Posted on 10/07/2007 11:47:19 AM PDT by wagglebee
We in the pro-life movement have got a decision to make.
If this were a football game, it would be the fourth quarter with one second on the clock. We, the Lifers, trail the Choicers by three points. We’re on their goal line. It’s fourth down. And, it’s the Superbowl.
Do we go for the field goal and the tie, in hopes of sending the game into overtime?
Or, do we run a play and go for the touchdown and the win?
Welcome to the debate within the pro-life movement between those who support the National Right to Life and their desire to kick the field goal of keeping abortion “safe, legal, and rare” until a more opportune time to challenge Roe, and those who support the Thomas More Law Center who want to go for the touchdown—and the win—of ending abortion on demand through all three trimesters now.
I’m sure there are good arguments on both sides. As of right now, I’m only familiar with one since there’s nothing on the National Right to Life’s Web site to explain their position. Stay tuned.
Last week, I talked with attorney Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center who’s making the case that the pro-life strategy since Roe has not been to win but merely to tie, to only dither at the edges, improving notification procedures, curtailing particular surgical procedures, and so on. For example, he argues that the recent “victory” restricting partial birth abortion has in fact not saved a single life, it’s only changed the type of procedure used to take the lives of those already destined for abortion.
Muise would like to see states adopt a Human Life Amendment that would affirm that every unborn child is a person from the moment of fertilization. He believes this is the heart of the abortion issue.
He sites the Roe v. Wade decision, in which the court said, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in … medicine, philosophy and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
Today, that “difficult question” has been unequivocally answered: human life begins at fertilization—at least in the biological sense. What remains to be answered is whether the court will be forced to acknowledge that all human life has value in the moral and therefore legal sense.
Furthermore, Muise points to the central passage of the entire Roe decision, in which Justice Harry Blackmun wrote, “(If the) suggestion of personhood [of the preborn] is established, the [abortion rights] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”
Thus, Muise argues, according to the author of Roe, if an unborn child is a person, then their right to life trumps their mother’s right to “choose” their death. In his mind, this is what the whole abortion debate comes down to.
So, I asked him why he thinks the National Right to Life is opposed to this strategy, and he said, “They fear losing at the risk of winning. They’re satisfied with the status quo and are waiting for a better time to go after Roe.” In simple terms, they just don’t think it’s worth the risk right now.
Muise disagrees.
Dear National Right to Life, why do you oppose this strategy? Millions of us pro-lifers would love to know.
What Muise and his supporters want is for a state to pass a Human Life Amendment and the litigation eventually be taken up by the Supreme Court. He believes the Supremes wouldn’t rule on the personhood question itself, but would rather remand it back to the states for them to decide the personhood question for themselves. This is the federalism the nation was cheated of when SCOTUS wrongly passed Roe.
Right now, leading the way towards the passage of a Human Life Amendment is the state of Georgia, thanks to the hard work of the Georgia Right to Life. So far, things are looking pretty good.
As far as the whole personhood issue goes, to be logically consistent, pro-choice advocates must hold the view that children in the womb are human non-persons that only later become persons somehow—maybe when they grow enough big body parts, or their heads exit the womb, or maybe when they develop a sense of self-concept—around the age of two.
But how can your size, or having the right body parts, or your spatial location determine your moral value as a person? How big do you have to be to be a person? Why not one millimeter smaller? What are the specific body parts or organs that make you a person? Am I less of a person if I lose some brain cells in an accident? Did I suddenly become a person when the doctor cut the uterine wall during my mother’s C-section or when he lifted me out of the uterus? Was I not a person moments before?
This type of reasoning makes personhood sound something like weight—something you gain and lose through time. But personhood is not a property I have, it is the substance—the essence—of who I am. I am not a human that happens to be a person, I am a human-person—the term is implicitly redundant.
Every argument I’ve ever read for the existence of this pro-choice created category of “human non-persons” fails miserably when challenged.
There’s just no good argument against the traditional view that all humans are persons from the moment of fertilization.
So, getting back to our football game: What will it be, National Right to Life? Do we kick the field goal or go for the win?
I’d like to hear from the kicking team.
How about it National Right to Life?
Which is why we must really start pushing personhood; once the Supreme Court agrees that the unborn baby is a person, abortion collapses.
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“Stop abortion.... It’s for the children.”
That should be a bumper sticker.
So do I. And it's why I see no major difference on the issue between Romney and Rudy. Romney was smart enough not to become a NARAL cheerleader, but why couldn't he at least have gotten a "personhood" bill on the floor of the MA legislature? Most of the members are at least nominally Catholics, and it would have started a raging debate in Massholeland. Romney shucked and jived it.
Rudy was an out-and-out advocate for "equal funding," for abortion, which rules him out as a candidate in my book. But, and it's a big strategic "but,".... one which other Republicans ought to go for. Rudy wants to throw the issue to the states. What he has not said, and which damns him, is that he would work to get this on the floor of every state legislature in country. But you know, neither have Mitt, Dunc, Fred, or the Tanc, or any other Republican out there.
That could actually work. If just one big state could pass a "personhood bill," and have the law upheld by SCOTUS against the then inevitable ACLU Challenge, the floodgate opens and we win big.
We, the Lifers, trail the Choicers Abortionists murderers. There, that's more accurate.
The more consistent ‘pro-choice’ persons agree that the unborn are indeed human and persons ... but that the mother-person has pre-emptive rights over the unborn-person.
Strategically, it is good to push them into this corner and have them defend abortion from this position.
That is the way to win. It is starting to work in place like the UK where abortion, even among pro-abortion people, is starting to be less and less defensible, and the majority want MORE regulations curtailing the practice. They’ve seen the result of pre-emptive mother-person logic play itself out to the extreme and there is now a backlash.
The strategy, a ‘reverse’ psychology, have abortion clinic protesters with signs that read the reasons ‘why’ to stop in for an abortion, like,
Mistress Pregnant? Wife May Find Out? Stop Here;
There are probably many more that would be very effective.
If the Pro Life lobby wants to win it must realize it will do that in the Supreme Court, not in congress or the White House.
To that end, allowing Hillary to grab the nomination (with a congenial congress) of SC justices will set the movement back at least 20 years.
If Hillary gets in look for liberal SCJ’s to consider retiring during her reign (Ginsberg is hanging on by her nails) and 2 conservatives to just plain get too old. A swing of 4 seats will lock the SC to the left for decades at 6 to 3.
The Pro Life lobby should campaign as hard as it can to get a suitable pro life nominee, but if they don’t they should still consider voting GOP as they will at least have some influence over the selection, with Hillary they will get the worst nominees (for their movement) possible.
I like that one...
Just as long as you understand that Rooty Toot would probably nominate justices who are just as liberal as Hitlery.
Doubtful. He will have the entire party and most voters all over his tail. Remember Harriet Meyers.
I understand it’s not the best situation, but can you imagine any situation that would be better with Hillary?
Everything starts with the BIG LIE, abortion may be legal, they certainly are NOT safe (especially for the baby who suffers brutally and then dies in the process) and after nearly 50 million abortions, one can hardly consider them rare.
Slavery was once not only legal is was guaranteed in the constitution. In fact, slaves were considered less than a whole person (white, black and brown skinned babies aren't even granted that status.)
Slavery was a legal fact that was ratified by the states and affirmed by the Supreme Court -- until some very dedicated, God fearing people demanded a change.
The abolitionists held their ground, finally got a President, who if he didn't totally agree with the anti-slavery movement, concurred that the "peculiar practice" be abolished.
The abolitionists didn't cave and accept someone who slapped them in their faces with "slavery will always be with us and I agree with it" (a la Guiliani) nonsense and claim that half a pie was better than none -- no slavery had to go (as abortion does today.)
In 1996, some of us listened to the "enlightened" RINOs tell us that Dole, even if he insulted pro-lifers would be a "good President," held our noses and voted.
There comes a time to say NO MORE, we now have pro-life candidates for '08, who could get elected but the MEDIA doesn't want them, won't give them the time of day for people to listen to them and the really BIG money bets on more abortions, after all they are making millions off it so why look a "gift horse in the mouth."
I understand it’s not the best situation, but can you imagine any situation that would be better with Hillary?
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Very important to remember this stark fact when thinking about the elections.
Getting abortion banned and getting rid of abortion are two completely different things. It could very well be possible to get abortion banned, but getting rid of abortion would require nothing less than a police state, which is not going to happen in this country.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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