Posted on 01/02/2005 2:22:18 AM PST by Liz
--SNIP--
I found "The Cost of Choice," edited by Erika Bachiochi unpleasant and occasionally annoying — and I read every word.
That's because, despite its rigorous pro-life stance, the book brings new observations and depth to a subject that is usually treated as black and white.
Don't misunderstand: This is not an on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand book — it trumpets many of the classic hobbyhorses of pro-lifers — that the Roe decision itself was an abortion of responsibility and federalism, that its prominence in the agenda of womens' groups has itself "hijacked" feminism and that abortions themselves are an act against women.
At times, the book loses its way, veering into the sort of foamy vitriole that throws everything but the kitchen sink at pro-choicers, painting them all as promiscuous man-hating man eaters. Among the inane charges leveled at Planned Parenthood in the essay by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese is that the group has been "encouraging underage girls who engage in sexual relations with older men . . . to lie about their and their partners ages."
But contrary to the charicatures, a large swath of Americans fall somewhere in the middle on the abortion issue, as a matter of morality, or a matter of law. As the recent Congressional measures on partial-birth abortion have made clear, many people believe abortions should be legal, but limited — falling into the category best articulated by Bill Clinton as "safe, legal and rare."
The question really is where those limits belong, precisely. Should we accept the practice of aborting babies because they have been pre-screened for genetic defects, with all its attendant echoes of Nazi eugenics?
--SNIP--
THE COST OF "CHOICE": WOMEN EVALUATE THE IMPACT OF ABORTION
EDITED BY ERIKA BACHIOCHI
ENCOUNTER BOOKS, 180 PAGES, $17.95
E-mail:
clevey@nypost.com
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Unfortunately, this is true, despite the reviewer's unwillingness to believe it.
Understandably, any discouraging word about Planned Parenthood is always greeted with dismay.
But that's because PP----operator of the largest chain of abortoreums in the nation---and the architect of legalized abortion----operates under the veil of "tolerance and compassion" and uses PR techniques---all subsidized by taxpayers----to manipulate public opinion.
When young girls impregnated by adult males show up at a PP clinic, PP has the responsibility to report these pregnancies to law enforcement.
PP has never reported even one adult male for impregnating a minor (even though not reporting one's knowledge of a crime is a crime).
It's time to have debate about abortion in this country. There's been very little. Anyone voicing any opinion other than the two opposite ends of the issue are quickly silenced.
I'm confused. Why should they be "rare"? If there's nothing morally wrong with abortion, this is akin to stating that face lifts should be "safe, legal and rare." Why should the popularity of a morally neutral act be restricted? Is this on some unspoken aesthetic grounds?
Even the most ardent abortion enthusiasts recognize, if only fleetingly in the peripheral view of their dormant moral sense, the non-neutral nature of their cause. "Safe, legal and rare"...the stupefying, enraging hypocrisy of that slogan!
Ditto -- !!! And why do they choose "choice" .. such a neutral and bland word ... to conceal their intent: the choice to kill babies. Never ceases to amaze me that no journalist has yet to casually ask an abortion pro .. the choice to do what? And FORCE them to complete the sentence.
snip....'and why do they choose 'choice'.....to conceal their intent....?'
Pro Choice....A Post-Modern Superstition
http://treowthintimesofmadness.blogspot.com/2004/12/pro-choicea-postmodern-superstition.html
That's because its one of very few issues that are completely black and white - the baby is either dead or it's not. You can't be a little bit pregnant and you can't have some of an abortion.
Killing of an innocent is one of the moral absolutes - there's never a "good" reason.
Nice analysis.
This then is Planned Parenthood's stock in trade......a demonic----even satanic......ability to manipulate public opinion using carefully selected words craftily placed, in order to deceive the populace, and deflect attention from the real issues.....that abortion is the deliberate killing of innocent, unborn life. PP divides and deceives on a Biblical level in an effort to conduct its demonic work.
Among the inane charges leveled at Planned Parenthood...is that the group has been "encouraging underage girls who engage in sexual relations with older men . . . to lie about their and their partners ages."
*****
This is the very sentence that leapt out at me. At least this reviewer acknowledged the "charge." Maybe down the road he will realize that it is not "inane" but tragically true. PP will never let a mere fact of law stand in the way of completing an abortion.
Abortion.... the only murder allowed by law.
There is no middle ground when the life of an innocent child is in question.
"Safe, legal and rare"...the stupefying, enraging hypocrisy of that slogan!"
"Nice analysis."
I totally agree with the black and white of the issue - either the baby lives or it dies.
However....my own doctor, who is emphatically anti-abortion, chief of staff for family medicine at our clinic, and teaches at the med school, has suggested that the legal fight against abortion would be more likely won if we adament anti-abortions would at least *fight* on a lesser level.
Specifically - most abortions which occur are simply murder to cover up another sin; they are NOT "life of the mother" or "rape or incest," as the public cry goes out.
My doc said that *if* we would concede to allow abortion to be legal ONLY for "life of the mother" and "rape or incest," that a full 98% (or so) of current abortions would cease.
But since we fight on the (morally correctly drawn) black and white lines, those who do not see the correct black and white line, waiver because of the 2% of abortions they feel they need to protect.
In other words - we need to fight the part of the battle that a huge majority of the American public would fight with us, and leave the remaining for a separate battle later!
Wonderfully stated! FR is the best place on the web because of insights such as this. Welcome to FR! Please keep posting, I like your style and look forward to more 'gems'.
In terms of strategy, who could argue with that? I certainly wouldn't.
However, in terms of reality, we have only to read up on the history of legal abortion.
The rabid pro-abortionists said back then ----in order to make the killing of the unborn palatable----that abortions would ONLY be performed in cases of RAPE, INCEST AND LIFE OF THE MOTHER.
That's what they said then as the court was set to rule. I betcha even the USSC believed it.
That's why pro-lifers cannot give pro-abortion liars and deceivers even one centimeter of wiggle room.......because they will procees to drive a truck through it.
The true "life of the mother" abortion has always been legal. Doctors cut limbs off of patients, that would end a life if not removed, for example. It is the obfuscation of the meaning of "life" that causes pro-abortionists to distort this medical procedure.
Examples that no one disputes -
ending an ectopic pregnancy:
extremely premature delivery for severe eclampsia.
I think if we forced pro-abortionists to acknowledge the reality of these two procedures, we would incrementally tighten their argument about what definition of "life" of the mother is acceptable.
Nice summation.
Unfortunately, what's to stop a woman who wants to kill her baby from lying and saying she was raped? If it's the only way she can do it, you'd better believe she'll try it.
Then there's the "health of the mother" argument - which has been used to allow abortions when Mommy might be depressed by having another baby by yet another uninvolved, nearly anonymous father. If it were defined as being only to save the mother's life then you'd find the percentage of abortions done for "life and health" reasons to be very small.
If we did that, then: a.) we would have a sudden explosion in two-month-late reports of rapes by "complete strangers," and b.) sooner or later the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals would rule that "life of the mother" actually means lifestyle of the mother.
I agree that we could win in the court of public opinion by campaigning for restricting abortion only to "life of the mother" or "rape and incest" cases, but it would be a meaningless victory. The abortion mills would grind on with no noticeable slowdown.
Here's my theory. We will have a serious debate on abortion only AFTER scientists succeed in discovering a "gay gene" -- and then about a year later, when the statistics start to show that parents are choosing to abort "gay" children just like they abort because of Downs Syndrome or Tays-Sachs.
Then and only then we will start to have a serious discussion on the civil rights of unborn humans.
Reminds me of my favorite sign I saw at an Operation Rescue sit-in one time:
Abortion is Surgical Rape
...."Superstition is the rejection of common sense and the corruption of reality. It's belief in the absurd....in whimsy, and wishful thinking. It's the redescription of reality in order that its' adherents can believe in their own fanciful conceits.
Because adherents of abortion must redescribe and even deny reality in order to allow themselves to support and to engage in a practice that ends human life , by definition then, their reasoning falls into the category of superstition.
Since they cannot admit that abortion kills a human life during any stage of its' development, they must deny that reality by redescribing life in terms that dehumanize it. Life becomes an 'it' called an embryo,a collection of cells, a zygote, or a fetus. Death and killing are redescribed as termination. At no time can this 'thing' be thought of as being alive, for to do so is to admit that 'something' dies......that a life has been put to death. And at all times, we are encouraged to think of the ongoing development of this nonhuman 'thing' as something that may or may not become 'viable', which seems to mean that at some mystical moment the 'it' has magically become humanlike.
Some pro-death types wish to believe that even after birth and up until one year of age, that the 'collection of cells' given birth to lacks something called 'personhood' and as a result, is still not a bona fide human being. Of course what they're really saying by way of mumbo-jumbo, is that if the personhoodless 'collection of cells' is displeasing or unwanted for whatever reason, then 'it' can still be 'terminated'. And we are not to ask....."Where does this 'thing' called personhood come from if it is not already existing within the baby....er,uh.. "thing"? Was it perhaps floating around in some unseen dimension while waiting for a personhoodless body to be born?"
In listening to Court TV's feminist talking heads voicing their outrage towards Scott Peterson, I wondered at their inability to see their own disattachment from reality. Had Laci not been murdered, and rather than anxiously looking forward to Connor's birth had she decided instead to exercise her pro-death 'choice' option and have Connor 'terminated' at a state sanctioned killing center, Court TV"s feminist talking-heads would have given her their full support. So what was the real source of their outrage?
In the final analysis, 'choice' is an innocuous sounding but deceptive facade behind which lurks a malignant disregard and vulgar disrespect for human life. By denying the intrinsic value, inherent dignity, and unique spirituality of human life, it adulterates the value of human life by categorizing it as just another animal. Thus, just as we choose to own a pet or choose not to own one; choose to have it 'put down'; choose to abuse it; or choose to welcome it and love it, we've been seduced into believing that we can make similar choices with regards to unborn human beings. But, in order for us to continue to believe in this corrupt fairytale, we must not allow truth to intrude upon our consciences.
Therefore we must deny reality and truth and accept the grossly absurd and distorted in their place. And just as we are not to question whether 'stepping on a crack will break our mother's back,' we dare not question the horrible absurdities of 'choice.' So we must perforce, believe in its' veracity much as we do any other superstitiously held belief. Blindly......without thinking about it.....and in a perpetual defensive mode."
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There is and there will be no way to calculate the murders this insidious cabal and their dogma have fostered. God Bless the precious innocents.
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