Wow. Nice table, and nice summary of issues on viewing it as a wake-up call. I think that the pro-life response will be dismissal, as it seemed to have turned out in the comments to one of my older posts. Their thinking seems to stop at making abortion illegal, without thinking too deeply about the implications.

Posted by RSA on March 22, 2006 10:27 AM Link to comment

RSA,

You are just wrong. I am the one who made the comments. The fact that I am more concerned with stopping the killing of infants rather than trying to convict an abortionist who has the law on his side does not equate dismissal or shallow thinking. As a matter of fact, those who fight to keep abortion laws in place appear to be guilty of shallow thinking. It isn't shallow, however, it just appears that way on the surface. In reality, it is well thought out.

I have seen diversion tactics used in politics before but NEVER have I seen a group use them as effectively as liberals have done with this issue. What would it take to get a liberal to focus on the child? Every attempt to focus the general public's attention on the aborted child is met by a diversion technique.

For a long time I did not stop by this web site due to the poor choice of sources for information that was made by the authors. This one issue is something, however, that I really would like to see Americans get behind, drop the politics and get busy first and foremost shutting down abortion "clinics". I use the term "clinics" in an effort to remain polite. Abortions that are done to save the life of a mother are extremely rare and would never be enough to support a "clinic". Once we have stopped the deaths, then we could focus on the legal issues of abortionist who break a law once it is in place. Right now they are completely within the law. You want to go off into left field discussing what will we do if someone should break a law that is not in place???????

As for today's post, we could debate for years on what is the best way to prevent teen pregnancies and how to best educate our children concerning sex education. Abstinance vs. use of birth control, parental notification, etc.is all being debated as infants die. It would be comical if it were not so tragic and to blame that on those who would have it stopped today - now that is shallow thinking!

Posted by Jan on March 24, 2006 08:12 AM Link to comment

You are right... failure to discuss the answer to those questions in depth - to talk about the implications in depth - may not indicate that you have failed to think deeply about them.

It may only mean that you prefer not to let people know what you think about them.

But, let me answer this charge:

You want to go off into left field discussing what will we do if someone should break a law that is not in place???????

That's not left field.

First, virtually all criminal laws have recommended penalties associated with them. Who is going to quit having or performing abortions if the law against them doesn't have a penalty? So, yeah -- you have to know what kind of penalty you are talking about in order to have the law in the first place.

Second, even if you have personally made up your mind that abortion is murder - or that it isn't - and are therefore willing to treat the "crime" as murder (or unwilling to, as the case may be), if you want laws against it, you have to be willing to talk about what kind of crime it is. Is it murder, or not? If you want to convince the rest of us it is, shouldn't you at least act like you believe it yourself?

You know, never (or so rarely that the cases have escaped my attention) has abortion been illegal because people believed it was murder. In the nineteenth century, it was made illegal in the U.S., merely because doctors found it distasteful and irreputable, and they didn't want the reputation of their profession tarred by association with it. And, they criminalized it in the same way you would expect from a "blue law" type criminalization. No doctor who defied the ban was hanged in public, or jailed for life. Even the people in the past who have criminalized abortion didn't think it was murder.

So to criminalize it as murder now takes some convincing - it's a novel concept. You can't just go with the "everybody knows its murder" argument - because not everyone agrees with that view.

I believe that most people, on considering deeply the ramifications, weighing them against whatever reasons might be presented in favor of the view, will reject the idea that abortion is murder. That's why I and others have posted the chart. I notice that you didn't quarrel with any of the characterizations of the chart - it is accurate. And, it could be extended...

The ramifications - if abortion is "murder"... and abortions to save the life of a woman are "justifiable homicide" - are great. It means that I could force women to bear my children against their will, in a number of ways. For those weak-minded enough, I could get them too intoxicated to care about the consequences should they succumb to my advances. For those not well enough protected, I could impregnate them by force. It also means a population boom - especially in the poorest and least educated areas. Those who are too uneducated and/or poor to provide for proper contraception will be burdened with even more responsibilities, and their children will suffer as a result. This isn't to say that abortion cannot be murder, simply because thinking of it that way harms families... it just means that you ought to be darned sure of your viewpoint before you act on that belief - because if you are wrong, then you are harming families needlessly. And, honestly, I've seen very little thoughtful reasoning about why we should consider abortion to be murder. In RSA's old post, "Lady Liberty" said that "Only God gives life, and only God can take it away" (Tell that to the IVF labs!... and Catholic families!). But she doesn't really believe that. Only God gives animal life, but she doesn't believe that only God can take it away. God gives terrorists life, but she doesn't believe that only God can take it away. Only God gives life to the innocent human children (and fetuses!) that live near terrorists, but she doesn't believe that only God can take it away. In fact, she doesn't mean that "only God gives life, and only God can take it away". In RSA's other post, you said that "life" begins at fertilization -- you stated that as fact. But, the fact is that fertilization is just the recombination of DNA between two living cells. Those two cells are themselves reorganizations of already existing living cells. So, life really began long, long ago... And every time one sperm and one egg are flushed down a toilet, there goes the exact same thing as a freshly fertilized zygote.

The crucial question is 'under what circumstances are killing wrong?', which is the same as 'under what circumstances is killing murder?'. And really, that question can only be answered when we understand why we think "murder" is wrong in the first place. Some people believe "murder" is wrong because their Holy Scriptures say so. But that reason isn't quite good enough, because most people believe that "murder" is wrong no matter what Holy Scriptures they use - or even if they use none at all... and because the Holy Scriptures are rarely specific in defining what constitutes murder, or why it is wrong. So the important question must be answered morally, not religiously. That requires a moral definition of murder - which, in turn, requires a moral definition of personhood (since murder requires a victim).

So, where is the moral definition of personhood that compells us to consider abortion murder? Where is the moral definition of personhood that forces us to treat an aborting woman, her doctor, and the friends or family who collude with her as conspirators to murder? Where is the moral definition of personhood that makes men free to use women as baby factories? Where is the moral definition of personhood that makes it necessary for a woman already struggling to feed and educate her children to add another to the passle?

So long as you haven't given such a compelling moral definition, you haven't done your part in the debate, and your views should not be considered past your singular vote in the ballot box.

So long as you haven't given such a compelling moral definition - and accepted the ramifications of that definition, such that we believe at least *you* are compelled by it - then what use are your views, and why should anyone believe you have thought deeply enough about it that your opinion should have weight when so much is at stake?

Posted by smijer on March 24, 2006 08:41 PM Link to comment

If you believe that abortion is murder, will you demand the same criminal penalties for aborting doctors and women as are applied for other murderers?

Speaking of courage of one's convictions: if one does not think that it is a life, then if I shot a woman who was 8 months pregnant in the stomach - killing the fetus - that person should push for my being charged just the same as if I'd shot her in the knee. Not one scintilla of difference in the charges/penalty would be in order. After all, it's not a life - just a bunch of tissue cells.

Posted by RW on March 24, 2006 10:31 PM Link to comment

RW - maybe the same penalty as if you shot a person in the genitals. Reproduction is a matter of great individual and social import - greater than walking w/o limp. Part of the answer to the question of "is it a life", is whether the woman who bears it thinks of it as such. Even then, murder charges for ending a pregnancy by violence are out of order. Something along the lines of rape charges may well be - it is a violent interference in that most private of matters after all, and of great human and psychological import.

Posted by smijer on March 25, 2006 01:24 AM Link to comment

Part of the answer to the question of "is it a life", is whether the woman who bears it thinks of it as such.

Really? An entity can change from a clump of tissue cells to a life upon the whim of a woman's feelings for that particular day (and don't we all know that women never change their mind)? So it is entirely reasonable to you that a woman could think of herself as nurturing a blossoming life thru the second trimester, have the name ready & the bassonett in the child's room ready for the vacancy to be filled & should the father decide to be a chump and up & leave and thus the woman suddenly "think" that the fetus therefore became a burden & decided to terminate things (as is her right in many states), it therefore suddenly metamorphasized from life-to-not-life?

The post that I commented on pertained to people having the courage of their convictions - sort of an instance of "calling out" various pro-lifers who are ardent in their belief that any abortion is murder (a belief that I don't share, but that's beside the point). The stance of "well, it may or not be a life, it all depends on what the woman in question thinks" seems to me to be anything but standing by some conviction...rather, it seems to be an abdication of an entire ideology to how any particular pregnant female feels at that moment.

Brother, if we were making laws based on my wife's thoughts/feelings during her pregnancy, we'd have a nation of outlawed men, mandatory midnight feedings and officewear that was entirely made up of sweatpants. :)

Seriously, though, all I'm saying is that decaring that one side adhere to a strict policy that is set forth is one thing.....deciding that your own side adhere's to nothing other whan "well, whatever she says" is basically saying "my feelings on the matter are that of a husband: she says what we're going to do".

Good for a husband who wants to stay off the couch, but not ideal for the reciprocal to "unless they answer my pointed questions, they don't have the courage of their convictions", in my opinion.

That said, you do have some good questions, and ones that show a distinct hypocrisy amongst many factions of the pro-life crowd. Makes me think I should post on the matter. (then again, whose mind is ever changed on the subject of abortion?)

Posted by RW on March 25, 2006 08:21 PM Link to comment