Posted on 07/21/2022 1:29:35 PM PDT by Morgana
Too often, political debate resembles nothing so much as King of the Hill, a mad dash to see who can claim for themselves the coveted label of “mainstream” and condemn his or her foes to the “fringe.” Activists and partisans almost value the perception that their views are “safe” more than they value actual moral correctness or intellectual consistency.
Case in point: on Sunday, the Washington Monthly’s Ed Kilgore warned that pro-life activists are more extreme than an unsuspecting public would ever imagine:
[M]ost of them want to ban not only every single clinical abortion, but also devices and medications that most Americans consider contraceptives.
That’s most obvious with intra-uterine devices or “Plan B” pills, which the Catholic Church, among others, have long labeled as “abortifacients” because they operate to prevent implanation of a fertilized ovum in the uterine wall. But for a growing number of anti-choicers, “abortion” includes any oral contraceptive that might affect post-fertilization implantation.
Notice anything missing? Like, say, an explanation for why it would be incorrect to classify implantation-effecting contraceptives as abortive? Kilgore avoids going there simply because the difference is semantic, not substantive. Despite the conception-vs.-fertilization shell games pro-aborts try to play, preventing a fertilized egg from implanting kills a live human being just as surely as vacuum aspiration.
You can argue pro-lifers’ case against abortion, of course, but you can’t argue that one is abortion and the other isn’t, or that our motivation and logic aren’t equally valid in both cases. Why is it “extreme” to be honest about multiple procedures doing the same thing?
This convergence helps explain the ferocious assaults on Planned Parenthood, which was promoting contraception long before it operated abortion clinics.
Um, if the whole “operated abortion clinics” thing is right there in Kilgore’s own sentence, then what’s there to explain? Isn’t his whole point that pro-lifers are becoming more extreme by conflating abortion with birth control? If Planned Parenthood also engages in the practice that it’s presumably less extreme to oppose, then opposing Planned Parenthood can hardly be evidence of pro-lifers’ lurch to the far right.
And it also contributes to the willingness of conservative evangelicals to work hand-in-glove with the Catholic bishops,on a “religious liberty” campaign which draws much of its heat from the claim that religiously-affiliated organizations are being forced to subsidize or provide “abortifacients” that most Americans just consider birth control.
Or it could just be that evangelicals and Catholics honestly – and correctly – believe that the Obama administration’s contraception mandate really does infringe on their religious liberties. But then, that would require admitting that it’s possible for pro-lifers to have sincere, well-intentioned disagreements with their liberal betters. Crazy, I know…
Beyond their slippery definitions of “abortion,” such allies are also inclined to associate all forms of contraception with a sexually permissive culture that they deplore as corrosive of the proper “biblical” patriarchy, and/or as a “secularist” assault on the very legitimacy of religion.
This is a very, very popular talking point among abortion apologists, but over the years I’ve found that they can never sustain it in the face of a very simple follow-up: what pro-life politicians, activists, or organizations have proposed any sort of legislation to prohibit or punish the sale and/or use of non-abortive birth control?
Usually I get one of two answers: crickets or name-calling.
“Extreme” is a word with very different implications depending on what definition you’re using. If we’re simply talking about the gulf between pro-lifers and majority opinion, then sure, pro-lifers can be seen as “extreme” in the strategic sense on some things (but not as many as pro-aborts would tell you). But when it comes to any meaningful sense of the term – extreme deviations from sound principle and clear logic – then Ed Kilgore and his allies are the only extremists in the game.
Pretty extreme
Life begins at fertilization. This is a simple fact.
Actively destroying that life is murder. That too, is a simple fact.
I don’t see what else there is to the discussion.
Yea I know Jim but from now on start paying attention to the stuff I’ve been posting. Like for over 10 years now. There is some really evil stuff out there.
The ultimate oxymoron.
Some people have been on “the Pill” for years, think of themselves as righteous and responsible, don’t know (or refuse to acknowledge) that their “Pill” doesn’t prevent conception but instead prevents an already conceived person being implanted in their uterus ... when faced with the truth, they merely screech and holler. You’ll see a lot of that on this thread.
It's a deliberate lie by the abortion and pharmaceutical industries.
“Some people have been on “the Pill” for years, think of themselves as righteous and responsible, don’t know (or refuse to acknowledge) that their “Pill” doesn’t prevent conception but instead prevents an already conceived person being implanted in their uterus ... when faced with the truth, they merely screech and holler. You’ll see a lot of that on this thread.”
Thank you NM
“It’s a deliberate lie by the abortion and pharmaceutical industries.”
NO NO it says on the print out of The Pill it does, or should I say “may” cause a fertizlized egg to miscarry but how many women really read that?
“Ed Kilgore warned that PRO-LIFE ACTIVISTS are more extreme than an unsuspecting public would ever imagine”
You could easily substitute pro abortion activists in the same hole and talk about late term abortion, partial birth abortion, and now the talk about killing a birthed child as much as a week after birth. One is saving lives from the instances of questionable motives of self center birthing machines that only consider their own entertainment and not the responsibility of their acts of failure to the conception they produce. And the other is just flat killing people that have not provided anything but existence trying to cover it up with situations of rape, incest, medical hazards of the mother or child.
What they fail to display is the mother or father not wishing to take the responsibility of their act because they are not ready, or not financially prepared, or any one of a few reasons that has nothing to do with other than a copout.
You can’t fix irresponsible. But does being so alleviate irresponsible from being accomplice to the murder of an unborn, partially unborn, and now possibly under the week later situation, born child?
Irresponsible needs to understand there will be punishment from the outcome. And it should be just as harsh as anyone ignoring common sense and causing a life to be lost for nothing. If they can conceive, then they have the capacity to understand they shouldn’t. Even the youngest understand punishment. And they can’t be that young if they can accomplish conception.
wy69
The Patriotic Right needs to get out of the "shock and awe" of the Left including the despicable Women's Movement, and start defeating them.
Fertilization does not equal implantation; implantation is not guaranteed (not including post-implantation miscarriages). So, what is it called when a fertilized ovum is naturally flushed from a woman's body unimplanted?
-PJ
Agreed. You see a lot of that screeching and hollering everywhere.
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