Three threads by me.
November 24, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - When I read the words of pro-abortion leaders like Colombian psychologist Florence Thomas, who calls unborn babies “tumors” and says that they are only human if their mother wants them, a disturbing question comes to mind: what is, fundamentally, the difference between this type of perspective, so often expressed by abortionists, and the clinical definition of a “psychopath”?
Although the stereotypical image of a psychopath is that of a serial killer, or a dangerous madman locked in an asylum, psychologists tell us that such people only represent a small minority of those who fall under the category of a “psychopath.” In fact, we are told, our society contains a larger number of psychopaths than we may suspect, and psychopaths may even disproportionately occupy positions of importance in business, government, and other important fields.
While psychopaths are theoretically capable of committing murder and other acts of cruelty without remorse, the definition of a psychopath is much broader than the image evoked by popular culture. According to mental health professionals, a psychopath is someone who is fundamentally lacking in human empathy, who sees other human beings as mere objects of manipulation. The relationships of a psychopath are typically superficial and fluid, and are often sexually promiscuous. The psychopath has a fundamentally egoistic, selfish personality, unable to transcend his own personal sense of self to recognize the dignity of others.
Psychologists estimate that up to four percent of the population falls under the definition of a “psychopath,” ranging from the more tame manifestations, which are included in the broad category of sociopathy or anti-social personality disorders, to the more extreme cases of serial killers. They are often able to deceive others with a veneer of sanity and reasonableness that hides their fundamentally predatory nature.
“Psychopathic” movements
The four percent figure, if accurate, implies that the United States includes a population of more than twelve million psychopaths or sociopaths, and globally the figure would theoretically reach into the hundreds of millions. This startling statistic inevitably raises the question: is it possible for psychopaths to group themselves into movements based on their common inclinations? History suggests that this can, and indeed does happen.
The classic candidate for a “psychopathic movement” is that of the National Socialist or Nazi Party, which came to power in Germany in the 1930s through a series of economic catastrophes and inept decisions by the German political establishment. Adolf Hitler himself has been diagnosed posthumously with psychopathic tendencies, and many Nazis exhibited symptoms of the same. Moreover, although the majority of Nazis and the Germans who cooperated with them were probably not clinically psychopathic, the movement as a whole seemed to be predicated on a fundamentally psychopathic mentality, one that disposed of human beings as mere fodder for the racial aspirations of the German state.
The same tendencies have been found in other mass movements arising in the last century, especially Marxism, which left an unprecedented toll of tens of millions of deaths by execution and induced starvation in order to achieve its political ends. Again, although it is unlikely that most Marxists are clinical psychopaths, their movement has repeatedly spawned regimes that behave precisely the way one would expect of the most extreme sufferers of the disorder.
The troubled mentality of the pro-abortion movement
In light of the clinical definition of a psychopath, and the historic manifestations of “psychopathic” movements, it is difficult to avoid the comparison between psychopathy and the perspective that is openly expressed by many leaders in the global pro-abortion movement.
Florence Thomas is only one example of the troubled thinking that seems to characterize pro-abortion leaders. Her comparison of her own unborn child to a “tumor,” that is, a diseased piece of tissue, is not only unscientific; it suggests a mind that is unwilling, or perhaps unable, to transcend itself and empathize with the humanity of another. Her claim that a fetus is only human if it is desired by its parents is almost a caricature of ego-centrism, implying that one’s personal wishes confer dignity and rights on other people. The conclusion of Thomas flows inevitably from her premises; she believes that women should be free to kill their unborn children for any reason, in order to preserve their “freedom.”
Thomas’ thinking is echoed throughout the anti-life and anti-family movements of our age. Margaret Sanger, the founder of the modern birth control movement, spoke with the chilling rhetoric of eugenics when she dismissed children who are “unwanted” by their parents, referring to them as “human waste” in her 1920 work, “Women and the New Race.”
“Each and every unwanted child is likely to be in some way a social liability. It is only the wanted child who is likely to be a social asset,” wrote Sanger, who also asked, “Can the children of these unfortunate mothers be other than a burden to society—a burden which reflects itself in innumerable phases of cost, crime and general social detriment?” In another chapter she infamously states that “the most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
The famous Princeton “bioethicist” Peter Singer applies the same fundamental principle embraced by Thomas, Sanger, and others, but takes it to a more explicit conclusion. Singer acknowledges that unborn children are human beings, but openly denies that they have a right to life, unless their parents want them. Moreover, Singer extends this reasoning to infants after birth as well, offering a moral endorsement of infanticide.
“The difference between killing disabled and normal infants lies not in any supposed right to life that the latter has and the former lacks, but in other considerations about killing,” writes Singer in the second edition of his book, “Practical Ethics.” “Most obviously there is the difference that often exists in the attitudes of the parents. The birth of a child is usually a happy event for the parents ... So one important reason why it is normally a terrible thing to kill an infant is the effect the killing will have on its parents.”
“It is different when the infant is born with a serious disability,” Singer continues. “Birth abnormalities vary, of course. Some are trivial and have little effect on the child or its parents; but others turn the normally joyful event of birth into a threat to the happiness of the parents, and any other children they may have. Parents may, with good reason, regret that a disabled child was ever born. In that event the effect that the death of the child will have on its parents can be a reason for, rather than against killing it.”
Singer’s explicit endorsement of infanticide should be unsurprising to pro-life activists, who are aware that children who survive abortions are often left to die without medical help. A fundamental indifference to human life and the personhood of others is endemic among pro-abortion thinkers, which should bring pro-lifers to ask ourselves if we are really understanding our opponents in this debate.
In reading Florence Thomas’ recent account of her abortion, a tragically flawed personality comes to the surface. A brilliant woman with much to offer the world, Thomas faced a profound moral dilemma at the age of 22, and was hardly able to recognize it as such. She blithely refers to sexual intercourse with her boyfriend as “love,” as if she has no inkling of the concept beyond a physical act of pleasure, without any commitment or spiritual dimension. She dismisses her unborn child as a “tumor,” and says that she has never felt the slightest remorse for her decision to kill it.
As a human life and family news reporter, I have become all too accustomed to this mentality, and my response has changed over the years from feelings of outrage to a calm, resolute commitment to fight the culture of death and its perverse mentality by systematically exposing it. However, I increasingly find myself experiencing another response when I report such stories: a great sadness in the face of people who seem to be missing something fundamental in the deepest levels of their psyche, something that they may never have known by experience.
Are they suffering in silent desperation or are they utterly oblivious to their loss? Did they freely choose this path, or are they victims of something beyond their control? Ultimately, is there anything that can be done for them, or are they doomed to play their grim role in the global empire of death? I do not know, and cannot know. I can only pray for them, and leave it in the hands of a merciful God.
Related links:
Famous pro-abortion feminist calls unborn child a ‘tumor’
Women and the New Race, by Margaret Sanger (full text)
Excerpts from Practical Ethics, by Peter Singer, 2nd edition, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 175-217
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With controversial late-term abortion practitioner LeRoy Carhart getting national attention over plans to expand his abortion business, a little-known 2008 study is gaining new attention.
The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research organization previously affiliated with Planned Parenthood, released a study in 2008 titled “Abortion in the United States: Incidence and Access to Services, 2005.”
The study found there were at least 1,787 abortion “doctors” in the United States but it revealed stark numbers when it comes to those who do abortions later in pregnancy.
Of the 1,787, the study found that “[t]wenty percent of providers offered abortions after 20 weeks [LMP], and only 8% at 24 weeks [LMP].”
Though the numbers seem small, that translates to at least 300 “doctors” who who will perform abortions after 20 weeks LMP like LeRoy Carhart and, of those, 140 willing to perform abortions at 24 weeks LMP.
Mary Balch, an attorney who handle state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee, says the numbers are important because mainstream media outlets have attempted to make it appear there are very few practitioners willing to do late or late-term abortions.
“In an interview with Colorado abortionist Warren Hern published online November 5, 2010, Time Magazine perpetuated the prevalent myth that there are few, if any abortionists who perform abortions late in pregnancy,” she told LifeNews.com. “The Washington Post’s Rob Stein also furthered the myth in a November 10 piece saying that Carhart is ‘is one of the few in the country to perform abortions late in pregnancy.”
“The truth is, abortions in the fifth month of pregnancy and later are widely available,” she added.
But National Right to Life may have found a way to put these abortion practitioners out of business — by using a new type of state law that drove Carhart to seek opportunities to do late abortions elsewhere.
Carhart’s decision to move operations resulted from Nebraska’s enactment of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act earlier this year. The law took effect October 15 and it protects unborn children in the fifth and sixth month of pregnancy or later by prohibiting abortion after 20 weeks following conception.
“Nebraska’s groundbreaking law protecting pain-capable unborn children is an example for other states in the nation,” Balch says. “LeRoy Carhart’s hopscotching around the nation to find areas that allow abortion for any reason, at any time, underscores the need for other states to pass similar legislation to put Carhart and the hundreds of other abortionists who perform abortions late in pregnancy out of business.”
“That more than 140 abortion providers are willing to kill unborn children who are capable of feeling the excruciating pain of abortion is a tragedy – a tragedy that we can easily stop in the state legislatures,” Balch told LifeNews.com.
The legislation is sorely needed because there are more late abortions and late-term abortions taking place in the United States than most people probably realize.
A May 2010 briefing by the Guttmacher Institute reveals .5% of the estimated more than 1.2 million elective abortions performed annually in the United States are on unborn children at 21 weeks LMP (19 weeks postfertilization) or older.
This translates to roughly 18,000 abortions annually – a substantial number of which probably occur at 22 weeks LMP or later, which is past the point that the best evidence indicates that the unborn child is fully capable of feeling pain (a point that may well occur earlier).
Balch says those findings are generally corroborated by the Centers for Disease Control Abortion Surveillance Report for 2006, released in November 2009.
In the 43 reporting areas for 2006 which reported gestational age to the CDC for its report, at least 1.3%, of abortions were performed at 21 weeks or later and several states either submitted no data or did not accurately report the age of the baby at the time of the abortion.
Not only does the legislation have the effect of prohibiting late abortions, Balch says it has a tremendous educational value by showing the public how abortions cause great pain for unborn children.
“Since 2007, medical research, triggered by the identification of consciousness in children lacking a cortex from birth, has indicated that nerve connection to the cortex is not essential to experience pain,” the NRLC attorney notes. “In fact, informed specialists have concluded that the subcortical plate, to which nerves from the pain receptors are linking at 20 weeks postfertilization, fulfills that function.”
Scientific studies dating back to 1987 confirm the existence of fetal pain at 20 weeks postfertilization (22 weeks LMP).
The ability to target late and late-term abortions via this state legislation is so important that NRLC is planning a state legislative forum for pro-life leaders and state legislators on December 7.
“With pro-life electoral gains on November 2, the spring legislative sessions gives us a tremendous opportunity to enact a variety of protective pro-life laws in many states and put an end to abortions after the unborn child is capable of feeling pain,” Balch concludes. “Our number one priority at the state level is protecting mothers and their unborn children from the abortion industry and we have pro-life legislative majorities across the country to help make that happen.”
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Americans saw a political milestone this month as more pro-life lawmakers were elected to the House of Representatives than ever before, but the nation also quietly reached a less joyful mark.
In January, the National Right to Life Committee provided a new analysis of the total number of abortions done in the 37 years since the Roe v. Wade decision.
The Supreme Court handed down its controversial ruling — allowing virtually unlimited abortions at any time throughout pregnancy — in January 1973. The NRLC analysis found that 52 million unborn children had been killed in abortions as of January.
The analysis also found that the best estimate for the current number of annual abortions in the United States — involving both the surgical abortion procedure as well as the dangerous abortion drug RU 486 — is 1.2 million.
As a result, the United States likely passed the 53 million abortion mark on November 1 — the day before Americans went to the polls to vote in a pro-life House majority and target President Barack Obama’s pro-abortion allies for defeat.
Obama has done everything in his power to advance abortion and continue that pro-abortion legacy of the Supreme Court, including naming two more pro-abortion jurists in Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. He has also expanded that 53 million abortions by authorizing abortion funding in various instances and decreasing funds for abstinence education.
In its survey of abortion numbers, NRLC goes to the source by relying on the Guttmacher Institute, the former research arm of Planned Parenthood, which receives numbers directly from abortion centers themselves.
That’s because the Centers for Disease Control has never tabulated accurate numbers of abortions. The CDC relies on figures from state health departments, some of which rely on voluntary reporting — and it hasn’t had data from some states such as California and New Hampshire for more than a decade.
“Because of these different methods of data collection, GI has consistently obtained higher counts than the CDC. CDC researchers have admitted it probably undercounts the total number of abortions because reporting laws vary from state to state and some abortionists probably do not report or under-report the abortions they perform,” NRLC explained in January.
Digging into the numbers, the NRLC analysis from earlier this year showed abortion numbers rising in the 1970s and, in the 1980s, abortion eventually mainstreamed itself to the point that about 1.55 million abortions were done annually until the early 1990s.
At that point, as crisis pregnancy centers began turning the corner with the use of ultrasounds, pro-life state legislation began to take hold and the Internet allowed the pro-life perspective to flourish, abortions began to decline.
“After reaching a high of over 1.6 million in 1990, the number of abortions annually performed in the U.S. has dropped back to levels not seen since the late 1970s,” NRLC says.
The Guttmacher Institutes most recent abortion figures, from 2005, confirm the downward trend from a high of 1.6 million abortions in 1990 to 1.2 million that year. Without any hard figures in the last few years, NRLC estimates the number of abortions from 2006 to today at the same rate of 1.2 million that GI reported.
To calculate the overall number of abortions, NRLC includes the hard figures from 1973-2005, the estimates for the last few years and also includes the Guttmacher Institute’s admission that its own figures are likely about three percent lower than the actual totals because of potential errors in reporting.
National Right to Life estimated that, in January, there have been 52,008,665 abortions using either surgical or the abortion drug (RU 486) method since Roe v. Wade.
NRLC director of research and education Randy O’Bannon talked with LifeNews.com at that time about the figures.
“Abortion has taken a terrible toll on America. We’ve now lost more than 52 million of our sons, daughters, friends, and neighbors and we are a much poorer nation for it,” he said.
“Over the past twenty years, however, we have seen that pro-life efforts can make a difference, as the number of abortions performed in the U.S. has declined from 1.6 million to 1.2 million a year. We’ve still a long way to go, obviously, but we see that pro-life legislation, education, and outreach can save and has saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” O’Bannon added. “Our task is great, but our cause is just.”
Thread by Coleus.
In Yakima, Washington, the Cedar Women's Clinic, which was the first abortion clinic to open in that city 31 years ago, closed Monday due to a dramatic decrease in the demand for abortions. According to statistics kept by the state, the abortion rate for women ages 15 to 44 dropped from 18 per 1,000 in 2008 to 16.7 per 1,000 in 2009. One abortion clinic remains in Yakima. In Michigan, Womancare of Downriver in Southgate owned by the troubled owner, abortionist Alberto Hodari, is currently in escrow to a physician whose practice does not include abortions. Once escrow closes, so will the abortion clinic.
One woman, Jennifer McCoy, is particularly relieved that Hodari's Southgate abortion clinic has been tentatively sold. That was where she says Hodari forced an abortion on her when she was 16-years old. "That clinic will never do another abortion again," she said. All of Hodari's six Detroit area abortion clinics were put up for sale last year. Hodari appeared to be liquidating his assets so he could leave the country after repeated complaints, fines, and lawsuits have recently overwhelmed him. The closures continue a national trend of decreasing numbers of abortion clinics. Operation Rescue conducted extensive research and documented that over two-thirds of America's abortion clinics have closed since 1991, when there were over 2,100 clinics nationwide.
"When we released our 'Project Daniel 5:25' listing of all remaining surgical abortion clinics in the United States last December, there were 713. Today, counting the Southgate mill, which will soon close, there are only 694," said Operation Rescue spokesperson Cheryl Sullenger. "That great news for women and their pre-born babies." Twenty abortion clinics have closed in the past 11 months at a rate of nearly 2 per month. Operation Rescue maintains the most accurate listing of abortion clinics available on its Project Daniel 5:25 page. The project was named after the Biblical story of Daniel, who was able to read the handwriting on the wall and predict the fall of a wicked kingdom.
As a new feature, Operation Rescue has added names of some abortionists to the clinic list with links to documentation of their legal problems and abortion abuses. "Government funding continues to artificially prop up a failing abortion industry. Without tax-funding, more of these clinics would fold," said Sullenger. "Until we can encode legal protections for the pre-born, we must work to expose and defund the abortion industry. Closing clinics is a proven way to reduce abortions and save lives."
