The Pro-Life Movement's Problem With Morality

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

[Cathryn Crawford]

Exactly!

[Clint N. Suhks]

Ok dear, what points have I not addressed?

[stands2reason]

so-called partial birth abortion

Nice semantics....wrong fourm.

[tpaine]

See #263.

[Lazamataz]

Cool. So now we have our cover story down....

[Tribune7]

I would think the first step is getting rid of Roe. All that requires is a respect for the Constitution. You can even believe that abortion should be legal.

I'll work with you and save the fight for the state legislature -- where it belongs.

[netmilsmom]

>>Fortunately I was raised by a father that taught me that if I had sex I "would" get pregnant. I learned to make my choice before it concerned a doctor or back alley.<<

My long lost sister!!!!
My father told me the same thing.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Very good! You are an example of what I was trying to say.

You left your morality out of it all together. By reading that, I would have no idea if you were a man, woman, Christian, Muslim, hedonist, or homosexual.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Well...

That wasn't exactly what I meant...;-)

[Ohioan]

You make some excellent points. My effort to teach the movement tactics may be explored at:

The Abortion Debate.

We are both, probably, wasting our time, however. I fear that too many on our side simply seek a feel good sense of their own moral superiority, to want to actually approach the issue tactically, as opposed to emotionally. (Maybe that is being unkind, but some of them sure do not understand the art of persuading the not already committed.)

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Lazamataz]

Hyperboly becomes you.

You spelled hyperbole wrong. Its correct spelling is Hiperbowlee.

[Lazamataz]

:o)

[Clint N. Suhks]

I can quote the Bible with the best of them, Clint.

Quoteing is one thing but if you get the interpretaion wrong it's useless. So you think gcruse was OK to accuse Christians of wanting cancer for thaose who have abortions?

[Sparta]

Thanks for this article. This is the first one of yours I've read. You nailed it. We have to rationally debate abortion and secure as many allies as we can to defeat the pro-aborts. Right now, the perception is the pro-aborts debate the issue logically and us pro-lifers are trying to shove our morality in society's collective face.

[ggekko]

There are two questions raised by your original post both of which need to be addressed when discussing this issue. One issue involves the strategy of political action in a Democracy such as ours. The other question involves how any legal system can consistently maintain legitimacy in a Democracy.

That Evangelical Christian leaders many times approach certain hot-button politcal with reference to a moral framework that may needlessly alienate potential politcal allies hardly need be restated. This is changing as their approach has become much more sophisticated commensurate with their increased experience in the political arena. As evidence of this increased sophistication I would cite the recently passed partial-birth abortion ban which forced radical abortion advocates to defend this grisly procedure on the floor of the Senate. The number of Democratic votes for this bill is indicative of how well radical abortion rights advocates were politcally isolated in this case.

The broader question still remains as to whether is possible to construct a legal framework entirely divorced from a transcendent moral reference point. I contend that it is not possible to constuct such a legal framework, or at least one that maintains its legitimacy. Notable examples of attempts to construct such secular legal systems can be seen in the former Soviet Union and in France. Contrary to popular perception in the US, the USSR was an intensely legalistic society. The psychiatric gulags where a number of politcal disidents were imprisoned were created with scrupulous and exhasutive legality by the Russian Duma. The French legal system with its endless and minute regulations is on the verge of implosion. Legal reform efforts in France have been stymied by the pervasive cultural relativism of French society. No one can agree in France as to what direction such legal reforms should take.

The US legal is moving toward the French model as the impact of decades of the inculcation Legal Positivism has occurred in US law schools. All law is an attempt to encode a particluar moral framework. As our legal system has splipped into a relativistic framework based on Legal Positivism it also has begun to lose legitimacy in a similar way as happened in France and Russia.

[Clint N. Suhks]

Sorry! Please forgive me.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Using your logic, debate on the issue is pointless. NRL is pointless. Lobbying is pointless. You sound like those people who tell their kids, "You're going to have sex anyway, so here's some condoms!"

You could start with that one, dear.

[Cathryn Crawford]

I started to point it out, but I didn't want to be the grammar police. That's so irritating. :-)

[MHGinTN]

We fought a war to free slaves.. tpaine Oh really? You have a somewhat simplistic perspective on history to be so much a self-proclaimed Constitutional expert!

[netmilsmom]

>>The only so-called partial birth abortion that I am aware of personally involved a fetus with the brain developed outside the skull and enlarged. Of course non-viable at anytime. A C-section to remove it intact would have made it harder for this person to try again.<<

My sister had a child that had a neurotubal defect that meant his brain and skull did not develop. She had a C at seven months (he lived an hour and a half). She had two more children. How could a c-section harm her chances of having another baby??