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Warren Buffett – Keeping The Abortion Industry Alive
He’s one of the wealthiest men to have ever lived. The Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate he heads is one of the most expensive stocks to own. And, for years, Warren Buffett has personally donated hundreds of millions of dollars to keep millions of children from living on this earth.
From the Media Research Center, this:
Through the foundation he financed with more than $3 billion of his own money, Buffett donated $1,230,585,161 to abortion groups worldwide from 2001 to 2012. These groups, including Planned Parenthood, NARAL and the Population Council, either campaign for pro-abortion legislation, perform abortions themselves, or helped develop the controversial abortion drug RU-486. Buffett gave an additional $21 million to these groups between 1989 and 1996. (Tax forms between 1997 and 2000 are not available.)
So the $1.2 billion that Buffett gave to these organizations is enough to pay for the abortions of more than 2.7 million babies in the womb. Those figures come from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, which says the average amount paid for a surgical abortion in the United States is $451 for the first trimester. That accounts for the majority of abortions.
To put that in perspective, Warren Buffett donated enough money to abortion groups to perform as many abortions as there are people in the entire city of Chicago.
Warren Buffett, billionaire philanthropist, captain of industry…and merchant of death? A man who has achieved the American dream while helping to snuff out millions of unborn children who might have done the same. What a guy.
I want to play Devil’s Advocate on this one for a second.
As Conservatives, we know that no public policy decision carries solely good or bad consequences – they’re a mixed bag of tradeoffs.
Many conservatives (especially social conservatives) only want to point to the horrible cost that they perceive which comes as a consequence of abortion – this is a position I have some sympathy for – but shouldn’t we at least for a moment consider the possible positive consequences of abortion?
As has been discussed in Freakonomics, I think it is likely that one of the reasons that we saw a marked decrease in crime rates (in addition to harsher sentences such as 3 strikes laws) in the early to mid 90’s is that the cohort of society who would have been reaching the age where they would have been beginning their criminal careers simply weren’t there to commit those crimes.
While I understand that it’s well nigh impossible to tease causation out of correlation from such statistics, it can’t be denied that the vast majority of abortions take place in poor, urban and minority communities where most of this crime emanates from.
Unfortunately that sounds like a Margaret Sanger argument. I think you’re better than that.
The financial cost is not at issue. The human cost is. Private citizens and a government that encourages abortion essentially does not value human life or the individual. Abortion is the unspoken pillar that helps to prop up a tyrranical state.
Brian,
Thank you for bringing forth this information.
What a guy indeed; if I were God, there would be an especially terrible level of hell for people like Buffett.
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have been enthusiastic utilitarianists for quite some time.
I heard this argument in some of my criminology classes in school. While I agree it is an interesting argument I find it fall along the lines of the “If you want to end crime lock up all males from 16-35” wisecrack. Just that in this case we did eliminate a huge number of males from that cohort along with all the bad they might have done we eliminated their potential as well.
I don’t think there can be any doubt that abortion solves a lot of problems. Problems are most of the time caused by people, I’d wager, and abortion gets rid of people.
I think the whole end of civilization is to make life better for each person. Sex is a big deal because it makes new people. Anytime a new person comes into existence, it revises all of our moral obligations. A man and woman are certainly under no moral obligation to create a new human life they are not prepared to be parents for (quite the opposite). But once a new human exists, a new moral obligation is created.
I’m assuming here that human life or human personhood begins at fertilization, which I understand is controversial (I’m not entirely sure why, but it is).
As Mr Buffett loved with his mistress for years while his wife lived across town, I would not mistake him for a moral man. To do that in NY might be acceptable, but in Omaha it is pretty radical . I would align his donations with a socialist megalomania of the sort exhibited by M Sanger and the early school of social engineers, John Dewey Woodrow Wilson, etc. They are being proved wrong by history on a daily basis, but if you have enough you make your own reality to some extent. Having satisfied his business ego, Buffett can now work on his government control ego. Everyone is not moral, everyone is mortal . There are millions who died without sin lined up in Heaven waiting to see who should be admitted.
Robert Zurbin’s book ” Merchants of Despair” gives an excellent foundation to what the elites like Buffet and Gates think and do. Quite an eye opener. Also Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote an excellent piece on how liberals elites “protect” themselves from the masses. If Warren Buffet understands one thing, it is the insurance business, social or otherwise. As hard as it has been for me to accept, I have thrown out all of my Warren Buffet books. Love is dead.
Majestyk #1 “I want to play Devil’s Advocate on this one for a second.”
Today you are playing the devil’s advocate for abortion. Yesterday I heard from a woman who had aborted twice and discovered that she had become dehumanized defending that awful position. She is no longer pro-abortion.
I read of a psychologist who found that people working in abortuaries were like the Nazi camp guards. Each had found people who needed to be dehumanized, and they themselves were dehumanized because they could not recognize the humanity of the people they were killing.
Lets play the devil’s advocate, shall we?
“We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall of Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, “The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.” – The Shining City on the Hill” – Ronald Reagan
I ‘m sure that President Reagan did not envision the remains of aborted children being shoveled into the furnaces of power plants to generate electricity to light the lamps of “The Shining City”
I said I was playing DA, not that I necessarily believe that to be true. :)
Here’s my contention: The conservative movement needs to concentrate upon attempting to limit the number of abortions which take place, and not on an outright ban on the practice. Why? Because politics is the art of the possible. Let me explain.
Here in Colorado the Democrat party has spent a great deal of its political capital aiming at Republican and conservative statewide candidates who were stridently opposed to abortion. They’ve been successful at marginalizing those candidates to say the least.
Colorado is a purplish state – the days when we could elect a rock-ribbed, James Dobson-approved evangelical to statewide office are long gone if they ever were here to begin with.
This technology is not going to be put back in the bottle – the best we can hope for is to keep our hands around it and limit its practice.
Here in Colorado some well-meaning but foolish people managed to get a so-called “Personhood Amendment” on the ballot for a couple of election cycles. This would have had the practical effect of outlawing abortion and many other practices as well.
This Amendment became an effective wedge issue which the Democrats employed to marginalize Republicans who were skewered between being forced into answer the awkward question of whether or not they supported such a radical amendment (thus either alienating them from social conservatives or from moderates depending upon their answer.)
It is the mothers of these aborted fetuses themselves who have made the determination that their fetuses are not the equivalent of people. No moral suasion from our side is going to convince them of that, and attempting to convince them of it by the force of law is going to alienate them from us further.
I would like to point out as well that I think there are a significant cohort of people, even those on our side who will put aside their principled objection to abortion when faced with difficult personal circumstances.
Some studies point to the fact that upwards of 90% of fetuses with Down Syndrome are aborted – now, I don’t believe that Down Syndrome occurs in liberals more than conservatives or almost solely in non-christian households, so the rational conclusion to reach is that there are plenty of people who are conservative AND christian who nonetheless choose to have an abortion if their fetus is diagnosed with Downs’.
I don’t think that this is a choice that I could make. I also don’t think that it’s a choice that I could make for somebody else. I also don’t want the government to make that decision for somebody else at the point of a gun – in either direction.
If we’re going to grant people liberty we run the risk that they may not use it in ways that we approve of.
Staggering sums, incalculable costs…
I find your statistic overwhelmingly sad. My son is mentally-challenged. Many children and adults with Downs Syndrome are much more high functioning than my son may ever be. Unfortunately, unlike many severely Autistic kids, Downs Syndrome children have certain common facial traits that are immediately recognizable. The killing of Downs Syndrome children is a eugenic practice.
I’m no longer a practicing Catholic for many reasons but I find it reprehensible that someone can profess to follow Christ and yet be a party to or encourage abortion. The Catholic Church has been adamant in its teachings on this. Other Christian sects, not so much I fear.
As to liberty – there are certain liberties – like the killing of potential human life to avoid negative social stigmas or for the purposes of eugenically producing “more perfect” children – that should have never been granted. I’m all in favor of rescinding this liberty for murder.
As I said, this is not a choice that I would make. I brought the statistic up as evidence for the fact that Republicans can choose this hill upon which to die – but die they will.
The best we can do is to put a lid on this. Why? Because even people who are generally in agreement with us are unlikely to actually “practice what they preach” when it comes to their own lives. In fact, they will punish candidates who push on this particular button too hard. Add to this the fact that people routinely lie to pollsters – they only seem to tell the truth when they vote.
I would draw a distinction: What Kermit Gosnell did was clearly murder. The use of RU-486 or other abortifacients is not murder. I would stipulate to it being “killing” but not murder, because fertilized eggs and early stage embryos – even zygotes or early fetuses are not people. They are human in that they possess human DNA, but they are not recognized by law as people, and a sizeable majority of voters are unwilling to grant such entities personhood, as demonstrated by the kamikaze petitioners here in CO.
I would agree with them, although I can’t identify a moment at which those entities cross some boundary and they become persons.
Regarding Buffet, the interesting question I think is cui bono? Everything Buffet supports benefits his bottom line in some way. Follow the money.
What my brother said. :-)
I’m glad that I didn’t make that assertion then.
I will say this: you are free to assert that fertilized eggs are people. I would disagree.
However, this is not an issue of “truth” in the sense that we can measure it and determine facts pro and con. How does one even measure the “truth” regarding whether or not a fertilized egg is a “person”? Do they have names? Do they have relationships with other people? Do they have any of the characteristics that we would associate with being a person?
I don’t know if this is the case here. The money that Buffet has given was actually given to the Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation which was the pet project of his late wife. This could just be a dearly held belief of it could just be a man supporting the causes his wife cared about.
Are you really brothers? That’s cool I never drew that connection.
The first point is about consensus isn’t it? Even you have argued that consensus in science is often disproven, yes? Secondly, what are you killing if you kill these early stage human globules of protoplasm? Just the collective cells? Or a potential human being? Should a civilized society place a value on that? Or be willing to dismiss it…you know so, there’s less crime and poverty?
Depending on our moods we may have both been adopted at one point or another…despite the fact that we look an awful lot alike. Okay, yes…fine…he’s my brother. :-)
This sounds like an assertion for consensus but I could be wrong.
I don’t have to assert it. The results speak for themselves. What I’m talking about is political reality vs. your desired outcome.
“In 2008, Personhood USA spearheaded a campaign effort behind another personhood amendment, Amendment 48, also in Colorado. This amendment failed 73.2% to 26.8%.”
And in 2010:
Amendment 62[11]
ChoiceVotes %
No
1,218,490
70.53%
Yes
509,062
29.47%
Total votes
1,727,552
100.00%
The conclusion that I’m forced to reach is that pushing for anything like a complete abortion ban is suicide if your goal is to reduce the number of abortions.
Sometimes the only thing on the menu is half a loaf, and sometimes not even that. This is the Tea Party and the Republican establishment all over again: The Tea Party can sometimes get their candidate, but what looks like a win to them ends up being a loss for the rest of us.
First, I’m not sure that this is an issue of scientific consensus, because as far as I know, science is mute on the subject of personhood. Personhood is a matter of semantics. Out of curiosity I looked up the definition of “person” in my Random House Webster’s dictionary: “1. A Human Being; a man, woman or child. 2. A human being as distinguished from an animal or a thing. 3. the actual self or individual personality of a human being.”
Is a fertilized egg Human? Sure. Is it a man, woman or child? It is clearly someone’s child, but it is not a man or a woman (although it has chromosomes which define its sex.)
But is it a human being? No.
Cont’d from above:
I must ask you then: do you consider it murder for the technicians at a fertility clinic to dispose of fertilized eggs which a couple (who needed help in conceiving) determine they have no desire to use?
What about if a practical method of therapeutic cloning is developed which would allow me to harvest rejection-free stem cells from a cloned ovum of myself for the purpose of repairing damaged organs in my body? Is that also murder? How can one kill themselves and still be alive?
Assigning personhood to fertilized eggs borders on the silly for these and myriad other reasons.
We don’t want to have a society where the coroner and detectives are called out to investigate every still-birth and/or miscarriage – or to oversee the functions of fertility clinics.
That society would be a police state.