2. I don't have any friends or family who have used Meth, but I worked in the criminal justice system for a long time (federal) and the number of defendants who were addicted to Meth (at least in my area) is staggering. And, unlike some other drugs (e.g. Heroin), where you can go for quite a long time as a functional human being (as long as you are getting the drug on a regular basis), Meth grabs you and starts to suck you dry from the first use. There may be rare exceptions, but I have never heard of anyone who tried Meth once and then was like, "Nah, not for me."
3. I hesitated to get into the details of my opinion on abortion, due to the exchange above and your very definitive stance on this one, and my pretty much completely opposite views. And let me be clear that I respect your views (and appreciate the consistency with being anti-aborion and anti-death penalty), both based on sacredness of life. I'm not one of those wing-nuts who thinks because someone is opposed to abortion that they are somehow an irrational idiot. The fact is most of my family members are anti-abortion and shake their heads at me in confusion on this one (especially since I am also a practicing Catholic). And don't think THAT isn't challenging, since the Catholic Church defines abortion as intrinsically evil. What FUN conversations I have with my fellow parishioners.
Anyway, so the short version for me is I do believe life begins at conception. I just don't believe that that life has the same moral weight/status as the mother's and father's. I struggle with the idea of the soul and whether that is present at conception, but I think I fall more in the Jewish camp on this one than the Catholic camp. No doubt I will continue to struggle on this point.
I also believe that it should be a last resort and not used an ongoing means of birth control. And most of the women I know who have had an abortion have had only one, though I also know a few who have had more for a variety of reasons. And that's the crux of the matter for me, humans are imperfect and so are our current support systems. Given that, unwanted pregnancies are going to happen for a wide variety of reasons, and I don't think anyone should be in on the decision on how to respond to that situation (be it having and keeping the child, giving up for adoption or abortion) other than the people involved, their doctors and anyone else whose counsel they choose to seek. And I certainly don't think it should be criminal for the very eloquent reasons you stated above.
So, now you know.
10. I don't think you and I are that far apart on the immigration issue. We both seem to be people who want other people to be responsible and civil. And I don't disagree on the language issue. If possible, I do think children should be encouraged to learn the language of their new country as soon as possible, and there shouldn't be an expectation that everything will be be in several languages. (That said, there's a bunch of English/Japanese going on in my part of the world!)
no subject
3. I hesitated to get into the details of my opinion on abortion, due to the exchange above and your very definitive stance on this one, and my pretty much completely opposite views. And let me be clear that I respect your views (and appreciate the consistency with being anti-aborion and anti-death penalty), both based on sacredness of life. I'm not one of those wing-nuts who thinks because someone is opposed to abortion that they are somehow an irrational idiot. The fact is most of my family members are anti-abortion and shake their heads at me in confusion on this one (especially since I am also a practicing Catholic). And don't think THAT isn't challenging, since the Catholic Church defines abortion as intrinsically evil. What FUN conversations I have with my fellow parishioners.
Anyway, so the short version for me is I do believe life begins at conception. I just don't believe that that life has the same moral weight/status as the mother's and father's. I struggle with the idea of the soul and whether that is present at conception, but I think I fall more in the Jewish camp on this one than the Catholic camp. No doubt I will continue to struggle on this point.
I also believe that it should be a last resort and not used an ongoing means of birth control. And most of the women I know who have had an abortion have had only one, though I also know a few who have had more for a variety of reasons. And that's the crux of the matter for me, humans are imperfect and so are our current support systems. Given that, unwanted pregnancies are going to happen for a wide variety of reasons, and I don't think anyone should be in on the decision on how to respond to that situation (be it having and keeping the child, giving up for adoption or abortion) other than the people involved, their doctors and anyone else whose counsel they choose to seek. And I certainly don't think it should be criminal for the very eloquent reasons you stated above.
So, now you know.
10. I don't think you and I are that far apart on the immigration issue. We both seem to be people who want other people to be responsible and civil. And I don't disagree on the language issue. If possible, I do think children should be encouraged to learn the language of their new country as soon as possible, and there shouldn't be an expectation that everything will be be in several languages. (That said, there's a bunch of English/Japanese going on in my part of the world!)