I got an email back from Senator McCaskill

I few weeks ago I emailed Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), asking if she would support the Life at Conception Act. This is what she wrote back:

Dear Mr. Logan,

Thank you for contacting me regarding my position on abortion. I appreciate your comments and welcome the opportunity to respond.

I believe we should all work to prevent abortions. Instead of criminalizing women and their doctors, I believe Congress should work to promote policies that focus on prevention which will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, and ultimately reduce the number of abortions. That is why I oppose efforts underway to deny access to family planning services and to limit the availability of birth control.

I am committed to ensuring that women, especially those victimized by sexual assault or experiencing life threatening complications, have a right to emergency contraception and safe abortions if they so choose. However, I also support upholding the current law that requires parental consent for minors under the age of 15 and restricts partial birth abortions, except where the life of the mother is in danger.

You should know that nothing in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act changes current federal law which prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars to fund elective abortions. Individuals who use new health insurance exchanges to purchase private insurance plans which include abortion coverage will have to write a separate check that goes into a separate account. No federal funds can go into this account and payments for elective abortions must come out of this account and no other account, ensuring complete separation of funds. Every exchange will have plans that do not cover elective abortions, ensuring that no one will be forced to buy a policy covering abortion. It is also important to note that the new law defers to states if they have existing laws regarding insurance coverage of abortions. Missouri already has existing laws regulating the coverage of abortion by insurance policies and therefore Missouri's state law will control and supersede national law with regard to abortion coverage.

Abortion is a deeply personal issue, and I believe that these reproductive decisions should be left to a woman, her family, and her doctor, not the federal government. Congress can work to reduce the number of abortions in America, while still respecting a woman's right to choose, by encouraging policies focused on prevention. I will continue to support policies that promote comprehensive sexual and abstinence education for our youth, encourage adoption as an option for pregnant women, and support access to affordable contraception.

Again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance to you on this or any other issue.

Sincerely,



Claire McCaskill
United States Senator

P.S. If you would like more information about resources that can help Missourians, or what I am doing in the Senate on your behalf, please sign up for my email newsletter athttp://mccaskill.senate.gov.



Thoughts?

I also emailed Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), neither of them have responded yet.

 

How interesting considering that something like 80% are receiving reduced rates paid for by the government. I am curious how she thinks the government is paying without using taxpayer dollars.

 

I was wondering about that too.

 

I wouldn't worry your head about it. I doubt you'll ever need an abortion.

 

Life begins before conception. While I could state how in clinical terms, I occasionally like to spice-it-up a bit and go all artistic on you. Keep a tissue handy.

Long before conception, there is a little fella in a nut-sack who becomes restless with anticipation.

"Vagina!" he screams, and soon others add their voices to his. "Vagina!" they scream in unison, and soon the man looks down at his nut-sack and says "What you talkin' about, man. I'm trying to eat this here bacon and peanut-butter sandwich and you're making me all twitchy and stuff, man. Just let me eat my bacon and peanut-butter sandwich and leave me alone, man. Thank you very much."

But the little fellas in his nut-sack refuse. "Vagina!" they scream, over and over, until at last the man sees a beautiful woman looking over at him. She smiles and the little fellas scream "VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA!" with such insistence that the man no longer cares about the sandwich, leaving it half-eaten. He introduces himself, they drink and laugh and eventually can longer resist their desire for each other.

Both are filled with lust and rush to find a place where they can make love uninterrupted. The little fellas in the man's nut-sack scream "VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA!" to which the man replies "I'm workin' on it, man, gimme a second to get my clothes off, man, I'm workin' on it" to no avail. Their voices become even more insistent and the man and woman are only half-undressed before they mount each other in a passionate frenzied moment of lust. Suddenly the little fellas force their way out of the man's nut-sack and out of his body entirely.

The man's too exhausted to say it, but he thinks to himself "Thank you very much. Man I could go for a bacon and peanut sandwich." Remembering the sandwich he had only partially eaten, the man summons the energy and tells the woman "Thank you very much, man. I tell you that was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed it a lot, you know what I mean, man, but I left my bacon and peanut-butter sandwich back there an' I was thinkin' of goin' back and eatin' the rest of it. Why don't you come back with me, man, and I'll even have the waitress make one for you too, you know what I mean?"

The woman, exhausted herself, replies "You go on ahead, sugar. I think I'll lay here a while longer". The man grins and says "That's no problem, man. I'm tired myself and hungry, you know what I mean? If you change your mind I'll be right over there eatin' my bacon and peanut-butter sandwich, Thank you very much." and leaves the building.

Meanwhile, the little-fellas are in the vagina they were screaming for, but it's become a mad-house. They have turned on each other in a fight for dominance. One little fella's tail gets bitten off, another gets torn in half by two over-eager little fellas who in turn are torn apart by another and so on. But one little fella eventually finds himself in front of an unbelievably massive thing that calls to him, "ENTER!" driving him to approach her.

At last the little fella enters into her and is consumed by her lust. The last thing he says is "Vagina?", to which the response, the very last thing he hears is "No, I am the Ovum!" and his essence is dissolved into hers.

Soon though, they rise together and say "I could really use a bacon and peanut-butter sandwich, man."

 

What's the point you're trying to make here?

 

I made several, in subtle ways. The one that may suit your interests best is the knowledge that, in our species, conception is one part of the process that makes an individual. The life that eventually becomes a human began as several other forms of life, in more than one place.

An individual's genes and ....production capabilities, for short...are life too. A sperm or ovum is produced within an individual, becoming a new form of life. When they combine (conception), they form yet another new form of life. That life then goes through several more stages before birth. By roughly the twentieth week after conception it has developed a nervous-system and is capable of feeling pain through that system. At birth, it separates from it's host/mother and becomes a true individual.

Now for an opinion:

I personally do not want anyone to have abortions unless they are truly necessary. Unfortunately, I am an individual in a 300 million+ society, so my opinion carries little weight with others on that issue, especially with women. Women have the burden of caring for that developing life, and so they have a greater say in it than I do, legally and morally, imo.

I personally do not want anyone to have abortions after the twentieth week or so, because of the likelihood that pain could now be felt by that developing life's brain during the procedures, except for emergencies that require it to be performed. An example of that is if the woman was involved in an accident.

Not everyone agrees with me on that, but I believe a consensus among scientists, and to a degree, us as a society, has been reached that satisfies my own personal beliefs. While some of us believe conception is the beginning of a human life, others believe that birth defines it. My personal opinion is it's in the middle, in that respect, and most of us in America are satisfied with the notion.

However, the main point in my story is that life began before conception. I thought I made that clear enough for everyone, thank you very much.