The Pro-Life Movement's Problem With Morality

The Washington Dispatch ^ | June 6, 2003 | Cathryn Crawford

[rhema]

What about the increased risk of breast cancer in women who have abortions? Why don’t we hear more about that? What about the risk of complications later in life with other pregnancies? You have to research to even find something mentioned about any of this. The pro-life movement should be front and center, shouting the statistics to the world. Instead, they use Biblical quotes and morality to argue their point.

Many of us pro-lifers are trying to get the news out, but there's a conspiracy of silence (the mainstream media; politicians --notably the Democrat party, which won't even link Democrats for Life on its web site; apostate churches that falsely bear the name of Christ) when it comes to disseminating articles like The Abortion-Breast Cancer Link: How Politics Trumped Science and Informed Consent and Induced Abortion and Risk of Later Premature Births.

[Clint N. Suhks]

I have to go, now, CNS. There's a group of us meeting by the fountain to pray for an abortion-cancer link. Sure you don't want to come?

No thanks, you go ahead, praying to Satan isn’t a Christian virtue.

[Cathryn Crawford]

You have FRmail.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Thank you for those links!

Do you agree with the basic premise of my article?

[Cathryn Crawford]

Clint -

You're a model of how not to act when you're trying to persuade someone.

[1stFreedom]

>>I grew up in the 1970's when women that I personally knew in High School dies from back alley abortions. If they must have an abortion, I do want it done legally and in a hospital.

Women? I highly doubt the authenticity of that claim. Women died on a larger scale before antibiotics were widely available. Once they were available, the number of deaths from illegal abortions dropped significantly.

To save a few hundred women a year from dying from abortion we allow the sacrafice of tens of millions of babies.

You would have a stronger argument if the abortion rate was equal to the death rate from illegal abortion. Instead of 300 women dying annually from back alley abortions, there would only be 300 leagal abortions and no deaths.

However, that's not the situation. To save the few we allow the sacrafice tens of millions. This is totally out of balance. If 300 women have to die from their own decisions then so be it if it means sparing the lives of tens of millions of innocent, unborn babies.

[Hildy]

Cathryn, thank you for eloquently saying what I was trying (unsuccessfully) to say on another thread. I agree with you 100%.

[ffusco]

"Ancient": I'm glad you admit you base life and death choices upon the dark ages."


"Ancient" pre-dates the dark age by a few thousand years.

[Clint N. Suhks]

Hmmm, is religious anti-abortion counseling another form of prosetlyizing?

Nope, it’s just Christian ethic to help those find help, but you can pretend there’s some subversive plot if it helps you demonize those who have faith. We understand about reprobates.

[eleni121]

Too bad the "wisdom" of the mother cannot be judged by the child she had killed.

[Psalm 73]

"Because..."

Well, what exactly makes it wrong - I mean why would it be wrong to kill everbody on the planet?
IF there is no moral absolute, then ANYTHING goes...(even hacking babies arms and legs off would be OK - wait, the Supremes say it IS OK - never mind).

[RAT Patrol]

On the one hand, you're right about arguing with logic. On the other hand, it is my personal view that you may have allowed the accusations of the pro-aborts to color your definition of pro-lifers, Christians particularly. Part of their strategy has long been to marginalize Christians. I've been to protests and read the false "news" reports. Flat out lies sometimes; distortions most of the time. It's just difficult for me to completely buy your argument when it starts with an accusation that I can't validate.

We have been losing this issue for years because it's off the charts on the liberal intensity meter. They live and die for this issue. They will stop at nothing to win. They've owned the media and therefore shaped the debate. The Internet, Fox, etc...are helping to bring balance back, and the truth is finally being heard. Advances in science are actually helping us as well.

Pro-life feminists? Where?

[ffusco]

Implied promiscuity.

[Lorianne]

Good article Cathryn.

Have you heard of these groups? They make logic based non-religious (though not necessarily non-moral) arguments against abortion as well.

Feminists & Nonviolence Studies Association
http://www.fnsa.org/

Pro-Life athiests:
http://www.gurlpages.com/lifegurl/atheism.html
http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html

Gays and Lesbians for Life:
http://www.plagal.org/

Liberatarians for Life:
http://www.l4l.org/

Feminists for Life (I know you've hearf of this one)
http://www.feministsforlife.org/

[Cathryn Crawford]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/924025/posts

[Cathryn Crawford]

He's got the wrong idea.

[AnnaZ]

It seems that the mainstream religious pro-life movement is not so clear when it comes to reasons not to have an abortion beyond the basic arguments that it’s a sin and you’ll go straight to hell. Too much time is spent on the consequences of abortion and not enough time is spent convincing people why they shouldn’t have one in the first place.

 

I'm sorry, but I see this as a straw man argument, and do not agree with it all.

 

Even here on FR, where there are exceptionally passionate pro-life posters, I don't recall reading a "you'll go to hell" argument. The clarion call that I read far more often is the equating of abortion with murder -- which, if one wants to use logic solely, is incontrovertible, especially if less emotion-laden language is used. A life begun is ended. That's the big consequence.

 

The "it's a sin/you'll go to hell" argument is, in my experience, a phrase put into the mouths of pro-lifers by their detractors, mostly just to make them appear simple, dismissable. And while I will accept that that message has been blared on a sidewalk somewhere, I disagree that it is the most strident anti-abortion cry.

[RAT Patrol]

LOL! Interesting. Thanks for the link.

[Clint N. Suhks]

You're a model of how not to act when you're trying to persuade someone.

It’s hard to persuade someone who uses lies and sophistry to do evil, some people are just rotten. But I get your point.

[Psalm 73]

"...arguing about whether it's OK to beat a kid...then we'll have the child-defender say the magic line that will quietly win the argument..."

Sure, that abusing children is just plain wrong. Why? because it just IS.
I think we're trying to over-complicate things here - abortion is wrong simply because it is the taking of innocent human life.