Posted on 04/14/2004 1:56:28 PM PDT by NYer
looks like a tagline to me...
2. "I'm personally opposed to serial killing, but ..." can often focus the mind of the person to whom you are speaking where it needs to be, on the reality of the act being defended!
3. "So, serial killing of alive human beings should be safe and legal? I'm sure Jeffrey Dahmer--and if they were still alive, John Wayne Gacey and others-- will appreciate that sentiment. Are you fishing for votes, as Clinton was when he issued that absurdum?"
4. "Embracing your child is far and away the better action when contemplating the hiring of an institutionalized serial killer. Giving yourself absolution is still deadly to the alive child you contemplate slaughtering."
5. "Ah, so you have reinvented the Almighty to be a god of bloody sacrifice to be repeated over and over, negating His sacrifice of His only son?... Do you expect congratulations on this cosmic coup?"
'Clark claimed to oppose all restrictions to abortion, up to the point of complete delivery. After fumbling for a moment with a follow-up question about where life begins, he replied, “Life begins with a mother’s decision ..." ' Ahh yes, that's the dnc's smartboy, the clinton's gambit, the bankrupt soul of the dnc on dispaly. But the media ... well, you get the gist.
NYer, I apologize for the coarse nature of this post, but I could contain the words no longer. The DNC is founded and drenched in the blood of the innocent, and they are not particular regarding the age of their sacrifices either, from alive unborn babies to pregnant teens to our Soldiers fighting in Iraq against terrorism.
I perfectly understand! Thank you for your comments; they are most appreciated and valued.
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This accounts for most of the logic used by supporters of abortion. Selective perception seems to rule the way so many of us lead our lives.
Related ...
A. If abortion is restricted, women will again die by the thousands from dangerous back-alley abortions
1. This argument begs the question: it assumes the unborn are not human. Otherwise, this argument is tantamount to saying, "Because some people will die attempting to kill others, the state should make it safe and legal for them to do so." As Professor Schwarz points out, this is not really an argument for abortion (i.e. it does nothing to show that abortion does not murder a child or that the choice being offered is morally justified), but is a kind of veiled threat: "Give us choice or else!" Its appeal is psychological, not moral. (The Moral Question of Abortion, Loyola University Press, 1990, p.141)
But inciting fear over the consequence of restricting an evil behavior hardly justifies that behavior. To cite a recent example, racists once argued that equal treatment for blacks would result in terrible riots and cause untold suffering among law abiding citizens. But this in no way proved that blacks did not have equal rights or that a policy of racial discrimination could be morally justified. The same is true with abortion, as pro-abortion philosopher Mary Anne Warren, questioning the validity of the back-alley argument, readily admits:
The fact that restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects does not, in itself, show that restrictions are unjustified, since murder is wrong regardless of the consequences of prohibiting it. ("On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion," in The Problem of Abortion, Joel Feinberg, et al, Wadsworth, 1984, p.103)
2. The claim that thousands of women died annually from illegal abortions prior to Roe is completely false and cannot be supported by any reliable statistical data:
• In 1972, the year prior to legalization, the Centers for Disease Control recorded 39 deaths from illegal abortion, not 5,000 to 10,000.
• Dr. Christopher Tietze, a leading pro-abortion statistician for Planned Parenthood, The Centers for Disease Control, etc., calls the claim of 5,000-10,000 deaths a year prior to legalization "unmitigated nonsense." Noting that 45,000 women of reproductive age die each year from all causes, Tietze states, "It is inconceivable that so large a number as 5,000-10,000 are from one source" (Harvard Divinity School, Kennedy Foundation International Conference on Abortion Washington D.C., 1967. See also Scientific America, Vo1.220 [1969] pp.21,23).
• Dr. Herbert Rather, a Public Health expert, noted in 1968 that 25,000 women die each year from cancer, lung and heart complications while 7,000 die from auto accidents. These figures do not even account for all the other possible causes of death. Rather told Child and Family magazine (Winter, 1968) that given these statistics, the claim of 5-10,000 deaths a year from illegal abortion was nearly impossible.
• Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL):
"How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In NARAL, we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter, it was always '5000 to 10,000 deaths a year.' I confess I knew the figure was totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the morality of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of the way to correct it with honest statistics. The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done was permissible" (Aborting America, Doubleday Pub. p.193)
3. Prior to Roe, the number of abortion related deaths had been declining steadily:
• Dr. Andre Hellegers (late Prof. of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Georgetown University) pointed out in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee (April 25, 1974) that improved medical care and use of penicillin resulted in a drop from 1,231 deaths in 1942, to 133 deaths in 1968.
• Dr. Thomas Hilgers and Dennis Horan compiled a highly reliable study in 1981 using data from the U.S. Department of Vital Statistics. They note that deaths from illegal abortion dropped from 501 in 1940, to 58 in 1970. (Hilgers, et al "An Objective Model for Estimating Criminal Abortions and Its Implications for Public Policy," in New Perspectives on Human Abortion, University Publications, 1981).
4. There is no reliable statistical data to support the claim of a million illegal abortions a year (in the U.S.) prior to Roe:
• Reasonable estimates range between 39,000 and 210,000 annually, with a mean of 98,000. (Hilgers,et al New Perspectives on Human Abortion ).
• Daniel Callahan (pro-abortion researcher from the Hastings Center): "The plausibility of the very high estimates of illegal abortions each year does not appear very strong." (Abortion: Law, Choice & Morality, Macmillan, 1970 p.135)
5. Even abortion advocates admit that prior to Roe, abortions were not performed by doctors with rusty coat hangers:
• In 1960, Mary Calderone, then medical director of Planned Parenthood, pointed out that Dr. Kinsey had rightly demonstrated that 84% to 87% of all illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians in good standing with the law. Writing in the American Journal of Public Health (July 1960) Calderone stated:
"...90% of all illegal abortions are done by physicians. Call them what you will, abortionists or anything else, they are still physicians, trained as such; and many are in good standing in their communities. Whatever trouble arises usually comes after self-induced abortions, which comprise approximately 8 percent, or with the very small percentage that go to some kind of non-medical abortionist. Another corollary fact: physicians of impeccable standing are referring their patients for these illegal abortions to colleagues they know are willing to perform them."
• According to Kinsey's research, only 8% of all illegal abortions were self-induced. Of those abortions that were operative in nature (i.e. involving the use of surgical instruments--knives, probes, etc.) only 1% were self-induced. The other 9% of self induced abortions involved less hazardous methods (Paul Gebhard, et al, Pregnancy, Birth and Abortion, Harber & Brothers, 1958, pp.194,197. Gebhard was Kinsey's chief researcher).
• Kinsey researchers conclude by downplaying the exaggerated dangers of illegal abortion:
"In our sample, ill effects after an induced abortion appear less frequently than had been previously assumed." (Gebhard, et al p.214)
"There is a considerable quantity of material in the literature concerning the horrors of abortions and their deleterious consequences. Our own data shows that in three fourths of the white non-prison sample cases there were no unfavorable sequelae of any sort reported. Among single women about two thirds reported no unfavorable results, whereas among married women, 82% reported none." (p.212)
6. Current restrictions on abortion have not resulted in death or injury to women. When the Hyde Amendment cut off federal funds for abortion in 1976, liberals worked themselves into near hysteria claiming that poor women would die by the thousands from back-alley abortions. A literal bloodbath was predicted. But in 1978, Dr. Willard Cates of the Centers for Disease Control (who had done much to create the hysteria) conceded rather candidly, "The bloodbath many predicted simply is not happening. Our numbers don't show that there has been any mass migration to illegal procedures." (Washington Post, Feb. 16, 1978)
7. As Stephan Schwarz points out in The Moral Question of Abortion, the true response to back-alley abortions is to be outraged at all abortions, to condemn all abortions--not to propose one kind (legal) in place of another (illegal).
B . Women will still seek abortions, despite the law. Hence, it's best to make sure they can do so safely and legally 1. This argument begs the question: it assumes the unborn are not human. Otherwise, the abortion advocate would be arguing, "Since some people will murder others anyway, despite the law, the state should make it safe and legal for them to do so."
2. It is trivial to claim that because the law cannot stop all abortions, prohibitions should not exist:
• Laws against rape do not stop all rape, but no one is arguing that we should repeal these laws.
• Laws against drunk driving do not stop all drunks from driving under the influence, but it's hard to imagine someone arguing, "People are going to drive drunk despite the law, so let's make it safe and legal for them to do so."
• Laws banning racial discrimination are hard to enforce and are often disobeyed. But that hasn't led the NAACP or the ACLU to call for their repeal. Instead, these organizations continue to call for more tax payer money and tougher laws to fight both real and imaginary racists.
The fact is that no law can stop all illegal behavior. Hence, the issue is not, "How many people are breaking the law?" but "Is there a sound moral principle (such as protecting human life) that justifies the law?" If there is, the law remains valid in principle despite widespread disobedience. Writes Professor Schwarz:
Perhaps what the objection has in mind is that there would be widespread resistance to outlawing abortion. That should not be a factor in deciding law. "We will protect you as long as it is not too difficult to do so, as long as it meets with popular approval." Imagine saying this to a minority suffering discrimination. Persons must be given equality before the law because it is demanded by justice, not because (or only if) it is easy. (Moral Question of Abortion, p.209)
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