Today, this 27 year-old is writing to you as a survivor of that decision. The undeniable fact is that nearly a third of my generation is missing. We are missing brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, husbands and wives.Let's end the slaughter. Let's give babies a chance.
You see, Miss Weddington’s generation got it wrong. In attempting to correct gender inequality in the workplace and in our society, they set into motion the ultimate act of discrimination – abortion. Instead of glorifying motherhood, they pitted the mother against her child, creating an endless cycle of selfishness, pain, and deceit.
But this generation is determined to set it right.
Update: "Poll: 62% of Americans believe abortion is morally wrong"
39 comments:
The argument problem is that they're not babies unless the parents think they're babies. Being a baby is not a property of the supposed object of study but of a relationship.
Once you're born you have a relationship to society and you're a baby no matter what the parents think.
That's then the legal bright line.
Someone should figure out how long it would be if you laid all those dead babies end to end.
That's then the legal bright line.
That sounds like ancient Roman law but it's no longer American law.
How many babies would have been aborted without RvW? The difference between that and 55 million is the number that is important. I have no idea how many that is.
Her comment about kids today is very encouraging, however.
Now that is a Holocaust - more than those murdered by Hitler and Stalin combined.
Without wanting to be snarky and carry over an earlier topic I will ask why the racism inherent in the pro-abortion movement is never examined.
Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood as a way to reduce the number of black children born. And the political left in America is the strongest proponent of abortion, all the while decrying everyone else's racism.
Edutcher is correct. Abortion is a Holocaust. It is horrible. And the reason for the high number abortions in a society where birth control is cheap and abundantly available is simply laziness. How awful.
When a human's heart stops beating, that human is pronounced dead. When a recently conceived baby's heart starts beating, it should be declared alive.
A couple who are friends of my son and daughter-in-law recently added a new baby to their family. Their daughter was born at 26 weeks of gestation. Very, very early, but with extraordinary medical care, the baby was kept alive, allowed to grow to normal size and weight, and is now a happy, hungry baby at home with it's overjoyed parents.
Twenty-six weeks. Still eligible to be killed by an abortionist. But viable as a living human being. Horrible, horrible.
I am too, Lem.
It is appalling.
On the other hand, the converse is equally amazing and a lot happier. Haircut yesterday. The woman asked me what I was up to so I told her, but her asking was mere preface for her telling me she is anxious about getting home to her new 3 month old baby. It was odd how it came out like that: What are you doing, fine, I'm doing this..." The separation anxiety was palpable. Touching. She said she already has a 3 thee year old girl. I felt a bit bad taking her time.
First, it is out of character for the Left to neglect the weak and helpless. The traditional mark of the Left has been its protection of the underdog, the weak, and the poor. The unborn child is the most helpless form of humanity, even more in need of protection than the poor tenant farmer or the mental patient or the boat people on the high seas. The basic instinct of the Left is to aid those who cannot aid themselves -- and that instinct is absolutely sound. It is what keeps the human proposition going.
Read Mary Meehan's timeless essay at the liberal magazine The Progressive
Margaret Sanger is a hero to the left. You need to know nothing more than that to understand where they are coming from.
I've become mostly callous to it. I'm tired of arguing with people who want the right to destroy their own offspring. Sure its wrong, but maybe in a generation or two (as Lem's linked article suggests), those who remain will end it.
Michael brings up the 26 weeker. My wife, having been a neonatal RN, worked with those with only 23 weeks of gestation. I think the world record is still 22 weeks. From her, I know how difficult it is for a child born that early, and the major changes from just 23 weeks to 26 weeks, and how a 32 weeker with the right care should live a perfectly normal life, while earlier than that, the odds are still a lifetime of some problems. But we keep advancing, and I think that is a good thing.
This is what motivated me during the Texas debate of changing the abortion laws. 20 weeks seems like plenty of time to make a decision, while still leaving the remainging 20 weeks to act if more information suggests a threat to the mother or the infant. 20 weeks is also a major concession from the "right to life" faction that previously used conception as the marker. But it seems to me the concession was meaningless to the other side, which planted its flag on allowing abortions regardless of having access to proper medical facilities.
As a parent, I find it nuts that my teenaged daughters couldn't even have Advil on their persons while in school, but they could at any time get an invasive medical procedure without my knowledge and in a place not meeting basic standards for conducting surgery. Alas, my daughters thought the same.
The irony of Margaret Sanger is who her BFF in the Reich was.
Or maybe it's not ironic at all.
Are we better off as a nation because we eliminated 55 million human lives in the last 41 years?
Hitlerean.
It is a matter of amazement that pro-choice parents read the Dr. Suess book Horton Hears a Who to their children.
The story is a metaphor for life.
"..a person's a person, no matter how small."
There are a number of flaws in this argument.
The first is the one John brought up, which is that we don't know how many abortions would have been performed without Roe v. Wade. The legislative trend at the time was towards legalization, after all. Given that many over our most populous states overwhelmingly support abortion, it seems likely that most of those 55 million abortions would have happened anyway.
The second flaw in the argument is that it assumes that if women had given birth to those 55 million "missing" babies, the babies they DID have would still have been born. But of course many, if not most, women stop having kids once they reach the number they and/or their spouse feels comfortable raising. If you abort two kids and then ultimately get married and raise one, that doesn't mean you'd have been raising three if abortion wasn't available.
Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood as a way to reduce the number of black children born
That's like saying the United States was founded in order to protect slavery -- it was certainly *a* motive, but hardly the only one.
Are we better off as a nation because we eliminated 55 million human lives in the last 41 years?
Although I understand the impulse behind asking the question, the premise of the question - "Are we better off..." - is utilitarian and therefore plays into the hands of materialists, who could very well make the case that, yes, we are better off. But we know that opposition to abortion is absolute, not contingent. It is absolute because Man is made in the image of God and therefore all human life is sacred and therefore "Thou shalt not kill!"
And that's why abortion is at the heart of the culture war. Those who oppose it oppose it absolutely. The materialists - those children of the enlightenment - who passionately promote abortion and the expansion of abortion are totally committed to the overthrow of the sacred.
Although I understand the impulse behind asking the question, the premise of the question - "Are we better off..." - is utilitarian and therefore plays into the hands of materialists
"We should collect taxes from people in order to pay police to protect babies from abortion" is utilitarian, too.
I hate to break this to you, but basically everyone (anarchists excepted) is a utilitarian when it comes to government. Governments are by definition a utilitarian arrangement. They deprive you of some of your rights and property in exchange for guaranteeing your safety.
If you don't think governments should decide what to do based on utilitarian considerations then that's fine. But it means abortion will be totally legal and unregulated -- because you won't have any taxes to pay the police or regulators, any volunteers will be unable to violate the privacy rights of the women and doctors in order to investigate if abortions have been performed.
Plus of course you won't be able to actually *punish* anybody, because any real-life system of justice will occasionally punish innocent people -- and wrongly convicting a few people to assure the convictions of the guilty is only acceptable from a utilitarian viewpoint. :)
Revenant, you're confusing ends with means. If a society determines that there shall be no abortions, legal abortions, because human life is sacred, that decision is moral not utilitarian. The collecting of taxes to pay the courts and police to enforce the law that outlaws abortion, THAT is utilitarian, but the law itself makes concrete a moral position. Just as a law that a secular society passes making abortion available to all women at all times also makes concrete a moral stance. Inverted but moral to those who enact it.
Enforces a moral position. A lot better than "makes concrete." :^(
If a society determines that there shall be no abortions, legal abortions, because human life is sacred, that decision is moral not utilitarian.
Sorry, you're mistaken. The decision to make something illegal is always utilitarian, because it always comes with a cost.
Laws are not a statement of society's moral views. They are a statement of what society intends to try to prevent and/or punish.
American Holocaust does it no justice to describe it. This is what leftism has wrought, just like other leftist ideologies world wide. It kills and crushes humanity for its own sake.
Hope I didn't step on your post, Lem.
Mine is slightly different, but I want to say that I appreciate yours very, very much.
55. Million. Babies.
Oh boy. Looks like it's going to be one of those days.
Good thing the moralizers are no less numerous than the people rejecting morals legislation.
They're not "babies". We're talking about the same emotionalizing that got people to believe that stem cells were people. I know that's a convenient way for all the non-women non-scientists at the Vatican to equate things, but that doesn't make it realistic. It's just as irresponsible to promote such lazy theology on the rest of a pluralistic, secular, morally reasonable society.
And then there's the fact that the minuscule minority of abortions occurring in the third-term are typically on their way to being stillborn, mutated, and sometimes even decerebrated cyclopses. It's interesting to see the nulliparous wishing "the gift of life" on ladies that they'd force the state to bear such lifeless monstrosities, risking their lives even moreso than the typical pregnancy in the process (not that anyone cares about that any more) - but really more for them than for anyone else.
What selfishness.
R&B:
Please prove that unborn children are other than human; that they don't have souls.
The laws are confused about human life. If I shoot and kill a pregnant woman, I stand accused of killing the woman and the unborn baby. Two counts of murder. But if the woman wants to kill the baby via an abortion, the law says it's "tissue". Which is it?
"..a person's a person, no matter how small."
Does this small count? Because I'm really not seeing the difference between that and an adult's harvested stem cell.
But if you can, kudos. You're twice the biologist than any who's won the Nobel prize for understanding enough about life to actually, you know, extend and improve it and save it.
Please prove that unborn children are other than human; that they don't have souls.
The burden of proof is on you to show that such a thing as a "soul" actually exists.
Proposing restrictions on medical practice means that one should actually be aware of enough medicine to do the proposing. I've never seen a medical chart make reference, in technical terms, to a "soul".
I guess the physicians must be missing something.
"That's then the legal bright line."
That sounds like ancient Roman law but it's no longer American law.
Not true. In Rome, as in a number of other ancient societies, not only was infanticide acceptable, but the "father" of a family retained the right to kill any member of his family who dishonored him.
In Rome, as in a number of other ancient societies, not only was infanticide acceptable, but the "father" of a family retained the right to kill any member of his family who dishonored him.
Even more convenience...and not just for the mother! The Roman also enjoyed slavery, so no surprise, R&B. Thanks for the clarification, though.
I guess the physicians must be missing something.
Indeed they may be. We are never so arrogant as when we assume we've finished with science.
R&B:
Here's the thing. People (I include myself among them) who are anti-abortion hold that belief for good reason, for deeply-held religious beliefs.
Can you respect that?
Your comments in support of abortion, no matter how well framed, are not going to change those beliefs.
Maybe out of respect for others you wouldn't mind just leaving it alone tonight. You aren't going to change minds; and I expect no one, no argument here will change your mind.
Does this small count?
Does this large count? He could practically walk that one to the bus stop!
Let's find that bright line, R&B!
But that's not good faith, CL. You must know for a fact that no one defends the actions of which Gosnell was convicted.
People (I include myself among them) who are anti-abortion hold that belief for good reason, for deeply-held religious beliefs.
Can you respect that?
Your comments in support of abortion, no matter how well framed, are not going to change those beliefs.
Maybe out of respect for others you wouldn't mind just leaving it alone tonight. You aren't going to change minds; and I expect no one, no argument here will change your mind.
Well, Michael - to be honest, I did hesitate getting involved in these series tonight. I figured I could hopefully bring something better to last night's topics with Crack, and should have just left these emotional issues alone. I think you and the others are coming from a place of good intentions. Whether through faith or something else, I respect the intentions of where you're coming from. And I understand the point of not being cavalier about abortion.
If you really think there's never any excesses or complications made by people allying with that cause, though… never any oversteps or over generalizations, that would concern me. But if it's just for an emotional or spiritual purpose, these posts tonight, I'll respectfully leave them be and take a version of my own advice to Crack: If there's no actual policy issue to discuss - we can contemplate the beauty of just appreciating life in its softest and most rudimentary forms as that, and leave any contentiousness aside. I appreciate your preference to contemplate something from a non-policy oriented standpoint.
God Bless
You must know for a fact that no one defends the actions of which Gosnell was convicted.
What about Lisa LaPolt Snow?
R&B:
That was wonderful, and really appreciated. Thank you.
Haz
R&B: I'm not trying to push a thread to 200, nor am needling you. I recognize and salute your superior rhetorical skills. But I think there people like Snow who would defend those crimes (or their effective equivalent).
Gosnell was convicted and George Zimmerman wasn't. People dispute those outcomes. Thank God they are a tiny (albeit vocal) minority.
There may well be, CL. And if so, she's got intentions/confusions as monstrous as Gosnell. I won't disagree.
But out of respect to Haz, I'm going to just leave it at that. Other than that, I refer to my 8:35 comment. And no problem, Haz. Anytime.
Post a Comment