I Don’t Get It

 

When a pregnant woman arrives at the abortion clinic in the morning, she’s carrying a living being within her body. The fetus is swimming around in there, making faces, waving her arms, grabbing her piggy-toes, sucking her thumb, as innocent as a human being can be. When the woman leaves the clinic, that kid is dead. Abortion clinics are places where small human beings are killed, one after another, all day long. I don’t approve of blowing up abortion clinics, but I get the logic of it. Blow it up, and fewer babies die.

And I get the logic, too, of murdering an abortion doctor. Again, I don’t approve of it, but I understand it. Dr. George Tiller was an abortion doctor. When Dr. Tiller walked into a procedure room, the human fetus was alive. When he walked out, the fetus was dead. He—the doctor— directly and deliberately killed thousands of human beings; he specialized in terminating the post-viable fetus and made upwards of a million dollars a year doing it. And no, these were not by and large babies destined to die shortly after birth or live agonizing lives as catastrophically malformed creatures. Their mothers did not want them, and were willing to pay, in cash, for Dr. Tiller to kill them. So he did.

He did not find either social mores or the law an impediment to his profitable work:

[…W]e are able to use the wide definition and the full implementation of Roe v. Wade decision which allows us to do post viability terminations of pregnancy. When read appropriately, the Roe v. Wade decision and the Bolton decisions says that, ‘A physician may use his judgement in determining all factors of a woman’s health, physical health, mental health, emotional health, family health, age of the patient, safety and well being.’ That’s the definition in the Roe v. Wade and the Bolton decision… The Bolton decision goes on to say that they understand that this allows wide latitude…”
Dr. Tiller, addressing the Feminist Majority Foundation in 2008

If you believe that abortion is the willful killing of a defenseless human child, then Dr. Tiller was a mass murderer or, as Mother Theresa put it, he was a mass “assassin-for-hire.” Why wouldn’t you want to stop him?

When asked why the Allies did not bomb Auschwitz, the answer boiled down to this: The priority was to win the war.

The pro-life movement wants to win the war. The goal is for abortion to become not just illegal but unthinkable.

Still, it is not hard to see why the more impatient Pro-Lifer might remember that story about the starfish on the beach and think: Okay, I can’t save all of the babies, but I can save the babies who otherwise would’ve died at this clinic, or by this hand, on this day.

What is the logic that drives the pro-choice group Jane’s Revenge to firebomb Crisis Pregnancy Centers, or CPCs?

I’ve been informed that the pro-choice movement is not actually pro-abortion; Pro-choicers want a pregnant woman to be able to choose freely from among her available options. Abortion is supposed to be only one of those options.

Abortion is, however, the only choice supported or enabled by an abortion clinic. Planned Parenthood, while claiming to provide comprehensive women’s healthcare, does not provide prenatal care, does not arrange for adoption, and does not help a single mother with resources for raising her child. Which isn’t too surprising nor even, in itself, reprehensible: Despite its name, “Planned Parenthood” is not about parenthood, it’s about sex. Facilitating, enabling, cleaning-up-after … and that’s okay! A given facility doesn’t have to provide all the choices in order to count itself pro-choice.

However, even before Jane’s Revenge began firebombing Crisis Pregnancy Centers, the abortion industry and its legions of ideological allies have done their best to delegitimize, stigmatize or even outlaw them. Google “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” and the first item to pop up is a warning from none other than Planned Parenthood about “Crisis Pregnancy Centers also known as fake clinics” (together, naturally, with an invitation to Donate to PP!). CPCs have “a shady, harmful agenda: to scare, shame, or pressure you out of getting an abortion, and to tell lies about abortion, birth control, and sexual health.

Doesn’t it seem odd that the Pro-Choice movement objects to the existence of facilities that seek to make women’s other choices more plausible?

Crisis Pregnancy Centers are almost entirely volunteer-run and donor-funded, supported, and staffed at the grassroots. They vary considerably in what they can offer, and it would certainly be possible to find ones that don’t offer much of anything besides exhortations to refrain from aborting an unborn child, but an exhortation —however vehement it might be—is not oppression nor—God knows—violence. Nobody dies at even the worst Crisis Pregnancy Center, and the best are astonishing in the range and generosity of their services.

Human beings are injured and die at abortion clinics. You can deny that a fetus is human or alive and discount its death if you wish, but women have died as a result of injuries sustained at abortion clinics. A human being does not risk a lacerated cervix, perforated uterus, hemorrhage, infection, drug reaction, or septicemia when she submits to the ministrations on offer at a Crisis Pregnancy Center. Nobody is medically injured or killed in a procedure in a CPC, for the very simple reason that “procedures” are not performed there. (Note: “Abortion is healthcare” requires signing off on that old patriarchal-medicine belief that pregnancy is a disease rather than a natural biological process undertaken by a healthy female body).

Sadly, I don’t find it especially mysterious that Planned Parenthood, Inc. objects to “fake clinics”; Every unhappily pregnant woman who chooses something other than abortion takes a piece out of Planned Parenthood’s bottom line. (How amazing, that PP can persuade ordinary people to give them money to “support” what is clearly a money-making operation? It’s as if Walmart went around asking for donations so they could combat the “fake store” run by the Salvation Army.)

This, again, does not mean that a CPC is necessarily a good thing. I think it is, of course, but I don’t object to free ultrasounds, counseling that emphasizes the humanity of the fetus, free referrals to adoption agencies, free diapers, baby clothes, support groups for pregnant girls and women, help with accessing obstetrical care and financial support for new young families and no, I don’t object to the crucifixes on the walls or attempts at Christian evangelism. If you find it horrifying that your local CPC might be telling young women that Jesus loves them and their babies, fine. There is nothing that prevents a Unitarian Universalist church from creating a UU CPC (“we’re not sure anyone loves you, and your baby is a white male and thus destined to be an oppressor, but here are some biodegradable diapers, an organic cotton onesie, and some cruelty-free vegan prenatal vitamins…”).

Even if it’s pushing Christ, it’s hard to see how your local CPC represents the kind of threat to human life that could justify firebombing, even to a fully-fundamentalist Wokester with the now-characteristically Jesuitical conception of what constitutes “harm.”

The same is true for the intended murder of a Supreme Court Justice; When Roe is officially overturned, as it appears it shall be, the question of abortion will return to the states. In some states, that will indeed mean increased legal restrictions on the practice of abortion. In others, abortion will continue as it has all along. Women in anti-abortion states may resort to illegal abortion, but the law will not force them to do so. CPCs will continue to support pregnant women and offer alternatives.

Nothing will prevent Planned Parenthood from continuing to provide what it claims to be 97% of its services in no-abortion states: They can go right on providing birth control and pap smears and the occasional breast exam (Planned Parenthood does not offer mammography, FYI).

Most important, thanks to the First Amendment, nothing will prevent the pro-choice movement from continuing to make its best, most convincing arguments for legalizing abortion on demand through all nine months in each and every state.

Were I still in favor of abortion, I’d like to think I would find the almost-instant recourse to violence on the so-called “fringe” of the progressive left a bit bewildering. After all, as I’ve been repeatedly and recently informed by leftist friends and relatives, the left is the side of non-violence, of peace, of the resolution of problems without resorting to the use of force.

Still, nearly everyone would agree that there are times in which violence or the threat thereof is, regrettably, the only and best option available to those seeking to prevent murder.

This unspoken agreement allows reasonable people to debate whether the allies should have bombed Auschwitz, but it also permits an ordinary, stout-hearted, decent man or woman to earnestly wish he might have been present, with a weapon, at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, and been able to stop or kill Dylan Roof before Roof could kill nine innocent churchgoers.

Wishing to bomb Auschwitz, or shoot Dylan Roof does not make one, even in fantasy, a murderer. That same, ordinary, decent man or woman might even be one so devoted to pacifism as to submit to execution rather than violently resist: There is a necessary distinction to be drawn between a willingness to accept violence committed against oneself, and expecting others to do so.

If you can bring yourself to admit that Dr. Tiller was killing human beings, you grasp (and even share, if only partially) the logic of his murderer. One could argue—I remember doing so, back in my pro-choice days—that the logic is so remorseless that all of us must choose between denying the humanity of the fetus on the one hand and terrorism on the other.

Recognize that the fetus is human and alive, and you are surely honor-bound to defend that little person just as one would feel honor-bound to defend (with violence) Dylan Roof’s victims or the prisoners at Auschwitz.

This is, indeed, a vexing problem for the Pro-Lifer, but it pales in comparison with the problem now revealed, by the advent of Jane’s Revenge on the Pro-Choice side.

What drives Jane’s Revenge? The hint is found in the name the group has attached to itself: Theirs isn’t violence intended to prevent violence. Indeed, the group’s manifesto strongly suggests it is violence for its own sake. Having identified what it considers to be a legitimate target, the violence is even “fun.”

“We have demonstrated in the past month how easy and fun it is to attack…We are versatile, we are mercurial, and we answer to no one but ourselves.

This isn’t logic at all, in fact. It is the same morally moronic motive that drove Dylan Roof to murder nine black churchgoers. The opportunity is motive and motive is opportunity.

Published in Religion & Philosophy
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  1. JoelB Member
    JoelB
    @JoelB

    The fetus is swimming around in there, making faces, waving her arms, grabbing her piggy-toes, sucking her thumb, as innocent as a human being can be. 

    This line particularly struck home because only yesterday I was holding my 10-day-old granddaughter and watching her do these very things.

    • #1
  2. Buckpasser Member
    Buckpasser
    @Buckpasser

    I don’t get it.  The lefties say it’s not really a baby. Do they think it’s an armadillo in there?  I have yet to see a woman give birth to anything but a human child.

    • #2
  3. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    JoelB (View Comment):

    The fetus is swimming around in there, making faces, waving her arms, grabbing her piggy-toes, sucking her thumb, as innocent as a human being can be.

    This line particularly struck home because only yesterday I was holding my 10-day-old granddaughter and watching her do these very things.

    It’s pretty incredible to look at your own grandchild’s ultrasounds…or pictures of a friend’s kid born at 24 weeks…or a newborn, looking around in that bemused way at an out-of-focus, fascinating world…isn’t it? 

     

    • #3
  4. E. Kent Golding Moderator
    E. Kent Golding
    @EKentGolding

    Buckpasser (View Comment):

    I don’t get it. The lefties say it’s not really a baby. Do they think it’s an armadillo in there? I have yet to see a woman give birth to anything but a human child.

    Some of the Progressive Women have give birth to reptiles. Look it up.

    • #4
  5. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    GrannyDude: One could argue—I remember doing so, back in my pro-choice  days—that the logic is so remorseless that all of us must choose between denying the humanity of the fetus on the one hand and terrorism on the other.

    One could. I wouldn’t. I think it is possible to accept the humanity — at least, the humanness — of the fetus, while rejecting terrorism, and to do so from a tenable moral position.

    But that’s a small quibble regarding a terrific post. Well done.

    • #5
  6. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    GrannyDude: One could argue—I remember doing so, back in my pro-choice days—that the logic is so remorseless that all of us must choose between denying the humanity of the fetus on the one hand and terrorism on the other.

    One could. I wouldn’t. I think it is possible to accept the humanity — at least, the humanness — of the fetus, while rejecting terrorism, and to do so from a tenable moral position.

    But that’s a small quibble regarding a terrific post. Well done.

    My point was that it’s a fairly obvious (and uncomfortable) moral problem that isn’t necessarily easily resolved. 

    Thanks, Henry! That means much, coming from you!

    • #6
  7. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    GrannyDude: Were I still in favor of abortion, I’d like to think I  would find the almost-instant recourse to violence on the so-called “fringe” of the progressive left a bit bewildering.  After all, as I’ve been repeatedly and recently informed by leftist friends and relatives, the left is the side of non-violence, of peace, of the resolution of problems without resort to the use of force. 

    Of course, they don’t mean it. They don’t mean it the same way Obama doesn’t really believe in climate change or ending fossil fuels. You can tell because he bought a palace on an island (with catastrophically rising sea levels!! Oh my!) and just got a permit to install 2,500 gallons of propane tanks on his property.

    Leftists do not value truth. And the first victims of their lies are often themselves. Back when I was writing on another blog, I called them the “vampire left.” You can hold a mirror up to them, but they can’t see themselves, because, gosh darnit, they’re just such good and smart people. Just ask them. They couldn’t possibly hold to such wicked beliefs as to justify the murder of innocents! You must be talking about someone else.

    There is one thing that leftists hold as their highest value — power. Sure, PP makes a lot of money killing babies, but the thing about money is, it’s just another avenue to ultimate power. It’s Old Testament biblical — the false promise made by Leviathan to Adam and Eve: you will be as gods. Leftists have so internalized the Big Lie that they’re okay with deciding who lives and who dies. And lying to themselves and others is justified because the Eden they envision is worth any means to achieve it.

    • #7
  8. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):
    You can hold a mirror up to them, but they can’t see themselves, because, gosh darnit, they’re just such good and smart people. Just ask them.

    I think this says something about how human minds work, WC: “If I do this, it can’t be a bad thing because I’m a Good Person, and good people don’t do bad things.” Jesus’ ministry had more than a couple of episodes recorded in which he allowed good people to recognize themselves…oops. “Judge not, lest ye be judged” is really about that vampiric self-blindness.

    It sounds like such a small thing, but Christian doctrine (not to mention history) makes no sense without it. 

     

    • #8
  9. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Excellent post.

    GrannyDude: If you find it horrifying that your local CPC might be telling young women that Jesus loves them and their babies, fine. There is  nothing that prevents a Unitarian Universalist church from  from creating a UU CPC (“we’re not sure anyone loves you, and your baby is a white male and thus destined to be an oppressor, but here are some biodegradable diapers, an organic cotton onesie and some cruelty-free vegan prenatal vitamins…”).  

    When I think of the teasing I did about Unitarian Universalism’s theology before you started posting …

    Leave it that I have no doubt whatsoever that Jesus loves you.

    • #9
  10. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    In high school, I used to support abortion.  I actually wanted to kill mothers along with the babies, because I viewed the hordes of welfare moms firing babies out like a belt-fed machine gun as evil – or more like mindlessly reproducing bacteria.   Welfare moms will make so many babies we all end up living in misery or even go extinct.   The vibe I got was that allowing legions of people mass-producing babies would lead to drowning in criminals etc.

    I had developed this extremely misanthropic view from lots of media portraying the coming population crisis and people being like animals in heat.   The violence of it appealed to me, as I believed the only way to power was violence.

    I think one of the most liberating idea I ran across was the idea that people making babies is not my problem.  I do not bear responsibility for their care.  If another country is starving, that’s not my problem.    We don’t have to take care of them.  Entitlements breed resentment and hatred.

    Add in the fact that the population bomb was bad science, and the best thing for the environment is prosperity, and you have an entirely secular and logical reason to reject my former view alongside the religious reasons.

    I wonder how many of the pro-abortion people share my old views?   They certainly  view abortion like a sacrament, and actually giving birth as an act of idiocy.

    • #10
  11. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    Percival (View Comment):

    Excellent post.

    GrannyDude: If you find it horrifying that your local CPC might be telling young women that Jesus loves them and their babies, fine. There is nothing that prevents a Unitarian Universalist church from from creating a UU CPC (“we’re not sure anyone loves you, and your baby is a white male and thus destined to be an oppressor, but here are some biodegradable diapers, an organic cotton onesie and some cruelty-free vegan prenatal vitamins…”).

    When I think of the teasing I did about Unitarian Universalism’s theology before you started posting …

    Leave it that I have no doubt whatsoever that Jesus loves you.

     

    Psst!  Not just Jesus.  Us Ricochetti love you, too, @grannydude. (:

    • #11
  12. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):

    In high school, I used to support abortion. I actually wanted to kill mothers along with the babies, because I viewed the hordes of welfare moms firing babies out like a belt-fed machine gun as evil – or more like mindlessly reproducing bacteria. Welfare moms will make so many babies we all end up living in misery or even go extinct. The vibe I got was that allowing legions of people mass-producing babies would lead to drowning in criminals etc.

    I had developed this extremely misanthropic view from lots of media portraying the coming population crisis and people being like animals in heat. The violence of it appealed to me, as I believed the only way to power was violence.

    I think one of the most liberating idea I ran across was the idea that people making babies is not my problem. I do not bear responsibility for their care. If another country is starving, that’s not my problem. We don’t have to take care of them. Entitlements breed resentment and hatred.

    Add in the fact that the population bomb was bad science, and the best thing for the environment is prosperity, and you have an entirely secular and logical reason to reject my former view alongside the religious reasons.

    I wonder how many of the pro-abortion people share my old views? They certainly view abortion like a sacrament, and actually giving birth as an act of idiocy.

    I’m in favor of mandatory sterilization with a second abortion.  I’ll let you have one, because everybody makes mistakes.  If you’re stupid enough to get knocked up twice, then we need to take steps to prevent a third.

     

    • #12
  13. Kephalithos Member
    Kephalithos
    @Kephalithos

    There’s a simple answer: The pro-abortion fringe believes that pregnancy itself is violence. Remember, this is a generation which conflates words and violence. If words are violence, what must the burdens, obligations, and risks of parenthood be?

    Just look at what outlets like the Times have been publishing:

    Image

    • #13
  14. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Excellent post.

    GrannyDude: If you find it horrifying that your local CPC might be telling young women that Jesus loves them and their babies, fine. There is nothing that prevents a Unitarian Universalist church from from creating a UU CPC (“we’re not sure anyone loves you, and your baby is a white male and thus destined to be an oppressor, but here are some biodegradable diapers, an organic cotton onesie and some cruelty-free vegan prenatal vitamins…”).

    When I think of the teasing I did about Unitarian Universalism’s theology before you started posting …

    Leave it that I have no doubt whatsoever that Jesus loves you.

     

    Psst! Not just Jesus. Us Ricochetti love you, too, @ grannydude. (:

    Well, yeah.

    • #14
  15. Jimmy Carter Member
    Jimmy Carter
    @JimmyCarter

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):
    If you’re stupid enough to get knocked up twice, then we need to take steps to prevent a third.

    I think after the first, She should have to go before the Board of Responsible Adults and plead Her case for why She should let some dude screw Her outside of wedlock. If the Board decides in the affirmative, then They would also set the circumstances of the rendezvous. But if She has any trysts outside the Board’s directions, then no abortions.

    Same with welfare. As long as She is on the dole, then anytime She wants to engage in the act She has to go before the Board to plead Her case with Who and why. If the Board votes in the affirmative, They set the guidelines. If She ever gets caught not getting permission first or does not follow the Board’s instructions, then all funding stops. 

    • #15
  16. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Kephalithos (View Comment):

    There’s a simple answer: The pro-abortion fringe believes that pregnancy itself is violence. Remember, this is a generation which conflates words and violence. If words are violence, what must the burdens, obligations, and risks of parenthood be?

    Just look at what outlets like the Times have been publishing:

    Image

    I’m confident they neglected to mention the possibility of abortion affecting the body, let alone the soul, forever. Just like they don’t talk about the risks associated with birth control.

    • #16
  17. Cassandro Coolidge
    Cassandro
    @Flicker

    Jimmy Carter (View Comment):

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):
    If you’re stupid enough to get knocked up twice, then we need to take steps to prevent a third.

    I think after the first, She should have to go before the Board of Responsible Adults and plead Her case for why She should let some dude screw Her outside of wedlock. If the Board decides in the affirmative, then They would also set the circumstances of the rendezvous. But if She has any trysts outside the Board’s directions, then no abortions.

    Same with welfare. As long as She is on the dole, then anytime She wants to engage in the act She has to go before the Board to plead Her case with Who and why. If the Board votes in the affirmative, They set the guidelines. If She ever gets caught not getting permission first or does not follow the Board’s instructions, then all funding stops.

    Forced sterilization is a terrible thing.  Having to put off sex until you are in a stable married relationship with a fairly secure income is a good thing.  Repeal all welfare laws effective in 10 months.  All existing welfare children may be grandfathered in perhaps (no pun intended).  But no new welfare payments for mothers of illegitimate children.  Finances will, as was historically the case, limit irresponsible conception.  This is how it used to be, and it worked itself out fairly well, and illegitimacy and government dependency was minimal.

    People of good will can donate to impoverished families, but one should not be forced to through a governmental third party.

    • #17
  18. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Part of my own crude analysis is that the people who favor abortion are, or at least travel with, people whose ideology says that human beings are a net negative in the world. According to this ideology humans use the earth’s resources, are racist and sexist blots on society, and don’t contribute anything useful. If you hold that ideology, you do not want people to procreate, and so you want to encourage as much abortion as possible. It then becomes logical to believe that a pregnancy resource center that helps or encourages more births is causing great harm, and so by destroying that pregnancy resource center, you are improving the world.

    • #18
  19. Cassandro Coolidge
    Cassandro
    @Flicker

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):
    Part of my own crude analysis is that the people who favor abortion are, or at least travel with, people whose ideology says that human beings are a net negative in the world.

    Yes, and that’s what’s wrong with chattel slavery, abortion, and eugenics: people who promote any of these three things, by definition value human life as worthless.  (Except apparently their own.)

    • #19
  20. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    There are many states that give the people a shot at making law through a referendum.  So, rather than wait for the state legislature to ban abortion, the voters can take matters into their own hands and put a referendum up for a vote.   

     

    • #20
  21. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    There are many states that give the people a shot at making law through a referendum. So, rather than wait for the state legislature to ban abortion, the voters can take matters into their own hands and put a referendum up for a vote.

     

    Why refer to the people when you can do like the Colorado legislature and legalize abortion up to the point of the baby crowning. Or, as some of us prefer to say, legalized infanticide.

    • #21
  22. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    There are many states that give the people a shot at making law through a referendum. So, rather than wait for the state legislature to ban abortion, the voters can take matters into their own hands and put a referendum up for a vote.

     

    Why refer to the people when you can do like the Colorado legislature and legalize abortion up to the point of the baby crowning. Or, as some of us prefer to say, legalized infanticide.

    Well, maybe the people of Colorado don’t agree with what their legislature did and want to put up a referendum.  Of course, the voters can throw the bums out of the legislature and the governor’s office too.

    • #22
  23. Mike Rapkoch Member
    Mike Rapkoch
    @MikeRapkoch

    This is one of the best posts I’ve ever read over the ten years I’ve been on Ricochet. Thank you.

    • #23
  24. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    GrannyDude (View Comment):
    I think this says something about how human minds work, WC: “If I do this, it can’t be a bad thing because I’m a Good Person, and good people don’t do bad things.”

    Agree completely. It is self-protection to not look at oneself too closely. And this is one of the main benefits of serious (Judeo-Christian) religion to individuals and society. You are not God. You are not self-created (trans ideology), you’re a creature loved into being. You are a sinner. Examine your conscience daily. Confess your sins and atone. 

    • #24
  25. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    I don’t understand the issue.  Does birth control not work most of the time?  Is the desire to kill the fetus because the person was too stupid to use birth control?  I knew a very bright girl (maybe I should say highly educated, she didn’t strike me as intelligent) who had had at least three abortions.  When she finally gave birth  she smothered the kid with attention and love, I thought way too much.  Don’t know what happened to her or the kid.   Planed parenthood is obvious enough, they make lots of  money and probably have ways to keep disproportionate amounts for themselves or the leadership.   Some are among those who think the planet is too populated and want to do what they can to reduce population expansion. War doesn’t work as well any more as we use high tech and distance so recruiting women didn’t even work.  It’s a dilemma,   Russia is showing us how old fashion war still works and we’re supporting that abundantly.   Of course  poverty and starvation works if it’s massive enough.  Centralization of  massive highly developed economies like the US and they’ll collapse and that will be replicated globally,  probably end up killing each other and going  to war, by necessity, old fashion war, triple whammy.  I suppose that’ll work, then we get to start all over.     

    • #25
  26. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    I Walton (View Comment):
    I don’t understand the issue.  Does birth control not work most of the time?

    Birth control works most of the time but not all the time, even if it’s actually being used (at all, let alone properly). I am happily awaiting a grandson that swam right by an IUD, God Bless him.

    Abortion-as-backup creates an environment in which more people take more risks—engaging in potentially reproductive behavior with people they absolutely do not wish to form a lifelong biological connection with, let alone actually marry.  The pro-choice side keeps bleating about education and availability re; birth control, but these have never been more abundant.  The plan, as I recall it, from my days as a feminist, was that once everyone had learned where babies came from, and everyone had access to birth control, and everyone was relieved of the shame and guilt that prevented them from, say, buying condoms in bulk at Sam’s Club, abortion would become unnecessary. That is not, needless to say, how things turned out. 

     

    • #26
  27. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    I Walton (View Comment):
    I don’t understand the issue.  Does birth control not work most of the time?

    It does.  But no method is perfect.  Whether a barrier is flawed and breaks, or a hormonal method is perturbed by anti-biotics or other suppressant, some women will get pregnant unexpectedly.

    People using birth control have more sex than people not.  Sometimes a lot more.  So if you have a 5% failure rate, and twenty times as much sex, can you guess how that math works out?

    But it is actually worse than that:  when there is no birth control available, women pay attention to their cycles and try to control their (and their paramour’s) desires.  When given birth control, men and women end up relying on it, so the frequency of sex during otherwise fertile times is actually many times the prior rate.  Ergo, introducing birth control with even the tiniest failure rate still results in many unexpected pregnancies.

    Birth control is an enabling technology for sexual libertines, not really a tool to stop unplanned pregnancy.

    • #27
  28. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):
    Birth control is an enabling technology for sexual libertines, not really a tool to stop unplanned pregnancy.

    It also discourages women (and men) from understanding their own bodies and reproductive faculties. It’s a (another) false promise. And the way this has worked out is contraceptives -> unwanted pregnancy -> abortion. The contraceptive mentality is a scourge on “modern” society and, oh btw, the Church was right again. Humanae Vitae was published on July 25, 1968.

    • #28
  29. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    GrannyDude: Google “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” and the first item to pop up is a warning from none other than Planned Parenthood about “Crisis Pregnancy Centers also known as fake clinics” (together, naturally, with an invitation to Donate to PP!).

    That’s interesting.  Google claims that they don’t sell placement in search results.  Before looking it up, I assumed that’s how Planned Parenthood got the top search result.  It’s kind of like doing a search for Alcoholics Anonymous and the top result being a site denouncing AA, and sponsored by Smirnoff Vodka or Budweiser.

    • #29
  30. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    I Walton (View Comment):
    Planed parenthood is obvious enough, they make lots of  money and probably have ways to keep disproportionate amounts for themselves or the leadership.

    I’m pretty sure Senator Tina Smith from Minnesota pulled millions out of Planned Parenthood. 

    They have been exposed for having quotas at least twice. They need people to screw up and then they power-close them on an abortion because they have overhead to meet. The clinics don’t really do anything for revenue except abortion. Then they have to pay lobbyists in Washington D.C.  Apparently, the executives make a lot of money. etc. 

    • #30
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