Yeah, well he has the least experience and almost no accomplishments to speak of... that makes him a perfect fit.

No Accomplishments???????  He turned a billion dollar surplus into a billion dollar deficit - twice!  He thoroughly destroyed the IT infrastructure of the commonwealth and sold it down the river to line the pockets of his cronies and made sure it cost as much as 5 times more!

How can you say no accomplishments?

Not in the rude way, but just in a way to define my meaning of 'accomplishment'

ac·com·plish·ment Audio Help (ə-kŏm'plĭsh-mənt) Pronunciation Key

n.

1. The act of accomplishing or the state of being accomplished; completion.

2. Something completed successfully; an achievement.

3. An acquired skill or expertise: a singer known for his accomplishment in vocal technique.

4. Social poise and grace.

My use of the word falls in line with the second definition...  so nothing has changed

I doubt those things you listed would be considered 'success.' More like disasterous consequence.

Hey!  I did not say they were "good" successes!

If you are voting for the person you most want to see in office then that candidate is NOT a spoiler.  The notion that the third party candidates "steal" votes from the major parties is insane.  The third party candidates fill a void that has been left by the divisivness of the two major parties.

I honestly don't care how abortion was legalized at this point I just know that without one my wife would have died and as such abortion was, and still is, a necessary evil.

It's not that difficult.  Are you really going to force a woman to carry a 9 month reminder around of a horrible event that happened to her?  Then force her to go through the painful labor only to have to either raise an unwanted baby or have to give up a child for adoption that she has been bonding with for 9 months.  No matter how you cut it it is torture for the woman to have to deal with, and she shouldn't be forced to.

But if abortion were made illegal it would become an issue.  For one thing how do you define "when the woman's health is at risk"?  Some states have attempted to make it so that it is only when death is imminent, meaning if the fetus isn't aborted then the woman has less than a day to live.  If you ask me it should be aborted long before that if the woman starts having complications that are known to be life threatening.

Quite simply because there might not be any doctors around to perform the needed abortion.  If a woman in Idaho needs an abotion because she is dieing and the only way to save her is with an abortion yet Idaho doesn't have any doctors that perform the necessary operation what is that woman going to do?

Unfortunately this is something that some people are incapable of but is necessary to really talk about the issue.

And here we get into the nuanced debate of when life actually begins.  I will refrain from that in this debate because you and I will never see eye to eye on that.

and that is the crux of the whole matter.  Until we know for sure the murder should stop.  We wouldn't bury a dead person until we KNOW FOR A FACT he's dead right?  So why kill an unborn baby if we don't know for sure when life begins? 

Besides all that, the death of the unborn is just the beginning for the parents do a bit of dying themselves that day when they make this unethical choice to snuff out the life of another. 

Don't give me the "rape" or "life of the mother" cry because we all know that it's almost negliglbe that this is the norm.  It's the rally cry of the pro-abortion cause and just another lie they put on the forefront to help others make a decision based on emtion rather than logic. 

I was almost raped 11 years ago (but got away)  and had it happened I most likely would have had a child today out of it.  I knew in my heart immediately after the attack that I would NOT have aborted the child had it happened.   Two wrongs never make it right.  We are dealt things in our lives I believe as a test and how we respond is very crucial to our well being here and for eternity. 

ahhhhhh liberal?  Let's just not discuss this part eh?  We don't really want to know where the truth may lead us?

actually no because I'm really "anti-religious." 

To you it is murder, it isn't to me.  The question of when life begins is a philosophical one not one that will satisfactorily be answered by science for you which is why I am attempting to avoid the whole discussion.

Because it is much easier to define when death occurs, you can more easily see it.  When life begins is like asking when does a man start to have a beard, how many wiskers are involved and what length, etc.

Why my wife and I had to make this decision a few years ago it wasn't easy, but don't you for a minute claim it was unethical.  Our choice was between both my wife and the fetus (which was never going to be viable anyway) dieing or simply aborting and saving my wifes life.  There was nothing unethical about that decision.  Now using abortion as a primary birth control method is unethical, but that doesn't make all abortions unethical which is what you appear to be implying.

It doesn't matter whether it is the norm or not, because it exists we must allow for abortion to be safe and legal, it is the logical choice not an emotional one.

While I am sorry that you had that experience "almost" being raped isn't anywhere near the same as actually being raped.  My wife was raped (many times over the course of many years) and she still suffers the scars from those events.  Luckily she didn't get pregnant any of the times that she was raped otherwise she would have physical lifelong reminders of those events.

Don't get me wrong I would never say that you would have to get an abortion under any circcumstances, if you don't feel that you could or would ever get one that's fine but that doesn't give you the right to deny someone else the ability to do so.

How is picking a VP candidate who is in favour of abortion betraying McCains beliefs? To impose the straightjacket that his VP candidate must agree with him outright on every single conceivable moral issue means that he may not really have anyone left that qualifies to pick! Since McCain would be the president, it would be his views on abortion that matter, not his VP's. The VP's would matter more if McCain was to die from a cold winter leaving the VP to take charge. It also seems rather bizarre logic to not vote McCain because he picks a pro-abortion VP, and instead vote for Obama when he is pro-abortion.. A bit like clinton supporters saying they will vote McCain out of spite for Obama, even though Clinton+Obama's policies are far more similar than Clinton+McCain's - a 'cutting off your nose to spite your face' type of mentality.

Well it's official Obama has chosen a VP (Bidden) that has more experience than he does for president. That's like having your eight year old drive you to work, and finding out he's your boss too.

Anyway here's a bumper stick for the duo:

Obama, Bidden into your take home pay.

Moving onto the issue of abortion (since that's being discussed here along with VP picks),

A fairly big problem with this (actually it's more a flaw with the method proposed, the majority rule) - it can lead to minorities and those without a voice/vote being hurt at the majorities expense. For example a law that taxes all African immigrants at 50% and gives their money to everyone born in the US could in theory be popular with the majority (who benefit) while being deeply unfair to the minority. It's an extreme example, but is there to illustrate the point that the mob, or majority, decision is not always the best one. You also have problems in some cases of poor information and judgement, with the population often proving fickle on issues and changing their views frequently. In the case of abortion and whether people are in favour or against it, the very phrasing of the question asked can have a big impact (e.g. ask whether it's ok to abort a foetus and I expect you'd find more people saying yes than if you ask whether it's ok to kill an unborn child). Not to say that having just 1 person making the decision is any better of course, more that neither is perfect.

My own personal views are that while abortion generally is wrong, there are exceptions. Where the mothers life is in danger is a clear one, since then you are weighing up one life against another. It's a terrible decision to be faced with, but in that situation I would say the mother has every right to choose whether to have an abortion. Rape is another very difficult area and my views on it are not solid. Practically I know that it wouldn't be all that feasible to ban abortion but allow it for rape, but equally it seems wrong to force childbirth (and the inherrant risks of it), along with a child that could bring back memories of a terrible ordeal onto someone. Therefore my stance is that in cases of rape a woman too should have a choice, up to the point at which the child has a viable chance of life outside the mother (although any such law would need to have some flexibility, which would inevitably lead to some regrettable situations such as where women would cry rape in order to obtain an abortion. However it would IMO be better than the alternative of allowing mass legalised killing of children). However you don't need to legalise it in all cases, including a worrying increasing amount of times where it is used as a method of birth control. You could still have doctors trained in abortion procedures so that in the rarer cases they could carry them out, and of course you could have specialised units if it became a really rare occurance in the above exceptions (IMO unlikely though). To carry on from a later point you then made (e.g. of no doctors being trained), aside from making it mandatory that doctors are trained (so such a situation would be highly unlikely to ever arise) you could always then airlift the woman to the nearest doctor who was.

I'd agree - I'd probably classify it as any situation where it would be expected that the mother would suffer an increased risk of life threatening complications as a result of continuing with the pregnancy. It would obviously in part be a judgement call on the doctors part, but if someone's life is at risk from continuing a pregnancy (and not just the standard very low risk that would arise from any normal pregnancy) then an abortion should be available.  However I doubt few if any people would have an objection against that, since to deny abortions in such cases is to make a judgement about which life is more valuable for every such situation. When the persons life is not at risk (and it's not a case of rape which then brings up the tortue issues you mentioned) then it is no longer about weighing up one life against another, since there is only one life in danger, and hence I feel that life should be protected, and not deemed less worthy than convenience, or avoidance of childbirth pain resulting from a persons own actions (typically from having unprotected sex, although even in the case of contraception if you choose to have sex you are aware there is a chance that a pregnancy may result).

Hmm.  Interesting thoughts.  Well, not really, it's all mostly saying the same thing.  I'm not going to get into the comments because it's not worth fighting over in my opinion. 

In response to the article itself:

1.  I don't like either candidate.  Vote Nader in '08!!!

2.  While I am vehemently anti-abortion, I know that there are some cases, such as saving the mother's life, where I believe it is, as was said, a neccessary evil. 

3.  I'm also not a one issue voter.  There is a much bigger picture at stake right now.  The country, as far as I can see, is in turmoil and lots more than abortion stances must be considered in order to make a well informed decision about who can lead this country out of the puddle we're in.

4.  Last thing.  whether or not the next President is pro-life, I don't really think Roe vs. Wade will be reversed.  I don't really think it ever will.  And though I strongly disagree with it on moral grounds, at least legalizing it prevents "back alley" abortions that could kill not only the unborn but the mother as well.  In this case, I'd prefer the lesser of two evils.