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These were sent to me by a very close friend. I felt they'd fit here and offer the questions as a teaser with answers coming later... (Note: Don't think these questions or the answers that will follow, in any way, indicate which way I fall on any of the current issues of the day.) After some comments and feedback, I'll give "the rest of the story"... (With all due respect to Paul Harvey. )

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Question 1:

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis; would you recommend that she have an abortion?


Question 2:

It is time to elect a new world leader, and your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:

Candidate A: Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B: He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whisky every evening.

Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extramarital affairs.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?

Question 1 - I would have said yes if early in the pregnancy, but I believe that child turned out to be Beethoven.

Question 2 - I believe #3 is Hitler, and one of the other two is Churchill.

Very good! I don't have a prize to give you, but whatever it would have been, you'd have won.

The child that would have been aborted in the first question was, indeed, Beethoven.

The candidates in the second question were:

A) Franklin D. Roosevelt
B) Winston Churchill
C) Adolph Hitler

It was just some food for thought... (and trying to get some discussion going. )

I had figured this thread would get a little more press, but it didn't, so I'll answer the implicit statement with a question, in the hopes of a jumpstart:

The point of the first anecdote is that abortion is bad because great people are born into terrible circumstances and we shouldn't judge their worth and abort them before they have a chance to prove themselves. I'm not saying I disagree but...

...if we're going to oppose abortion for this reason (that any fetus could have enormous potential) isn't it also true that five minutes pre-fetus, the sperm and egg had the same potential worth? Any egg and any sperm COULD be great. So allowing any potential human not to be born whether via abstinence, birth control or abortion does the same thing: deprive the world of someone who was potentially great. If this is going to be an argument against abortion, isn't nonreproductive sex just as wrong? And if so, why aren't we reproducing as fast as possible?

(The second question is basically designed to make us realize that finding out whether our candidate is a Nazi or not is even more important than his/her drinking behavior etc, and I'm ALL for that )