The Weak and Revealing Rhetoric of the Pro-Abortion Side

 

I hate clicking on a title like “Abortion is Morally Good,” especially on my first-born’s birthday. But I thought I should. We won’t sway public opinion unless we’re willing to engage the reasoning on the other side. So I clicked, but as far as reasoning goes, I found this article remarkably weak. It’s so weak that I can’t help feeling a little sorry for its author. She reminds me of “Baghdad Bob,” convincing only those who desperately want and need to be convinced. “We are not afraid at all! We will triumph! Pay no attention to those coalition tanks massing on the horizon.”

It goes without saying that to be persuasive, you have to be in reality. You have to come to grips with facts and counter the arguments and witness of your opponents. If all you’ve got to offer is euphemism and caricature, you may manage to rally your demoralized troops for a little rearguard action, but you won’t prevail.

The article full of stuff like this:

When abortion ends a wanted pregnancy, it is one grief-sodden moment in a series of tragedies.

Note the absence of any reference to the baby. What’s wanted (or unwanted) is the pregnancy, not the baby. What’s “ended” is the pregnancy, not the baby. This is dishonest rhetoric. Does a pregnancy get sucked into a tube and thrown into a medical waste bin? Does a pregnancy have a heartbeat? Does it have fingers and toes and the genetic makeup of a completely unique human being?

And what does she mean by abortion ending a wanted pregnancy? I thought abortion was all about unwanted pregnancies. Is she referring to forced abortions? But those would be evil, not tragic, wouldn’t they? Isn’t her side all about choice? Or is she referring to the situation where the mother wants a baby, but not this particular baby, because this baby has a defect of some kind? Is that the tragedy? Maybe it’s got genetic or medical problems? Or maybe it comes at a really inconvenient time? In that case, it’s the particular child that’s not wanted and gets killed and thrown away in favor of a merely potential child—a possible future child, who (hopefully) won’t have such defects.

It’s amazing how even the most ardent abortion advocates can’t seem to spell out what it is they really want and hold. They have to keep it veiled in verbal fog.

But a lot comes through, even so, via projection. For example, speaking of the problem of Democrats ceding rhetorical territory to the pro-cause she writes:

When your enemies pick up your arguments and tolerate your allies in their midst, you can be relatively confident that you’ve achieved the social and political dominance that you’ve worked toward for years.

Evidently, as she sees it, the goal is “dominance,” not justice. So, she’s blunt in calling for total unison among Democrats on the issue. They must all be 100 % gung-ho for abortion. No support for pro-life Democrats seeking office, no tolerance for rhetoric that concedes any moral ground whatsoever to the pro-life cause.

Anything less but the prioritization of women over the pregnancies they carry cedes ground the left cannot afford to lose.

Notice, again, the obfuscatory wording suggesting that what women “carry” is pregnancies rather than nascent human beings.

She offers lots of caricature and contempt when’s she’s describing pro-life people and positions. She twists words to make us seem both vicious and irrational. When she wants to hold up a spokesman for our cause, to show how risible we are, she chooses the 89-year-old Pat Robertson, “who believes that you should pray over anything you buy from a thrift store because demons can hide in the fabric.” When she wants to state our case in a nutshell, she quotes abortion advocate Rebecca Traistor, who puts it like this:

“The imaginary futures — the ‘personhoods’ — of the unborn have taken moral precedence over the adult women in whose bodies they grow,”

Never mind that no pro-lifer ever talks that way. I’ve been pro-life all my 50-plus years. I don’t think I’ve ever come across the term “personhoods” before today. “Personhood” is a term of abstraction. It makes no sense in the plural form. (“Look at those adorable little boyhoods playing soccer with their fatherhoods.”) To oppose abortion is to stand for the right to life of concrete individuals, living human beings, not abstract “personhoods.”  As for the future, it’s unknown and undetermined by definition, but, provided we’re talking about a fetus that already exists, its future isn’t any more “imaginary” than yours or mine.

Nor does anyone in the pro-life movement argue that fetuses take moral precedence over their mothers. (Has anyone ever heard a pro-lifer suggest killing abortion-minded mothers to save their fetuses?) Rather, we hold that no human being is disposable. Each one matters. Each one has inherent value and an unalienable right to life. (Many, though not all of us, believe that individuals who commit violent crimes abrogate that right, but that’s an argument for another place.) Even the staunchest pro-lifers will grant exceptions if the mother’s life is at stake, because our cause rests on the dignity of human life as such. It’s not about who takes precedence over whom. We reject that kind of invidious moral reasoning. We’re about love, not power.

The author makes some concessions. She admits that not all pro-lifers are as odd or idiotic as Pat Robertson. And some of us “do try to deploy science to bolster [our] arguments.” She is even fair-minded enough to say this:

I don’t believe that female pain is a policy goal for all abortion opponents.

Maybe most abortion opponents have female pain as their policy goal, but not all of them.

She’s very concerned about the female pain (male pain doesn’t come into her picture) that might result from the undoing of Roe v. Wade, but apparently not at all with the female pain that has resulted from that decision of 7 men. Even if we set aside the scores of millions of tiny humans (at least half of them girls) who have been killed in the womb in our country since 1973, what about the women who have died or been mutilated in the course of legal abortions, or who suffer life-long bitter regret, or who are pressured into abortions they don’t want by boyfriends or husbands or parents or friends? Doesn’t their pain count for anything? Or does she want to pretend that all the female pain is on one side of this issue?

In the end, she has no argument at all. She only has a flat assertion, unbolstered by any form of reasoning: “A fetus is a possibility, not a person. While abortion can be the tragic end to a wanted pregnancy, it’s never murder.” She doesn’t even try to deploy science or philosophy to make her case. Probably she senses the effort would backfire. Better to caricature, heap contempt on the opposition, talk vaguely and anecdotally about female pain, then make a bald assertion and pretend you’ve been dispositive.

That’s apparently good enough for publication in New York magazine. Maybe they thought it was especially compelling because the author used to be an evangelical. Regardless, it gave this pro-lifer hope that the abortion lobby is on its last legs.

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  1. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    katievs (View Comment):

    If the woman’s life is threatened (as in the case of an ectopic pregnancy), then I agree. It’s a matter of prudential judgement.

    I like to point out that Catholic hospitals are allowed to perform procedures to terminate ectopic pregnancies, but that’s because the intent is to save the life of the mother, not to kill the baby. If the baby could be saved, Catholic hospitals would save both.

    This is the opposite of “abortion,” which has become the “right” to a dead baby.

    Westy,

    Completely agree. Of course, if both the baby and the mother can be saved then the situation of self-defense requiring the death of the baby doesn’t exist. Catholic Hospitals are following the principle properly. As I tried to say in a previous comment, the instance for which the principle of self-defense would be properly employed would be incredibly rare.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #31
  2. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    katievs (View Comment):

    If the woman’s life is threatened (as in the case of an ectopic pregnancy), then I agree. It’s a matter of prudential judgement.

    I like to point out that Catholic hospitals are allowed to perform procedures to terminate ectopic pregnancies, but that’s because the intent is to save the life of the mother, not to kill the baby. If the baby could be saved, Catholic hospitals would save both.

    This is the opposite of “abortion,” which has become the “right” to a dead baby.

    Yes. Catholic ethicists make a careful point of distinguishing between the intention to kill and the intention to save a human being. Killing is permissible (and sometimes necessary) only as an indirect consequence of a saving action.

    I know a Catholic mother of 3 young children who learned she had breast cancer right after she found out she was pregnant with her fourth baby. In such horrible, tragic case, the question of whether or not to pursue treatments that might save the mother, but will kill the fetus is one no one wants to be faced with. Nor is it clear that there’s an objective “ought” at hand. Everything depends on the contingent facts of the situation. How deadly is the cancer? How likely is the baby to survive if the mother refuses treatment? Etc.

    It’s a personal decision. An extremely painful and difficult one.

    • #32
  3. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    katievs (View Comment):

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    The argument over abortion rests entirely on one point of contention, the personhood of the fetus.

    No it doesn’t. It rests on the value and dignity of the fetus as a completely unique, living human being.

    Well you can say that “personhood” is a synthetic concepts, and I agree (after all anything you can’t objectively prove can be labeled synthetic), but it is one that the society at large has because it exists as a legal concept. It is just that like me you would say that being a human is necessary and sufficient for being considered a person. The biology of the matter is clear but biology alone doesn’t necessitate any specific legal standing, it never has because fundamentally the law isn’t about rigorous scientific definitions but vague human emotions of fairness and justice. And while the biology says a zygote is an early developmental stage of a human (or really any vertebrate, and technically speaking every multi cellular organism has the equivalent of a zygote stage) the law says that we don’t feel it is fully a person(a human) because it is so obscure from everyday experience. So the fight about abortion legally is about overcoming the laws hesitance  in declaring that a human and a person are truly synonymous. If the court did make that ruling much of abortion law would have to fall. So the argument is about the legal separability of personhood from humanity, clearly we now have them as legally separable, and that legal separation leads abortion activist to want to argue that this is also both morally and logically true. Because the general popular view is that  logic and morality should dictate the laws. 

     

    • #33
  4. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    katievs (View Comment):

    Valiuth (View Comment):It is just that like me you would say that being a human is necessary and sufficient for being considered a person.

    No, that’s not my argument. Rather, I say that the fact that a fetus is a distinct and unique human being, the natural offspring of the reproductive act of a man and woman, means that it has an unalienable right to life.

    I haven’t said anything about personhood there, have I?

    Nor is it a matter of “vague human emotions”, but rather “self-evident truths”, of the kind on which our country and its laws are explicitly based.

     

    • #34
  5. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    So the fight about abortion legally is about overcoming the laws hesitance in declaring that a human and a person are truly synonymous.

    This is what pro-abortionists would like us to think. They want us to think it’s a tricky question of whom we “ascribe” “personhood” to, and then they say, since, in law, we usually only ascribe “personhood” to entities with agency and responsibility, and since fetuses are too young and undeveloped to have responsibility and agency, they are not rightly deemed “persons” in law.

    This is a diversionary tactic of our adversaries.

    Human rights, according to the foundational dogmas and principles of our society and its laws, are unalienable, and they don’t inhere in functions, but in beings. It’s ontological.

    A fetus is a human being. We know it empirically, through science, and we know it intuitively, through philosophy and experience. (What else could the living, natural offspring of the reproductive act a male human and a female human be?)

    Human rights are endowed by Our Creator, not ascribed to us by law-makers.

    • #35
  6. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    katievs (View Comment):
    Human rights are endowed by Our Creator, not ascribed to us by law-makers.

    Precisely. The Bill of Rights are expressed as negative rights (“Congress shall pass no law”) because it wasn’t in their power to bestow that which every citizen held regardless.

    • #36
  7. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Percival (View Comment):

    katievs (View Comment):
    Human rights are endowed by Our Creator, not ascribed to us by law-makers.

    Precisely. The Bill of Rights are expressed as negative rights (“Congress shall pass no law”) because it wasn’t in their power to bestow that which every citizen held regardless.

    And that which is bestowed can be withdrawn.

    • #37
  8. unsk2 Member
    unsk2
    @

    Catholic doctrine holds that human life begins at conception and that all human life is sacred.  It is also an irrefutable fact that Human Life does indeed begin at conception; all the other arguments about when life begins are abstract arguments about when is it that human life is determined to be a human being.

    Valiuth: “The argument over abortion rests entirely on one point of contention, the personhood of the fetus. If the fetus is viewed as a person its right to life is implicitly guaranteed under our modern understanding of basic human rights. Exceptions to that can be made, both morally and legally but they require some sort of extenuating circumstances and a concurrent infringement or threat to the rights of another human being.”

    This is actually the most conservative thing by far I have ever seen Valiuth write, and without arguing over the semantics of “personhood”, he is essentially correct.  The arguments in the Courts are about when is a baby in the womb granted the full rights of an American Citizen who is guaranteed the right to life under  the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.  He is also right that if the Courts grant full legal rights at the moment of conception to the baby in the womb, legal exceptions would have to be made for rape of the mother or abortion for health reasons based on “some sort of extenuating circumstances and a concurrent infringement or threat to the rights of another human being.”

    Also as Valiuth hints at, this argument over abortion is really not about abortion at all; it is about whether we as a nation still respect the right to the Freedom of Religion and the free exercise thereof, or whether we will succumb to the establishment of an Atheist religion which bans officially religions that object to abortion and/or believe in God. The issue of abortion is then a stalking horse; an issue to push the envelope to make all religiously based objections to abortion illegal and a crime against politically permitted ideas and permitted  speech. 

    The most logical of abortion advocates thus ultimately come to endorse horrific doctrines of euthanasia.” reflects what is now the cutting edge of Far Left thought – that it is now perfectly fine to the Left to not only abort the life of a baby in the womb, but also to abort the life a baby already born and  functioning in the real world.   This new idea of permitted euthanasia exposes the lie that this argument is about abortion, because it is no longer about aborting babies in the womb; it is about the taking of life outside the womb for politically correct purposes and by extension is about obliterating the idea of right and wrong or morals about anything completely. 

    So the issue then comes down to whether we will destroy the concept of the freedom of religion that respects opposing religious views, or do we just impose our own views without respecting others?  

     

    • #38
  9. Scott Wilmot Member
    Scott Wilmot
    @ScottWilmot

    Weak, Revealing, and Stupid.

    • #39
  10. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    unsk2 (View Comment):

    Catholic doctrine holds that human life begins at conception and that all human life is sacred. It is also an irrefutable fact that Human Life does indeed begin at conception; all the other arguments about when life begins are abstract arguments about when is it that human life is determined to be a human being.

    I find your last line there problematic. It suggests there is a meaningful distinction between a human life and a human being, when there isn’t. “A human life” IS, by definition and logical necessity, a human being.

    A distinction between human beings and “persons,” on the other hand, is at least somewhat plausible, since we grant that there is such a thing as non-human persons (e.g. angels, demons, and God). We routinely create and encounter non-human persons in fiction and art. Think of hobbits and elves and aliens and super heroes. And our law “deems” some corporate entities “persons” too, in order to accord them the rights and responsibilities that pertain to a free agent in the marketplace.

    So, we have in our experience and tradition a distinction between the category “human beings” and the category “persons.” In fact though, while there are persons that aren’t human beings, there are no human beings that aren’t persons, just as there are human beings who aren’t men, but no men who aren’t human beings.

    Regardless, there is no meaningful distinction between “human life” and “human being.” It’s a specious distinction concocted solely for the purpose of legalizing the moral crime of abortion (among other moral crimes, including things like cloning and euthanasia), and it flies in the face of the founding principle of our justice system.

    • #40
  11. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    unsk2 (View Comment):

    The arguments in the Courts are about when is a baby in the womb granted the full rights of an American Citizen who is guaranteed the right to life under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

    Again, though, according to our founding dogma and principles, human rights (not the rights of citizens) are not granted by government, but endowed by our creator.

    The government has the authority to grant other rights (such as the right to practice law or to vote or to drive a car on public roads), but not the rights that belong to every human being (not just Americans) by virtue of his being human.

    He is also right that if the Courts grant full legal rights at the moment of conception to the baby in the womb,

    I will keep saying it, because it bears repeating. It’s not “legal rights” that are at issue. It’s unalienable human rights.

    this argument over abortion is really not about abortion at all; it is about whether we as a nation still respect the right to the Freedom of Religion and the free exercise thereof,

    I don’t agree with this. The right to life is not grounded in religion; it’s grounded in human nature and it’s the foundation of our entire system and society.

    • #41
  12. unsk2 Member
    unsk2
    @

    “Again, though, according to our founding dogma and principles, human rights (not the rights of citizens) are not granted by government, but endowed by our creator.”

    Kat, your arguments, while  broadly referencing the Declaration of Independence,  have no basis in our legal Court history and won’t be taken seriously in at our highest Courts.  It would be nice if you would begin to understand that Christianity is in battle for it’s existence and to stop hectoring those who are trying to protect the church by trying to win the politically possible battles and by retreating on those issues where the fight not only doesn’t have a chance, but would seriously harm the church in other battles by overtly inflaming the populace against our existence.  

    Furthermore, I think one should consider that an abortion is a moral choice, and that imposition of harsh penalties for abortion in the manner you suggest likely would negatively inflame that moral choice in the minds of many potential young mothers and cause them to turn away from the moral arguments of the church and towards the easy self gratifying , self centered choice of seeking an abortion. There will always be options to get an abortion; what we should want is to create an atmosphere that reinforces the moral choice of keeping the child, and  to not seek an abortion. Your course of an imposition of a religious dictat, no matter how just you feel it is, because of its’ Anti-American coercive nature is likely to increase abortions not limit them in the end.  Christ’s way was about making the moral choice; Christianity at it’s best was never about imposing it’s will, but about convincing people to make the correct moral choice in the world. It was not  like the Koran where all choices are dictated by the Koran and the word of Allah. 

    To put matters in perspective for my point of view, I live in a state, California,  where the  freedom of religion, and my Catholic Church,  is under serious attack almost constantly.  Just last Sunday, at my church, a former Cardinal thought to be quite liberal,  much to his anguish, informed we  the parishioners that a new state law is being strongly  considered by our radically leftwing legislature that wants to take away the sanctity of the Confessional and require any Priest hearing any inkling of child abuse in the confessional to  immediately by law inform the authorities of the person and details of the abuse. This would violate the whole concept of confession and destroy  one of the Church’s most important sacraments.  But that is just one of many assaults of the freedom of religion in my state. I would wish that those who blabber incessantly and irrationally about the State imposing their ideas of religion on others would consider for once what really would happen if that were to occur. 

     

    • #42
  13. unsk2 Member
    unsk2
    @

    Moderator Note:

    This is both insulting and treating others here in bad faith. Desist.

    Katsiev and Western Chauvinist, You both prefer to cede the  legal high ground and [redacted] and gut the First Amendment’s Freedom of Religion.  The Freedom of Religion demands that we as a nation respect the religious preferences of those we disagree with- neither of you want to respect any other religion but your own.

    You guys and your compatriots on the Left both want to violate the Constitution which reads”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”   You both want to establish a State Religion of your preference and prevent the free exercise of another religion you disagree with,  just like your loony friends on the Left.  [redacted]. 

    What you don’t realize is that the gutter is the Left’s preferred battlefield where they will use any tactic no matter how low and despicable to rip apart religion as we know it. You are foolishly playing with fire. By stooping to their level you will be granting them their fondest wishes. 

    • #43
  14. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    unsk2 (View Comment):

    Katsiev and Western Chauvinist, You both prefer to cede the legal high ground [redacted] and gut the First Amendment’s Freedom of Religion. The Freedom of Religion demands that we as a nation respect the religious preferences of those we disagree with- neither of you want to respect any other religion but your own.

    You guys and your compatriots on the Left both want to violate the Constitution which reads”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” You both want to establish a State Religion of your preference and prevent the free exercise of another religion you disagree with, just like your loony friends on the Left. [redacted]

    What you don’t realize is that the gutter is the Left’s preferred battlefield where they will use any tactic no matter how low and despicable to rip apart religion as we know it. You are foolishly playing with fire. By stooping to their level you will be granting them their fondest wishes.

    unsk,

    I might have agreed with you not long ago. However, we have crossed the Rubicon on this issue. The Democratic Party has openly supported infanticide. Shall we be clear? The Governor of Virginia openly discussed making a decision to kill a baby after it had been born. A bill was introduced in the Senate to stop the murder of the baby when “accidentally” born. The bill didn’t pass and the Governor of Virginia was not forced to resign. They must be called out for this. This issue is no longer about any particular theology but about heeding a moral imperative, whether secular or religious. There is no way to defend Human Rights if you define a human being out of existence.

    Unsk, this is where I sign off on laying back and thereby allowing sick eugenic lunatics go unchallenged. Anyone who is the enemy of these monsters is my ally. Katie and Westy are only stating their own beliefs which is what a free society should be about. Neither tried to stop me from expressing mine. Recognizing a moral red line, one that can be defended both as a secular idea and a religious idea at the same time has nothing to do with establishing a State Religion. Rather it is a defense against a Statist ideology that would murder in the name of progress. They would commit murder simply as a matter of convenience. We’ve seen this before. Keep going down this road and we’ll see it again.

    Regards,

    Jim

     

    • #44
  15. unsk2 Member
    unsk2
    @

    Moderator Note:

    Name calling.

    Jim, I understand your frustration. But if we abandon the Freedom of Religion our cause is likely lost in places like California and many other states, if not the whole country. The Freedom of Religion protects our freedom of worship and it is far and away the best argument we have. One of the reasons the extremists on both sides, like Skylar in Richard Epstein’s post and Katsiev in this one  want  to declare abortion not to be a religious issue is because once it is a religious issue all the protections of the first amendment come into play.  Extremism is then out of line.

    The Left has jumped the shark with their extreme euthanasia ideas just as they have jumped the shark with the Mueller Probe and the Green New Deal.  They look like the unhinged psychopaths they really are.  But when we have [redacted] arguments like that of Katsiev and  Western, the religious begin to  look like the unhinged intolerant puritanical nutcases who will shred Freedom of Religion at the drop of a hat – just the picture the Left wants to paint the religious as. Those [redacted] are playing into the Left’s hands and are inflaming negative religious passions unnecessarily.  We will not win matching the Left’s sicko extremism with extremism of our own. The Overton window of public opinion is slowly moving in the direction of the religious, and if we keep our heads we will likely get one maybe two and maybe even three more conservative pro religious Justices in a Trump Presidency on the Supreme Court  where the real battles of religious freedom will be won or lost.  But if  we indulge in arguments that shred the Freedom of Religion we will hand the Far Left perhaps sufficient ammunition in the coming electoral battles to hand the Supreme Court back to the Left which will likely end all Religious Freedom for good. 

    • #45
  16. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    unsk2 (View Comment):

    Jim, I understand your frustration. But if we abandon the Freedom of Religion our cause is likely lost in places like California and many other states, if not the whole country. The Freedom of Religion protects our freedom of worship and it is far and away the best argument we have. One of the reasons the extremists on both sides, like Skylar in Richard Epstein’s post and Katsiev in this one want to declare abortion not to be a religious issue is because once it is a religious issue all the protections of the first amendment come into play. Extremism is then out of line.

    The Left has jumped the shark with their extreme euthanasia ideas just as they have jumped the shark with the Mueller Probe and the Green New Deal. They look like the unhinged psychopaths they really are. But when we have [redacted] arguments like that of Katsiev and Western, the religious begin to look like the unhinged intolerant puritanical nutcases who will shred Freedom of Religion at the drop of a hat – just the picture the Left wants to paint the religious as. Those [redacted] are playing into the Left’s hands and are inflaming negative religious passions unnecessarily. We will not win matching the Left’s sicko extremism with extremism of our own. The Overton window of public opinion is slowly moving in the direction of the religious, and if we keep our heads we will likely get one maybe two and maybe even three more conservative pro religious Justices in a Trump Presidency on the Supreme Court where the real battles of religious freedom will be won or lost. But if we indulge in arguments that shred the Freedom of Religion we will hand the Far Left perhaps sufficient ammunition in the coming electoral battles to hand the Supreme Court back to the Left which will likely end all Religious Freedom for good.

    So, all I have to do is say that my Religion allows me to kill anyone I want to, whenever I want to; to walk into banks and take as much money as I like; to get into any car I happen to find and drive it away…  And you’ll support that, because Freedom Of Religion?

    Got it.

    By the way, where do you live, and how nice is your car?  I’m just asking for a friend.

    • #46
  17. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Barfly (View Comment):

    I Walton (View Comment):
    The problem is R v Wade et al which were nonsense decisions. They should be the focus. They should be eliminated then it falls to the states.

    This.

    One reason the knot of RvW et al. is so difficult is that it entangles two distinct problems – our individual responsibilities as humans, and our societal arrangements of federalism. The Feral courts arrogated this latter half of the problem to themselves; that was an act of theft that broke the compact.

    Abortion is an intractable problem only because a majority of jurists have been hiding their jackboots under black robes. PDT is doing something about this, God bless him.

    This has to be a classic example of a gaffe, which is “accidentally telling the truth.”

    But I love it!

    • #47
  18. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    unsk2 (View Comment):

    Kat, your arguments, while broadly referencing the Declaration of Independence, have no basis in our legal Court history and won’t be taken seriously in at our highest Courts.

    It would be nice if you would begin to understand that Christianity is in battle for it’s existence and to stop hectoring those who are trying to protect the church by trying to win the politically possible battles and by retreating on those issues where the fight not only doesn’t have a chance, but would seriously harm the church in other battles by overtly inflaming the populace against our existence.

    It would be nice if you would quit condescending and note that I have been engaging in philosophical and moral reasoning, not legal reasoning. And I’m not (here) defending he Catholic position (which I hold), but the just position. If you want to fight a different battle, write your own post.

    Moral reasoning precedes right legal reasoning. Philosophical and linguistic confusion, as well as historical illiteracy, leads to bad law. Philosophically and historically, our system rests on the claim that human beings are endowed with unalienable rights. Our legal system recognizes these in principle, if not always in fact. (cf. Dred Scott.)

    Furthermore, I think one should consider that an abortion is a moral choice, and that imposition of harsh penalties for abortion in the manner you suggest

    Where have I suggested harsh penalties for abortion?

    Your course of an imposition of a religious dictat, no matter how just you feel it is, because of its’ Anti-American coercive nature is likely to increase abortions not limit them in the end.

    I have no idea what you’re talking about here. It has nothing to do with anything I’ve written. You seem very confused.

    • #48
  19. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    Here is something about American society and law: It’s religiously pluralistic. We are free to practice and preach our religion, but not to impose it on others.

    For that reason, debates about fundamental moral issues and problems need to be philosophical, not religious.

    I can quote the Bible or John Paul II’s The Gospel of Life all I like to show that, according to Catholic teaching, every human being is made in the image and likeness of God from the moment of conception and therefore abortion is never justified. But how will that persuade fellow citizens who don’t really care what the Catholic Church teaches?

    So, instead, I try to show that according to the principles and values on which our society and legal framework is based, fundamental human rights, first among which is the right to life, are endowed by God, not conferred by men.

    When men arrogate to themselves decisions of whether and when and to whom they will ascribe the right to life, the result is death and abuse and corruption. See the holocaust; see Rwanda; see, slavery and Dred Scott.

    Fundamental rights are about liberty, not coercion. “Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.”

    In my personal view, abortion should be illegal because it’s immoral and wretchedly destructive of human life and the common good. But I don’t think harsh penalties should attach to the women who resort to it, especially given how commonplace it’s become since Roe v. Wade. I don’t really like (and don’t employ myself) rhetoric that equates abortion with murder.

    Further, I think society can and should do a lot more to protect and help the women who don’t want abortions, but who feel they have no choice, because they’re frightened or poor or alone or whatever.

    • #49
  20. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    NB: Not everything that’s immoral should be illegal, imo.

    I would oppose laws against lying and fornication, for instance.

    But the first duty of the law is to protect fundamental human rights from violence, to protect vulnerable human beings from powerful human beings who want kill them.

    • #50
  21. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    And let me spell this out, too, for those who may be confused:

    Religious reasoning has revelation and dogma among its premises. It’s persuasive only for those who accept those premises on faith.

    Philosophical reasoning relies on self-evident truths, shared experience, and agreed upon facts and principles. Hence, it can be conducted fruitfully among those of differing religious commitments, provided they are intelligent and of good will. It’s key to establishing a just and civil society, especially a pluralistic one.

    Legal reasoning is about the law, e.g. its principles, precedents, history, etc. To engage in it fruitfully, you have to be familiar with those.

    Empirical (i.e. scientific) reasoning relies on self-evident truths plus observable and verifiable material (i.e. physical) facts and principles.

    All sound reasoning relies on insight and logic both.

    • #51
  22. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    Oh, also, Unsk2: Religious liberty is grounded on exactly the same “self-evident truths” about the nature and dignity of human beings that ground the right to life.

    Vitiate one and you vitiate the other.

    • #52
  23. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    unsk2 (View Comment):
    The Freedom of Religion protects our freedom of worship and it is far and away the best argument we have.

    I’m not sure where to start with your argument, so I’ll just pick the most proximate point. This is the Left’s position!! If we have religious freedom at all under this proposition, it will be well contained (and controlled — aka not freedom) within our houses of “worship.” I strongly, vehemently dissent. This is an imposition of the State Religion of Secularism, not religious freedom. If religion doesn’t inform our consciences, encourage virtue, and lead to dialogue about the most important issues of the day (among which the life issue is preeminent), then, to quote Flannery O’Connor, to hell with it!

    California is going to outlaw the seal of the confessional? Good. Let them. This will go to the Supreme Court and we will learn whether there’s anything left of religious freedom. 

    Religious freedom is not about freedom to “worship” (which is only a part of what we Catholics do). It’s about freedom of conscience, which would be in the interests of the staunchest atheist, if he understood it that way.

    My conscience (together with reason) tells me to speak up about the mass slaughter of innocents that is abortion. Why should the law ever make it permissible to commit violence (unto death) against the weak and vulnerable? Every person in this debate knows this is wrong on some gut level. At the moment of conception a new human life is created (if you’re not a believer, it’s not created by God, but by Nature. Fine.). That blastocyst has a complete, unique, unrepeatable, human genome and is in a vulnerable phase of development through which every person debating this issue passed. These aren’t the imposition of religious principles. They’re scientific facts.

    • #53
  24. unsk2 Member
    unsk2
    @

    Western,  I am fighting  for your right to have a conscience and to say  what you believe.  What I am saying is that your lack of respect for other’s Freedom of Religion may doom your own. If the Left takes control of the Supreme Court, which they are hell bent on doing,  you can kiss your right of conscience and ability to worship in the way you want good bye forever.  Your extreme arguments help to galvanize opposition to the Pro-Life movement and all religious.  The Media will use anything they can to exploit  and frame the  great muddled middle’s  perception of the so-called Christian Right ( really anyone who is religious including Jews) as a loony, fringe intolerant group of Puritanical Fascists that will burn non-believers literally  at the stake for heresy if given the chance. Don’t dump fuel on the fire of their crusade to drive away religion.

    If’s just tragic that you think the Court is going to support your Freedom of Religion and save the Confessional when you won’t support and respect other’s Freedom of Religion.  Things are not going to work out that way. Your lack of support for the Freedom of Religion makes it so much easier  for the rabid, radical Left to do away with that freedom as they are trying to with all our freedoms.

    • #54
  25. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    unsk2 (View Comment):

    Western, I am fighting for your right to have a conscience and to say what you believe. What I am saying is that your lack of respect for other’s Freedom of Religion may doom your own. If the Left takes control of the Supreme Court, which they are hell bent on doing, you can kiss your right of conscience and ability to worship in the way you want good bye forever. Your extreme arguments help to galvanize opposition to the Pro-Life movement and all religious. The Media will use anything they can to exploit and frame the great muddled middle’s perception of the so-called Christian Right ( really anyone who is religious including Jews) as a loony, fringe intolerant group of Puritanical Fascists that will burn non-believers literally at the stake for heresy if given the chance. Don’t dump fuel on the fire of their crusade to drive away religion.

    If’s just tragic that you think the Court is going to support your Freedom of Religion and save the Confessional when you won’t support and respect other’s Freedom of Religion. Things are not going to work out that way. Your lack of support for the Freedom of Religion makes it so much easier for rabid, radical Left to do away with that freedom as they are trying to with all our freedoms.

    Whose Freedom of Religion am I disrespecting? I’m not following.

    And I am in no way certain the Court will uphold religious freedom. I just don’t believe you can compromise on something as fundamental as the purpose of the law protecting innocents and still keep your religious freedom, or anything else worth having for that matter.

    It seems to me you are afraid of insisting on the law protecting the right to life and are willing to keep ceding ground until you feel safe. In my opinion, we’ll never be safe from the Left until the End of the Age. And you and I may not live to see it.

    • #55
  26. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    I do not think you and I are in disagreement about what a fetus is and why it has rights. But, it is obviously clear by the current legal and political situation we find ourselves in as a society and nation that there is a large swath of people that does disagree with us about the exact status of the zygote, embryo, and fetus (all different stages of human development). You may not like the concept of personhood, and frankly I am inclined to agree with you that it has really “troubling” roots and it has wrecked quite a bit of havoc throughout the centuries. But nevertheless it exists, and it does not need to be abolished to be made to conform to the truth. The people we have to argue and convince are those who don’t already agree with us, and that ultimately means (I think) showing them how even their own terminology and concepts better conform to our vision of humanity. That is why I say it all rests on personhood. We convince them that personhood and human are logically and morally inseparable we win the day. And ultimately they are logically and morally inseparable, and only a willful emotional irrationality on the part of abortion advocates has created the separation. They feel that a fetus isn’t a human being, because feeling that allows them to advocate for abortion.  

    • #56
  27. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    I do not think you and I are in disagreement about what a fetus is and why it has rights. But, it is obviously clear by the current legal and political situation we find ourselves in as a society and nation that there is a large swath of people that does disagree with us about the exact status of the zygote, embryo, and fetus (all different stages of human development). You may not like the concept of personhood, and frankly I am inclined to agree with you that it has really “troubling” roots and it has wrecked quite a bit of havoc throughout the centuries. But nevertheless it exists, and it does not need to be abolished to be made to conform to the truth. The people we have to argue and convince are those who don’t already agree with us, and that ultimately means (I think) showing them how even their own terminology and concepts better conform to our vision of humanity. That is why I say it all rests on personhood. We convince them that personhood and human are logically and morally inseparable we win the day. And ultimately they are logically and morally inseparable, and only a willful emotional irrationality on the part of abortion advocates has created the separation. They feel that a fetus isn’t a human being, because feeling that allows them to advocate for abortion.

    I understand what you’re saying, but I tend to agree with Katie. If we get bogged down in the “personhood” debate, we lose the thread about just laws protecting the right to life of the innocent. It’s why I prefer to use the less ambiguous terms “complete, unique, unrepeatable, human genome” — because our opponents supposedly agree with the #science. They simply must concede the fact of a complete, unique, unrepeatable, human genome being a human individual in the early stages of development. After that concession, they must justify (rationalize) giving anyone the legal authority to destroy it. “Because I think it will solve my problems” or “Because I don’t want it” become pretty weak reasons to destroy innocent life or for the law to uphold abortion as a “right.”

    • #57
  28. kylez Member
    kylez
    @kylez

    Did you see that last week about the actress Milla Jovovich making a public fuss about her supposed abortion experience, which was actually a removal of her miscarried fetus? What a fool. 

    • #58
  29. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    An ignorant actress?  I’m shocked!  (Not.)

    • #59
  30. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    kylez (View Comment):

    Did you see that last week about the actress Milla Jovovich making a public fuss about her supposed abortion experience, which was actually a removal of her miscarried fetus? What a fool.

    I saw the original article where she said that she had an emergency abortion. It sounded like an odd explanation. Didn’t see a follow-up explaining it was actually what my wife sadly has also had to go through.

    • #60
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