r/worldnews 15d ago

Western Australia has made it illegal to protest outside abortion clinics *Within 150 meters

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/western-australia-has-made-it-illegal-to-protest-outside-abortion-clinics
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u/isuckatpiano 15d ago

There are 400,000 children currently in foster care in the US alone.

Side note there are 380,000 churches in the US. All they have to do is adopt one child per church with the mega churches adopting 2-3 and this problem is solved. Hmm I wonder why they don’t do that…

Ps I do not wish religion forced on any child, I was merely pointing out that the church has a solution but chooses hatred and violence instead.

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u/ManyIdeasNoProgress 15d ago

That's one per, what, 800 people or so? That's a lot considering the sizeable portion that don't attend service for whatever reason.

Not that I doubt you, it just baffled me a bit.

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u/isuckatpiano 15d ago

Lots of places to get the numbers, but here’s a good site for reference on Foster care statistics

https://www.ifoster.org/blogs/6-quick-statistics-on-the-current-state-of-foster-care/

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u/Few_Paleontologist75 13d ago

Another great link, here:
There are over 420,000 children in foster care in the United States. Over 110,000 need adoptive homes right now.

https://adoptuskids.org/

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u/LilMissLexie 14d ago

Unfortunately some of them already “have.” One of the adoption centers in my city is Christian an’ I’m all but certain they got a church on their grounds.

By no means am I anti-religion, even if I do have very valid beefs with this faith in particular, but that place just smells like sugarcoated colonialism.

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u/rex_lauandi 15d ago

It should be pointed out that Christians are more likely to adopt. adoption.org/who-adopts-the-most/

5 percent of practicing Christians in the United States have adopted, which is more than twice the number of all adults who have adopted. In addition, a survey showed that 38 percent of practicing Christians had seriously considered adoption, while only 26 percent of all adults had.

So say what you will, but a bigger portion of them are putting their money where their mouth is.

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u/isuckatpiano 15d ago

If the church wants to take up this mantle, they need to train their congregation on how to do it and actively provide support for it. By intimidating women at PP they are doing the exact opposite of the teaching of Christ. (How did Jesus treat the woman at the well?)

I was a Christian for 35 years. I’ve had 4 foster kids. I have 4 of my own. It’s fucking hard and they don’t want to do it. I have tried to get more Christians to foster / adopt for many years.

Pregnant teens also don’t want to be incubators for sterile evangelicals.

Adopting a kid because your imaginary friend tells you to is not a recipe for success. /rant

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u/rex_lauandi 15d ago

I feel like these people are “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” by you. If they believe it’s murder, and protest, you say “Why aren’t they fostering and adopting?!!!”

Then when the numbers reflect that, clearly they are, you say, “Yeah, but not the right way or for the right reasons.”

This seems personal for you, which is understandable, but know that your emotions may be clouding your logic.

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u/isuckatpiano 15d ago

Let me try again without the emotional charge, I apologize for that.

Point 1) Christians could solve this crisis in America by having someone who is most qualified in each church step in and take in and adopt one child. The job of the church would be to support that family in every way possible. Not just “praying for them”.

Point 2) 5% of Christians have adopted in the US? That seems like a hard statistic to prove but nonetheless Christians are by far the largest religion and demographic in the country. So it’s not surprising, but personally it’s hard to believe that 1 in 20 Christians have adopted a child.

Point 3) a much larger percentage of Christians are more vocal about abortion and taking women’s rights than 5%.

Point 4) this is right wing politics capturing the Christian voting bloc. Protesting at PP is done to make the base angry and totalitarian. Where is the Love your neighbor as yourself bit playing in? It’s not…

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u/rex_lauandi 15d ago

To point 1) Yes, that’s true, but my point is that they seem to be more mobilized than the rest of the demographics on this effort. So you could presume, just on this data alone, they’re on their way to this.

To point 2) That data is on a percent basis, so the size is irrelevant. They are more likely to consider and to adopt that non-Christians.

To point 3) This seems to be true, and there may be plenty of hypocrites, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that, statistically, if Christians are most likely to view abortion as murder, than they’re also most likely to adopt and foster. So there are plenty of voices who are not hypocrites.

To point 4) I agree with this. My reconciliation on this point stems from the fact that if I walked into a random Christian (or even evangelical) church on a given Sunday, the likelihood that there would be someone who was shouting curses at someone walking into PP earlier that week is very low. What we hear about is a very vocal, very minority. That’s why the adoption statistic eases my anxiety on this topic. The other thing I have to remember is that these people believe it’s murder. Whether I agree with them or not, if I believed the state was sanctioning or even funding murder of innocents, I’d be extreme about it too.

I definitely understand where you’re coming from. It’s helpful for me to understand where the other side is coming from so that I can remember that even if we fundamentally disagree, even if the outcome seems outrageous (taking away women’s rights seems outrageous to the left, while murdering innocent babies seems outrageous to the right), and even if it seems like there’s nothing but hate, there are plenty of people on both sides genuinely trying to do good the best they can. I want to prop those people up instead of assuming the horrific, vocal minority as the image of what that side looks like.

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u/isuckatpiano 14d ago

You were down voted so I upvoted you. I think civil disagreement is a good thing and I wish you well. Have a great weekend fellow redditor!

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u/rex_lauandi 14d ago

I love that point, and I couldn’t agree more!

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u/FapplePie85 15d ago

You weren't being emotional. Saying you were is just a common gaslighting tactic people like this use to try and denigrate you and invalidate your opinion.

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u/isuckatpiano 14d ago

Maybe look up what gas lighting means.

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u/FapplePie85 14d ago edited 14d ago

I mean, that person said you were emotional without any indication that you were being emotional other than maybe using a cuss word. They were doing that to invalidate your argument. Take up for them if you want, but they were being intentionally manipulative to trivialize your points. 🤷🏼‍♀️

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u/isuckatpiano 14d ago

I read that the opposite way like I was gaslighting someone. Understood thanks!

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u/FapplePie85 14d ago

No worries. These things happen on the internet sometimes.

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u/FapplePie85 15d ago edited 15d ago

Gee, I wonder if that's because Christians comprise such a large group of people and "the rest of adults" is the vaguest goddamn thing I've ever heard.

Nah, must be because they're better than everyone. That's how statistics work.

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u/rex_lauandi 15d ago

The data provided was on a percent basis, which means that group size was accounted for. That’s how statistics work.

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u/FapplePie85 15d ago edited 15d ago

I imagine that you didn't actually go down the rabbit hole of the various reroutings to Christian websites your link set forth for barfing out that number. After clicking through 4 different links, there's absolutely no actual study provided to check these numbers. Who is "the rest of adults?" Did they just poll poor people to get that number? Did they just poll young people? Elderly people? What question did they specifically ask? What location did they poll people? How many people did the study encompass? Who is this "the rest of adults?" The link also says more men adopt than women (probably because when gay male couples adopt, theres no women, duh). So now that means men are better than women because they adopt more?

Forgive me for thinking this is laughable.

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u/rex_lauandi 15d ago

Maybe I’m geographically biased, but I work within foster care system as an advocate for children, and when I go into a foster home in my area the family is likely Christians (specifically practicing evangelicals) or gay. On more rare occasions I find a more secular couple who is infertile. (I ask a specific series of questions about “Why are you considering adoption?” of foster parents.)

The only people that I find who are adopting because “the system is broken” or because “there are a lot of kids who need adopting” seem to be those practicing evangelicals.

Again, I could absolutely be geographically biased, and I’m not substituting my experience for data, I only point this out because I didn’t have a hard time believing that statistic.

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u/FapplePie85 15d ago

Because there are a lot of Christians....

And you don't know if they "practice" or not. Everyone says they practice. No one says, "Yeah I'm a Christian but I don't do shit" because of the guilt/shame inflicted by other Christians. They mark "Christian" on their applications thinking it helps them get a baby. How many atheists/Muslims/agnostics are telling the truth and mark that on their application and getting denied for "not being a good fit" I wonder.

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u/rex_lauandi 15d ago

According to this research:

https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

I should expect a little under 15% to be practicing evangelicals (attending religious services once a week). My experience is WAY higher than that.

According to this: www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1240340

I should expect 1-2% of the couples to be gay, and again it’s A LOT more than that in my experience.

Again, I’m not saying my experience is representative of the whole; I’m just saying the data believable through my lens.

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u/KnightTemplar777 15d ago

Damned if you do damned if you don’t right? Stats here: oh where did you get that a Christian website. Okay I work here and I see this:oh there are many Christians are you sure they even are one? Oh they are just doing that because god told them to. Any more throwaways you gonna bring?

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u/FapplePie85 15d ago

Poor oppressed Christians who weaponize their religion and then want to be jacked off for it. Then again, I'm sure you can't say anything negative about christians to a "Knight Templar. " Lol.

Sorry I don't fellate Christians or agree with this person that Christians are better than the rest of people because of unethical and unconfirmed "studies" and anecdotes from work. Die mad about that I guess.

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u/KnightTemplar777 14d ago

I guess you’d call your condition an inferiority complex. You are in denial that a lot of people just have good hearts and that you see even the slightest bit of evidence that a Christian would do such a thing you go in defense mode and shit on people. Also I’m not a cry wolf Christian, I don’t believe I’m oppressed I just think people are hypocritical dickheads who project what they say about my religion off themselves and their own beliefs to basically fitting the description of the all powerful Christian cult that wants to tell everyone what to do. I like the templars because that’s when the world realized not to mess with Europe after centuries of raiding and murder.