Or does it refer to a patient’s request for such an order?

That one.

Since it’s an “order,” I shall assume that you mean a “responsible doctor’s order,” written into the patient notes, intended for physicians, nurses, and aides answerable to him, and signed and dated by him.

But I still must ask, a choice for whom? To follow the order or to write such an order with the intention of its being followed. Or does it refer to a patient’s request for such an order?

Judged by his behavior, the only thing he cares about is getting elected. In 1994, he cited the death of a relative due to an illegal abortion to explain why he wanted to keep abortion legal, and why he wouldn’t waver on it. Until he needed to, to get elected president. Under the bus you go! A man who actually cares about improving his country will not be a weathervane.

Joe: Over the course of his life the man has contributed perhaps $50-million to charity.

Apparently, you have seen his tax records, because other people do not have access to any of his tax returns, save for the two he released when he was already running for president for 5 years. Apparently, he paid more taxes than he owed the IRS, six months after telling people that a man who paid more taxes than he had to would be unfit for office. The different positions this man takes make my head spin.

It turns out that when Mitt Romney is running for office, for Pete’s sake, he will give money to charity. It also turns out that this will also lead him to tell companies he employs to mow his lawn not to hire illegal immigrants. But what would actually show his character is what he would do when he wasn’t running for office, for Pete’s sake – and we don’t know that.

Many Republicans I know don’t want to hear a word about “social issues,” and they have it in their heads that if Romney loses the election it’ll only be because someone heard the murmur of a social con coming from out from under some rock. Ask these Republicans what is the reason behind our economic ills and they’ll lay out a list of government intrusion and engineering gone wrong.

Here’s the thing: they understand the results, but they are missing the reasoning that got us here.

The two big social issues of the day–abortion and marriage–are examples of the government redefining the very natural rights it was created to protect. And look, once we cut the government free to redefine the very meaning of “life” and “marriage,” then in what universe do these socially indifferent Republicans think we can somehow restrain this Leviathan on economic affairs?

But social conservatives too need to do a better job too of connecting the dots. Social cons need to say more than that abortion and redefining marriage are morally wrong. Left at that, we allow our enemies to portray us as totalitarians that want to impose some kind of Christian caliphate, when what we really want to do is to restrain the state in the fashion of our Declaration of Independence. Social cons need to learn how to make the case that abortion and redefining marriage represent a state unrestrained. They need to explain to their friends on the Right that once those chains are cut, there’s nothing the government can’t do.

Connect the dots, people.

To resume: a positive choice “to deliver a baby to term,” if that makes the matter any clearer, is unnecessary “to deliver a baby to term” as a matter of logic.

I think I see what you were getting at. But then… is a “do not resuscitate” order a choice or not?

Permit me to return to this briefly, as I did not address it in my previous post.

You are absolutely correct here, and you are making my point for me: PREGNANCY has consequences; a woman’s mere “choice” to deliver a baby has none. I repeat: she will have that baby whether she chooses to or not (or above 80% of the time, as I understand it). She may “choose” to have the baby every 10 minutes for 9 months and the result will be no different than if she never thought about the matter once, indeed, no different than if she had no idea at all that she was pregnant. That so-called choice is an illusion.

You thought wrong. The last three paragraphs of Mr. Reno’s post are about so-called mainstream positions on abortion, which my remarks address head on.

How do you have an inkling of what Gov. Romney “cares” about? Or even what he “only” cares about? Over the course of his life the man has contributed perhaps $50-million to charity. Someone could be forgiven that that sum constitutes 50-million things he cares about more than money.

The fact that you use a word like “verify” goes to the heart of the problem.

My post is about words and how they’re used and abused. What I am pointing out is what seems to me to be a chronic and unchallenged abuse of the word “choice,” more as a matter of logic than of fact. That is important, I admit, only to the extent that the CONCEPT of “choice” is extolled by pro-abortionists, the degree to which, almost as if by talismanic incantation, the WORD “choice” serves the abortionists art. I would argue that the use of that word alone holds 99% of the power that persuades otherwise sensible people to adopt a hands-off approach to a very filthy business, lending it a nobility that is wholly counterfeit and undeserved. It’s hardly original of me to point out that pro-”choice” is how abortion mongers, every one of them, INSIST on being addressed.

To resume: a positive choice “to deliver a baby to term,” if that makes the matter any clearer, is unnecessary “to deliver a baby to term” as a matter of logic. So it is important to understand that I am talking here about a NECESSARY consequence. The consequence I referred to is “delivering a baby to term.” That consequence follows not at all on a mother’s choice “to have the baby,” as should be clear from the knowledge that women miscarry regularly. That demonstrates that “choice” is not even necessary as a matter of fact.

“Having the baby” IS a consequence, as should be obvious, of impregnation, which is a consequence of engaging in sexual intercourse. THERE, of course, she had a choice—or at least one which can be assessed statistically—of having or not having a baby.

Probably a, and if the churches started to push it, b – as well as a rather large exodus from the Catholic Church. The hierarchy knows full well that its stances on abortion and contraception are very unpopular with Catholics, which is why these matters are not pushed.

Arty: The whole point is that invoking the “mainstream” doesn’t tell us anything useful unless you want to redefine “right” by arguing that whatever habits the majority of people want to engage in are tautologically right by virtue of being what most people do.

I agree, but I was responding to the writer, who did not think that the Catholic hierarchy is out of the mainstream on these issues.