbites as arguments, since you are incapable of reflective, original thought.

I assume that you are being honest about your views. I am just reacting to what you are saying.

You seem to be unwilling to accept that many Americans (men and women alike) disagree with you about abortion because they view abortion as the taking of a human life. These Americans elect representatives who represent their views, just as you do. And they are responsible to their own conscience, just as you are.

The reason I said you are in an ideological bubble is because it seems you don't consider Americans who disagree with you on abortion to be as sincere, and decent, as you are.

You don't understand my views, and you can't because you don't listen, you anticipate.

You expect either the liberal or conservative view, and you try to fit the views you hear into one mold or another.

I am listening. I can only understand what you say. You aren't explaining your position very well.

I don't understand why politicians shouldn't represent their constituents in this issue given that both men and women oppose abortion on moral grounds. Can you explain this to me?

A politician should stand for what he believes in and own his positions. If those positions do not get him elected, then so be it. He should not run on positions which he does not believe in, or else he is a fraud.

Therefore, these members of legislatures are either frauds, who do not believe in what they vote for in roll calls, or else they believe that they have the authority to tell women what to do with their bodies. It is one or the other. If pilate condemns christ, he does not get to wash his hands of it and blame the pharisees. Ultimately he must own his decision.

I could vote for that. If I had the chance, I mean.

So, if a politician believes that abortion is immoral because it takes a human life, then he or she should run on a pro-life platform. And, when it comes to a vote, he or she should vote to restrict abortion rights. This honest politician is likely to get elected in Kansas, and not likely to be elected in Massachusetts. But either way, it is the right thing for him or her to vote to restrict abortion.

Do you agree with this? If not, then please tell me what I don't understand.

If he believes in a pro-life position and runs on that, then he is more moral than someone who believes in pro-choice position and runs on a pro-life platform -- and votes to restrict women's reproductive health, because he likes power. So Huckabee, if we consider his views genuine rather than cynical, is more moral than Trump, whose pro-life position is purely a ploy for power.

But even if he's as pro-life as his voting record, my original point was that it's inappropriate for him to refer to the pro-choice people as "bullies" when he's the one voting to tell individuals what they can and can't do with their bodies. He's the one doing the coercing.

You are still arguing from your ideological bubble; applying one set of standards to people with whom you agree, and another set of standards to people on the other side. There are lots of laws that tell individuals what we can and can't do with our bodies. There are laws against drug use, exhibitionism and prostitution for example.

People oppose abortion because they believe that it takes a human life.

If they are concerned for human life, they can take measures to prevent abortion without passing laws prohibiting it. And of course, many do.

In order to support a BAN on abortion, you need to believe that you have the moral authority to tell people what they can and can't do with their bodies. You have to believe it is the state's place to legislate morality.

My aunt opposes abortion on principle, but she believes it is ultimately the choice of the mother. So she does not support anti-abortion laws.

You are arguing from an ideological bubble; applying one set of standards to people you agree with, and a different set of standards to people on the other side.

If you believe that something is immoral because it takes human life, why wouldn't you want to ban it? I assume that there are things you want to ban because they are immoral (slavery for example).

No one today opposes slavery on principle but believes no laws should be made against it because it is the choice of the owner. It is something that we believe is fundamentally immoral and shouldn't be allowed in a civilized society. If you believed that abortion was fundamentally immoral as the taking of a human life, you would feel the same.

Is that what your flow chart told you to write? Because you're repeating yourself. You're in a loop, buddy.

You're probably one of those guys who keeps a list of "fallacies", so that you can assign whichever comes closest, to another person's argument.

I repeated one sentence to show there is a consistent theme. The second and third paragraphs are making a new point (to which you don't seem to want to respond).

The primary difference between you and the people on the other side is your moral judgment. If you believed that abortion is the taking of human you would feel differently. All the other arguments you are making are straw men.

The only important question is whether abortion is taking a human life.

That's because you're reading my arguments from your ideological bubble. Your accusations that I'm doing the same are projection.

I used to take an interest in what you thought, but I don't any more. I thought you lived outside ideology, but you don't. You just happen to be the only person in your own bubble.

People who care what others think don't use terms like "strawman".

Kolyo,

1. You and I are in the same ideological bubble on this issue. I believe that abortion should be safe and legal (and rare), and I don't believe I have ever voted for a pro-life candidate in a national race.

2. I acknowledge that people on the other side of this issue have valid points to make. This is the difference between you and I. The way you get out of an ideological bubble is to acknowledge that people on the other side are human beings and are just as intelligent and decent as you are.

You are insulting them, rather than trying to understand them.

3. Opponents of abortion are very clearly saying that they believe that abortion is immoral because it takes a human life.

A "strawman argument" is when you ascribe arguments or motives to an opponent that they have never expressed. I used this term because you are accusing opponents of abortion of "restricting what women can do with their bodies", which completely ignores what the real issue is.

Do you honestly feel that laws based on morality are the way to go about governance?

Personally I think that laws should be enacted by legislators who are elected to represent the people in their district.

But that is just my opinion.

I think it would be more moral for a politician to vote for something that their constituents want even if it goes against his/her Personal beliefs.

If a candidate is for something and campaigns on that, but after months of his supporters/constituents talking to them, writing them, trying to change his mind or to at least express vast public support and the candidate LISTENS to them and goes against what he campaigned on...well, I hope all of us are capable of learning and not so rigid in all of our beliefs to do something.

My discussion with max took a detour.

My original comment about how politicians should vote was that when they vote, they OWN that vote. They can't say, "so and so made me do it," even if so and so is a constituency. They always have a choice whether to restrict women's freedoms, or, if you're on the other side you could say they always have a choice whether to let babies die.

And now I'm going dark for a couple weeks.

What I am wondering with this supreme court justice issue is which direction the anti-abortion struggle will take in the courts. If Roe v Wade is overturned, that just puts the issue back to the state level. If Roe v Wade is upheld and the limits and definition of what counts as a person change, that would provide more centralized power to limit access to abortion.

I think there's a good chance the latter will happen, because when Roe v Wade was decided, the first trimester was set as a limit because the 'quickening' limit would have been too subjective, and it would have relied on the woman's perception and honesty rather than shifting the decision to a doctor regarding when the trimester has ended. Now with sonograms and other methods, there are more ways to examine fetal development, so these are all possibilities for the courts to continue refining Roe v Wade to protect a more limited range of abortions.

I wonder if this will cause the liberals to eventually seek to overturn Roe v Wade, in order to reset the issue at the state level and fight for broader abortion rights in certain states. I can see something happening like the Kansas-Nebraska act where slavery was decided at the state level by popular vote, which led to abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates moving around to battleground states to fight for and against slavery, e.g. 'bloody Kansas.'