When did America’s decline begin? Surely long before child killing was made legal, right? Still, I wonder. When we devalue the life of the unborn, referring to life inside the mother as “fetus” or “clump of cells or tissue”, where do we draw the line? Some believe a baby isn’t worthy of protection until viable outside the womb. But given the wonders of neonatal technology, babies can survive much earlier than previously thought. Here’s some good news for pro-life advocates:
Congress made it a little easier for hospitals, insurers and others to refuse to provide or cover abortions. A provision in a $388 billion spending bill passed by the House and Senate on Saturday would block any of the measure’s money from going to federal, state or local agencies that act against health care providers and insurers because they don’t provide abortions, make abortion referrals or cover them.“This policy simply states that health care entities should not be forced to provide elective abortions, a practice to which a majority of health care providers object and which they will not perform as a matter of conscience,” said Rep. David Weldon, R-Fla., a doctor who sponsored the language. (Source)
Republicans are trying to make sure that doctors who don’t want to be child killers (remember the Hippocratic oath?) won’t be hassled and pressured by the government. This is what a Republican Congress is for! Forget about the mid-term elections and do what needs to be done now.
Check out the New York Times’ lead and how they frame the story:
House and Senate negotiators have tucked a potentially far-reaching anti-abortion provision into a $388 billion must-pass spending bill, complicating plans for Congress to wrap up its business and adjourn for the year.The provision may be an early indication of the growing political muscle of social conservatives who provided crucial support for Republican candidates, including President Bush, in the election….
Far-reaching. Anti-abortion. Complicating plans. Political muscle of social conservatives. All compliments, in my opinion. More from the NYT:
The provision could affect millions of American women [and save millions of babies, according to Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, who warned Friday that she would use procedural tactics to slow Senate business to a crawl if the language was not altered. [My emphasis]
Damn those conservatives and their obsession with the “unborn!”
Update: Polipundit provides a twist on the “Roe Effect.” More from Captain Ed, Opinion Times and Life News.
Why people fail to see the difference between child killing and capital punishment really irritates me. Let me explain once again. Abortion is the taking of an innocent human life. Capital punishment is the taking of a guilty human life. Please understand the distinction. There must be punishment for the guilty in proportion to the crime.
Whether you think biblically about this issue or not, the consistent position is to oppose abortion and support capital punishment because both place value on protecting the victim. Favoring abortion and opposing capital punishment is not only inconsistent, but it’s a consequence of moral relativism and backward thinking. (Thanks for noticing the typo, commenter!)
*By the way, if you call me a hypocrite or imply that I’m interested in people’s sex lives, your comment will not be approved.
Update II: The Bible and Capital Punishment
Update III: In response to Nancy Pelosi’s rant about how Republicans are “gutting” Roe v. Wade, David Limbaugh writes: “Roe v. Wade had nothing to do with forcing health care providers to perform abortions. It had to do with the state’s right to regulate abortions. It is definitionally impossible that the provision in this bill barring government from forcing providers to perform abortions or provide referrals violates Roe v. Wade.”
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Too right. Either congress uses its majority to move policy forward, or they don’t deserve the victory back on the 2nd.
And if the people as a whole doesn’t like the policies, in 2006 they get to send a message, and maybe a slew of replacements, to Washington.
As for the Times…. is it any shock that they would cover it this way?
At first the argument for abortion was that it wasn’t really a baby that was being killed, just a blob of cells.
Now we know that by the time a woman is sure that she is pregnant the baby’s heart is beating. And to show how far things have gone downhill, we have people defending partial birth abortion when the child being killed definitely could survive outside the womb. Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” We, at least, need to let them be born.
As a Catholic, I’m glad to see this. Catholic hospitals (and other medical centers) of course do not perform abortions. I think that if the Church pulled out of health care because of discriminatory treatment from the govt, many communities would find themselves without adequate medical care.
Some other Christian hospitals have shamefully gone along with the abortion culture, but perhaps finding that there will be no =financial= repercussions, they will go back to their original missions of saving lives. It’s sad to say, but I do hope that will be the result. I get ill every time I hear pronouncements from Christian ministers (Catholic nuns, wayward priests, etc.) that give a pass on abortion (among other matters). Perhaps more people will talk back to these guys.
The Keystone of the argument, in my opinion, is getting a consensus of American adults to agree on where life begins. If life begins at conception, then the “choice” we are talking about is murder.
If you believe that the unborn child is not a human life until later in the pregnancy, then to you the fetus truly is a culture of cells that is only a prelude to possible life. At this point, preventing life from occurring is a medical procedure.
We cannot really conduct a useful argument beyond that point; reconciling common ground between these two disparate viewpoints is like arguing in foreign languages that neither party understands.
I am glad to see such progressive legislation being passed and debated; it stimulates discussion and will eventually lead to a consensus.
Kerry made me sick on the campaign when he said both “I believe that life begins at conception” and “I believe that it’s a woman’s choice”. I can respect someone whose beliefs are firmly on one side of the fence or the other; but those two sentences contradict each other. Kerry might as well have said “I believe it is a woman’s right to murder her own children”.
As a mother of 6 former ‘fetus’s’, I am glad to see this also from the Republicans. Abortion has been held as a sacred right, when there is nothing sacred about killing the unborn. Don’t the people who are pro-death realize that they are killing off their future? The only thing sacred is the fact that a Creator creates the precious life within. Pro-death advocates push for abortion most of the time at all costs. Even up to the day before delivery with partial birth abortion. That my friends, is wrong. Adoption, not abortion, is the best option. Give your child 9 months of your 60+ years of life. It is not that much time in the whole lifespan of your life. Your child will thank you.
Amen to everybody and especially LaShawn for hosting this blog. I would expect all the lame stream media to spout pretty much the same line as the New York Slimes. The medical community has already proven that life begins at conception. Too bad that was after Roe v. Wade. Had the justices at that time known that, they would have decided differently (read the majority opinion).
That is why you hear the left screaming about a woman’s invioble(sp?) right to privacy. And why Kerry’s litmus test was that the apointees not attempt to overturn Roe v Wade.
The frustrating thing about this debate is that, with over 150, 000 children waiting to be adopted, we would engage in whether or not SOMEONE ELSE carries a child to term.
Sorry, but I do not believe that we can legislate morality. Can’t do it. Righteousness comes from making a decision, not from not having a decision to make.
Sorry. Just my belief. Whether or not you think abortion is wrong bears no impact on whether or not someone else may do so.
Finally, while not all who are anti-abortion are anti-birth control, many of you are. And to you, I say please read above.
Whether or not you think abortion is wrong bears no impact on whether or not someone else may do so.
Nice. Let’s just do away with statutory rape laws because whether or not I think it’s wrong bears no impact on whether or not the molester molests.
Next, let’s get rid of those inconvenient and stifling murder laws. After all, whether or not I think murder is wrong bears no impact on whether or not the murderer may do so.
After that, let’s do away with contract law because whether or not I think the rights of parties entering into legally binding agreements should be protected is proper bears no impact on whether or not someone does.
Woohoo!!! That’s what I call ‘Help is on the way’!!!
I recall the big storm of controversy back in 83/94 with the issue of DoD doctors refusing to do abortions but having it shoved down on them under the threat of court martial for refusing to obey a ‘lawful’ order.
Why should taxpayers be forced to pay for some idiot that wants an abortion is beyond me, but that’s the moonbats for you.
Hope is on the way that we can peel RvW back to States Rights and self-funded. In 5 or 10 years, we can see how Pro-murder States fare vs Pro-life States.
‘Republicans are trying to make sure that doctors who don’t want to be child killers (remember the Hippocratic oath?) won’t be hassled and pressured by the government.’
Shouldn’t each state decide on its own?
I knew Martin Luther King was leaning socialist towards the end of his life, but I didn’t know he actually received a Margaret Sanager Award back in 1966. See http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ABOUT/history/mlking2.html
——Excerpt of speech delivered by Coretta King on behalf of MLK——–
There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger’s early efforts. She, like we, saw the horrifying conditions of ghetto life. Like we, she knew that all of society is poisoned by cancerous slums. Like we, she was a direct actionist — a nonviolent resister. She was willing to accept scorn and abuse until the truth she saw was revealed to the millions. At the turn of the century she went into the slums and set up a birth control clinic, and for this deed she went to jail because she was violating an unjust law. Yet the years have justified her actions. She launched a movement which is obeying a higher law to preserve human life under humane conditions.
Margaret Sanger had to commit what was then called a crime in order to enrich humanity, and today we honor her courage and vision; for without them there would have been no beginning. Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her. Negroes have no mere academic nor ordinary interest in family planning. They have a special and urgent concern.
———————————–
Even sadder is the followup letter written by MLK saying that he will treasure this award more than most. I guess he was one of those suckas that bought and preached Sanger/Satan’s strategy to exterminate millions of negro babies. Is that the pinnacle of self hate or what?
Either MLK was a bamboozler that got snuffed out before he could be exposed, thus preserving the “civil rights christian activist” legacy. Or like Jesse and other preachermen who started out humble that were later won over to the Dark Side by fame and the constant sweet nothings whispered in their ear by Satan.
Also see http://www.klannedparenthood.org
Actus,
That’s what was happening when Roe v. Wade was decided, taking the choice out of the local and state gov.’s hands.
Stephen,
How does allowing a doctor or hospital choose not to perform an elective procedure legislating morality? They aren’t saying you must do it, or you must not do it. Either of those posistions would be legislating morality.
Also, note that the law does not tackle the issue of when an abortion is not elective, such as when the choice is that of the child or the mother (and most of these cases, it is either save the mother or lose them both; it is rare to have a healthy viable baby when the mother is on death’s door). Even Catholic hospitals that have resisted performing abortions on demand will abort a child in these cases.
And finally, where do you get your #s on who supports what? What constitutes many?
Michael E. Cummins wrote:
”We cannot really conduct a useful argument beyond that point; reconciling common ground between these two disparate viewpoints is like arguing in foreign languages that neither party understands.”
When life begins is not an argument if you are a Christian. If you believe scripture to be the inerrant Word-of-God, there is no argument.
David, through our Heavenly Father, gives us “God’s Perfect Knowledge of Man” Psalm 139. David writes in verses 13-16.
“For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts
of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.”
“When life begins” as God would have us believe, is solidified when we come to understand the truth of God’s Word. Christian solidarity comes when we, Christians, are unified in that belief.
Non-Christians cannot comprehend the scriptures as God’s inerrant Word. Their belief as to when life begins is predicated by some other belief………. ”My Dad said, my teacher said, the doctor said” etc. As a Christian my belief stems from “God said”.
As Christians we should be solidified in our belief and uncompromising when that belief is substantiated by God’s Word.
Yeah, it hurts to be called goofy, weird, spooky or have any number of labels placed on me, but it won’t change what God would have us believe.
We can stand with HIM, or stand with them. I choose HIM.
It’s funny LB. A friend and I were just talking about the crazy weekend in America. The NBA fights, the college footbal fights and the shootings in Wisconsin. I sais “we really don’t value life at all and it starts at the beginning.. no wonder we are in such sad shape”. He is pro-choice and knows I am not. He said he did not get it. I told him he would not get it.. but if you don’t value life at the beginning, regardless of the circumstances that made the life, you are not going to value it when it’s out of the womb either. Just as we rationalize reasons for having an abortion, we are also rationalizing why we do not need to respect others lives.
And by lives I mean life itself (not how they live their life..that is an entire seperate can of worms:-))
I am from a christian background,but I’m pretty secular or indifferent when it comes to religion. With that being said,I still believe that abortion is a ghastly procedure. Life begins when that heart starts to beat. It’s pretty funny that some of the same people who support abortion because the fetus is not a life,will fight hard for the citizenship/rights of an unborn illegal alien.
Thanks for the heads up, La Shawn. That is good news and I hope they go through with it.
I still content that Roe v Wade is constitutionally intolerable. Yes, the state legislatures should decide these things, not an activist Supreme Court. I think we’ll end up with an across the nation compromise of abortion in the first few weeks.
Just yesterday I read an article about a woman who was faking documents in England so that her patients could get 8 month abortions which I am assuming are illegal there. Disgusting doctor.
I was not calling you specifically a hypocrite. I was pointing out a double standard that exists.
Where one defends the innocent unborn, one should see the innocent born.
Put another way, where human judgment is flawed, hence the need for proscription of abortion, why then place so much reliance upon the same human judgment?
Again, if my post was flammatory I apologize, but I believe my points were well reasoned, and non inflammatory.
I’m not a theist (I’m not an atheist, either), but it seems clear to me that abortion is wrong and should be ended at best and curbed at worst. I am also against the death penalty for the simple reason that there is no remedy for the mistakes which will occur (not every one executed is guilty). Perhaps this is my only consistancy (after all, I’m human). My personal opinion regarding the question of when life begins is that life is constant, it has no beginning, only, in the case of abortion, a tragic end.
“Favoring capital punishment and opposing abortion is not only inconsistent, but it’s a consequence of moral relativism and backward thinking.”
Is the above worded in reverse?
A comment for Stephen…
Personally, I am not anti-birth control…but people do have a choice. When they engage in sexual relations, they make a choice, to sleep with someone or not..when a human life emerges after the sexual relations..then you have made a choice, knowingly or not. That child has just as much right to live as you do. When a human life is involved, and it is taken away, in turn for convience, because that is what most of them are for…then that is wrong. It is called killing. A woman was once pregnate….meaning ‘with child’. When you have a abortion…you are no longer pregnate, and you’re womb sits empty. As a woman, I know that what was in my womb was not a bunch of cells that magically formed into a baby running down the birth canal. With having six children (my choice, and not always convienient), I felt one of them move within me at only 3 months gestation. It was trully awesome.
Yes, there are many children waiting to be adopted, and their are many doing that. I know of two couples personally that have done just that in the last couple months. One couple, upon adopting two children (brother and sister), just found out she is pregnate. (The doctor told her she would never get pregnate). What should she do now? Abort? They are overjoyed at the prospect at having a child. Will it be stressful? Inconvienient? Sure….but they are looking at the big picture, and what things will be like in the years to come. They are willing to tough it out.
There are alot of us out there that do…and do it joyfully.
“Shouldn’t each state decide on its own?”
Nah, they tried that with slavery.
Didn’t work.
The comment distinguishing the death penalty and abortion is a good one. Innocence verses guilt is easy to understand and to dispose of a specious argument. I have always considered bringing up the death penalty in the context of the abortion discussion was a variation of name calling. That is a better way to get rid of it.
I’m still left with the thorny issue of rape. Pregnancy is physically stressfully on the mother’s body. But if it is the result of a choice she made to engage in sexual activity or voluntarily was artificially inseminated, that is a consequence of her own actions. A rape victim has made no such choice.
Most of the discussion I have heard or participated in dealing with abortion and rape end up with strongly held positions but not much to satisfy logic. Some people even propose an exception to an otherwise pro-life position.
Has anyone an elegant solution to this problem that would be as good as the guilty – innocent retort to the death penalty sidetrack.
I don’t have an answer for you, but I have a comment. As a Christian, let’s say I’m pregnant and my doctor tells me and my husband that I have only a 40 percent chance of survival during childbirth. If we define murder (loosely) as the killing of an innocent without justification or provocation, some might argue that saving my life would justify killing the baby, especially if I had other dependent children who needed me.
But as a Christian, killing my child is not only murder, it’s evidence of my lack of trust in the Lord. And believe me, that would be a test of faith. Let’s say I refuse to have the child aborted on those grounds, but my husband disagreed and said I have a God-given responsibility to him and my other children. What do I do? That would make it more difficult, but my decision not to abort would stand.
We can play with the numbers all day (30 percent chance of survival, 20 percent, and so on) but the fact remains that killing that child would be murder, in my opinion.
Others will disagree, of course.
The same goes for rape. A child conceived in pain and humilation is still a human life. Why should the child be killed because of the sins of the father? The same goes for incest, as thorny as that is. If I weren’t a Christian, I’d probably support abortion in those cases. But I am, so I can’t. God’s word is eternal and never changes.
LB,
There were many women (in the days of no medical care) that did just that (black and white), chose to have their baby in spite of the odds, and SURVIVED. There are also many in the Pre-abortion days that had their babies, that were conceived out of rape, with many of those children going on to accomplish great things…i.e. Marion Anderson for one but there are so many others.
It’s amazing, these women chose that option against greater odds than we face today (no money, mo healtcare) and yet they did it.
We are SOOOO spoiled.
Make you wonder…
How many of US would not be here today had some of those women not SACRIFICED for us to be here?
Hmmmmm
It’s very nice to read thoughtfully reasoned positions on this issue. So often it’s just one insult after another. I think the move to not monetarily punish doctors and hospitals for making a moral choice is a good one, because when I get to the bottom line, there are two things left: 1) I don’t know for sure when human life begins, and 2) since I don’t know #1, I can’t decide tell someone else when it is, except that it’s pretty obvious it’s begun when it can survive outside the womb.
I suppose this makes me pro-choice – for women and their doctors and taxpayers. I’d be thrilled to death if all the money spent on protesting (on both sides of lots of issues) was spent in ways that would have a greater impact – like explaining to young girls and young boys all the consequences of sex, and all the responsibilities of parenthood.
La Shawn,
As the father of a much-loved 15 month-old – given up by her developmentally delayed, 31 year-old birth mother, and a textbook “candidate” for abortion if ever there was one – I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this post.
My little girl is precious. She has been since she was conceived – no matter the circumstances surrounding that conception.
Her birth mother is a heroine. She could have taken the easy way out, but decided that not only should her baby live, but that she should have a better shot at a safe and loving family life than she herself did.
People will adopt. People will adopt kids with Down’s Syndrome (like my niece). People will adopt kids with terminal illnesses. Medical insurance pays nothing for this process, by the way. My wife and I are not wealthy. We paid more than $15,000 dollars out-of-pocket to adopt our little girl (and would do it again in a heartbeat) – taking out a second mortgage to do so, but still, my family, and thousands of other families like mine will adopt.
Never believe the lie of the “unwanted” child.
Sorry, but I do not believe that we can legislate morality. Can’t do it.
This is demonstrably false. More or less every law in existence was drafted from one moral framework or another. After all, if we can’t legislate morality, then why do we have laws proscribing particular behaviors (stealing, murder, trespassing, etc.)?
Where one defends the innocent unborn, one should see the innocent born.
I don’t see how the existence of children who have not been adopted excuses, let alone necessitates, murdering other children. One could compellingly use the statistic you previously cited regarding adoption to argue for reforming the adoption process (and rightfully so, I’d say). To use it in defense of abortion, however, has echoes of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”.
‘Capital punishment is the taking of a guilty human life.’
Not always. A person sent to die for his crimes is aware of what is happening. Its still a matter of opinion whether life starts at conception, or birth. Personally, id rather see the woman being able to decide. Its her body, and her responsibility – no one elses. If she isnt ready, or cant bring the child into a loving environment then thats fair enough….
I highly doubt abortion will EVER be made illegal in the states.
Here’s something I never understood:
We have a govt mandated waiting period to buy a handgun. The logic is that some people might by buying the gun in a moment of passion, and may not be in their right mind. And these emotionally charged people will then take their new gun, if allowed to get it on demand, and take one or more human lives. If forced to wait, they may reconsider, and either cancel the purchase, or not go on a rampage.
OK.
So why not a waiting period for non-medical emergency abortions? Every time I bring this up to pro-abortion folks, I get shouted down or told that it is an attempt to brainwash or shame the woman into not going through with their noble choice. But if it is the right choice, and it is made rationally and with due concern, why should waiting 7 days after the initial check up matter?
Example A (the guns) is trying to prevent someone who may (may) want to kill someone. Or at least reduce ‘moment of passion’ as a defense. This is imposed on law abiding citizens, who own (or want to own) firearms for defense, recreation or collecting. And of course, this assumes that a criminal would buy a gun legally anyway… which means it may only reduce those ‘moment of passion’ homocides/
Eaxample B… someone is trying to kill. That is the intent. If you are going to do it, why not make sure you mean it? There is no other point of an abortion. There are no (forgive me, I don’t mean this to be humorous, for once, I am completely serious) people getting them for recreation, defense or collecting. I pray to God that nobody sees it as a hobby, of any sort. (LB, edit that if you want, I won’t kvetch at all if you do)
To be honset, some mandatory counseling by mental health professionals wouldn’t we a bad thing to require in that time period.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I think 99.99% of the time, abortion is the wrong choice. And 99.99% of the aborted children don’t come from incest or rape cases, either.
But if society isn’t willing to stop abortion, why not put in some safety nets? How many women, later in life, came to regret that choice? And wondered if they were too hasty? And how many don’t regret it years later, but months, weeks, days or hours?
SCSI,
More women than care to admit regret it. The industry only wants you to hear the good side of abortion. Most times they come to regret later, after the situation or circumstance that made them believe they should get an abortion is no longer valid.
That regret manifest itself in many of the ailements plaguing women today (depression, alcohol, smoking, etc). All of these habits lead to poorer health, which leads to as we know, a host of other diseases. The one poll or statistic we never hear about, is the one that looks at the woman’s health and lifestyle at peridoic intervals after the abortion.
The hardest thing when talking about regret… is forgiving oneself. Just like adultery or some other form of harm to another, without Christ, that is the hardest thing to do.
I’m lurking here but I feel the need to respond to this thread.
I think there is a huge problem in this country with people equating being “pro-choice” with being “pro-abortion” and being “pro-life” with being in favor of making abortion illegal. I am a pro-life pro-choicer. I’d love to see the number of abortions reduce to nothing, and I think it’s a definite possibility, given that no one wants to have an abortion–it is always a choice that no one wants to make. However, I think there are far more humane and moral ways to go about it than making abortion illegal, and I don’t think making abortion illegal will do much to reduce abortion. In 1958, a study found that 20% of married women had abortions during the marriage. That was pre-Roe, and it didn’t even take into account abortions had before marriage or by unmarried women. Reliable stats seem to indicate that pre-Roe about 30% of American women had abortions, post-Roe about 40%. Legality doesn’t have a big impact on the abortion rate. Although, it has a HUGE impact on the rate of mortality for the women. Pre-Roe, between 5,000 and 10,000 women a year dies from illegal abortions. I don’t think any moral person would want the deaths of those women, who were mothers and wives and sisters and daughters, on their conscience. Which is exactly what outlawing abortion would do. It would turn the event of the loss of potential life into the double-tragedy that included the loss of a woman’s life.
There are a lot of ways to reduce the abortion rate without making abortion illegal. One is comprehensive sex education. Countries that have comprehensive sex education have teen pregnancies rates at a fraction of what ours is here. Another is access to reliable birth control. Many people don’t know how to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and many do know how but don’t have the means to access birth control. And, a huge one is providing health insurance for everyone (so that no family will become destitute due to the birth of a baby) as well as economic support for mother and families so that no woman ever has to choose between having another child and providing for the children she already has.
The abortion rate has gone up under George W. Bush. He might be in favor of making abortion illegal, but his policies on sex education and economics have created an environment where women are seeking more abortions.
Please think and pray carefully on this issue. It is a lot more complicated than most people (and churches) want to admit.
I’d have to disagree that “no one” wants to have an abortion. I’m a member of an online fertility community, and I can’t tell you how many women have gone from wanting their child (having named the child, planned the nursery, etc.) to aborting that same child within a week. Why? The child was “defective.” Oh, sure, you can appease the voice that screams out in your mind that you’re killing your child. But when it comes down to it, people do what they most want to do. The women I speak of decided they wanted a “perfect” child more than they wanted the child who was then depending on them for life. It is heartbreaking and disgusting at the same time.
BTW, my older brother has Down Syndrome, and I can tell you that no one loves other people more than a kid with this particular challenge.
Abortion has gone up under George Bush?
Funny, the pro-choice crowd is sprouting that abortions are at all time lows…
Which is it? From what I can see at the CDC site it is still going down (however still hovering around 1 million).
Abortion has nothing to do with George Bush, the eceonomy or anything else but someone making a choice to do it. Women who claim they can’t afford a child get it and women who have MONEY get them.
It is a mindset and a very bad excuse for fixing a so called problem.
You ever hear “two wrongs don’t make a right?”
More birth control available. Hmmm, how much more do they need available to them? It’s everywhere and easily available now that Planned Parenthood has moved itself into every “low income” neighborhood. It’s a mindset… the only way birth control would work is to FORCE it on everyone, which would mean a form of Government Sterilization…UMM…that’s scary. Also, birth control does not stop any of the tranmitted diseases (which by the way is the one thing that has gone up over the past 10 years).
Self control would go a lot further in preventing unwanted pregnancies than “birth control” seems to. Good points, Renee.
Sorry, but I do not believe that we can legislate morality. Can’t do it. (Stephen Johnson)
We already legislate morality… from the bench. Row vs. Wade is someone’s idea of morality, that murder is morally acceptable when the child is still in the womb. The Massachusetts Supreme Court dictated morality when they offered same sex marriage. The Mayor of San Francisco imposed morality on his constituents in much the same manner.
It goes on every day.
When someone talks of “legislating morality”, they’re really saying “someone wants to impose their morality on me”. I can understand how this can be uncomfortable and why one would wish to oppose it without due consideration of the substance.
But that is yet another one of the hidden costs of freedom. Some of the people won’t like what the other people think, and some compromises please no one at all and accomplish little.
This is America, a country where a majority of the population can rise up and demand change, no matter who is in power or what the prevailing social mores are. What we need to do is get this out of the courts and onto the ballot, so the will of the people can prevail, not the will of an appointed judge.
We all agree that murder is wrong.
If we can get the majority of the populace to agree on a point where life begins, then we can begin to protect it at that point. Right now that line is too fuzzy, too wishy-washy. Helping to make that line clearer is exactly what the president is doing with the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
We’re going to be testing these limits, we ARE testing these limits.
I am pretty sure that there will be a lot of upset people when the decision has been legally revisited.
More women than care to admit regret it. (Renee)
Even Norma McCorvey, the original Jane Roe, is now a passionate Pro-Life advocate.
LawWife,
It gets so numbing… all this lack of responsibility going around and the excuses. You are right, self control does go a long way. The problem is, the nation seems to feel better telling women that “you are to week to practice self control so here some pills or better yet an abortion”. It’s almost like the hidden message to poor minorities “you can’t make it on your own so don’t bother trying”.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Abortion is the child sacrifice that is necessitated by belief in the religion of liberalism.
LawWife,
“Just-Say-NO” has proven to be ineffective…..remember Nancy Reagan tried that. It is overly-simplistic for such a complicated issue. We need a more comprehensive approach that I don’t see by teaching only “self control”.
“When” life begins is determine by God. Jeremiah 1:4 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you……..” All responsible for destroying His creation will stand before Him and give an account. You’ve been told. Pass it on.
So far I have heard that all women that had abortions wanted them for selfish reasons, that women are murderers, and that the only reason a woman would be driven to have an abortion is due to a lack of “self control”. This type of simplistic outlook is what turns people off and pushes them further away from Christ. Our goal is to bring people closer to Christ in love. Are you sure this is the best approach to win people over to your side? Maybe you should rethink how you use your words. Just a thought.
Gary,
Did Christ change his words to win people over? NOPE.
He had a message, he didn’t try to sugar coat. He called a spade a spade. The “tolerant” mindset is what has us in this mess we are in now. There are always going to be those who don’t want to be told that what they do is wrong, hence why they shy away from religion and Christ or change Christ words and the scriptures to fit what they are doing (let me just toss out that part of the Bible I don’t like).
Someone who loves you, let’s you know what you are doing wrong and tries to help you. They do not sugar coat to try and make you feel good.
Just a thought.
Another thought…
Some people (a lot of us) have to play with fire to learn they will get burnt;-)
Gary,
This 1958 study… did it adhere to the same standards as say, the Lancet study that was discussed in another thread recently?
Was it perhaps the 1958 Kinsey study, that Calderone was so fond of while president of Planned Parenthood (nonpartisan was she)?
Was it the Birthday Trust’s study of Perinatal Mortality?
Well, Kinsey is the same fella that took pedophiles at their word that children’s tears meant they like being sodomized, and used the experiences of convicts to extrapolate sexual norms for the rest of America.
The Birthday trust study? A study of women in the UK, not the US.
Frontline Church? Ring any bells?
John 3
19And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Hiding the truth is keeping a person in the dark. Why do people shy away from Christianity? They would be forced to look at their wroing doing and make a CHOICE to change it or not (and we don’t want that now because that won’t make them feel good).
Gary,
That’s rich.
How you read “all women that had abortions wanted them for selfish reasons, that women are murderers, and that the only reason a woman would be driven to have an abortion is due to a lack of “self control”.”
from what many folks have posted today is beyond me. I think there are alot more posistions expressed here today than that.
However, how many abortions are from selfish reasons? Quite a few. How many could have been prevented by self control? Quite a few.
When you meet a woman who has had mutiple abortions, who’s never born children had different fathers, what else do you call it?
Too many people today see abortion as a form of birth control, no different that any other. That is a shame.
You’ve said some interesting things, like abortion being up under bush… care to back that up?
The abortion up is a tough one. That would contradict that the single woman pregnancies (that are also being reported as down) are up. I mean, even if they are getting abortions, they still got pregnant.
I have found one “newspaper” article that someone wrote prior to the election (2 weeks prior) that spouts this, but no statistics posted saying the same thing. The article also does not give any numbers to compare to the stats that are posted from the national health organizations.
Oh well.
SCSIwuzzy and Renee,
So what solutions do you offer? Even if you do ban abortion you still have issues to confront. Please discuss what those might be. We didn’t have a very good “exit plan” with the war in Iraq. I suggest we have a plan before we just make abortion illegal. So what is the back up plan?
It is so much easier to tell a person what to do with his problem than to stand with him in his pain. Also, it’s not always how much you know; it’s what you do with what you know. just a thought.
sorry for the double message!
Gary,
See one suggestion I made above.
And where did I say I advocate making it illegal…
Ever hear of Waleed Aly?
Gary,
For one… parents TEACH there children. This transcends race, money and everything else. Amazing it worked for our ancestors. My ancestors (as former slaves) could teach a lesson or two about being “economically deprived”. Our society has systematically stepped in and taken parental responsibilities and turn them inside out. When schools and Planned Parenthood have more say so in a childs life than the parent, we have a problem.
A strong family is proven time and time again over any abortion statistics on how the child will be as and adult. Abortion is just one of the problems we face (or band aid fixes). And that pretty much is the problem at large. The family is broken and “our” fix for everything is a bandaid temporary fix that does not address the ROOT problem (it’s just like weeds in a garden). You can spray all the weed killer you want on them, but they come back and they come back worse. Until you kill it at the root, it never goes away.
The bandaid fix of abortion is exactly as someone stated above. Women see it as a form of birth control and are not addressing the root problem of why do they feel they have to do like everyone else and have sex outside of marriage? Sure we have all been there and done that, and eventually you wake up and smell the coffee or you do not. You learn from your mistakes (or so we used to be taught). The mindset we have todays is to call a mistake something good and something good “closed minded” and worse.
You say it’s not such a simple issue. I would disagree. Since when did we stop teaching that sex can cause pregnancy? Sure a woman and man are going to have sex, but they also need to be made aware of the consequences is the point.
SCSIwuzzy?
“where did I say I advocate making it illegal?”
So does this mean your pro-choice?
Gary,
Go back, reread things, and I think it should be clear.
How about Frontline and Waleed Aly?
Ring any bells?
Maybe Chud…
Great posts!! And La Shawn..on this we are in total agreement. Ray..aka..NightWriter.
The other thing is…
Just because “everyone’s” doing it does not make it right, and does not mean we “accomodate”. Since you brought up bringing people to Christ….
Christ also said that everyone would not listen, and everyone is not going to understand. Everyone will not follow Christ. We don’t change the word to fit our lifestyles so we will follow.
Now perhaps I will agree with you on not being “harsh” or angry when give the message however you don’t change his message. For example, if I were talking to a freind who tells me she has an abortion, I won’t yell at her and say “You Murderer”, however I should definitely talk to her regarding the choice she made, why it was not of Christ (especially if she says she is Christian)and talk to her about how she can find peace and forgiveness. It is her choice to see the error or not, but I am not going to suguar coat it and say “oh well, you did what you had to do”.
Just a thought
Renee,
I agree with you that strong parents, actively involved in their childrens lives, is more of a solution than anything else out there.
As for those who have said we need to step up education… fine, so long as we also include the dowsides to abortion. Health risks. Psychological effects. The chance that you may not be able to bear children later in life.
include the full details of what an abortion is like. What is done. What the result is.
If you are going to teach the children how to wear a condom, let’s also teach them what happens when you don’t wear one. And that sometimes, it happens even when you do.
Like many STDs, these are issues that stick with you for life.
Have you ever seen the video presented by a Christian attorney showing all kinds of graphs – crime, teenage pregnancy, etc. that all spiked the year prayer was removed from American schools? I can’t remember his name but it was a powerful presentation that just showed data, data, data. I’ll google and see if I can come up with name. Anyway, I just wanted to mention that after seeing the first question in this post – When did America’s decline begin?
Exactly SCSI,
That is the negative to abortion we never hear about. We don’t hear about how many women are on anti-depressants. How many woman are alcoholics, how many women do other destructive things to themselves that puts them at risk for all the top diseases.
In my family, there are two women who could not have children after having had abortions in their teens. These are only the ones who openly admitted having abortions. Can they definitely say this is why they can’t have children…no, but neither can they say it is not (especially since they got pregnant). Do they live with that regret? Everyday of their lives. They both have faith and they have both adopted children and talk to others about the experience.
I feel attacked in this thread by just trying to understand a woman who has an abortion. I can see why the world is still so divided on this issue after all these years. In my opinion, the church has failed to reach out to women with love and compassion around this issue. Some of you have adopted this “tough love” approach which is a real turn off. I think you need to rethink that approach before the outcome is the opposite of what you intended. Which is to push someone into having an abortion just because you pissed them off. It doesn’t help to act like bullies to get women to change their views. I am done with this topic. I just don’t feel the empathy and compassion in here tonight. Good luck and God Bless you all.
Mary,
I AGREE and I have seen reports on it but not the video.
Gary, in response to your comment “It would turn the event of the loss of potential life into the double-tragedy that included the loss of a woman’s life.”
In a nutshell, the wages of sin is death!!! The loving God you speak of, if by name is the same as mine, also said in his Holy Scriptures, “be not decieved, God is not mocked”.
Whether it is immediate or later, sooner or later God’s justice will catch up to you. That’s the nature of the human experience; tragedy. If the person had exercised self-control, responsibility, etc, she wouldn’t be in that mess at the risk of losing her life. Another parallel is STDs.
Mess around and you may get burned and ultimately cost you your life. The book of Proverbs is chock full of advice to the young…I know it’s hard for people who believe that God is love, therefore we’re all His, to reconcile that false notion with the true character of God the Creator.
It’s also been my experience that everyone who’s had an abortion has been scarred emotionally and psychologically, once I got to know them enough to peel away their facade. Yet ironically, they tend to fight on for the right of others to abort. I suspect ‘misery loves company’, plus the fact that they assauge their guilt with the fact that it’s legal. Take that shield away and many of them will really flip out, if they are unable to find forgiveness.
With regards to the number of abortions, there were several States that had legal abortions, but it was ‘Roe’ who sued because she couldn’t have an abortion in Texas (hmmm, Lawrence vs Texas).
Nevermind that it was all a hoax, SCOTUS ramrodded Roe v Wade in a spirit of enlightened moralism. Adding insult to injury, Roe later denounced her participation and even expalined that she was pressured by activist to become the “plaintiff”.
Sort of like the dead man that sued in St. louis to get his vote counted. That’s the moonbats for ya, by any means necessary //End Rant
Plus Sanger and friends performed abortions for several decades prior to Roe v Wade. They kept count, so as to influence the rational for legalizing it nationwide.
Once again, it is the ‘negroes’ that cling to the very policies that are killing them or keeping them down. Go figure!!!
Did I miss something? Gary, your inital comments were not about showing compassion to someone in pain, they were pretty much about condoning the act:
“There are a lot of ways to reduce the abortion rate without making abortion illegal.”
What’s compassionate about that?
I don’t know, it might just be me however, condoning and compassion are two different things.
I don’t know Andy, I can’t figure either
Gary,
Perhaps it is your intellectual dishonesty. When you plagarize from various blogs, forums and who knows how many sources, it is hard to take you, and you God Bless yous very seriously.
I can see nothing in “your” posts that indicate a desire to understand why a woman would want an abortion. What I can see is a desire to win an arguement, presumably, that abortion is a net positive. I can only presume though, since so little of it has been in your own words.
What you find a turn off is of little relevance, since it is so hard to tell if what you are saying now is your own thoughts, or something you cut and paste from another site.
That and I suspect you are leaving because the gig was up….
Personaly, I hope you get some help. Or at least get better sources than the Chud message boards.
Renee, Andy,
I noticed this afternoon that Gary had many “voices”. That is, different writing styles. A google search on distinctive passages from this thread lead you back to editorials published in TheAge (by Waleed Aly), a christian message board in Ann Arbor, and other sites and newspapers. Same holds true for at least one other thread. The 10 minutes I spent googling was enough, and didn’t warant going back any further.
I hoped he would either come clean or explain this, but I guess not.
Lord knows we have all been slop with quotes while blogging, or will be some day, but wholesale copying (w/o attrib) of whole messages is beyond sloppiness.
LaShawn, sorry for not sending you an email, but the last few messages came through while I was typing it up.
Thanks SCSI,
I found the “article” that talks about abortions up under Bush. The person who did the study claims to be a “Christian ethicist and trained in statistical analysis”. When you read his article he turns it into a partisan message for healthcare and equal paying jobs and upping the minimum wage. Of course his actual study is not found (just his submissions to news papers that wanted to report what he had to say).
Go figure.
Yeah, thanks SCSI, where were you a few days ago?
I was starting to get a little hot under the collar with the glib ‘God bless you’. When he first started writing, it sounded like some ivory-towered liberal theologian — God=Love=Don’t change who you are.
Never occurred to me to google his sentences, since I figured that he was what he sounded like as he was trying to knock La Shawn off her moral high ground. Thanks again.
Renee, how do you like Gary’s call for an exit plan from abortion?
Seems to me Jesus’ exit plan was simply go and sin no more. But to do that we need a transformation from within our heart. Like you said, not everyone is going to respond to His message, but that doesn’t mean we change the message to sugarcoat it.
In God’s worldview, fire, brimstones, wailing & gnashing of teeth are real & tangible. The compassionate thing for Christians to do is to warn the unbelievers that they are on a broad way straight into hell if they don’t repent. Condemnation <> compassion
Matt 5:17-19
Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
Exactly Adny. I was thinking the saem thing. This stuff about “it’s not so simple”… it’s pretty clear in the owrd…it is WRONG. Nothing comlicated about it. When we “humans” try to re-interpret God to meet our own desires… well, history has proven, we FAIL. Very simple.
Sorry for my typos:)
Matt 5:17-19 pretty much says it all. More “Progressive” people of faith never recall that passage or preach it. What amazes me is, people seem to think we all don’t deal with the same temptations, same decisions, and at times, same situations. What seperates all of us and makes us indivdual, is using the free will that God gave us to make a choice on how we handle it.
Andy,
I didn’t think to right away. I thought the different styles was based on talking point overload or the like. It seemed odd, but I wasn’t expecting much sense from that individual as it was
Anyway, today’s “I’m lurking here but I feel the need to respond to this thread” post just sett off all the alarms. A quick google found the original link (verbatim except for triming out a mention of the election and a url) on a christian church’s bulletin board.
Going back to the WaPo thread turned up mutiple bits of lifting from 3 or more posters over at Chud and the op ed from the age.
I expect Gary is either too young to really understand what he did was wrong (13 or under), or he’s just a sniveling little punk.
Still, I have an idea which speech patterns were his now, and what to look for in the future.
I once saw a bumper sticker that read “ADOPT A NON-VIOLENT CHOICE.”
Ya know,
the thing that sticks out with this thread and many of the other hot “issues” of the day…
People are just getting fed up with the excuses and lack of personal responsibility. They are tired of the bandaid fixes that we have been trying for more than 30 years, that have not worked, and made matters worse. Sometimes drastic solutions are required when all else fails.
Now that you mention it, “lurking” did trip me up y the time I got down to the sig. I just figured I was overdue on my power-nap time. :O
Hello, all.
I have to say that I’m getting pretty sick and tired of the appeal to “compassion” . . . especially when it’s nothing but a thinly disguised tactic for shutting down an opponent’s argument without having to argue oneself. The issues at stake—like whether or not abortion is the taking of an innocent life (it is)—are just too serious for this kind of intellectually dishonest garbage.
Compassion, in the conventional liberal sense, is NOT a Christian virtue. Love is ITSELF the severest judgment on evil that can be imagined. Dante puts over the gate of hell the words “love made me.” Love.
It’s often said that abortion is a complex issue. Is it? If abortion is the deliberate taking of an innocent human life—if there’s an argument to prove that it isn’t, I’d like to hear it—then there’s NO justification for it. It’s one of those things that no one should ever do for any reason. Period.
Now, that SOME (but, let’s be honest, not all) women have abortions without knowing what they’re doing or under pressures that a person’d have to be a hero to resist—I take that all for granted. And a pastor or a judge would have to take it into account. But it’s misleading to frame the question in terms of such difficult and exceptional cases.
Why? Because we’ve got a CULTURE of abortion in place. The issue at stake in the abortion debate is not, and never has been, whether or not we should deal sensitively with individual difficult cases. The issue is, and always has been, whether or not we, as a culture, can afford to base our collective sense of self on the abortion license—as Anthony Kennedy said we do in Casey.
In other words: it’s just disingenuous to fling accusations of self-righteousness at pro-lifers without acknowledging that, to be pro-choice, in the concrete, means to be in favor of a culture that bases its sense of self on the abortion license. Is that really what we want? God forbid it should be.
“Self-righteousness” is a selectively used term, which is usually directed at people who condemn certain sexual behaviors. But the really despicable self-righteousness is the one that’s willing to overlook the growth of a culure of death for the sake of . . . what? Self-complacent TALK about “compassion”—where compassion is just a dishonest rhetorical weapon? For shame.
Adrian
Sorry to shut down the conversation, everyone, but moderation is back on for the night.
Well said Adrian
LB, we were having so much fun
(we understand)
Amen Adrian
Renee, you don’t cut any slack in your “the Other Point Of View” blog. You also had a link to that illiberal theologian that gives too much weight to compassion and really twists up the nature of God to pacify our conscience. Good job.
Our society has become very contradictory in it attitudes about personal responsibility and self-control. In a newspaper there was a front page article about how it was unrealistic to expect people, especially teenagers, to ignore their hormones and wait until marriage to have sex. In the same paper, in a filler article on the back page was a photograph of several German shepherd dogs standing in a line with a little kitten running in front of them. This was part or the dogs’ test to graduate to become members of the K-9 unit. They were not to break the command to “stay” and chase the kitty. So we can require dogs to have self-control but not humans? Actually, we are paying people a compliment when we tell them we expect them to control themselves.
La Shawn—I hope I wasn’t too intemperate . . .
A.
I certainly agree with any business or organization’s rights to not perform abortions. That’s our free-market, capitalist society at work. Good enough. Nancy Pelosi was wrong in her assessment.
But, conservatives may fail to grasp the ultimate point. It’s elementary, but it’s relevant.
Less abortion means more money needed for social programs. Simple as that. I have long been against ADULTS abusing social welfare programs. But, when it comes to the little ones, our government must never cease to provide them with what they need.
I am Pro-Choice, gladly. I feel abortion is totally disgusting and wrong, but what supercedes that opinion is the fact that I, as a man, can’t tell a woman what to do with her body. Are abortions used too often as birth control? Sure. Does it tick me off? You bet. But it’s still not my body.
If private medical organizations choose not to perform abortions…that’s cool. However, the government should remain impartial when such disputes arrive and these conservatives in Congress should just keep their mouths shut when accepting their win.
MIke,
If they keep their mouths shut, they let the likes of Pelosi and Clinton frame the issue. I think a big part of the conservative image problem is that all too often they let the opposistion and the press define them to the public without countering them.
The media landscape is changing, thanks to the internet. That means the cons need to step up, and keep getting the word about themselves out.
Mike,
The “our bodies, our lives, our right to decide” mantra is just that—a slogan, not an argument.
Abortion isn’t just about a woman and her body—it’s about the baby growing inside of her body, a baby that, from the moment of conception, is a biologically distinct individual. By the same token, being opposed to abortion isn’t about men telling women what to do. It’s about us telling everyone that it’s not OK to take innocent human life, especially not when it’s so vulnerable.
If abortion is tantamnount to murder—I’m talking about the act, not necessarily about the subjective intentions or motivations of the people who perform it—then why shouldn’t the state have a “compelling interest” in stopping, or, at least, regulating it? I mean, the state tells women they can’t steal—why can’t it tell them that they can’t kill their unborn children? Is property more sacred than human life?
Of course, political prudence must have its say here, too, and so I leave open the question of how the state might best secure its “compelling interest” in the concrete.
Let me close with something I said in my last post. One of the great tricks of pro-choice propagandists has been to turn the abortion issue into an issue of private choice that’s supposed to affect just the people who make—or don’t make—that choice. But that’s nonsense. The legalization of abortion has meant, in fact, the creation of a whole culture IN WHICH WE ALL PARTICIPATE.
The question of the legalization of abortion is an eminently public issue and always has been, because what is, and always has been, at stake is this: do we want a society where the killing of the innocent unborn is routine?
The problem with all “I’m personally opposed, but. . .” arguments is that they tacitly answer this question in the affirmative. Which makes the “personal opposition” part kind of empty.
Adrian
I have alwas been surprised that a man has never came out and sued a woman saying “your body, your choice, you support it”. I mean, since we woman (and some men) run around saying “OUR” body.
I know it sounds harsh but not any more harsh than a women choosing an abortion.
Ok Renee…
Backup and walk away from this thread:-)
Renee:
Don’t walk away! You’re right. The “our bodies” rhetoric conceals a real blurring of the issues.
The idea that what goes on inside of my skin is somehow purely private and doesn’t concern anyone else is FALSE.
Here are some obvious examples:
Do you “respect” a friend’s “choice” to commit suicide? To become a drug addict or an alcoholic? To let his mind get eaten up with anger or lust?
True, the state can’t intervene as much as you, a friend, can. But it can intervene at least in certain cases of self-destruction, like suicide.
But, in the case of abortion, what’s going on inside the woman’s body isn’t suicide; it’s homicide. A fortiori, then. . .
Adrian
P.S.—sounding harsh isn’t the worst thing in the world. True, we shouldn’t try to be obnoxious, but, as Bob Dylan says in one of his songs, “if something ain’t right, it’s wrong.”
Adrian – I forgot to address your concern: La Shawn – I hope I wasn’t too intemperate…
Not at all! I turned on the moderation because I was going to bed. I’m moderating comments now, especially overnight, but I sometimes leave it off during the day.
I am still working on the moral / ethical / religious aspects of the rape (incest) problem and abortion.
Let me present the problem in a different light. As I see the problem it is how to deal with two victims of the same criminal.
Here is a different but similar situation.
We have two victims injured by the same violent criminal. Is it proper for the law to require that the shorter of the two will receive preferential medical treatment? At the same time the taller of the two will bear the risks of later treatment or no treatment at all until the needs of the shorter victim are taken care of?
That seems to be what we say when we say that a rape victim who becomes pregnant must bear the child.
If we were facing the situation with two born people, the ambulance people or first responders would make a decision as to whom to treat first. If the situation is such that one person cannot be helped without risk of harm to the other, the first responders would choose the course of action with the highest chance of success. They would not be forced to help the shorter person regardless of the situation.
Why does the unborn child automatically (in this situation) get the preference? In almost all other situations this question answers itself, because one of the individuals (the mother) made choices that should put her into a disadvantaged position when balancing rights. A rape victim made no such choices.
This has always been a weak point in my pro life arguments. I simply don’t have an answer for it. The mandated choice against the mother seems to be totally without justification.
I agree Adrian…
For the longest, I never knew what the Roe v. Wade decision was based on (back in the 80’s and 90’s, I just didn’t care, the only thing that mattered was..it was OK). When I did more research on the issue and am now aware that they use a persons right to privacy as the basis, I thought the saem thing: What to stop a drug addict, in the comfort of their home, from shooting up or smoking. It’s their privacy.
When you read what the Supreme Court based their decision on, you really see the lunacy of the decision(misinterpretation and use of the constitution) and how the door was left WIDE open for other “wrongs” to be made right.
People look at us strange and say “no way” if we bring up “pedophilia is next” or “bigamy is right around the corner” (well they are both here in a way).
Anyway, I digress:-)
Hi Allen,
I guess to answer that, we would have to go into the mind of women who have done just that…
chose to have their baby after being rape (and it does and has happened). Granted, that is a very small number in regards to reasons to have an abortion (although pro-choicers use it as if it happens on an hourly basis).
If you step back, is the rape victim who has an abortion really any different that the woman who gets pregnant by her boyfriend, who then dumps her or says he does not want the child, and she aborts the baby. Or the woman who aborts because the father dumps her regardless if she gets rid of it or not. In many ways, they are not very different.
There are probably many arguements to this scenario, but again, I think talking with and reading some of the stories of women who have actually had the courage to have the baby (either keeping it or putting the baby up for adoption), would give the answer you may be looking for.
Dear La Shawn,
Thanks—don’t want to outstay my welcome.
A.
To Jared
Your post reveals what I believe to be the soul of a great human being..and also why I have hope for our future. Thanks La Shawn for running a blog that attracts so many interesting and good people. Ray..
Dear Allan,
May I take a stab at answering your question?
Rape is a horrible crime. (There are days when I think that it should be a capital crime.) It’s hard to imagine the sense of, well, violation a woman must feel on being raped. But it is easy to imagine why a woman who has been raped wouldn’t want to carry her attacker’s baby to term.
But I don’t think that abortion is justified even in the case of rape.
The analogy you set up doesn’t really fit the case. You ask us to imagine a situation in which two people of different sizes are injured by the same person. Now, given that scenario, it would be arbitrary to mandate that the shorter of the two shall always receive preferential treatment. But, and this is my point, that scenario isn’t the one that’s involved when a rape victim gets pregnant from her attacker. Why not?
There are two reasons.
First, there is only one guilty party—the rapist—and only one victim—the woman. The baby is neither. The baby is much more like an innocent bystander who is thrust into the situation. Yes, he’s thrust into it by a cruel twist of fate, but that doesn’t make him any less an innocent party.
Second, in your scenario, the issue is which of two injured people we give medical treatment to. In the rape scenario, the issue is whether or not to kill an innocent bystander.
Once again, I totally sympathize with the woman who, filled with disgust and anger, wouldn’t wish to carry her attacker’s baby to term. Just like I can sympathize with children who, forced to take care of ailing parents, fantasize from time to time about “euthanasia.” I mean that: I do sympathize, because it’s so easy to understand.
That having been said, I continue to think that killing the innocent baby would be wrong, even if the motive were the good one of relieving the woman of her totally understandable feelings of disgust and anger.
Indeed: isn’t it even bad for a victim to find relief by, in essence, victimizing in turn?
True, we need something more—but not less—than exceptionless anti-abortion laws. We need a whole culture in which there institutions and persons exist who are able to help people with a mixture of compassion and truth-telling. Problem is, we won’t get such a culture so long as we consider the value of innocent human life to be negotiable. So long as we do that, all we’ll have is what we already have: a culture whose collective sense of identity presupposes that abortion is routine.
A final thought: no doubt it sounds passing strange to equate allowing abortion in the exceptional case of rape with allowing abortion in all cases. But that is, in fact, the equation. In other words, the test of whether or not we really believe that abortion, or anything else, is bad for people is whether or not we maintain that belief precisely in the hard, indeed, the hardest cases. If we’re not, then, sooner or later we’ll be willing to negotiate in the not-so-hard cases. And that’s just what we, as a culture have done.
We’ve already slid down the slippery slope. I just hope we can stop.
Adrian
“the test of whether or not we really believe that abortion, or anything else, is bad for people is whether or not we maintain that belief precisely in the hard, indeed, the hardest cases.”
You pretty much said it all right there Adrian.
To Renee:
The difference between the rape victim and someone who gets pregnant as a consequence of their own activity is expressed in the descriptions. One is a victim the other is not.
If a rape victim makes the choice to carry the child, she ceases to be a victim as to the consequences of that choice.
The argument from the opposing side is that to force the victim to bear the child of her criminal attacker is to make her a victim the second time. If this is forced by government after cool deliberation it is of greater consequence than the violent act of a single wrongdoer.
There has to be a rebuttal for this point or some other way to deal with it. I just so far have not found it.
Some would express the view that their religion requires this. But those people are already pro-life, and do not require further convincing. However, in order to pass legislation more than a just a body of believers is needed.
People who consider themselves logical or moral or ethical have to be convinced of the logical moral and/or ethical correctness of the pro life position.
Also, when legislation is drafted or considered by a legislative body, one of the considerations is that there be no unintended adverse consequences of the proposed legislation. An answer to this point increases the chances of legislative sucess for a pro life position.
Allan,
I am sure the woman who’s boyfriend DUMPS her, calls herself a victim also (we read it in magazines and psycholigist journals all day long). If we take that stance, we all would run around victims of something (and we are doing a prety good job of that today).
I agree the raped woman is a victim in “different” way, in a way not of her choosing. It’s more a mindset. If the mindset of our society is life is cherished than we would cherish life. Perhaps as “rape victims” we could see pass the bad circumstance and do something good. Instead we are a society of “it’s about me and how I feel, forget everyone else). That is evident in our everyday life… it is all intertwined.
There are many great Americans who were born when there were laws against abortion and their parents took care of them. So how can we say it can not be done? We’ve already proven in the past it can and has been done. Only our selfish desire for self makes us believe otherwise.
Mary –
I don’t know if this is what you were referring to, but it has the kind of graphs you mentioned, plus it has a lot of informational links at the bottom:
http://www.tldm.org/news6/SchoolPrayer.htm
Allan:
The claim that “forcing” a raped woman to bear the unwanted chiled of her rapist makes her a victim a second time is not an argument. It’s just that, a claim. And it’s a loaded one at that.
The only rebuttal it needs, then, is to rephrase things in a less prejudicial way. Instead of talking about “forcing” into a new state of victimization, then, why not talk about helping the victim to heal by stopping the cycle of violence?
In other words, the problem with the claim you’re looking to rebut is that it conveniently ignores that the baby is a third party, and an innocent one to boot. Is no one to speak for the baby, then? Is it the baby’s fault that it was brought into the world in such a terrible way?
As for the question of the law, that’s always tricky, to be sure, but why not think of the question like this? The law can’t and shouldn’t substitute for concrete people who lovingly and truthfully help pregnant victims of rape to do the right thing. So law is never enough. But that’s not a reason not to have a law. Because by having one we can at least ensure that SOMEONE speaks for the baby and says, in effect, “don’t kill me—it’s not my fault.”
In other words, the issue gets down to this: Does the “opposition” really want to say that, in the case of a woman who becomes pregnant by rape, no one need or should speak for the baby, that the baby doesn’t count? If that’s what they mean, then how does it not follow from this that no one need or should speak for ANY unborn baby? How does the exception, instead of proving the rule, not BECOME the rule?
Adrian
*somewhere up there in the comment fiesta someone said*
“The industry only wants you to hear the good side of abortion.”
THERE IS NO GOOD SIDE.
Lookit; I consider myself a conservative. I consider myself a child of God (but a NON-believer in organized religion) and had an abortion, mkay?
Please: show me ONE WOMAN (who isn’t a raving moonbat) who is HAPPY about having to make that decision. Every single woman I’ve ever known who had an abortion were terribly torn and incredibly sad.
I hope that everyone that is so morally superior and judgmental of others NEVER have to walk in my shoes.
Renee & Adrian:
I am not talking about dealing with the problems relating to people who lie about their status. That is a separate problem that presents itself for almost every situation.
Actually Adrian you are making one of the opposition’s arguments somewhat in reverse.
Here is the argument more or less:
(Please understand that it is difficult to fully make an argument where you are actually on the other side. If there is an anti pro life troll around somewhere I welcome criticism)
Anti pro life assertion:
“The classic pro life position is no abortion under any circumstances. Taking the position that life begins at conception is classic pro life.
The classic pro-life position really says that government must always give priority to the unborn child. The mother has no options here. No matter what, her interests are only considered if the unborn child is fully protected first. This is true even if her death is assured.
Government should stay away from making these kinds of life and death decisions. It is unfair for government to deprive the mother of the right to take what she believes is the right action about herself.”
Pro-life response:
“Life is unfair in many respects but this is not one of them. Mothers find themselves in this position because of choices they made. The unborn life is innocent beyond any question. Our laws do not usually allow people who put themselves in harm’s way to make decisions that harm others in order to protect themselves.
Our laws commonly require you to pay for your mistakes and decisions. This would be a change that is in harmony with most of our other laws”
Anti pro life counter response:
“Well what about the case of rape? The woman, (sometimes child) made no choice. She is a victim. You would not allow her to make any decision to save her life, even if every doctor she had told her that she and the child would die by trying to carry the child.
You condemn both to death without trial or appeal.
What about providing representation to both mother and child and having an expedited court hearing to determine the rights of two innocent victims? An absolute prohibition on abortion would not permit any solution to the problem.”
Again I trying to express the other side of an argument, so I may not be doing a real good job. Dismissing the argument out of hand by saying “well how many of these cases could there be?”, generates negative responses and ends the discussion on a nonproductive note. I actually don’t have any idea how many there are, but sexual assault seems to be quite common and still underreported.
As I have said several times, I would really like to have a way to deal with this without dismissing it or ignoring it.
Margi,
You might want to swallow your own pill..
you would be surprised how many in this thread may have had an abortion.
Never assume my dear.
Allan:
My point has not been that, because these cases are rare, we don’t have to think about them. It’s been that their extraordinariness doesn’t alter the essential fact that abortion is abortion is the taking of an innocent human life.
I admire your attempt to be fair, but, so long as you formulate the issues the way you have, it’s impossible to give a reasonable response. Is this a concession of defeat? No, it’s an insistence that you need to change the terms in which you’re posing the question.
The question here is not: which life do we spare, the mother’s or the child’s? If that were the question, there would be no way in which to answer it. The question is a different one: if I, as a mother, am in a tough spot, am I allowed to do evil—take an innocent human life—in order to get myself out of it?
The answer is No. Who dictates this answer? The government? No. Let’s call it “the moral order,” which Socrates gives expression to in the Republic when he says that it’s better to suffer evil than willingly to commit it.
That sounds harsh, I know. The reason it sounds harsh, though, has nothing to do with the presumed insensitivity of anti-choice zealots who would choose the life of the child over the life of the mother. No, it has to do with the exigencies of the humanh condition, which are such that, at certain times, you have to be a hero just to be decent.
So please, Allan, hear me: I am NOT dismissing or ignoring anything. I’m trying to make it clear that and how the “anti-pro-life” side evades the issues. When I say you don’t need to rebut the “anti-pro-life” side, I don’t mean that there’s no issue there to be addressed. What I mean is that the “anti-pro-life” side’s “arguments” are NOT arguments, but rhetorical smokescreens that need to be unmasked, rather than rebutted.
You can’t rebut them unless you show how they rig the game by setting up the question in such a way that the pro-life position can only seem extreme and unreasonable. The pro-life position may be difficult, but it’s not unreasonable.
Adrian
Allan,
When you sit down and talk with women who have :
1. Had an abortion
2. Are contemplating abortion
3. May have been raped and are now pregnant
Then maybe you will be able to answer your own question and present your in-sight to others.
I recommend trying it.
Adrian,
You said it better than I can (when I get spun up):-)
“I’m trying to make it clear that and how the “anti-pro-life” side evades the issues. When I say you don’t need to rebut the “anti-pro-life” side, I don’t mean that there’s no issue there to be addressed. What I mean is that the “anti-pro-life” side’s “arguments” are NOT arguments, but rhetorical smokescreens that need to be unmasked, rather than rebutted.”
Exactly.
One more thought.
We live in a culture that has a hard time understanding how wrong-doing is bad for the DOER, indeed, even worse for the doer, than for the one who suffers. But the idea hasn’t completely disappeared.
Consider the pop-psychological notion that, if you don’t forgive, but carry the anger all bottled up, the only one you end up hurting is yourself.
Whenever we willingly do wrong, we’re hurting ourselves in a similar way. But I don’t just mean the guilt and the depression we feel after having done something wrong. Those are just the side-effects of a wound that we’ve inflicted on ourselves in our very dignity as human beings.
There’s a reason why we say “I couldn’t live with myself” after doing X, Y, or Z. The reason is that we would have become a kind of human being whose constant company, in all honesty, would be intolerable to us.
In other words: imagine living day in and day out with a liar. Lie yourself and you will.
Thanks, Renee—you’re doing just fine, I think.
A.
Thanks A,
Just to add for Allan,
What I mean by talking with them (not meant in a sarcstic way but for real), is it will give you an insigth into what they are going through and thinking. A lot of women I have talked to are really surprised at how fast a “Planned Parenthood” or similar clinic, and their family members and friends are eager to immediately say… get an abortion. The clinic that I volunteer at gives them other options to discuss. In the end, the woman is going to be the one who makes the decision (even if abortion were illegal), however there are many of them that just need to have someone talk to them openly and honestly and show them there are other options. Even in cases of rape (which are traumatic in their own right).
It’s similar to a story my cousin told me about working with inner city males. Many of them are not shown that there are other options for them in life and they do see light at the end of the tunnel (not all).
When the topic of abortion comes up and someone throws out… what about rape… you know where their mindset is coming from (as well as their argument). Unless they are someone who has been there, it’s not much of an argument at all. If they have been in that situation, and are willing to tell you, then you will know how to handle the conversation.
Just some random thoughts flowing here:-)
Renee: Please don’t misunderstand — I did choose your quote, but I was not attacking you. In fact, I am not attacking anyone. Honest. This sort of thing is still sensitive to me. I apologize if I gave the impression I was judging you.
No need to apoligize Margi. I undestand.
I mentioned earlier in this thread that one of the hardest things is forgiving oneself.
Please keep posting and talking with others.
Right, Renee (again)—as C.S. Lewis says somewhere, a lot of the things we do are inexcusable, but NONE of them is unforgiveable. None.
Adrian
Renee wrote:
Allan,
When you sit down and talk with women who have :
1. Had an abortion
2. Are contemplating abortion
3. May have been raped and are now pregnant
Then maybe you will be able to answer your own question and present your in-sight to others.
I recommend trying it.
Comment by Renee — 11.23.04
Renee:
I have done all of those things. My full time professional job requires having people tell me things that they would never tell anyone else.
I also spent 13 months as a MARS operator in Viet Nam where beacuse of the primitive state of electronic communications radio operators had to be on the line to allow soldiers to make calls home. There is little in human relationships that I have not heard personally.
That having been said, hearing of others difficulties has its limits in terms of understanding. I know that being a male, there is no way I can fully understand a womans relationship to child bearing.
I believe that what Margi said is the absolute truth. But I cannot in any way fully relate to her pain.
As with domestic violence there is yet another even more unseen group of people. I don’t believe that they are large, but because they are unseen, I cannot be certain. That group of people is men impacted in various ways by this topic.
I have never had one of them come forward. They are less likely than male victims of women attackers to come forward.
But I have heard from them to.
I also agree that almost anyone who brings up the issue of abortion and rape victims has almost certainly already made up their mind. That is one of the major reasons I want to be able to deal with them. As it stands, in the end, they feel they have won the exchange.
Like an army attacking the strong points of an opponent, having a good response to this may defeat the position. The gold standard would be converting the proponent of the argument.
Odd contradiction (in my mind, at least) I have noticed over the years:
To get rid of the death penalty, many libs will invoke the innocent man argument, that being, that even one innocent sent to execution is good enough reason to stop execution of the guilty altogether.
And at the same time, rape and incest, no matter how small a number, is a huge reason to keep abortion legal, no matter how many other children have to die as well.
Reverse the arguments for many conservatives. (minus the anti death peanalty ones).
I’ve always found that odd.
That, and many of the hard core lefties will defend: (taken from prominent lefties and the many marches we had to deal with this last year)
Saddam Hussein. Nobody has the right to depose him. Unless the whole world agrees. Or at least Frawnce and Deutschland.
Terrorists: They are just freedom fighters. They are this century’s minute men.
Criminals: They are just misunderstood.
Mumia Cook, etc: Who cares that he killed a cop and has been convicted at each of his trials. No one should die at the hands of the state.
Communist dictators who kill and torture their populations: But the literacy levels… and universal health care!
Lab animals: Ala the ALF raid this week. The animals have rights too, and are innocent in ways humans can never be… they never despoil the Earth (our carpets, yes. the earth, no)
Deer/moose: Hunting is wrong. And barbaric. It is much better that they starve from over population or be hit by cars than be granted a quick death from a Winchester (and then make many batches of my venison chili)
Turkeys: PETA has warned us of the holocaust that will take place tomorrow… (how out of touch do you have to be to compare the turkeys that will be eaten with what the Nazi’s did?)
Unborn children: Wait. No defending them. Open season on babies. Un born human children are the only group on Earth that the hard left doesn’t want to protect.
What monsters these fetus (feti? fetuses?) must be to deserve summary execution.
Where are the symposiums so that we can understand them better? Where are the workshops and teach ins at Colombia U or Berkley?
Where is the justice? The social justice?
Thanks Allan for responding and adding your experiences. Perhaps that is also the difficuty with this discussion…
we all jumped in with our opinions, thoughts, facts, etc…
It took almost 100 comments to scratch some of what goes on under the surface.
What comes to mind for me in regards to abortion (even with rape), there are other elements in play that lead to the decision of abortion. Abortion is the end result. There were many steps/actions that occured to get to the point of the pregnancy and the abortion.
What can we learn from rape? We can look at the life of the attacker. What caused him to do this act? What environment created the mindset he was in? A lot of times all of this starts right in the home and is years in the making. Maybe that is the argument or the counter discussion we should focus on.
SCSI – thanks for that insightful post!
SCSI,
Great points.
And people still wonder why we declined, why we are still in decline, and why we will continue to decline.
All those things our country was founded on (especially Judeo-Christian beliefs) are now said to be wrong. Amazingly, it was those same beliefs and actions which endured us (or else we would have never made it through the Civil War, let alone a bicentennial).
On another blog they discussed the NBA fiasco (with the fighting last week). A lot of people respond with “it was just one fight, they don’t have to punish him so hard”.
It’s like when we raise our children. They do something wrong, we tell them immediately it is wrong (I hope). It’s our nature and human beings to push the envelope and see just how much we can get away with (we worry about our actions effects on others after the fact, not before).
Scary to think how worse off we would be if we just had no “rules”, “laws” or punishment.
Hello, all:
I hope I don’t spoil the good feeling, but I would like to say a couple of things about Allan’s post.
First of all, the idea that you can’t feel another’s pain is true and false in different respects. In one respect, it’s true, because you’re not the other person. In another respect, though, it’s false: there’s such a thing as sympathy, you know.
Second, sympathy shouldn’t stop with feeling another’s pain. Why not? Because his/her pain isn’t/shouldn’t be the final goal in his journey. What’s/should be the final goal? Health, joy.
Third, then, and most crucially: are you going to help a woman who’s gotten pregnant by rape heal and reach health and joy by counselling her to abort/not counselling her not to abort?
Well, if the the unborn baby is an innocent third party who is NOT the attacker (even though fathered by him), abortion in this case means killing an innocent third party. But how is killing an innocent third party going to help the woman to heal.
The problem with a lot of what passes for compassion nowadays is that it’s actually not loving ENOUGH, because it doesn’t care enough to challenge people to grown into health and joy.
Adrian
Adrian,
Spoil the good feeling
, I like that…LOL
Nope not at all.
Our society spends far to much time pushing the “easy way out”, the immediate fix and what ends up happening is we invite in a host of far worse problems and behaviors. All of this intertwines with everything else in our lives, which in turn, affects OTHERS lives (although we keep hearing the “It’s not hurting anyone else” mantra).
On the other end of what I said about looking at the attacker, what created hi (I hint at it all starts with the family and nurturing our children when they are young), the same is true of the one raped. You are correct, we do not mention to women the compassion in making the hard decision of having the child (and the many good things that can come from that, even for the woman). We dwell on the, “you were raped, you are a VICTIM (go ahead and stay a victim), and because of that, it justifies an abortion (two wrongs scenario)”. Abortion is an immediate “band aid” fix (in the mind of our society), but as we all know, band aids wear off and if we don’t take care of the wound it becomes infected and causes far greater problems possibly life threatening).
Something to think about Allan, Jesus’ earthly lineage included murderers, prostitution, rape & incest among other sins.
One way of looking at it, one’s short-sighted but selfish act to abort, the line, as God intended would have ended then and there.
Plus I have read testimonies of women who were raped and decided to keep their baby and the blessings that flowed from the birth of thoose children.
As for the lifeboat scenario of who gets rescued, that’s a canard, in that we can never have pat answers for any given situation. We can only do the best we can in the heat of the moment.
For instance, let’s say my family and I are hiking and we get attacked by a grizzly. 1st off, I’d hope I’d be packing a heavy cal pistol, but let’s say I only have my wits. What I can do will only be determined by my judgment and instinct based on what I see in the exact moment that reaction is called for. Without a doubt, I would risk my life for all, but who knows how it could pan out. So in that case, it’s not something to fret over until such actually happens.
On one hand, knowing that abortion is not an option would cause many to change their worldview attitudes.
In the case of mother dying or having to carry a rape baby to term, liberals like to quote Jesus out of context, so how about tossing this ‘what would Jesus do’ meme back at them. Greater love has no man than to lay down his life – that holds true even if a mother dies so that the baby may live, much less the ‘inconvenience’ of birthing and raising a rape child.
Jesus demonstrated that by his suffering and grieveous death on the cross. It’s not like we’re being asked to carry the sins of the world.
Renee:
That’s right. Thanks.
Andy:
The other reason the “which one do we choose” line is a canard is that it leaves unaddressed, while implicitly answering, one of the central questions: is it right to do evil so that good may come of it?
The implicit answer is Yes.
And that, I’m afraid, is the wrong answer, b/c it justifies ANY wrongdoing we “are forced” to commit to get ourselves out of a jam.
A.
So true Adrian,
That is the problem with wrong actions and behavior…
Allowing it just ONE time, just once, opens the door for it becoming the acceptable practice (as our own history has proven).
We all hear it and we have probably said it ourselves, “It’ll only happen just this once”, or “I am only doing it because such and such happened”.
It’s similar to addictions.
BTW, Before I forget… Have a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving everyone
My opinion is that America started to steer wrong as a whole in the 1910’s and 20’s. What happened? Several things happened all at once.
1. Income taxes.
2. Public schools.
3. The rabid feminist revolution. This is not to say that voting and working rights for women is wrong — that was a very good thing! But the “Hands off, Male” attitude came into being.
4. The Russian Revolution — and the infiltration of the socialists.
5. Darwinism started to take hold.
6. World War I and the League of Nations — the beginning of losing our sovereignty.
With such onslaughts, it’s amazing this country has held up so well!!
Shayne
Great news on Fox News Channel today. Some Democrats are actually calling for a place for pro-life people in their party. They even had a Congressman from Ohio on to advocate for a reconsideration of the extreme pro-abortion stand of the Democrats. One problem–the report tried to portray John Kerry as pro-life–the Senator who made sure to return to Washington from campaigning to vote against the “Laci Peterson” bill.
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