{"article":{"id":109358,"heading":"Abortion backers operate on illogic","author":"(Stephen Cathers)","created":"2004-05-03 21:54:22","modified":"2004-05-07 16:51:05","last_modified":"Fri, 07 May 2004 23:51:05","article":"
Abortion backers operate on illogic
By Stephen Cathers
Published: Thursday, April 29, 2004
This weekend, hundreds of thousands of protesters marched upon the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in the euphemistically named \"March for Women's Lives.\"
Their numbers (half a million to 1 million) were certainly impressive, but little else about the march was.
Displaying a maturity level on par with that of junior high students, many of the protesters delighted in making slogans with vulgarities (why spell \"country\" when you could cleverly leave out the \"o\"?).
At a pre-march rally, Rep. Maxine Waters, displaying a level of vitriol that looked moderate compared to that of many of the marchers in a post-Dean Democratic Party, said that Bush could \"go to hell.\"
Others wished that the president would have been aborted. But beyond the spectacle of grown women and men congratulating themselves for making naughty slogans about leaders named Bush and Dick, the rally revealed a radical movement that is further than ever from the mainstream and untouched by moral or logical concern.
As a disclaimer, there are certainly morally and logically serious people who are pro-choice.
They take into consideration the life of the fetus and argue logically about it.
This is not about them. Rather, this is about the national pro-abortion leadership (National Organization of Women, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, etc.) and its vocal faction of supporters, who can be recognized by their self-centeredness, unconditional support for all abortion and amazing imperviousness to logical thinking and reasoned debate.
These people, the ones lobbying in Washington and marching with vapid, vulgar and veraciously challenged slogans, never saw an abortion they didn't support.
Those who sang along to a performance of \"Not Every Sperm Deserves to Live\" deserve to be labeled pro-abortion rather than pro-choice and ought not have the audacity to pretend otherwise.
While these protesters certainly do not comprise the whole of the pro-choice movement, they are the ones in control of it.
The pro-abortion movement springs from a virulently self-centered individualism.
A look at the rhetoric of the march reveals the moral perspective of a 2-year-old: Everything is \"me, my, mine.\" Slogans such as \"My Body, My Choice\" have no room to consider the life of the unborn child. Indeed, that particular slogan sums up so much of what is wrong with the pro-abortion movement. There's no consideration of the human life that is destroyed by abortion. The only focus is the woman.
Pro-abortion groups never seem to get around to talking about unborn children. Everything is centered on what the woman wants.
There's no debate about fetal life. For a march so centered on abortion, there was precious little discussion of it. The only topic was \"choice.\"
Abortion advocates never want to move beyond the word \"choice,\" because to do so requires actual debate and critical thinking about when a human life deserves protection, something they've shown a remarkable propensity for avoiding.
Of course, there can be no debate about when life begins. An embryo is undeniably human life from the moment of conception. Rather, the debate is about when personhood begins, because at that moment human beings are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including the right to life.
Pro-lifers believe that personhood and life begin simultaneously, and thus no right of privacy for a woman could ever trump an unborn child's right to life, any more than a mother's right to privacy could justify her in killing a newborn child.
On the other hand, pro-abortion advocates often claim that they're \"personally opposed\" to abortion, but, since people disagree about when personhood begins, the government shouldn't \"legislate morality.\"
As far as credible excuses go, this is insulting in its illogic. To grasp the absurdity inherent in this position, imagine someone claiming that they personally believe blacks have civil rights, but, since people have differed over whether blacks have rights, the government shouldn't try to \"legislate morality\" by protecting them.
While pro-abortion advocates may claim they haven't taken a position on when personhood begins, their actions speak much louder than words: In every case they take the position that a baby is not a person until birth.
Look at their reaction to President Bush's signing of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act at the beginning of the month.
Before this became law, a criminal who harmed or killed a pregnant woman in a federal crime could only have been charged for harm done to the woman but could not have been charged for harm done to her unborn child. The UVVA corrected this oversight by making clear that a fetus is indeed a human being and thus a legal victim of any crime committed against it.
The law carved out an exception for abortion, in compliance with Roe v. Wade.
While this law was not controversial among the American public (four of every five people supported it), the pro-abortion lobby once again demonstrated its slavish devotion to abortion and vigorously opposed the act. Most people recognize as morally and logically laughable the belief that a fetus in the ninth month is somehow less of a person than a newborn babe, but abortion advocates are steadfastly committed to it.
Horrified that any unborn child might be legally classified as a person, Sen. Dianne Feinstein offered an amendment that would have codified the falsehood that a crime against a pregnant woman has only one victim.
The amendment would have created penalties equivalent to those in the UVVA for criminals who attacked pregnant women, but only because a pregnancy was interrupted.
The dishonesty of the amendment exposes the way that abortion advocates' commitment to abortion effectively immunizes them against critical thinking.
For instance, suppose that they actually believe that no fetus is ever a person. In that case, how on earth could they propose to punish a criminal for harming a non-person as harshly as if he had harmed a human being? It would be like sentencing someone who killed a dog with the punishment for murdering a human being. The injustice of the proposition is shocking.
If, on the other hand, pro-abortion leaders do believe that at least some fetuses are human beings, they are willfully trying to legislate what they know to be a lie in order to preserve a \"right\" that would be untenable otherwise. Neither scenario speaks well of them.
While abortion advocates often call pro-lifers \"religious extremists,\" they are in fact the ones committed to an extreme position with religious zeal.
While they often say government should stay out of abortion, they then turn around and demand that taxpayers fund abortions as part of \"health care\" for the poor.
They fight so that any woman may immediately abort her child at any time for any reason using any procedure, with taxpayers footing the bill if necessary. This is, to put it mildly, far out of the mainstream.
Despite continual pro-abortion efforts by activists, the percentage of pro-life Americans continues to grow.
According to a just-released poll by Zogby International, the sizeable majority of Americans, 56 percent, take pro-life positions, believing that abortion should only be legal when the life of the mother is at stake or in cases of rape or incest, or supporting even more restrictions. A study commissioned by Faye Wattleton, the former president of Planned Parenthood, found that seven out of every 10 women want stricter limits on abortion, and a majority would ban it in almost all cases.
On the other hand, only 13 percent of Americans support the completely unrestricted abortion policy that NOW, Planned Parenthood, NARAL and other pro-abortion groups advocate. Ironically, the \"women's movement\" has set itself in opposition to the majority of women.
These facts shed light on the never-ending court battles over abortion.
Since the American people are nowhere near supporting the extreme pro-abortion agenda, abortion advocates have to make sure that democracy is never permitted.
The next time you hear the Democrats lambaste Bush's judicial nominees for opposing Roe v. Wade, know that they must do that, for they're afraid of what might happen if people were able to vote on the issue.
Unrestricted abortion rights depend upon illegitimately denying the American people the right to choose their own laws regulating abortion.
So just remember this the next time you hear pro-abortion protesters talk about extremists against choice: They're inadvertently describing themselves.
http:\/\/www.dailytrojan.com\/news\/2004\/04\/29\/Opinions\/Abortion.Backers.Operate.On.Illogic-674674.shtml<\/a>
http:\/\/www.dailytrojan.com\/main.cfm\/include\/displayIssueArticles\/issue_date\/20040429.html<\/a>
\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/www.dailytrojan.com","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"Just remember this the next time you hear pro-abortion protesters talk about extremists against choice: They're inadvertently describing themselves.\r\n","numcomment":22,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2004\/05\/109358.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":109359,"heading":"the above condescending scree is flawed.","article":">Since the American people are nowhere near supporting the extreme pro-abortion agenda, abortion advocates have to make sure that democracy is never permitted.<\r\nI'm certain you mean, by the term 'American People' you mean idiots like yourself who wont bother to take care of the living adults in this country. Like this war, the people who deside to do the killing will have to live with their choice. Not you.","author":"Your brother","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-03 22:38:58","modified":"2004-05-03 22:38:58","fileurl":""},{"id":109368,"heading":"most people support choice","article":"Most people support the availability of abortion in the first 2 trimsters (I think around 75%). The vocal minority against abortion should just learn to tolerate the majority, and stop with the yammering. Especially if you're some underage yahoo punkass rich kid going to USC.\r\n\r\nAt the very least, every anti-abortion activist should also spend some time fighting for the elimination of meat consumption and the death penalty. Those are also "pro-life" issues. What is a meat processing plant but a factory of death? What is the death penalty but a system of killing?\r\n\r\nI'm 100% for choice, and even for abortion. Some people just aren't good parents, and will screw up their kids. They should contemplate that gnawing sense of doubt they're having about giving birth to that fetus they conceived while screwing their friend's husband, and go with the feeling. Go get that abortion.\r\n\r\nIs your man a cheating womanizer who hits you? Why the hell are you having his baby? Abort that kid, and while you're at it, kick your man's ass too. He should have the respect to ask for an open relationship first.\r\n\r\nAre you a rich person who wants to have kids to treat them like little dolls best seen and not heard? I suggest you have your head cleaned out, and while you're at it, clean out your uterus too. The world does not need more rich drug addict children.\r\n\r\nIs Michael Jackson paying you to have a kid for him? I suggest taking that money and seeking some help, because you are a sicko. While you're at it, you can pay for a safe abortion at a nice hospital, and contemplate your life.","author":"more rational","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 01:16:27","modified":"2004-05-04 01:16:27","fileurl":""},{"id":109377,"heading":"strange pacifists...","article":"Strange pacifists, these who want to save all animals' and criminals' lives, and, at the same time, want to kill all the inconvenient children... \r\n","author":"anti-hipocrisy","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 02:38:55","modified":"2004-05-04 02:38:55","fileurl":""},{"id":109379,"heading":"another dirty war","article":"The extremist anti-abortionists come from the same evil parallel universe as abortion itself.\r\n\r\nWill everybody ever agree on the fact that abortion is a dilemna?","author":"abortion for the bush family!","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 06:34:27","modified":"2004-05-04 06:34:27","fileurl":""},{"id":109380,"heading":"Moral highchairs","article":"Abortion is the only issue the religious riech has and they do a furious dance on that tune to compensate for the fact that some of their ideologies are clearly insane. This one issue gives them a moral high chair to view the secular population and proclaim superiority. No matter that their dogma doesn't include care or compassion for divergent beliefs or a commitment to toleration or support of the Other.\r\nAbortion is wrong but there is no method to assure that each child will be a wanted and nurtured gift because our current culture is shallow and self indulgent; one more concerned with cosmetics than substance. It is also insane.\r\nYou need a license to drive but bringing a child into the world only requires a moment of indiscretion or criminal assault. In mature cultures, a rite of passage, a trial against survival, is required before one can have a child. Not everyone can or should makes it.","author":"Sheepdog","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 08:08:59","modified":"2004-05-04 08:08:59","fileurl":""},{"id":109382,"heading":"Why do they call it "choice"?","article":"Why do they call abortion "freedom of choice"? What a surgical-room pristine label! \r\n\r\nWhy not call it what it really is: Freedom to terminate one's unborn child due to a moment of irresponsible indiscretion? Freedom to have your unborn fetus forcibly removed from your womb because you couldn't keep your legs shut? Freedom to murder?\r\n\r\nPeople who fight for this "freedom of choice" are without moral scrupples.","author":"screeder","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 09:13:40","modified":"2004-05-04 09:13:40","fileurl":""},{"id":109383,"heading":"Operation Rescue is a terrorist organization","article":"Operation Rescue is a natural born American terrorist organization that is involved in murder, intimidation, and thuggery. Anti-abortionists who support Operation Rescue should be investigated by the FBI but never will be because our govt has been taken over by bible thumping nuts. Bush just loves those right wing terrorists so much he is willing to ignore the illegal actions.\r\n","author":"Parmenides","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 10:20:23","modified":"2004-05-04 10:20:23","fileurl":""},{"id":109385,"heading":"'you couldn't keep your legs shut'","article":"\r\nAnd a victim of rape or incest is guilty of not keeping their legs shut?\r\nYou reveal a contempt for women and this fig leaf of righteousness is a veil for sexism.\r\nNothing new here.\r\n","author":"Sheepdog","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 13:11:35","modified":"2004-05-04 13:11:35","fileurl":""},{"id":109386,"heading":""And a victim of rape or incest is guilty of not keeping their legs shut?"","article":"Love it when the pro-"choice" advocates come back with that same tired old argument.\r\n\r\nI don't hold any contempt for women; just for the irresponsible behavior of those women who chose abortion as a means of birth control.\r\n\r\nWomen shouldn't have the right to indiscriminately chose abortion. \r\n\r\nIt should be the duty of a doctor, sworn to do no harm, to offer such recourse to a rape victim. ","author":"screeder","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 13:20:53","modified":"2004-05-04 13:20:53","fileurl":""},{"id":109388,"heading":"Sex is natural","article":"More thoughts on sexual repression.\r\nIsn't it curious that the same people who proclaim that abortion is a crime support laws that denies the availability of information about birth control as a condition of funding?\r\nAgain, nothing new here. ","author":"Sheepdog","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 13:22:30","modified":"2004-05-04 13:22:30","fileurl":""},{"id":109390,"heading":"Abortion is murder","article":"What's the difference between killing a baby inside the womb, or waiting to kill it after it's been pushed out?\r\n\r\nAnswer: Nothing\r\n\r\nAbortion is murder.","author":"screeder","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 13:24:46","modified":"2004-05-04 13:24:46","fileurl":""},{"id":109391,"heading":"non sequitur","article":""Isn't it curious that the same people who proclaim that abortion is a crime support laws that denies the availability of information about birth control as a condition of funding?"\r\n\r\n\r\nWhat are you babbling about now?","author":"non sequitur","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 13:33:51","modified":"2004-05-04 13:33:51","fileurl":""},{"id":109392,"heading":"Okay, I'll bite","article":"In the U.S., President George W. Bush has nominated John M. Klink, a Vatican ideologue, to head the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. Also: in the lead up to a UN special session on HIV\/AIDS prevention, we look at some of the moral dilemmas the AIDS pandemic brings to Christian teaching. \r\n\r\n(snip)\r\n John M. Klink is a member of the Vatican�s United Nations Mission, and he�s on record as opposing the use of condoms and other birth control methods. So there are fears that if he�s appointed to head the refugee bureau, he�ll be in a position to withhold government funding from groups that diverge from the Vatican on matters of family planning.\r\n(snip)\r\nHas Mr Klink made any kind of public statement as to whether or not he would, for example, withhold funding from groups that distribute birth control?\r\n\r\nSally Ethelston: He is on the record in the past as being explicitly opposed to for example, emergency contraception. This is something that he supports, that contraceptives should not be used, that they go against the teachings of the Catholic Church, and also that condoms, even for the prevention of HIV\/AIDS, are not an option.\r\nhttp:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/rn\/talks\/8.30\/relrpt\/stories\/s315769.htm\r\n","author":"Sheepdog","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 13:56:17","modified":"2004-05-04 13:56:17","fileurl":""},{"id":109395,"heading":"Opps","article":"My Linux having some problems with C&P. Some of the text has been dropped. Just read the link.\r\n\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/rn\/talks\/8.30\/relrpt\/stories\/s315769.htm\r\n","author":"Sheepdog","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 14:03:46","modified":"2004-05-04 14:03:46","fileurl":""},{"id":109396,"heading":"sheepdog over the deep end","article":"What does that have to do with the issue? What does it have to do with my so-called contempt for women? For an unborn fetus' right to life? For the argument whether or not women should be allowed to abort as birth control?\r\n\r\nSo some religious zealot doesn't think we should wrap our rascals before diving in...big whoop! It's all part of the global conspiracy to overpopulate the planet, isn't it? \r\n\r\nHow many people do you know that don't know what a condom is for?\r\n\r\nThe debate here is not whether we should make the use of \u00b7\tprophylactics illegal sheepdog.","author":"screeder","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 14:11:53","modified":"2013-11-11 00:29:37","fileurl":""},{"id":109397,"heading":"Ping pong","article":"\u201cWhat does that have to do with the issue? What does it have to do with my so-called contempt for women? For an unborn fetus' right to life? For the argument whether or not women should be allowed to abort as birth control?\u201d\r\nI said abortion was wrong.\r\nAnd I supported my statement.\r\nAnd my comment about the double standard of extremist religious types withholding funds for birth control.\r\nAs to your contempt for women, maybe I was too selective.\r\nYou have contempt for anyone not ascribing to your particular ideology of control. If you want to save life, start with the needs of the people to education and other life conditions instead of your very narrow focus on this one and only issue.\r\nWhat's your problem? Oh, that's right, it IS your only issue. \r\nYou are becoming tiresome.","author":"Sheepdog","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 14:30:29","modified":"2013-11-11 00:29:37","fileurl":""},{"id":109398,"heading":" If you\u2019re tired, take your afternoon nap, old man.","article":"So contempt for murder is contempt for alternative thought, is that it? I simply cannot shift that paradigm.\r\n\r\nApparently you\u2019re embittered because you recognize abortion is wrong and yet can\u2019t find any way to morally justify it. At least, that\u2019s how it sounds.\r\n\r\nAnd education is available for anyone who seeks to be educated. Did you ever stop to think that perhaps not everyone desires to be educated? Certainly not everyone desires the type of \u201ceducation\u201d you espouse (brainwashing).\r\n\r\nAs for me, I have many issues. If you\u2019re tired, take your afternoon nap, old man.\r\n","author":"screeder","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 14:46:39","modified":"2013-11-11 00:29:37","fileurl":""},{"id":109402,"heading":" And education is available for anyone who seeks to be educated","article":"Nonsense. Popular culture now acts as a 'brainwashing' sea of commercial sexuality and the education you speak of takes second place in critical thinking and sound judgment.\r\nIt's not so much that I am justifying abortion, perhaps I disagree with the approach that you wish to force your contradictory moral imperatives upon the majority.\r\nRadical improvement would be to support real education and provide more choice, not less. Somehow I get the feeling you want the world to dance to your tune and would not be there to support the results of your edicts.\r\nHow many unwanted children have you adopted or how much resource have you invested in child support activities such as day care or financial contributions? Just curious.","author":"Shepdog","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 15:07:18","modified":"2004-05-04 15:07:18","fileurl":""},{"id":109403,"heading":"All this talk about freedom of choice...","article":"and yet you'd shove your averred "education" down my throat in a New York minute. What about my freedom to choose ignorance?\r\n\r\nTo answer your questions, I've supported no children who are not my own. \r\n\r\nIn my defense, however, I've neither abandoned nor aborted any child I've birthed.\r\n\r\nIt's neither my job nor yours to salvage the irresponsible from themselves. It is our duty to save the innocent from the irresponsible.\r\n\r\nThe anti-abortion position is not weakened simply because religious zealots are on that side. Truth is truth no matter who's slicing it.\r\n","author":"screeder","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 15:20:34","modified":"2004-05-04 15:20:34","fileurl":""},{"id":109404,"heading":"Please explain","article":""I disagree with the approach that you wish to force your contradictory moral imperatives upon the majority. "\r\n\r\n\r\nLove to see how you arrived at this remark.......","author":"screeder","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-04 15:25:33","modified":"2004-05-04 15:25:33","fileurl":""},{"id":109510,"heading":"OneEyedMan","article":"...you're against abortion?\r\n\r\n...well then, don't have one. \r\n\r\nBut beyond that, save your stinkin' swill breath....","author":"KPC","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-05 19:23:35","modified":"2004-05-05 19:23:35","fileurl":""},{"id":109669,"heading":"haha","article":""What about my freedom to choose ignorance?"\r\n\r\nPlease, by all means, continue to choose ignorance. You're a source of great amusement. \r\n","author":"anti-screeder","parent_id":109358,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-05-07 16:51:05","modified":"2004-05-07 16:51:05","fileurl":""}]}