Posted on 01/24/2011 5:47:51 AM PST by Kaslin
Saturday marked the 38th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision establishing abortion as a constitutional right throughout the United States. Perhaps coincidentally, that anniversary capped off a week in which news events offered some hard truths about the moral compromises that abortion has forced upon Americans.
Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to The White House drew enormous coverage. Some of the most widely-reported news from the State Dinner included President Obama’s toast hailing the “beloved giant pandas” from China, which will remain at Washington’s National Zoo. Deemed significantly less newsworthy were House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) colloquy with Hu about forced abortions in China – and Hu’s denial of any forced-abortion policy in response to a written question from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL).
The juxtaposition is jarring. How would reporters and other Americans have reacted had there been credible reports that cute and cuddly pandas – like the ones at the zoo – had been forced to abort? One suspects that animal rights activists, environmentalists and others would have been up in arms – even though many of those same Americans (including President and Mrs. Obama) maintain a discreet silence about forced abortion of human beings by the Chinese. Could the President and First Lady have believed they had to stay silent in the face of a life-and-death human rights abuse – where “choice” plays no part for either mother or unborn child -- in order to avoid compromising their avidly pro-abortion-rights convictions?
Compared to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, however, the Obamas look like profiles in courage. Last week, it was also reported that for 17 years, the Pennsylvania department had simply ignored an abortion house of horrors within its jurisdiction – even as poor, predominantly minority women were badly injured by ghoulish abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who routinely performed third-trimester abortions, using scissors to kill babies born alive (according to the grand jury report, Gosnell kept in jars the feet of the babies he aborted). The Pennsylvania Department of State likewise ignored notices that many of Gosnell’s patients were hospitalized – some with perforated uteruses, bowels and and cervixes, often with infections and fetal remains still inside them. The state Board of Medicine likewise had declined to take action against Gosnell, despite repeated complaints.
Had poor, minority women been victimized by some other kind of criminal businessman who, like Gosnell, collected $1.8 million yearly at their expense, the response would be universal, widespread outrage -- and rightly so. Yet, because the exploitation occurred in the context of abortion, there’s a strange silence from many of those who routinely pride themselves on their disdain for “the rich” and their support for the oppressed. One well-known left-wing blogger, Amanda Marcotte, even went so far as to blame pro-lifers for the Gosnell atrocities.
Thirty-eight years after Roe vs. Wade, it’s clear that the decision has starkly divided many Americans – in fact, some say that the abortion debate is an area where it’s impossible to find any common ground. But that’s not really true. Surely, just as pro-lifers should outspokenly denounce the murder of abortion providers, pro-choicers should likewise be willing to object loudly to forced abortions – and agree (at the very least) that the “doctors” who perform third-trimester abortions, murder newborn babies, and maim their mothers are monsters.
Yes, the right to abortion found by the Supreme Court has caused heated, ugly and sometimes violent, debate on both sides. But if we are to conclude that even those who disagree with us do so in good conscience, then decent people on both sides of the abortion debate must refuse to allow evil to flourish, conveniently unremarked-upon.
Why? "Pro-Choice" is simply a propaganda term to soften "pro-abortion". Abortionism is driven by the belief that a certain category of human persons is actually NOT human in any meaningful sense, nor worthy of protection. Why would abortionists object to any destruction of non-persons?
I have as much common ground with Abortionists as I have with National Socialists or Communists.
Kill / let live. Allow killing / prevent killing.
Commom ground?
I don’t see much common ground between a live baby and a dead one.
If certain laws were enforced, the most egregious late term abortions (and post-birth abortions) could be eliminated.
I’d like to see a law passed [and enforced] punishing anyone coercing a girl/woman into an abortion.
It’s difficult to have “common ground” when one side of the debate refuses to be intellectually honest.
There is no common ground on abortion. NONE!!!!
The Issue is Binary
It is either a Libertarian issue
— Your business is none of my business
— unless You force your will on Me
— Free Will, etc.
Or
It is Murder
Common Ground does not exist.
If someone makes a case for “Moderation”
they are either confused or lying
There is no common ground. The pro aborts support only one choice, and that is death. I became ill listening to the stupid rabbi, Potasnik, on Religion on the Line trying to soft peddle his pro abortion stance. I am glad that a woman who regrets here abortion was on the show to tell him how awful abortion is. I was sick of his weasel words about “get together and talk. . . “. The other side has nothing to say. Period. The proof is the high number of abortions since Roe.
Okay. Let’s start our search for common ground. Here’s my starting point: the unborn is a human life.
Agreed?
maybe allow them to become only mostly dead? Then Miracle Max can step in...
I object to the use of the term "mothers" for these females.
I understand why pro-lifers created the myth that these women are "just another victim of abortion." And no doubt this is somewhat true of some of them.
But it doesn't change the fact that if abortion is murder, then all involved are at minimum accessories to that murder.
And don't call me Shirley.
The bigger the crime, the more invisible...
There are at least 45+ million women and their doctors, who should by rights be in prison or executed, walking among us. Every women who has had an abortion should be required at least 20 year prison time, hard labor (no pun intended).
But instead, this very site celebrates these criminals because they conveniently “saw the light” after murdering their children, and get to go on book tours and do the lecture circuits and have the kind of attention and praise they would never get changing diapers and doing laundry...
Let me repeat: the Free Republic website celebrates the murderers of children.
I get sick and disgusted every time I read one of those threads about these “brave women”, etc.
So what hope do we have?
This is a wrong use of "good conscience." Abortion proponents may sincerely believe they are right - although their irrational reaction to opposition raises doubts about this - but they are following a wrongly-formed conscience, not a good conscience.
Most fans of abortion won't agree to that simple statement. They will agree it is human and that it is alive (both adjectives), but not to the phrase or that it is "a human." (noun)
A few of the more intellectually honest ones will agree, but will deny that the fetus is "a person" under the Constitution, which given the present Court interpretation is correct.
In which case they must agree that not all human lives are persons worthy of protection.
I'm not so sure that's all on the shoulders of pro-lifers. I think that many women who get abortions fall into the victimhood role because it's easier on the conscience to say "I was forced/coerced into having an abortion" than to say "I chose of my own free will to have an abortion," when they are trying to come to terms with the guilt they feel afterwards.
I think it is more true of more of them than most folks realize.
OTOH, nobody is more aware of the enormity and hideousness of abortion than a repentant post-abortive woman.
Most fans of abortion won't agree to that simple statement. They will agree it is human and that it is alive (both adjectives), but not to the phrase or that it is "a human."
A sperm and egg are human. A fertilized egg is human. But good luck getting any insurance company regard it as such. No company or law regards this as a human. We are living in very evil times.
Where was the barf alert?
What fellowship hath Christ with Belial?
To paraphrase, what fellowship hath Life with Death?
You could insure anything, at the right premium rate.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.