AOW agreed, but more diplomatically. She’s a wise and Godly woman, so I always listen to her. She is pro-life, but she also displays a world-weariness when the subject comes around.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but how a society views life says much about it. Taking life lightly will rot a people.
The left has turned a woman’s right to choose to kill a human life into a sacrament, a dogma which shall not be questioned. When you shove it in my face and demand funding for it, it is my right to question it, criticize it and even protest it.
Who really thinks doctors never performed "medically-necessary" abortions before Roe v Wade? Who thinks that putting out the flashing neon "Get Abortions Here" sign didn't increase that abhorrent practice?
If abortion were something that took place quietly in a normal medical setting, not Planned Parenthood abortion mills and God only knows how many charnel houses like that one in Philadelphia, what would we have to protest? Some hospitals would loudly trumpet that they do not perform abortions, while others would tell nosy inquirers to mind their own damned business.
Someone pointed out that most of the world's nations ban abortions, and from my own experience, I'd bet the farm that abortions still happen in those places. A large dose of birth control pills essentially acts as a "morning after solution." Please don't ask me how I know.
For those who care about the underlying argument for human life, I recommend the the thin but packed book, Ten Universal Principles - A Brief Philosophy of the Life Issues. It is a master work of tight pro-life logic that focuses not just on abortion, but on the sanctity of all human life and how to defend it. I know the hard-core lefties won’t read it; they’ve already gone over the edge and nothing will bring them back. If a judge says so, kill ‘em! That is the principle-free progressive world they have created.
You don't think abortion is a slippery slope to infanticide? Check this out: Killing Babies no Different from Abortion. "Experts" say it, so it must be so.
Abortion gives liberals the illusion of control. Its a dangerous illusion.
ReplyDeleteAbortion for a life style is no different than an Aztec blood sacrifice for a lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteSilverfiddle,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the compliment.
Yes, I have world-weariness, but not limited to this particular topic.
Here's what I want to know: What are we going to DO about stopping this infanticide? Now the government is forcing us to pay for contraception and abortion via our health insurance premiums. Do we all cancel our policies?
Do we refuse to pay the separate premium? Excerpt:
...“To comply with the accounting requirement, plans will collect a $1 abortion surcharge from each premium payer,” the pro-life source informed LifeNews. “The enrollee will make two payments, $1 per month for abortion and another payment for the rest of the services covered. As described in the rule, the surcharge can only be disclosed to the enrollee at the time of enrollment. Furthermore, insurance plans may only advertise the total cost of the premiums without disclosing that enrollees will be charged a $1 per month fee to pay directly subsidize abortions.”
The pro-life advocate told LifeNews that the final HHS rule mentions, but does not address concerns about abortion coverage in “multi-state” plans administered by the Federal Government’s Office of Personell Management (OPM).
“There is nothing in the Affordable Care Act to prevent some OPM (government administered) plans from covering elective abortion, and questions remain about whether OPM multi-state plans will include elective abortion,” the pro-life source said. “If such plans do include abortion, there are concerns that the abortion coverage will even be offered in states that have prohibited abortion coverage in their state exchanges.”...
The horrors continue:
...Scott Fischbach, the director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life uncovered the information showing a clinical trial approved by the Food and Drug Administration uses brain tissue from aborted unborn babies to treat macular degeneration. StemCells Inc. will inject fetal brain stem cells into the eyes of up to 16 patients to study the cells’ effect on vision....
And what about THIS?
The White House announced today that colleges and universities will also be forced to join religious employers in instituting the new HHS mandate that requires them to provide coverage for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions.
[...]
The decision means college students — who already get abortions at the highest rate compared with women in other age categories, will be able to get free birth control pills, Plan B pills and the ella drug that causes early-term abortions days after conception....
Again, what are we going to DO?
Damn! I left a long comment here! But suddenly Google locked me out of my account, and I had to get a text message to verify that I had proper authorization.
ReplyDeleteBut, aha! The comment was so long and, in my view, important that I kept a record of it in case I wanted to use that same comment for a post at my site. I so rarely do that! The Lord's Hand?
Anyway, below is the comment:
Here's what I want to know: What are we going to DO about stopping this infanticide? Now the government is forcing us to pay for contraception and abortion via our health insurance premiums. Do we all cancel our policies?
Do we refuse to pay the separate premium? Excerpt:
...“To comply with the accounting requirement, plans will collect a $1 abortion surcharge from each premium payer,” the pro-life source informed LifeNews. “The enrollee will make two payments, $1 per month for abortion and another payment for the rest of the services covered. As described in the rule, the surcharge can only be disclosed to the enrollee at the time of enrollment. Furthermore, insurance plans may only advertise the total cost of the premiums without disclosing that enrollees will be charged a $1 per month fee to pay directly subsidize abortions.”
The pro-life advocate told LifeNews that the final HHS rule mentions, but does not address concerns about abortion coverage in “multi-state” plans administered by the Federal Government’s Office of Personell Management (OPM).
“There is nothing in the Affordable Care Act to prevent some OPM (government administered) plans from covering elective abortion, and questions remain about whether OPM multi-state plans will include elective abortion,” the pro-life source said. “If such plans do include abortion, there are concerns that the abortion coverage will even be offered in states that have prohibited abortion coverage in their state exchanges.”...
The horrors continue:
...Scott Fischbach, the director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life uncovered the information showing a clinical trial approved by the Food and Drug Administration uses brain tissue from aborted unborn babies to treat macular degeneration. StemCells Inc. will inject fetal brain stem cells into the eyes of up to 16 patients to study the cells’ effect on vision....
And what about THIS?
The White House announced today that colleges and universities will also be forced to join religious employers in instituting the new HHS mandate that requires them to provide coverage for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions.
[...]
The decision means college students — who already get abortions at the highest rate compared with women in other age categories, will be able to get free birth control pills, Plan B pills and the ella drug that causes early-term abortions days after conception....
Again, what are we going to DO?
Why is the innocent party to an unwanted pregnancy the one who is punished? Pregnancy is never the baby's fault.
ReplyDeleteSilverfiddle,
ReplyDeleteSorry for the double post. Blogger was burping.
I pulled you out of the spam filter, AOW!
ReplyDeleteI don't know what would have triggered Blooger to put your comments there, while there are others I wish it would automatically trash... ;)
What can we do? First, rescind Obamacare, lock stock and barrel.
Put medical care and insurance back in the (semi)free market where it belongs. Pass legislation that makes it easier to decouple medical care from employment. If your employer won't cover something make it so you can demand the monetary value of the insurance coverage and go buy your own on the open market.
This restores personal privacy, kicking the government and the employer out of your personal business.
The second step is to strike down Roe v Wade for the legal travesty that it is.
I know the hard-core lefties won’t read it; they’ve already gone over the edge and nothing will bring them back.
ReplyDelete------------
What he quotes Aristotle, Lock and Montesquieu. I know the arguments already. I've read it.
I don't agree with you. Pick up my reading list or kiss my ass.
I know the hard-core lefties won’t read it; they’ve already gone over the edge and nothing will bring them back.
ReplyDelete------------
What, he quotes Aristotle, Lock and Montesquieu. I know the arguments already. I've read the originals.
I don't agree with you. Pick up my reading list or kiss my ass.
Silverfiddle,
ReplyDeleteI understand those steps you listed in your comment to me.
But what I want to know is what can we now do -- as individuals. Certain of the steps you mentioned are long-term fixes, and the fact remains that once a government program is in place, that program isn't overturned "down the line."
Medical care and insurance back in the free market? How to do that? Regs and mandates are already in place!
Silverfiddle,
ReplyDeleteThe second step is to strike down Roe v Wade for the legal travesty that it is.
I hate to be a naysayer at your site. But what are the realistic chances that overturning Roe v. Wade will actually happen?
I share your skepticism, AOW. That is the path I see that would answer your quedtion, but it is a very rough one we, alas, will probably never see.
ReplyDeleteDucky: Thank you for bearing out my prediction, albeit in your typical vulgar manner.
I haven't read the book, but I might, when I finish the Teilhard (ironically, another Jesuit, but this one arguing the case for evolution) book I'm reading now. I did peruse the reviews, though, but unfortunately there are no critiques out there right now that I could find. I am always a little suspicious of attempts by the religious to make "secular" (re: scientific) arguments for essentially religious positions. I am particularly suspicious of those who claim to make arguments with rather specious pseudo-objective mechanisms like Occam's Razor, or with selective, basically anecdotal "evidence."
ReplyDeleteI am incensed by the comparison of slavery to abortion, and find it appallingly sleazy and dehumanizing of black people, comparing them to embryos. And use of the Dredd Scott case, making a similar mistake that GW Bush made back during a presidential debate, is just laughable. As appalling as the decision was, a horrible shame of our nation, it was in fact constitutional at the time. There is nothing in the constitution to suggest anything about elective abortion, with the exception of implied privacy, which favors the RvW decision.
So, I would be reading this with very a critical eye.
JMJ
Oh, and the "slippery slope" or "domino" argument (one the father of modern conservatism, and pro-lifer William F Buckley despised) is terribly sleazy. It's the same argument homophobes make about gay marraige - "Next thing you know we have polygamy and beastiabily!"
ReplyDeleteSuch despicable bullshit, basically saying that a proponent of pro-choice is therefore capable of being pro-infanticide! What kind of scumbag would accuse someone of such a thing?
These sleazy pseudo-scientific arguments, like Intelligent Design, only show your own insecurity with your faith. Man up. Admit you are taking a religious position. And be honest, as your religion demands.
JMJ
Jersey: He doesn't compare slavery to abortion. It's not a polemical work. He uses many cases to build a continuum of abuse of human life.
ReplyDeleteI understand your suspicion of religious people making secular arguments. Sounds sneaky, like they are trying to backdoor convert you, but the guy is a professor of philosophy and he lays out a logically coherent case for respect for all life, which encompasses not just abortion, but respect for all human beings, regardless of race, creed, color, religion or where they happen to live.
JMJ: "Admit you are taking a religious position. And be honest, as your religion demands."
ReplyDeleteYou're not seriously asserting that the pro life position can only be argued on religious grounds?
And while I agree that not all pro-choice advocates would go as far as these two soi disant experts in 'ethics', they have slid far enough down that non existent slope to declare newborns to be "morally irrelevant".
Yeah, he's a professor of philosophy and it all stopped in the 18th century for him if in fact he is really over the old church credo that Aristotle is the authority in all matters.
ReplyDeleteReason isn't sufficient for all matters. Aquinas didn't quite make it, neither did Russel when Godel and problems with Zermolo threw him a curve.
It's like Freethinker not being able to get out of the Baroque. Never mind that Bartok and Schoenberg don't exist, he can't even accept Brahms.
You're stuck and you expect everyone to share your lack of growth.
But in the end it comes down to this: "The stupid leftists don't agree with me because they don't have my reading list."
Utter crap.
To answer AOW's question, "Will Roe be overturned".
ReplyDeleteOver the Republican's dead bodies.
They get too much mileage from it as a campaign issue at all levels while they rob the suckers blind to ever let it go.
The last thing they want is a resolution.
Ducky: "You're stuck and you expect everyone to share your lack of growth."
ReplyDeleteWhen that growth devalues life and denigrates freedom I would submit to your consideration that it may in fact be cancerous.
Ah, Freedom --- that word again.
ReplyDeleteThe freedom to accumulate as much as humanly possible without interference.
The freedom to ignore conflicts of interest and always rule for the powerful.
Denigrate life? You're a freaking capitalist. It's practically your job.
Pardon me if I think the right's conception of some very complicated ideas are lacking.
One thing that must be done is to repeal and replace Obamacare with sensible health care reform that doesn't turn our health care system upside down like Obamacare does.
ReplyDeleteProgressives believe in moral relativism basing everything on their feelings instead of reality, truth and what is right. The slope was bound to get more slippery and deeper after abortion was legalized.
viburnum,
ReplyDelete"You're not seriously asserting that the pro life position can only be argued on religious grounds?"
Not "only," but let me put it this way - if the religious community had no interest in the issue, do you believe it would even be anywhere near as heated an issue as it is today?
"And while I agree that not all pro-choice advocates would go as far as these two soi disant experts in 'ethics', they have slid far enough down that non existent slope to declare newborns to be "morally irrelevant"."
That's a lie.
JMJ
Ducky: "Pardon me if I think the right's conception of some very complicated ideas are lacking."
ReplyDeletePardon me if I think the left's comprehension of some very simple propositions is non-existent. Otherwise they couldn't possibly subscribe to some of those 'very complicated ideas'.
Come on Jersey, you must admit that a baby is as fully human a day before birth as it is a day after.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, there is some logical scientific demarcation point in development that can be argued logically as the point beyond which you shall not venture.
For the majority of pro-abortion advocates I would venture that that point is the first trimester, and for many religious, that point is defined as "quickening". I think the vast majority of us would agree that no abortion and unlimited abortion are two extremes that are both morally and ethically wrong.
Quite frankly the arguments must be made from a secular and scientific standpoint, for their will be no agreement found in religion, Christian or otherwise.
Cheers!
JMJ: "That's a lie."
ReplyDeleteI'll let their own words refute that. From the abstract to the article and a link to the original.
" ...By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant "...
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full
And as SF pointed out in his link, there are some who believe that demarcation point occurs well after birth:
ReplyDelete“The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”
-Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva
Problem is Finntann that the issue of partial birth abortion was spun by the right.
ReplyDeleteIt was a rare procedure and there are conditions when a late stage pregnancy can reasonably be terminated. Let the doctor and the woman decide not religious zealot.
What the right did was try to tell normals that women were justing going into a doctor's office, doing a headslap and saying, "Oh damn, I forgot the abortion".
We can find reasonable ground but not with either the extreme feminists or the radical fundamentalists (which is almost all of them by definition).
Ducky: "It was a rare procedure and there are conditions when a late stage pregnancy can reasonably be terminated."
ReplyDeleteAnd how many more Kermit Gosnell M.D.s are out there?
http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/PDFs/GrandJuryWomensMedical.pdf
Don't read this on a full stomach.
Viburnum, stop the straw man.
ReplyDeleteFact is that there are medical conditions which make a late term abortion a decision.
The fact that the animal Gosnell was operating an abortion mill is independent of our discussion.
Why do you assume that we poor benighted leftists aren't aware of Gosnell?
Why do you assume that allowing safe abortions at the likes of Planned Parenthood wouldn't help prevent monsters like Gosnell?
In the right wing world it's always so simple. Ban and punish and everything is just fine.
"Someone pointed out that most of the world's nations ban abortions . . ."
ReplyDeleteSo someone is a liar? I hate citing wikipedia, but:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law
According to that, very few countries ban abortions. Most countries allow abortions with some restrictions.
I'm a little flabbergasted that this information wasn't corroborated. Who in the heck said that abortions are banned in most places around the world?
Ducky: "Fact is that there are medical conditions which make a late term abortion a decision."
ReplyDeleteStipulated as to 'medical conditions'. Personal convenience is not to my knowledge a medical condition.
As for bring Gosnell into a discussion regarding the devaluation of human life, he's not a straw man, he's the poster child.
Which of us is off topic?
Jack: "I hate citing Wikipedia, but:"
ReplyDeleteIf SF was referring to abortion on demand, and I'm pretty sure he was, the chart at the bottom of that page shows him to be substantially correct. 128 of 201, almost two thirds of the worlds countries, do not permit them.
Most do however allow them to protect the life of the mother, and some for various other reasons, but not usually for purely economic ones.
viburnum,
ReplyDeleteLet's debate honestly here.
"And while I agree that not all pro-choice advocates would go as far as these two soi disant experts in 'ethics', they have slid far enough down that non existent slope to declare newborns to be "morally irrelevant." (emphasis mine) Then you go on to site one paper. So, a paper by two people means that some substantial percentage of people, and in this case, honestly, we're talking about pro-choice Americans here, are pro-infanticide?
C'mon man. Debate honestly. You're better than that.
...
Now then, as for these arguments about nations that do or do not permit abortion...
Abortion is mostly legal in Europe, North America (save for Mexico), and the Far East and South Asia. Abortion is mostly illegal in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. In other words, the more liberal and developed the state, the more likely abortion is relatively legal.
I don't want to live in Latin America, Africa, or the Middle East.
JMJ
Huh. My tags didn't take...
ReplyDeleteJMJ
Ya know, Jersey, you start out civil and making sense, but then you have to get all blustery and belligerent.
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with you?
The book most certainly does not make a slippery slope argument. You correctly peg that as a logical fallacy, and the author does not base any argumentation on such an artifice.
As to your second point about religious people making non-religious arguments and telling me to "man up." Deontological and God-based arguments hold no sway with non-believers, so it is no use employing them.
Jack: You latch onto the most obscure points...
ReplyDeleteIt's immaterial how many countries allow abortion and under what circumstances. That was a preface statement to the main point of that small paragraph: That abortions happen there anyway.
Liberals put up some pretty noisy squawking to avoid to difficult task of justifying the taking of a human life
Lets get back to being serious about getting rid of Obama and putting our country back on teack. Its about time for santantrum and Newt Gringo to endorse Romney, he is the most qualified person to be a Potus. Case closed!
ReplyDeleteThis is nuts and the comments are dizzyifying (SF...is that another neologism?!)
ReplyDeleteThere are Americans who feel life is precious and that children come from God (or not) and all life should be honored and protected at all costs. They feel a baby's a baby at the point of conception, because what else the heck WILL it be if left to its own devices?, and they don't quite understand how other people believe that a rape, for example, suddenly nullifies the humanness of that fertilized egg.
There are also those who feel all life comes from God and is precious and shouldn't be aborted except that babies from rape or incest turn into Audis or refrigerators and so they can be thrown on the scarp heap because it would be hard for the mother to have to bear this child.
There are other Americans who feel life is very nice but fertilized eggs are just fertilized eggs and who cares if they're scraped out before they've become, at 3 months, something that can almost wave hello at them in an ultrasound?... They feel this has nothing to do with God and anybody holding a woman back from taking control of her body and killing a fetus is a religious zealot. And, of course, if they believe in God, "what kind of God would make a woman deliver a child of rape?"
SO...is there any point discussing the subject when we're so divided on such basic points? Where's the common ground that leads to resolution?
Sorry, I know none of what I wrote is new but the whole discussion, while as important as any America can have (in my opinion) goes nowhere...and we can see why.
As for Roe v Wade being overturned? I believe it's Roe who's whole life now is dedicated to that goal. Also, I've seen polls lately showing that young people are more against abortion than they were for many years.
But I don't think it'll be overturned.
Well viburnum why not take the issue of hydrocephalus. Now are you a medical doctor? I suspect not so it's kind of pointless for us to go back and forth on whether or not it represents a threat to the mother. Why isn't it an issue for a woman and her doctor?
ReplyDeleteNow how did Gosnell manage to operate? He broke countless laws and they finally nailed his abortion pit accidentally when the drug squad was investigating prescription irregularities. He had to be paying off someone but nothing.
Makes you wish Andrew Breitfart were around for some hard hitting investigation. But silence.
Still be limiting legal abortions we are sure to eliminate the likes of Gosnell. No.
JMJ: "And while I agree that not all pro-choice advocates would go as far as these two soi disant experts in 'ethics', they have slid far enough down that non existent slope to declare newborns to be "morally irrelevant." (emphasis mine)
ReplyDelete" Then you go on to site one paper. So, a paper by two people means that some substantial percentage of people, and in this case, honestly, we're talking about pro-choice Americans here, are pro-infanticide?"
I did not say they were. The 'they' in my statement, I thought, clearly referred to the authors of the paper, not to all pro choice advocates.
The problem is that these two didn't suddenly materialize out of the ether. Singer and others have been dancing around this point for quite some time without, perhaps, stating it quite so bluntly. It's not essentially any different than the arguments of the eugenicists. If someones life doesn't meet some arbitrary standard of utility it must be valueless and hence a matter of indifference. These are supposedly intelligent, well educated people spouting utter nonsense. When that happens, it's not enough to argue with their conclusions, we need to question their premises.
Beat! Beat! Drums!
ReplyDeleteBeat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—
burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church,
and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying,
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—
no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace,
ploughing his field or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—
so shrill you bugles blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities—
over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses?
no sleepers must sleep in those beds,
No bargainers’ bargains by day—
no brokers or speculators—would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking?
would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court
to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—
you bugles wilder blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard,
nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead
where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump O terrible drums—
so loud you bugles blow.
~ Walt Whitman
Purgatory
ReplyDeleteAnd suppose the darlings get to Mantua,
suppose they cheat the crypt, what next? Begin
with him, unshaven. Though not, I grant you, a
displeasing cockerel, there’s egg yolk on his chin.
His seedy robe’s aflap, he’s got the rheum.
Poor dear, the cooking lard has smoked her eyes.
Another Montague is in the womb
although the first babe’s bottom’s not yet dry.
She scrolls a weekly letter to her Nurse
who dares to send a smock through Balthasar,
and once a month, his father posts a purse.
News from Verona? Always news of war.
Such sour years it takes to right this wrong!
The fifth act runs unconscionably long.
~ Maxine Kumin
Provide, Provide
ReplyDeleteThe witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag
Was once the beauty Abishag,
The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.
Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.
Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.
Some have relied on what they knew,
Others on being simply true.
What worked for them might work for you.
No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard
Or keeps the end from being hard.
Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!
~ Robert Frost
The Ass’s Lament
ReplyDeleteAlas! Alack! For good or ill
The world is no tea party.
When issues press, voices get shrill
And indignation hearty.
This may distress the sensitive
And rouse self-righteous ire
But Life is Stress, and tends to give
Each ass a kiss of fire.
~ FreeThinke
TO THE WHINY SPOILED BRATS and OVERSTUFFED MATRONS OF THE WORLD:
ReplyDelete"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you're thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
~ George Bernard Shaw
I went to the Garden of Love,
ReplyDeleteAnd saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And 'THOU SHALT NOT' writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns
Qere walking their rounds,
And binding with briars
My joys and desires.
~ William Blake
Ducky: "Why isn't it an issue for a woman and her doctor?"
ReplyDeleteI did agree that it would be. I have absolutely no issue with a medically necessary termination of a pregnancy.
My twin granddaughters were delivered by C-section at about 22 weeks when their mother developed eclampsia. They spent months in ICU, both survived, and are now bright, happy, vivacious little girls soon to be 8.
And the difference between them and the 'non person' 'morally irrelevant' fetuses aborted at that stage would be precisely what?
If you read a little further into that Grand Jury report you will discover some rather telling passages revealing that the state agencies were told to cease inspecting abortion clinics. ( p.9 )
Isn't it about time you guys got out of the womb, and got a nice breath of fresh air?
ReplyDeleteTOME TO GIVE IT A REST.
~ FT
viburnum,
ReplyDeleteEthicists bring up all sorts of interesting thought experiments - that doesn't mean that they are necessarily realistic.
Among the overwhelmingly vast majority of Americans, and the overwhelmingly vast majority of majority of pro-choice Americans, infanticide is unthinkable unless it was a matter of humane death, like a kid born with it's brain outside it's body, or some other gruesome fate as that.
In fact, the vast majority of all agree that the later the abortion the less ethical or moral it becomes.
Science informs us that sentience, that essence we think of as being "human," is in the wiring of the nervous system which happens around half-way through pregnancy.
To air on the side of caution, most pro-choice people politically assert that elective abortion take place no later than a month or two before sentience is even possible.
This is pretty close to the law as we have it today.
The notion that being pro-choice is anywhere close to being infantical, is absurd. Utterly unrealistic. Stupid, really.
JMJ
Jersey: Your argumentum ad Populum ad nauseum is tiring.
ReplyDeleteBecause you can not refute it.
ReplyDeleteJMJ
You are right Jersey. Argumentum ad Populum cannot be refuted. Because it is a logical fallacy.
ReplyDeleteMy aren't we lucky to have Walt Whitman, Maxine Kumin, Robert Frost, George Bernard Shaw, and William Blake contributing to our conversation, especially since four of the five are dead.
ReplyDeleteAllow me to invite Samuel Palmer to the discussion:
"Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them."
Not to be rude, but do you have a point?
"TOME TO GIVE IT A REST."
I'm sure many of us here would be happy to converse on whatever subject you desire, over at your blog. Here we generally try to stay topical, albiet somewhat unsucessfully at times, and discuss that which our host wishes to discuss.
Cheers!
Thanks Finn,
ReplyDeleteI still haven't heard a good argument from our pro-abortion friends explaining how some lives are more valuable than others.
I'd even go so far as to say they need to man up or shut up.
ReplyDeleteJMJ,
ReplyDeleteI did not say that pro choice equals pro infanticide. I have not advocated the banning all abortions under any circumstance.
My point is that there is an apparent and obvious logical consistency between the rationales supportive of the two positions, differentiated merely by time.
That our society can find one regrettably acceptable, and the other utterly repugnant is the sort of contradiction that would lead one to think that there just may be something wrong with the original premise.
Jersey said "The notion that being pro-choice is anywhere close to being infantical, is absurd. Utterly unrealistic. Stupid, really."
ReplyDeleteIf I stab you with a knife to drain an abscess, I'm a doctor.
If I stab you with a knife because you piss me off, I'm a hoodlum.
It really all comes down to intent.
Abortion to save the life of the mother is a good thing.
Abortion simply because you couldn't be inconvenienced to deal with the consequences of your own actions... not so much.
The strawdoctor argument of medical necessity is getting old. Going back to the Guttmacher study, only 2% of contraceptives are prescribed for medical necessity and the rate of medically necessary abortions ranges from .4% to a high of 11% depending on whether your criteria is strictly medical (.4%) or if your definition of medically necessary is "when the woman say's it's medically necessary (11%).
I can understand why you use "medical necessity" as an emotional touchpoint, but really, is it an intellectually honest approach? Given that >90% of contraceptive and abortion utilization is NOT medically necessary?
Medically Necessary, Medically Necessary... frankly you're beginning to sound like a broken record, or perhaps more accurately... a well trained political parrot.
Cheers!
". . . some lives are more valuable than others . . ."
ReplyDeleteWho here has tried to argue that some lives are more valuable than others?
Not me.
Who here is "pro-abortion"?
Not me.
*THAT* is exactly why discussions like these are never, ever resolved. It's because no matter what we say, you continue to categorize us, wrongly, because you either fail or refuse to understand exactly what we're trying to argue.
Just because your feelings on the matter are wholly contrary to what we're arguing doesn't mean that we're automatically wrong. Just because you can't ever imagine yourself admitting that we're right, and that we've adequately rebutted you at every turn doesn't mean that we're automatically wrong.
I'm appalled that you even mentioned the phrase "logical fallacy," given how many logical fallacies that you and many here have dropped on this issue.
I mean, you reiterated that someone said "abortion is banned by most countries." You shrugged that off as inconsequential, but seriously, it's more aggregious than you think.
You stated a bold-faced misconception, a falsehood, or at the very least completely misrepresented what you were trying to say, and you call Jersey out on a supposed "logical fallacy"?
No, you and whomever said it first are both completely wrong. Most countries ALLOW abortion. FEW countries ban it. So how are we supposed to take your arguments seriously when facts apparently are just loosely interpreted things that may or may not be correct?
Sorry you've been irked, Finntann, by the dignified presentation of ingenious, varied, carefully selected literary material of high quality from different historic periods, because the relevance it has to the discussion is possibly too subtle for you to grasp -- or the temptation to exercise an abundant talent for sarcasm, mockery and curt dismissal has proven too great to resist.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to continue to grind on clucking your tongues, moaning and wringing your hands ineffectually about something over which you have no control and no power to change day after day, It's certainly not up to me to try to stop you.
All I tried to do in quoting poetic observations from minds far greater than any of ours was to provide some fresh insight into the human condition so we might study the thing from differing perspectives and possibly begin to move the discussion away from circular thinking towards a greater understanding of the wide variety of complex motivations that go into making agonizing decisions of this sort.
But of course you already know everything there is to know, and couldn't possibly learn anything from anyone whose interests, thinking and beliefs are not congruent with your own. How lonely it must be to be blest with such god-like powers that you have to live in a rarefied atmosphere far above us mere mortals!
It's ironic -- and would be humorous were it not for the lugubrious, not to say morbid nature of the subject -- that a group, mostly made up of men and one or two women who to my knowledge have never born children, wants to spend so much of its time talking about the biological inner workings of the female anatomy in such a doctrinaire, emotionally detached, hyper-judgmental, moralistic fashion -- almost as though you were a group of scientists involved in a clinical study of the behavior of a primitive tribe regarded as culturally and intellectually inferior.
I find it downright chilling. Adamant orthodoxy always does that to me.
It's not that I'm not interested in the subject, I'm just not interested in hearing the same old things said over and over again in the same old fashion day after day. Everyone here seems firmly entrenched behind barricades and shows no interest in anything but what they have to say.
I'm sorry. I wouldn't talk like this, if you hadn't been so damned insolent -- and this is hardly the first time.
Kurt may write to me privately and tell me to stay away any time he chooses, and I'll be glad to oblige. There should be no need for these displays of ill humor -- and never a need for insolence. I should think we get more than enough of that from the Malignant Mallard from Massachusetts.
Good night.
~ FreeThinke
No one's asking you to stay away, in fact, you should be honored we (or at least I) would rather hear your opinion, than the opinions of others, who weren't exactly commenting on this topic.
ReplyDeleteI'm not so obtuse as to not observe the passing relevancy, only if you are in the mood for constructive criticism, it is a tad overdone. To paraphrase an old Irish saying:
When I drink water I drink water,
and when I drink whisky I drink whisky.
When I read blogs I read blogs,
and when I read poetry, I read poetry.
"The Malignant Mallard from Massachusetts"
NOW! That is a good one.
Cheers!
"I mean, you reiterated that someone said "abortion is banned by most countries." You shrugged that off as inconsequential, but seriously, it's more aggregious than you think"
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ, the crux of the argument is not about medically necessary procedures, which is a strawman since they are such a small percentage of the procedures conducted. The crux of the argument is about procedures of convenience, because you prefer not to deal with the consequences of your irresponsibility. Abortions of convenience are indeed banned in "most countries" as SF pointed out.
No one is advocating banning medical procedures.
When a legal child can get an abortion without her parents consent, but can't get her ears pierced, or a credit card to pay for the services... we've gone fairly far astray from the moral and ethical, and even logical high ground.
"Who here has tried to argue that some lives are more valuable than others?"
You obviously value a 10 month old human life far more than a three month old human life. It is inherent in the pro-abortion advocacy argument.
As a libertarian, as far as I am concerned what you do is between you and your god, or conscience. As a libertarian I do not advocate the criminalization of abortion, but I certainly have objections to state sponsorship of it. The key question is why you not only expect, but insist the rest of us pay for your convenience.
Cheers!
"I hate to beat a dead horse, but how a society views life says much about it."
ReplyDeleteAin't no dead horse mate, it's nasty ol' beast this one and it needs plenty of beating. :)
"Taking life lightly will rot a people."
Amen to that, taking this sort of thing lightly is why we're now hearing advocates for infanticide.
"I know the hard-core lefties won’t read it; they’ve already gone over the edge and nothing will bring them back."
Indeed, but that's not the end of it, as you can see they want to drag us all over the edge too. Slithering around at the bottom of that slope in their filth isn't enough for them.
It's the nature of this beast, it's never sated. Which is why i say, fight it at every turn, give it no quarter, give it nothing.
FT: Silver may correct me if I'm wrong, but I took the point of his post to center on "...how a society views life says much about it. Taking life lightly will rot a people." A somewhat more interesting metaphysical topic than the nuts and bolts of abortion, and one to which the possession of ovaries is not a requirement. It's unfortunately some are unwilling to engage at that level and insist on fighting on more familiar though far more tedious ground.
ReplyDeleteViburnum: Yes. Exactly.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I do an article like this, the pro-abortion lefties will grasp one inconsequential point, or skirt whole sections altogether in order to argue with the demons haunting their own minds.
Jack: Misstating a fact (which I'm alleged to have done) is not a logical fallacy.
JMJ: "Ethicists bring up all sorts of interesting thought experiments - that doesn't mean that they are necessarily realistic."
ReplyDeleteThat is true, but there's nothing unrealistic about routine infanticide. At most times and in most places killing young babies has been commonplace and acceptable. To view it as a crime, as we all do, is the unusual position, not the other way around.
But western civilization is a little past the "chuck 'em in the volcano" stage, thank God...
ReplyDeleteyes, to a certain extent (infanticide rate is still much higher than murder rates for older children and adults), and only quite recently (less then 1000 years I think. The crucial innovation was the orphanage.)
ReplyDeleteAnyone who thinks infanticide is preposterous and not worth worrying about should reevaluate.
Abortion is murder.
ReplyDeleteBet you thought I was staying out of this thread, dint ya? ;)