Germany in denial over self-holocaust
SVM News (and European news agencies) reported yesterday:
A German court sentenced a 55-year old Lutheran pastor in jail on June 14 for … Volksverhetzung, which means incitement of the people….
Pastor Johannes Lerle was sentenced to prison for an year by Erlangen court in Germany for compar[ing] the killing of the unborn in contemporary Germany to the holocaust.
Without legalized abortion the number of German children would increase annually by at least 150,000….
(UPDATE: 6/28, 11:10a: Generations for Life has posted information on a retraction to the above story. Apparently the pastor was jailed for denying the holocaust.)
In fact, Germany and all of Europe are in the midst of an underpopulation crisis, as Newsweek reported way back in 2004….
Most of us are familiar with demographic trends in Europe, where birthrates have been declining for years. To reproduce itself, a society’s women must each bear 2.1 children. Europe’s fertility rates fall far short of that, according to the 2002 U.N. population report. France and Ireland, at 1.8, top Europe’s childbearing charts. Italy and Spain, at 1.2, bring up the rear. In between are countries such as Germany, whose fertility rate of 1.4 is exactly Europe’s average.
What does that mean? If the U.N. figures are right, Germany could shed nearly a fifth of its 82.5 million people over the next 40 years – roughly the equivalent of all of east Germany, a loss of population not seen in Europe since the Thirty Years’ War.
In 2007, according to the CIA World Fact Book, 96 of 222 countries, including the U.S. and all the aforementioned, are not populating at replacement levels. Were it not for immigration, the U.S.’s population would be falling.
The push to legitimize illegal immigration in the U.S. is actually a push to replace our aborted children. This is particularly so of self-obsessed aging baby boomers, now worried there will be no one to see to their comfort otherwise, who ironically pushed for all those abortions.
Karma.
[Hat tip: LifeNews.com via Dr. Frank. Photo of Pastor Lerle courtesy of SVM News.]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
There’s the trite racist alarmism we all knew was lurking in the back of Jill’s mind.
And my trite racist alarmist post was wrong where, Cameron?
I don’t know why you think my repsonse to your post is countering your facts… oh oh oh… is this your daily strawman?
Trite rascist alarmism is inherently wrong.
unfortunately the illegal immigrants are aborting as well, aren’t they? I wonder how those baby boomers are going to handle it on their death beds, think they will suddenly regret, regret, regret…..?
Camboa, as long as you concur my post is factual, you can call me all the names you want (well, most).
This is possibly the most idiotic post I’ve read here. In Germany/Austria, it is illegal to speak disrespectfully of the holocaust for ANY reason: and comparing abortion to the holocaust shows a basic lack of knowledge of BOTH events. 7 million is NOT 150,000, and to compare the two is stupid beyond reason.
Also, Jill, I’ve told you time and time again. From living in Europe, you know, personal experience, abortion has nothing to do with the population crisis. Women marry later in life and are choosing not to have children. In Germany right now, the majority of women are choosing to remain single and work on their careers until their mid thirties, and then they marry. A significant portion don’t marry, and another significant portion remain with partners and don’t marry. In Italy, a large portion of the young men are choosing to live with their parents until their career takes off: again, in their mid thirties. Italian women don’t want to marry these men, and as these men represent such a large percent of the population, marriages are decreasing.
In Europe, abortion is rarely discussed. It’s accepted as something that occasionally has to happen, and they move on to more important topics: the environment, freedom of the press, poverty, racial inequity. It isn’t common to get an abortion, but in Germany, the vast majority of abortions are due to life of the mother. Teen pregnancy doesn’t hold the same stigma there, parents actually educate their children on birth control methods, and parents don’t have the same knee-jerk reaction of “OH NO GOING TO HELL!” when their children do start having sex.
What else should we expect in a world where No. 1 is well, No. 1?
The pro-aborts’ attitudes are me-centered, so why should we expect them to have children other than to have those children for their own ego glorification and at their own convenience? Hence, after having 1.4 kids, realizing that it actually takes giving of oneself, why should they have more? The new car aroma has worn off.
Why should we expect anything different when pro-aborts can murder their children without so much as a blink of an eye if it interferes with their lifestyle.
Of all countries, where millions upon milllions of innocent peope were killed in the Holocaust, by imprisoning a pastor, Germany shows no repentance from their evil and selfish ways. How true the proverb that says, “a dog returns to its own vomit”.
In the last days their destruction is assured.
Europe is set to be overrun by Islam. A false religion based on hate and oppression.
Our country should take very serious note of this.
Cameron,
If Jill is tritely racist and alarmist, what does that make you, Ghandi?
Less, 11:56a: Guttmacher estimates 46 million women worldwide abort every year. That’s nearly 1 billion in the last 20 years alone. The population of the earth is 6.6 billion. Come again that “comparing abortion to the holocaust shows a basic lack of knowledge of BOTH events” and “abortion has nothing to do with the population crisis”?
Guttmacher source: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_0599.html
Less, btw, am I to understand by your words you admit there’s an underpopulation crisis?
Less,
Ignorance is bliss?
You must be in heaven.
Does abortion select the fetus specifically on racial characteristics, religion of the parents, culture characteristics, or national status? No? Than abortion isn
“pro-aborts” are my least favorite animal.
Ghandi?
Actually, I think I might be the Messiah… the second coming of Jesus. Like that guy from kids in the hall who crushes people’s heads, I actaully help people along like that. I has magic. And, no doubt, if i die wrongfully, the last words I’ll likely hear will be something akin to “blasphemor.”
Less,
I don’t expect someone who has a blatantly secular humanist view of the world to understand this, however, the abortion epidemic is actually much, much worse than any holocuast that has ever taken place on earth. Hence, to equate abortion with The Holocaust is to trivialize abortion.
It is therefore appropriate, based on your comments, that I post my own copyrighted definition of abortion at this time, and this from a supernatural point of view. Again, I don’t expect you to understand this higher form of knowledge and revelation since, as I have said before on numerus occasions on this site that, “the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord”.:
Abortion is an affront to the creative nature of God, it negates God as Creator,
Abortion denies the power of God to right a wrong, it negates God as Redeemer,
Abortion makes that which is good, the birth of human life, into that which is evil, the death of human life, and then calls it good, the very definition of blasphemy,
Abortion negates the resurrection power of God as it takes flesh that is alive in it’s earthly abode (the womb) and kills it, while God takes that flesh which is dead in it’s earthly abode (the grave) and desires to make it alive,
Abortion’s desire is to take that which was composed from the chaotic array of elemental molecules into a symphony of life infused with an eternal soul, and turn it back to the entropy of randomness, chaos, nothingness, uselessness.
Abortion is against all that is hopeful, all that requires faith for success; for it’s solution; annihilation, it’s goal; death, it’s dream; breaking God’s heart, it’s vision, Satan’s ultimate power.
Abortion is a counterfeit, for the clawprints of Satan are everywhere to be found in its performance;
Abortion disguises hate as love, bondage as freedom, choice as maturity, sin as righteousness, political correctness as wisdom,
Abortion pits men against women, mothers against their children, fathers against God,
Yes, abortion is Satan’s feeble attempt at killing God Himself, for abortion is a metaphor for Satan; it is his coat of arms, his family crest, his logo, his brand, it belongs to him……for he laughs at its willing proponents as they craft their own self-destruction, mantled in self-deception.
Copyright 2007 by HisMan
You shouldn’t use the term “karma” in any kind of positive way Jill. It is a concept that is opposed to the Christian faith.
Zeke, I’m not sure what meaning you read into my use of the word “karma,” but I used it in a negative way.
Furthemore, people in my audience understand the word, a concept which is indeed not opposed to the Christian faith. According to the Bible, bad things always ultimately happen to wicked people.
As a stance on abortion is a political stance, luv, pro-choicers aren’t animals: they’re humans with a political stance. They can be your least favorite humans with a political stance, or even your least favorite animals with a political stance, but to claim them as your least favorite animal makes you look dumb. ^^
HisMan, I tuned out all of your post. I don’t expect you to understand the higher knowledge and enlightenment that allows me to look beyond religion and see the world from a more unbiased eye: unfortunately, that enlightenment doesn’t always extend to those who are being religiously intolerant jerks. :)
There is more to this story than what you see here.
For another view check out
http://closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2007/06/about-that-german-pastor-sentenced-to.html
Seems this pastor may not be such a hero.
John
I quite clearly stated that I would abstain from judgement pending more details of the case…rather than running with what the filed suite “allegdes.” I facetiously accused her of orchastrating a prolife martyrdom.
I find comparing abortion to the holocaust tremendously disrespectful. Fetuses aren’t people. The 7 million Jews, homosexuals, Rom, and others were people. It honestly is nauseating to me.
Erin said:
The 7 million Jews, homosexuals, Rom, and others were people.
6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. And the total number of victims of the Holocaust — Jews and Gentiles — is much closer to 11 million. (It’s also perhaps worth noting that most of the “other” 5 million were Catholic.)
BTW, kudos to John for posting the link to Gerald’s post at The Cafeteria Is Closed.
Mark Shea also offered, per usual, a dose of sanity:
“Fetuses aren’t people.”
Let’s compare the two pics posted in this article. Picture on the left shows corpses piled on top of each other. Legs, arms, heads, chests, private parts, all there, all undeniably human, albeit expired. Forced into their demise and trashed.
Picture on the right shows corpses with all the major body parts that would certainly differentiate them from, say, swine, so we can say that they, too, were people. Smaller, less developed than the good folks on the left pic, but undeniably human just the same. Also forced to expire against their will. At least the little ones could fit in the Hefty bag so they didn’t have to be left out in the open like the poor souls we see next to them.
I concur with Erin; yes, it’s nauseating to me, too. Not that fetuses/fetii (or whatever plural you want to insert)have the audacity to be compared to Holocaust victims, but that others deny the little ones the same dignity and respect that the slaughtered on the left deserve.
I wonder how many of the 6 million Jews and 50 million others killed in the Holocaust were pregnant.
If we estimate that 50% were woman, that’s 26,500,000. Let’s say that 40% of those woman were capable of child bearing, that’s 10,600,000. If 10% of those woman were pregnant, I estimate that at least 1,060,000 babies were killed in the Holocuast that were not counted in the total figures of dead.
And do you know what nauseates me Erin? It’s people like you who have no clue about what life truly is. To call God’s intent fetuses and not human beings is of the same mindset and from the same evil spirit from which Hitler’s murderous rampage evolved. One person’s mindset, Adolf Hitler, alterend history and unleashed the rage of Hell on mankind. So don’t think your attitudes toward human life are innocent and defensible for within them are the seeds of death that, sown within the wrong human heart, can unleash no less of a Holocaust. Do not be fooled foolish one.
My Lord says, “On this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail agasint it”.
Hitler and all like him are losers. History proves it.
Get on the right side before it is too late.
“Of all countries, where millions upon milllions of innocent peope were killed in the Holocaust, by imprisoning a pastor, Germany shows no repentance from their evil and selfish ways. How true the proverb that says, “a dog returns to its own vomit”.”
WTF?
Abortion is NOT the same as the Holocaust and comparing the two is not only disgusting, but – at least here – illegal as well. Breaking the law will result in punishment, it’s as simple as that.
And don’t you dare ever calling Germany “selfish” or “evil” – at least we didn’t start any wars recently under false pretences.
“In the last days their destruction is assured.
Europe is set to be overrun by Islam. A false religion based on hate and oppression.”
Ever heard of the crusades?
Less, I’m so sorry that you didn’t quite understand. I’ll rephrase that for you, possibly in a more simpler way.
Pro-abort humans are my least favorite animal. Does that help? I wouldn’t want you do look dumb again by not understanding this one.
Ingrid:
Face it…you are brainwashed.
We were attacked for goodness sake’s. 3000 peope were killed. They would do it again if we hadn’t taken the battle to them.
What magnanimous stupidity you represent believing the lies of our liberal media whose only interest is to bring European puke, namby-pamby, pacifist, cowardly and godless thinking to the US. It won’t happen.
Seems like the German people still have a bent for believing propaganda, you haven’t learned anything.
And I will say it again. Abortion is the same as and worse than the Holocaust for its springs from the same evil mindset of a disrespect for the lives of the weakest among us.
Someday you will understand when you bow, either willingly or unwillingly, before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord..
“
*I* am brainwashed? And that from the man who believes in 2000 year old fairy tales…
SH, that’s why I said “recently”. And the only reason the American “elected” government – led by a nutjob- hasn’t 11 million dead to mourn is because you’re not done counting yet.
I think Ingrid doesn’t understand that if we were in the war to kill 11 million or if we didn’t care about innocent life we would have ran a war much differently. You see we could have simply flown over, dropped enough bombs to level every city in Iraq, bulldozed the entire country and blacktopped over it, just to make sure no one was hiding underground. Oh yeah, and we would have done it quietly, you know, without warning them that we were coming. But, crazy as we are, we care (the slight majority of us) about innocent life, in or out of the womb.
That picture of those dead babies sickens me! How could a woman do that?
Because their peers, doctors, PP, lie to them and tell them “it’s ok” “it’s just a clump of cells. I think it should me a law that before a woman agrees to an abortion they have to see an aborted baby in person.
Brainwashed, HisMan? Take a look at the collateral damages in the Middle East right now. Seriously.
Someday HisMan,
You will bow before Rama, willingly or unwillingly, and confess that you have worshiped the wrong gods. Unlike your weasel of god though, Rama does not grant instant forgiveness simply for acknowleding him and embracing him, but condems one to samsara based on their actually actions regardless of later lipservices.
Gosh, I attended a very nice small group meeting last Friday. I was feeling quite kindly toward Christianity for most of this week. I was really going to try to understand what you all see in it.
Now that I’ve read HisMan’s posts, I’m not feeling so kindly anymore.
Erin: “Fetuses aren’t people”
what are they then? Dogs? Cats?
Stephanie, don’t let people decide your relationship with God. People will only disappoint. Seek Him alone.
I’m glad you had a positive time at small group. I hope you continue to explore God’s word.
HisMan,
Mega-dittos.
That’s right Steph… back away slowly…. you’ve seen enough.
I dont see the slowed reproduction rate as a “crisis.” We are already at an unsustainable population: Ecology 101. If anybody is having a population crisis, its the tuataras and the red hills salamanders.
And in reference to the Holocaust and all the German-bashing going on here, I would just like to point out that our liberal education history teachers are now revealing the fact that conservative patriotism had suppressed from my parents’ generation. America received applications for asylum from over one million Jews, less than one-tenth of which were allowed in, before Hitler began erradicating them. He warned them to get out. There just wasnt any nation that was willing to take them.
Hey Jill, you’ve never answered the question posed to you months and months ago: as the population crisis in Europe is mostly due to women choosing not to have children and has very little to do with abortion, would you force these women to have children?
You know, I’m actually surprised none of you brought up the 17-year-old sitting in prison in Turkey because he supposedly raped a 13-year-old girl from England – just to show how evil and hateful Germans are.
“What magnanimous stupidity you represent believing the lies of our liberal media whose only interest is to bring European puke, namby-pamby, pacifist, cowardly and godless thinking to the US. It won’t happen.”
Just because the rest of Europe didn’t comply to Bush’s orders like Tony Blair did, doesn’t mean we’re cowards. In fact, Schr
Ingrid,
Apparently around the time it was decided it was synonymous with “coward”.
At least, that’s the impression I got.
Less, 11:01p: You and I disagree on your premise, which you present as anecdotal.
Your premise is: “[T]he population crisis in Europe is mostly due to women choosing not to have children and has very little to do with abortion…”
I presented facts yesterday the portion of your premise stating “very little to do with abortion” was false. I’ll repeat what I said:
Guttmacher estimates 46 million women worldwide abort every year. That’s nearly 1 billion in the last 20 years alone. The population of the earth is 6.6 billion. Come again that “comparing abortion to the holocaust shows a basic lack of knowledge of BOTH events” and “abortion has nothing to do with the population crisis”?
Guttmacher source: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_0599.html
Furthermore, you ignore how women may be choosing not to have children.
Until you admit, Less, that abortion, in fact, has a great deal to do with the underpopulation crisis in Europe, you demonstate irrationality and are unfit to converse with further on this topic.
Samantha T,
An excellent point about no country taking in the Jews, and that includes the United States who’s president was the Democrat liberal icon Franklin Roosevelt. If you ever saw the movie Voyage of the Damned, it is the account of a cruiseship full of German Jews who were allowed to leave Nazi Germany and flee to Havana. The cruise was a sham. Anyway, the ship did try to gain entry to the US and Roosevelt refused, even sending the Coast Guard out to make sure no one jumped ship. Roosevelt didn’t know what would happen to the Jewish passengers who were forced to return to Germany? Right. So why did he refuse less than 1,000 people admission? Who knows. The ship was forced to return to Germany and I believe some European countries agreed to take some of the refugees, though these countries would eventually be overrun by the Nazis.
Oh my goodness, that is horrible!! :(
Mary, I always learn so much from your posts.
Jill, does any of that give reasons for abortion? I also stated that the majority of abortions in most European countries is for health of the mother, or teenage pregnancies. Your posting of the report ignored this:
46 million women around the world have abortions each year. Of these women, 78% live in developing countries and 22% in developed countries.
As the countries in Europe we’re discussing are developed countries, that would support my anecdotal evidence that abortion in Europe, isn’t the main factor in underpopulation. In fact, your report also explicitly states that only 17% of aborting women live in Europe. You might also want to take a look at this:
Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland have abortion rates below 10 per 1,000 women of reproductive age…
All of this is from reading that one report. Again, abortion in most areas of Germany isn’t the large number you’re making it out to be: it’s far, far, less than that of the US. Next time, read your own source, please.
Now, again. As the data you presented echoes my ideas, what would you do to fix the population decrease, as it seems to be less about abortion and more about women choosing not to have children.
Erin is not “people”.
Less, 17% of 1 billion is 170 MILLION, and that’s just in the last 20 years. That’s 24x the number of Jews killed in the holocaust, using a conservative estimate of 7 million.
Furthermore, many of those 170 MILLION aborted children would be having children TODAY. Abortion just doesn’t kill one person. It kills an entire family tree.
The only echoes here are in your head, Less, as you continue to shout down reality with your ridiculous ideological reverberations.
Cameron:
Rama?
Is that Rama Mama Obama or Camerama Urmama?
Dream on magic boy.
Rama [n] noodles?
Rama Lama Ding Dong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsQLLqlTluk&mode=related&search=
Stepanie:
Please don’t let my comments lead you away from Christianity. The Bible teaches that all will have to answer to Jesus Christ for what we say and do, including me. I am sure I am and will recieve quite a few reprimands.
Lauren is right, seek God yourself, based on HIs word and not what others tell you. Sure, ask questions of oterhs but, ulatimately, let Him lead you. He cares for you.
I can get pretty ornery on this site when dealing with the insulting likes of Cameron. I guess I am using Cameron to hone my skills in this area. One of the most difficult things to do in Christianity is to endure the taunts of those who hate you and then to appropriately love them back.
Being kind and compassionate is not one of my strengths and I admit that true Christianity does embrace this. However, Christianity, like God, is not one-dimensional. There is room for speaking stronlgy against evil. The key is to learn how to do this within Christianity’s costraints.
Having said that, Jesus Christ is not some namby-pamby, blue eyed, blond-haired wimp. He was a strong man (a Middle-Eastern carpenter) who knew how to appropriately love people. Being God, He knew peoples’ hearts and threfore, gave them what they needed, be it harsh words or compassion, not what they wanted.
So, I ask you to forgive me for sounding rather harsh. Abortion stirs up so many emotions in me that I sometimes find it hard to restrain myself from lashing out at those who support such a heinous act. If I saw a child in the road and in danger of being killed by oncoming traffic, I would not hesitate to attempt to rescue that child. What makes abortion so frustrating is that I see the same child to be aborted in similar grave danger but feel constrained and powerless to rescue and then at the same time to endure the hatred and jeers of Cameron, Less, etc.
Lauren, thank you for moderating and being salt and light.
Thank God that He forgives and is full of grace. I need to learn that as well.
Jill, LMAO!
Sorry on the misspell of your name Stephanie.
Erin,
If you were President, how would you have handled the 9/11 attacks. Negotiations?
With who? What do you offer people that want to you to convert to your satanic religion or kill you?
When evil is identified and cannot be reasoned with it must be eradicated, no? Would you let some evil person that has just broken into your house kill you, your spouse, your children without a fight? What do you think 9/11 was, A political statement? Should we let evil people kill innocent people?
Saddam Hussein was the definition of evil. We made no mistake going into Iraq and removing him.
Yes, collateral danage is a sad fact of war but, what else could have been done? Perhaps you might ask the question, “Can’t we just all get along”. And Al Qieda would laugh in your face as they slit your throat.
The truth is, evil exists. To deny this is living life in denial and with blinders on. The difficulty with being a Christian is how to deal with the evil people and the evil things that evil people do.
9/11 was the murder of innocent people. Abortion is the murder of innocent people. Magnitudes more were and are killed with abortion than the whole of 9/11 and the Iraq war and most of all modern day conflicts combined. Where’s your outrage against abortion then? Oh, I know, change the meanings of words….it’s not a person, viability, choice, etc., etc., etc. What a mountain of BS. Where’s the consistency? Why does the right to have abortion have such power over people that they are willing to bend their interanlly evident compassion. Is selfishness that powerful? What makes one willing to be so self-deceived by the pro-choice propaganda machine in direct opposition to their apparent concern for the innocent victims of war. The only thing I can say is that the dichotomy is of satanic origin. It is very hard to understand.
Unfortunalty, basking in the luxury of not having been attacked in the almost 6 years following 9/11, you have bought into the liberal notion that something different should have been done and for the sake of maintaining personal power (and that over the good of the country), the solution is withdrawal and defeat.
This, by definition, is cowardice.
I see no difference in the above pictures. Both show dead bodies. I feel the same as you do His Man. POWERLESS to stop the slaughter. How many unborn children will go in for slaughter today, tomorrow, the next day? 4000 abortions a day. 4000! That is an abomination!
My newborn daughter looks just like those babies in the trash. The only difference is that she’s alive.
I wonder if it’s worth telling you that not a single Iraqi was involved in 9/11. Or that the weapons Saddam Hussein often came from America, along with a handshake from Donald Rumsfeld.
Probably not.
The War in Iraq is the murder of innocent people.
Let me tell you my definition of cowardice- men so hardened to understanding of different viewpoints, they refuse to see the light others can get from different beliefs. Cowardice is knowing that there is a peaceful solution, but charging in with guns blazing. Cowardice is what our government does everyday in a charactaristically chauvanistic fashion. Cowardice is men who are so afraid of being called ‘wimps’ that they will take war as an alternative to peace simply so they can have a big member-waving contest.
Two wrongs don’t make a right- is that Christian, or just satanic common sense?
Jill, I keep telling you, and you keep ignoring it, so I’ll bold it. Perhaps your eyes are failing, you might want to get that checked. The vast majority of German/European abortions are done for the life of the mother. As in, the mother would die were the fetus not delivered. Those that aren’t done for that reason are done on teenage mothers: even those, however, are fairly rare, as German schools teach actual contraceptive methods.
There you go. Want to provide some evidence to the contrary? Because otherwise you’re sitting there looking like an idiot, ignoring the main thrust of the argument. Want to stop the life of the mother abortions as well?
Less, that was quite a statement, only enhanced by your bold italics! Let me repeat it!
“The vast majority of German/European abortions are done for the life of the mother. As in, the mother would die were the fetus not delivered.”
My goodness! So, Less, ~170 million abortions in Europe over the last 20 years have been done or the mother would die?! Somewhere between 7 and 8 MILLION abortions a year are committed in Europe or the mother would die?!
My! What the heck is going on in the land you call Wundervoll, the land where you wish you could relocate?!
In America, with our digusting unsocialized health care system, a max of 1% of all abortions are committed for life of the mother.
Less, this is tragic news to broadcast! No one else knows!
Grr… I can’t stand it when people try to make this comparison. I agree with whoever above said that it shows a complete lack of understanding of both situations. Why?
1)The holocaust was a case of genocide. Abortion as it is occurring around the world is not genocide:
gen
No Diana,
It is not painfully clear at all that the victims of the holocaust had rights, that’s only your opinion. Any number of people in Germany, and throughout Europe, would have argued that the Jews and others, including Gypsies, and all others who were gassed, had no rights at all. That mentality still prevails today, both here and in Europe. These people were being killed because they were viewed as having no rights, as being the cause of all problems, they were inconvenient, and unwanted. Their killing was perfectly legal. Sound familiar?
Diana, 5:24p, said: “It is not at all clear, however, that an embryo/fetus, especially in the earliest stages of development (when most abortions are performed) is a person with rights.”
Shaky, Diana?
Diana,
Another thing, not everyone then, and now, would agree with you that these were human beings. They were viewed as “subhuman”, thus making their killing more tolerable. The Germans also viewed Slavic people as subhuman inferiors and inflicted brutal atrocities and mass murder on the Slavic peoples they conquered in WW2. Because the Japanese viewed the Chinese as subhuman, little better than dogs, they inflicted horrendous atrocities and mass murder on them as well during WW2. As you can see, there hasn’t always been a universal concensus as to what a human being is, nor is there now, so we should just leave it to personal opinion as to whether or not a particular group of people are human.
Mary,
“It is not painfully clear at all that the victims of the holocaust had rights, that’s only your opinion. Any number of people in Germany, and throughout Europe, would have argued that the Jews and others, including Gypsies, and all others who were gassed, had no rights at all. That mentality still prevails today, both here and in Europe. These people were being killed because they were viewed as having no rights, as being the cause of all problems, they were inconvenient, and unwanted. Their killing was perfectly legal. Sound familiar?”
Yes, Mary. It sounds just like the arguments for slavery, etc. But if you are trying to rope me into a personhood argument, it won’t work. Abortion rights have nothing to do with personhood (hence why #3 was the most important difference). I was merely noting that the status of an embryo/fetus is not as clear in today’s society as the status of a fully formed, functioning individual.
Jill,
“Shaky, Diana?”
Do you actually read posts, Jill? My defense of abortion rights has always been under the assumption that a fetus is a person. I’m not completely certain when personhood begins. I’ve admitted many times that I am not. I don’t think any intelligent individual should be completely certain. But at the end of the day, personhood is irrelevant to the matter at hand.
Diana, how do you know that some of these Jewish women weren’t pregnant @ the time of their deaths? I’m sure some of them were.
Diana,
I was pointing out that humanity and rights are not as “painfully clear” to everyone as you seem to assume they are. Like it or not, denying humanity(personhood) and rights of holocaust victims is what made the killing acceptable. That these were human beings with rights is only your opinion, and there are plenty of people who would have disagreed with you then, and plenty who will disagree with you now.
Try telling a modern day white supremist that black and Jewish people are persons with rights.
“The War in Iraq is the murder of innocent people.”
By who Erin?
4life,
I’ve no doubt that some were, given that the Nazis performed medical experiments of all sorts, including some on Jewish women who were pregnant – experiments that likely resulted in their deaths. We still rely on medical knowledge gained by the Germans during the holocaust, sad as it is. In fact, I seem to remember hearing of a case of one woman whose legs were tied together when she went into labor. They wanted to see what would happen. She and the fetus both died, of course. I’m not sure I see what that has to do with what we were talking about.
Mary,
I’m aware that is the case, but I figured I was talking to a set of people who very clearly recognized that fully formed, functional, non-brain dead individuals are in fact people with rights no matter what their skin color or ethnicity or whatever. If some racist pig wants to come out of the woodwork and debate me on it, I’d be glad to. But I do not rely on the argument that a fetus is not a person to justify abortion rights, so it’s purely tangential to the real difference between the holocaust and abortion.
that should read “fully functional (i.e. non-brain dead) individuals”
Do you have any children Diana?
No, Jasper. No children. PhD and marriage first, then kids.
Diana: “Not a single victim of the holocaust was using the body of another person when they were killed. As a result, no Nazi had a right to kill them to end that use, since no use was going on. As a result, the two cases are completely disanalogous, since someone whose body is being used without their consent has a right to end that use. Women who have abortions are exercising that right. The Nazis were not.”
YOU gave the unborn baby consent when you had sex. Do you think it put itself in your womb? God, what a weak argument..
Jasper,
Did you read the argument Samantha, Rachael and I had on the other thread? It’s not a weak argument at all. You can consent to an action without consenting to it’s natural consequences. I can consent to smoking without consenting to cancer. I can consent to eating uncooked beef without consenting to getting e coli. I can eat raw eggs without consenting to getting salmonella. I can consent to walking in mud barefoot without consenting to getting ring worm. I can consent to driving recklessly without consenting to getting into a car accident. It all depends on my reason for the initial action. If I eat uncooked beef in order to get e coli, then it looks like I’ve consented to getting e coli, but if I eat uncooked beef because I really like the taste of steak tartar, then I haven’t consented to the e coli I get, even though I’m fully aware that eating uncooked beef is likely to naturally lead to a case of e coli.
Even if that weren’t the case, you can give consent to use of your body and then withdraw that consent. If I consent to sex, and then change my mind in the middle (maybe it’s painful or I don’t feel right about it, whatever), and I indicate my lack of consent (by say, screaming “stop! Get off me!”) and my partner continues, that’s rape. A violation of my right to bodily autonomy.
So the fact that a woman has engaged in sex in no way means that she has automatically forfeited her right to bodily autonomy. Consent to sex is NOT consent to pregnancy.
Diana,
If a woman has true bodily autonomy (control over her own body), can she abort an unborn baby at 38 weeks? The mother and baby are fine with no health problems?
Jasper,
Yes. Although what would be best in that situation (as long as the risk to the woman is not substatially great) induced labor and delivery and then preventative measures to save the life of the infant. If the woman’s right to bodily autonomy can be respected without harm to the infant, than it should be. While the woman’s right to bodily autonomy supercedes the right to life of the fetus, if it is possible to respect both the woman’s right to bodily autonomy AND the fetus’ right to life, then that is what should be done.
And I think that, in a situation like that, it could be legally mandated that both the woman’s rights and the fetus’ rights be preserved.
Diana,
No, the women doesn’t want to have the baby, she wants to abort it. Does she have control over what happens to her body (a birth or an abortion)? can she have the abortion, yes or no?
Jasper,
Whether or not she wants to keep the kid is irrelevant. She has the right to end the non-consensual use of her body by another individual. She can kill that individual if she has to, but if she doesn’t *have* to kill that individual to end the violation of her rights over her body, then she cannot. (Just as I cannot legally kill a would be rapist if I have ample opportunity to run away). So she can terminate the pregnancy through birth, thereby exercising her right to bodily autonomy while simultaneously protecting the rights of the fetus. What is so difficult to understand about that? As I see it, this is all about rights. While one right supercedes another (just as my right not to be raped (bodily autonomy violated) overrides my rapists right to life (even if he doesn’t know what he’s doing), if both rights can be preserved (if I can get avoid being raped without killing him) then that’s what must be done.
True bodily autonomy is total control over what happens to your body. So, from your conclusion above, she does not have bodily autonomy, so please stop using this argument.
Yes. True bodily autonomy is control over what happens to your body. My conclusion above preserves her right and the right of the fetus. While her right supercedes the right of the fetus, no right is 100% sacrosanct. There is always give and take. In this case there is give so that multiple rights can be preserved. So no, I will not stop using this argument since you’ve not even come close to undermining it. Try again.
If she has true bodily autonomy, she should be able have the abortion and not have to give birth.
No, Jasper, that’s not the case at all. That’s like saying that if you truly have free speech, you should be able to put pornography up wherever you want, or the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. Or like saying that if you truly have free exercise rights, you should be able to sacrifice a goat in your backyard and then burn it so god (and your offended neighbors) smells it. As I said, no right is sacrosanct. When the come into conflict with others, sometimes they are superceded. And other times they are not superceded, but they buckle a little to allow for the preservation of other rights. Sad as it is, not everything is black or white. Sometimes things have give and take.
@Diana: You know that thing about tying a woman’s legs together when she’s giving birth? Some nurses in South Dakota did that to my grandmother when she was in labor back in the 1940’s. My grandfather was in the military so he was in WWII in the Philippines, and my grandma was pregnant with their first child (she was named “Carol” I believe) but she went in to labor and went to the hospital.
I don’t know what time of year it was when this incident happened, but for some reason the doctor couldn’t get tot he hospital for awhile and the baby was coming, so the nurses tied my grandmother’s legs together to prevent her from pushing the baby out.
In the end, Carol died before she was born. She was a perfectly healthy baby and she died of suffocation because of the ignorance and sheer stupidity of the nurses at that hospital. My grandma was fine, but it’s one aunt that I never had.
Oh my, Rae! I’m so sorry to hear that. That’s terrible.
Diana,
You just have ot keep in mind that those who would deny the personhood and rights of mature human beings are just as convinced these people are sub or non human and have no rights as you and are I convinced they are human with rights. They see nothing wrong with their position. I suppose this makes personhood and rights a matter of opinion.
Jasper, when will you stop asking the same question over and over again?
Maybe when it’s answered.
Mary,
I understand that. It doesn’t make personhood and rights a matter of opinion, it just means that we don’t always know the truth and there are, of course, matters of disagreement.
4life,
The question was answered, multiple times. I can’t do any more than answer the question. If he can’t understand plain english, well, that’s not really my problem.
Heather, the question was answered so often I can’t even count it anymore. And everytime someone brings up a pro-choice argument, along comes jasper and asks if we’d abort a fetus at 39 weeks.
jasper- by the military. By and large, American military. Ooo, ouch, hurts to hear that our military kills innocent civilians, doesn’t it?
Diana,
In other words, a matter of opinion.
Erin,
I very sorry for you.
Mary,
No. Not a matter of opinion. Say there is a box in the other room, and neither of us can see it, nor can we get in the room to take a look. All we have is evidence we’ve gotten from various other sources, and then reasoning based on that evidence.
Now, say you have evidence that it is red and I have evidence that it is green. We argue back and forth about it, sharing evidence, engaging in rational arguments about whose evidence is better and what actually counts as evidence, etc, etc. We’re having a disagreement about the color of the box, but that doesn’t mean that the color of the box is a matter of opinion. If it’s red, it’s red, and it doesn’t matter how much I believe it’s green or how much you believe it’s red.
Personhood, rights, etc, are the same way. We only have so much evidence, and we disagree, and we go back and forth with arguments, but that doesn’t make it a matter of opinion. There’s a fact of the matter no matter how much I believe X or you believe Y.
Diana,
You stated in a previous post that the personhood and rights of the embryo/fetus are not at all clear. This is your opinion. There are those, myself included, who would disagree with you.
You said it was painfully clear that holocaust victims were persons with rights. I completely agree with you. However, there were, and still are, people who would vehemently disagree with us. These are people who were, and are, just as convinced of their “knowledge” of humanity and rights as you and I are convinced of ours.
Given this, as well as the fact that there is no universal concensus that all people are persons with rights, then we will just have to leave this a matter of personal opinion, as we do where the personhood and rights of the unborn are concerned.
Less, ~170 million abortions in Europe over the last 20 years have been done or the mother would die?! Somewhere between 7 and 8 MILLION abortions a year are committed in Europe or the mother would die?!
AND OH MY GODS APPARENTLY GERMANY IS ALL OF EUROPE! DEAR LORD, EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER BEEN TOLD IS A LIE!
In case your failing eyesight, once again, didn
Wow, I don’t check up for a few weeks and I come back to a warzone.
1. Comparing abortion to the Holocaust is downright wrong, and offensive. They’re two completely seperate things, and I highly doubt that fetii were forced into concentration camps, seperated from their families, and gassed or thrown in an oven.
2. HisMan, Jasper, if Johnny Cash were still alive and knew about how big you guys talk and yet still claim to be Christians, I’m sure that the Man In Black himself would come to your homes and put a boot where the sun don’t shine because you are not acting the way that I was raised to believe a Christian should. Hell, I’m not a Christian, and I’m running the drama program at the church my parents attend because they asked for my help. I may not believe in it, but I’m doing what I believe is the right thing [giving my help and lending my skills when someone asks me to, regardless of the circumstance.]
3. Jasper, I swear, if you ask that stupid 38 Week question one more time, I’m going to send evil Pteranodons of Doom to your house carrying WMD’s of Democracy.
I’m sorry for you too, jasper, dear.
“I highly doubt that fetii were forced into concentration camps, seperated from their families, and gassed or thrown in an oven.”
Skinhead D.
You’re right. The fetii were forced into trash bags, not c. camps, as the photo clearly suggests. I would argue that they were separated from their families, mainly mommy, via vaccum aspiration, or limb by limb if they were further along in development. Gassed, well, maybe not in the concentration camp sense, but more sophisticated procedures are employed to ensure the “final solution” for those undesirable parasites/cancers/freeloaders. As for being thrown in an oven, plenty of evidence to the contrary based on charges filed against Tiller and others in the profession.
Carder,
Were they aware of the seperation while it happened? Were they brutally beaten and pried off of their parents as they made last futile attempt to fight off seperation?
I don’t think so.
Skinhead Dan,
Its entirely possible.
Glad to hear they corrected the story.
Now if only Steve Ertelt will correct his fabrications. Hear about em in Thursday and Friday’s shows here http://www.kgov.com
Whether an individual has the capacity for awareness or not (say, like in the instance of comatose patients or those in a vegetative state), their limitations are not justification for abuse/cruelty. Furhtermore, once awareness has been terminated permanently, as is evident in Left Photo, piling these unaware humans one on top of another rightfully strikes a chord of indignation deep within us even though those corpses have no clue how they’re being treated at that moment.
So when we see a Hefty full of terminated fetuses/fetii, the same repulsion presents itself. Granted, SS men weren’t seeking them out, they weren’t stuffed into cattle cars or told to strip upon arrival and such, yet the end purpose was the same: remove them from our lives, from society, and we’ll be a better individual/culture because of it.
Now on a more amicable note…
Helping out with a Drama program? Theatre Major? If you are, we have lots to talk about:=)
carder, well put!
Carder,
I second Heather4life. An excellent post that very well sums it all up. Hitler got rid of his unwanted, we get rid of ours. Remove certain unwanted individuals and life will be utopia.
Let’s not forget that Tiller now has his own crematorium.
It’s so very sad to see corpses discarded this way. How can the human heart lack compassion? Looking at both photos is tough. They both make me heart sick. What if that was your child, mother, father, brother? Just thrown in the trash. God help us! Please help us.
Heather4life,
Sadly, its very easy. Just view the victims as non-humans that society will be better off without.
Mary, I agree. I guess I just wasn’t born with the ability to do that. There was a young girl a few cities away from me who gave birth to a baby and killed it. She is serving a 6 year jail sentence. That’s it! 6 years. I hear that she has told reporters that after her prison term is over, she wants to get a college degree and start a family. The good people of her town buried her baby. They paid for all of the funeral expenses. I guess she didn’t view her new born son as a human. I guess that’s why she was able to stab him.
Here are 2 more girls who killed their babies and are as free as birds. Amy S. Grossberg and her boyfriend Brian C. Peterson. Hid the pregnancy, gave birth in a motel room, and tossed the baby into a freezing dumpster on a frigid November night. Amy served only 2and 1/2 years. Brian did about 6 months less time. Melissa Drexler aka. The PROM MOM. Hid her pregnancy, gave birth in a toilet @ senior prom. Threw the baby in the trash can. Went back onto the dance floor. Only served about a year in prison. These girls should have done life!
Diana,
You say that you recognize the unborn as fully human and most likely endowed with complete personhood, but that your rights supercede theirs…? Do I have that right?
You also say that because Hitler and his ilk viewed the jews/gypsies/etc. as non-humans, not endowed with personhood, they don’t fit the same reasoning criteria that you have for procuring abortions? Correct?
Well, to me, the bottom line is that whether they (Jews/gypsies/etc.) were viewed as humans or not is not the final reason that they were killed. That was just a way to justify the horror. The real reason that they were killed is that one group of people (the nazis) believed they were superior to another group of people. By your reasoning, abortion amounts to the same thing. You believe that you are superior to the unborn because they had the audacity to use your body to develop. (never forgetting of course, that the majority of these children got their by choices that their mothers made).
Either way, one man believing he is above another man and therefore has more rights and deserves more priveleges seems to serve both scenarios…the holocaust as well as abortion.
Also,
As to your box theory. If it’s red and I said green, or blue and you said orange, the final out come results in a box of a different color. The consequences for believing the wrong choice affects no one. (except maybe the interior decorator) Not so with abortion. If my opinion turns out to be right then millions of children have been slaughtered for purely selfish motives. Seems to me whether the box is blue or green in this case matters a great deal.
I just don’t see how you can compare box colors to human life. I realize you were actually saying that our opinions don’t matter because there is a definitive answer. I know you weren’t actually com comparing the two things, but in the final analysis, there is no proof yet as to when a person is a person, but laws have been made based on opinions, not facts, and children are dying because of it.
“You say that you recognize the unborn as fully human and most likely endowed with complete personhood, but that your rights supercede theirs…? Do I have that right?”
This sounds sorta right, but what you go on to say:
“You believe that you are superior to the unborn because they had the audacity to use your body to develop.”
And that is a complete bastardization of my view, which is why your comparison won’t work. I’m working under the assumption here that fetus and I have the exact same rights. Let me say that again: I’m assuming, with you, that the fetus and the woman have EXACTLY THE SAME RIGHTS – the same rights as any other person. The woman doesn’t have more rights; her rights don’t count more than the fetus’; they’re not worth more than the fetus’; she’s not superior to the fetus. They each possess the same rights.
So, since the fetus and the woman have the same rights, it’s not that her right to bodily autonomy supercedes the fetus’ right to bodily autonomy because SHE’S superior, or because it’s HER right. It’s that THE right to bodily autonomy supercedes THE right to life, and not just in the case of pregnancy, but also in the case of organ donation and sex (and presumably other cases). So her right to life, qua right to life, does not supercede anyone else’s right to bodily autonomy, qua right to bodily autonomy, just as the fetus’ right to life, qua right to life, does not supercede anyone else’s right to bodily autonomy, qua right to bodily autonomy. Nor does mine, or yours, or Jill’s, or John Q Public’s down the way. It has nothing to do with superiority of people and everything to do with ordering of rights.
But thanks for comparing me to the Nazis. FSM knows I love being compared to ignorant, hate mongering, evil mass murderers on the basis of a position that I don’t actually ascribe to.
With regard to the boxes, that had nothing to do with personhood. I was trying to show Mary that the fact that we have different opinions and we don’t know which one is right has nothing to do with whether or not there is an actual fact of the matter. I wasn’t comparing abortion and boxes, I was using a concrete case to make an abstract and purely general point about the difference between what we think or believe and what actually is the case.
And you’re right, if personhood were the crux of the abortion issue it would matter a whole lot more than boxes. And if I’m right and personhood has nothing to do with it, but the rights of the woman and embryo/fetus do, then it still matters a whole lot more than boxes. But since my talk about the boxes had nothing to do with abortion, I really don’t know why you’re coming after me about it.
Diana,
. I realize you were actually saying that our opinions don’t matter because there is a definitive answer. I know you weren’t actually com comparing the two things, but in the final analysis, there is no proof yet as to when a person is a person, but laws have been made based on opinions, not facts, and children are dying because of it.
As you can see, I acknowledged that you weren’t comparing the two. I made sure of it. But you obviously didn’t read that part. The reason I am “coming after you about it” is because you are using this argument to show that opinions don’t really matter as all things have an objective truth.
But I am disagreeing. In many instances whether or not opinions match up to the facts doesn’t really matter. But in the case of abortion, it matters a great deal…
As to whether or not you were discussing abortion:
Diana,
You just have ot keep in mind that those who would deny the personhood and rights of mature human beings are just as convinced these people are sub or non human and have no rights as you and are I convinced they are human with rights. They see nothing wrong with their position. I suppose this makes personhood and rights a matter of opinion.
Posted by: Mary at June 29, 2007 05:07 AM
Mary,
I understand that. It doesn’t make personhood and rights a matter of opinion, it just means that we don’t always know the truth and there are, of course, matters of disagreement.
Diana,
In other words, a matter of opinion.
Mary,
No. Not a matter of opinion. Say there is a box in the other room, and neither of us can see it, nor can we get in the room to take a look. All we have is evidence we’ve gotten from various other sources, and then reasoning based on that evidence.
The point is that no one is arguing whether there is a definitive answer. What we are saying is that until that answer is arrived at, laws have been made based on opinions,/B>. Your opinion has won out over ours for the time being. In your opinion the right to bodily autonomy has trumped the right to life. Your opinion. Not fact. There is a fact there. It hasn’t been proven yet. So all we are left with is a law based on some peoples opinions…
Not yelling, just screwed up on the bold…sorry.
MK,
Oookay. I get it now. I didn’t understand what you were trying to get at. I thought Mary was claiming that there was no objective fact, it was just one opinion versus another.
You’re correct, of course, that many laws, including those about abortion, are only made on basis of beliefs rather than objective fact. (I don’t particularly like talking about “opinions” since typically opinions are mostly unjustified, whereas we both have justification for our beliefs on the matter). And it would be the same if a law banning abortion were passed, it would be based on the beliefs of those who share your point of view. We’re fallible, and we don’t know everything. Not gonna disagree with that.
Oh, and I did read the part of the post where you said I wasn’t comparing them, but I also read the part where you said you didn’t understand how I could be comparing them. And it felt like you were coming after me for it. Could be that this logic paper has been getting me down.
Diana,
No problem. I know the feeling. There are days when I give knee-jerk reactions myself simply because I’m feeling a bit testy.
But yes, that was my point. Laws are based on opinions, they are subject to change (like the slavery laws, and Hitler believing he was of a superior race), so that one day something can be viewed as right and the next day it is viewed as wrong, depending on the opinions of the ruling party at the time.
Therefore, I admit that I can’t prove the right to life trumps the right to bodily autonomy, and you can’t prove the opposite.
It is simply a matter of opinion. There is an objective Truth there, however. How to get to it is another matter altogether.
I think a lot of what HisMan is always trying to say is that God, as he understands Him, is the only one that knows this objective Truth, and through scripture we can find clues as to what this Truth is. Of course, Faith is also a matter of opinion and not an objective truth so we’re right back where we started from.
The only difference is, Hisman and I, believe we know the source of “Absolute Truth”, while you are relying solely on yourself for this truth. This doesn’t prove we are right and you are wrong. It only shows that we are getting our info. from a source that billions of people use in situations where the truth is an unknown. While you have only yourself to cite.
I’m not attacking you, just trying to explain why Hisman uses scripture to back up his statements. He doesn’t trust himself the way you trust yourself and goes to a “higher” source for his arguments. As do I. We are all too aware of the failings of human reasoning and wouldn’t put all of our eggs in a basket that we created. Maybe to you that’s cowardly, but to us, it’s humility. We just know our limitations and place our confidence in something other than ourselves.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no good at analogies. Too many twists and turns for me.[ here goes] If a rapist really BELIEVED that the rights of a woman were trumped because of his need for power, control, sex, etc. I’m quite sure that he would not receive one iota of support. This is how these analogies on abortion sound to me. What if the rapist concluded that the woman had no personhood because she was a female? I believe that would go over like a lead balloon. Just MY opinion.
And a very fine opinion at that Heather.
Except that Diana believes the baby has all the same rights, she just believes that her right to autonomy overrides the childs right to life. She admits that its a child and even concedes that it’s a person, just doesn’t care. It’s right to life still doesn’t trump her right to autonomy. She’s not arguing who is more important or deserves better treatment. Her whole argument rests on one right vs another. Not one’S rights vs anotherS, but ONE right vs another.
Is that right Diana?
MK, right. I gathered that. I feel that the analogies are just a way to shift focus. That’s all it does. It shifts focus. I am a smoker. I know that I may get lung cancer. There is a warning on every box. If I were to come down with lung cancer, who do I blame? [drum roll please] ME!!
By and large, American military. Ooo, ouch, hurts to hear that our military kills innocent civilians, doesn’t it?
Erin, abortion comments aside, you have been incredibly disrespectful of the Americans in the military. The men and women in the armed forces do not make the decision to enter into a war; they do what they are told. Whether or not you agree with Bush’s decision, you really should back off the people who are over there fighting. I dont appreciate your refering to them as “cowards,” and if you have such a problem with living in a nation whose liberty has been preserved by those fighting in its military, then perhaps you should find another country of which to take citizenship. I hear France is now accepting applications.