Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
Over at Town Hall, Katie Pavlich zeroes in on a "disturbing and immoral" remark recently made by director of Planned Parenthood Angie Murie regarding gender based abortions. Murie said:
I wrestle with gender-based abortion more than any other reason [for having an abortion]...From a macro perspective, I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women. But if you look at it at the individual level, which is what we do, I don’t have any right to say that one person’s reason is better or worse than another’s.
Pavlich rightly points out how ironic and hypocritical it is for the selfsame liberals who claim to fight against gender discrimination in the work place to ignore gender discrimination within the womb.
But what I find most startling about Murie's quotation is that she lets slip that she believes that gender-based abortion represents the elimination of women. In the war for "a woman's right to choose," it has always been of utmost importance for the pro-abortion contingent to maintain control over the narrative that an unborn baby does not represent a person. They do typically concede that a fetus is alive, that it has human DNA, and that it has the potential to someday become a person, but that it is not yet a person — and as such, has no claim to the fundamental right to life. So it's awfully startling that an executive director of Planned Parenthood would acknowledge the personhood of the unborn.
Let slip that you believe a fetus is a person, and you no longer have an iota of justification for taking her life.
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Jun '10
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
Diane, I hadn't checked in to Ricochet for a week or so, but everything I'm reading this evening leaves me shaking my head and saying "Oh my God!" And, you've just posted another one.
Aug '10
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
Sanger withdraws into a dark corner.....
Sep '10
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
2 questions:
Couldn't you say this is a new glass floor rather than ceiling?
Aren't most abortion doctors men?
Just sayin'.
May '10
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
Well said, Diane.
As I've said before, I think most mothers who seek abortions do so willfully rather than logically.
May '10
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
Good catch, Diane!
Sep '11
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
Diane Ellis, Ed.:
Let slip that you believe a fetus is a person, and you no longer have an iota of justification for taking her life.
Sure you do. "Personhood" is an argument for the sales rep ("counselor") to persuade a teenaged girl that she isn't really killing a baby. The real issue is disposable people. Get pregnant during your freshman year of college? Your college career is ruined--unless you deal with "the problem." Find out you're pregnant with a baby that tests positive for something scary? Your adult life is ruined--unless you take care of "the problem."
We have raised two generations of women in America who believe that "taking care of the problem" is reasonable. Now we as a society are discussing health care costs--and we're being constantly reminded that a huge chunk of health care spending goes to the elderly in the final months of their lives. Just think of all the money we can save--if we're willing to take care of "the problem."
Thought experiment: would Planned Parenthood or their ilk (evidently including the Komen Foundation) try to keep Bella Santorum alive?
Dec '10
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
If the theory is that requiring a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is dangerous to her physical and emotional health, then there is no basis to question the reason she doesn't want the pregnancy: the fact that she doesn't want the baby should be sufficient for the pro-choice believer. Indeed, the stresses in some cultures on a woman who bears a girl child can be far more oppressive and even dangerous than the stresses of poverty or bad timing, which the pro-choice believer refuses to question.
If the pro-choice believer finds something morally disquieting about a woman choosing not to want a baby because that baby is female, the pro-choice believer may have reached a teachable moment. If a female fetus deserves protection, why doesn't a poor one? That starts a cascade of questions with difficult answers.
Jun '10
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
John Murdoch
Thought experiment: would Planned Parenthood or their ilk (evidently including the Komen Foundation) try to keep Bella Santorum alive? · 3 minutes ago
I didn't know about Bella. Now I like Santorum even more.
Oct '10
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
What's also sad is the selective abortion of children who have certain defects, such as Down Syndrome. I've heard that the percentage of those aborted is in the 90s.
Jul '11
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
My final child is a nearly 5 yr old girl. The perinatologist our OB sent us to 5.5 years ago was going about her usual business after we discussed the sex (which made us quite happy). I knew the next few weeks would discern any fetal defects and my wife and I discussed with the doctor right then that in no uncertain terms would we discuss termination unless my wife's death was involved. The doctor was taken aback that another physician would ever feel that way. Strange world.
Mar '11
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
I wonder if Murray has any sort of response to abortion realities such as:
I suppose not, if you imagine that no "one person’s reason is better or worse than another’s." It's all good.
Jan '11
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
I deny there is any such thing as personhood. If you're a living human being, from the smallest to the oldest, you're entitled to every right that every other living human being enjoys.
Personhood serves a legal purpose. It's a legal fiction to allow groups of living human beings to act in concert, such as an estate or a corporation, but in all of the instances of corporations, the one essential requirement is that it's based of living human beings.
What gives them away is that while abortion advocates assure us that being a person requires some criteria other than simply being alive and human, as if this was strikingly obvious, they refuse to define what qualities make the difference.
Having relied on "personhood" to sustain their theory of abortion, inevitably they turn their scrutiny on who else doesn't qualify as a person ... not because it makes logical sense, but because they won't admit error and can't dare to undermine their own foolish premise. That's why they start questioning whether a six-month old baby is a person (re: Peter Singer).
Personhood is a legal device, not a philosophically sound premise.
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
Never mind the "personhood" argument; assume what she really meant was that she didn't like the idea of "eliminating future women." Fine. So eliminating men is okay?
Mitt Romney chooses a few words poorly to make an otherwise defensible distinction between "the poor," who have a safety net, and the middle class, who in many cases have nothing to prevent them from becoming poor, and every press outlet in the country is filled with "Romney doesn't care about the poor" stories. Where are the "Planned Parenthood director okay with eliminating men" stories? (Other than here, of course.)
We live in a very weird time and place, and it just keeps getting weirder....
Dec '10
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
I was really appalled that she seemed to suggest that "the elimination of women" is of concern, but, not so much, the elimination of men?
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
Wow. I hadn't even looked at that angle yet.
It's a horrific statement, no matter how you slice it.
Mar '11
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
Actually, she is correct. In the scheme of things, one person's reason for aborting is no better than another's save for the life of the mother. It's all a matter of 'convenience'. It's not convenient to carry a baby to term while in high school in America regardless of the sex and it's not convenient to have your only child be a girl if you live in China. In fact, I would not be surprised if the latter were more difficult. Does anyone know if girls are more likely to be aborted in America for sex selection purposes as well? I know that's true in China and India
Edited on February 10, 2012 at 1:10amOct '10
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
Gender-specific eugenics is the new face of tolerance; it wrecks me.
It's a bit dated but here's an article I found recently on this.
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
What I find chilling but typical is the liberal's elevation of the aggregate--in this case "eliminating women"--over the individual. Any particular abortion is just fine--it's only a person--while the impact on a group-- "society," "women"--or a concept-- "social justice," "sustainable development"--or any other essentially empty abstraction is placed front and center in the moral consciousness.
Edited on February 10, 2012 at 1:34amRe: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
kgrant67
Does anyone know if girls are more likely to be aborted in America for sex selection purposes as well? I know that's true in China and India · 12 minutes ago
Yes, it is more likely in America as well.
Richard Miniter had a bracing and illuminating article on the subject in Forbes.com:
America's Male Only Child Policy
And we discussed that article on Ricochet too: Eliminating Future Generations of American Women
Jun '10
Re: Director of Planned Parenthood: "I don’t think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women"
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Wow. I hadn't even looked at that angle yet.
It's a horrific statement, no matter how you slice it. · 26 minutes ago
Another thought: the moment you begin to identify fetuses by gender (and then base an abort or don't abort decision on that gender), the less the pro-abortion crowd can claim the fetus is just an agglomeration of cells. They are explicitly acknowledging the humanness of the fetus saying is that one kind of human life is of greater value than another.
The mind boggles at the mental gymnastics required to go down that road.
Edited on February 10, 2012 at 1:26am