Giuliani waffles on wafer and lies on law
The New York Times expanded today on an AP story I discussed Friday, about apparent growing resolve among Catholic leadership to deny pro-abort politicians communion.
NYT brought the issue home to Rudy Giuliani, a Catholic who says he “hates” abortion but supports its legality, including taxpayer-funded abortions. NYT quoted a bishop who recently wrote Giuliani’s position was “pathetic,” “confusing” and “hypocritical” in a Catholic newspaper.
But Giuliani doesn’t want to know if he’s finally been excommunicated. NYT said Giuliani “was seen leaving Mass at a church in Washington before the Eucharist.”
NYT explained Giuliani’s logic by referring to the lightning-struck NH debate when he said of aborting mothers, “[S]hould government put them in jail?”
Giuliani is perpetuating abortion myth, which he as as an attorney certainly knows. Three points, from the book, The Silent Subject:
1. “Although some state laws in the 19th century allowed the prosecution of aborting women, there is apparently no reported appellate decision in American history upholding the conviction of a woman for self-induced abortion or for submitting to an abortion.”
2. “At the time of Roe v. Wade, 17 states… had… laws [prohibiting abortion solicitation] on the books. But there is no known prosecution of any women ander these laws.”
3. “The defense – not the prosecution – sought to have [aborting] women named as accomplices because they often were the only eyewitnesses to their abortions…. [T]he abortionist would typically allege that the woman was his accomplice in the performance of the abortion. The defense hoped thereby to make the woman’s testimony inadmissible…. As late as 1968, Ruth Barnett [pictured right] – the abortionist cast as the hero in a 1994 book, The Abortionist – used this tactic, unsuccessfully, in her appeal from her conviction.”
That last point is one to dwell on. It was the abortion industry, not pro-lifers, that historically tried to implicate aborting mothers in criminal abortions.
The same holds true today. It is my experience that pro-aborts, not pro-lifers, become agitated on this point when discussing future consequences of illegal abortions, nearly demanding women be prosecuted on that theoretical day.
[Giuliani photo courtesy of NYT]
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.
Rudy Giuliani or Vampire Ghouliani?
http://www.prosebeforehos.com/government_employee/06/19/rudy-giuliani-or-vampire/
I’m confused. When abortion is illegal, who IS prosecuted? The abortion doctors?
I think it should be both, as with any murder. The one commiting the act and the accomplice. The mother (if she agreed to the abortion) is bringing the baby in to be murdered.
PIP, midwives and abortionists were the targets.
Quoting from The Silent Subject again:
[T]reating women as a second victim was based on both the rarity in practice of voluntary, elective abortion and the danger of the procedure when it did occur.
Although there is evidence that… women were occasionally subject to criminal prosecution for participation in abortion, the common law gave way to the pragmatic judgments of modern abortion law that the abortionist is the most significant culprit, that the woman is a second victim of abortion after the child, and that criminalizing women’s particpation underminded effective law enforcement. A parallel can be found, perhaps, in the disinclination to charge girls as accessories to the crime of statutory rape.
Most states expressly treated women as the second victim of abortion…. 39 of 40 state courts which considered whether aborted women were accomplices concluded they were not….
The policy considerations in favor of not treating women as accomplices extended beyond the evidentiary necessities. If a woman was considered an accomplice or criminally liable, she might be unable to recover for the negligence of an abortionist.
The Catholic bishops should hold the Catholic Democtrats running for president to the same standard.
Chris Dodd
Joe Biden
Bill Richardson
PIP, I believe it it the abortionists who will be held accountable…
Jill,
Your record with “Your experience” leaves much to be desired.
Translation: highly subjective, realistically meaningly, and conflated result of isolated incedent or illogical inference.
Would you care to support your talking out of @ss with an actual anecdote??
In my experience, with people here (you know who you are) and every single prolifer i’ve asked (~20), is that prolifer have not considered anything beyond banning abortion (e.g. punishments & enforcement), and that they are a) reluctant to talk about or b) amusingly comfortable that they have no plan and c) not at all concerned about the efficacy of a ban.
Cam,
So what? let’s stop the killing first then figure out how to deal with the perps later…
Jill,
The fact that historically this was the case doesn’t make it consistent. Luv’s views are consistent. If abortion were ever made illegal, then any woman who willingly procured one for pay would be guilty of murder for hire. She would be a criminal, not a victim. In any other case when an individual pays someone else to kill a third party, they are guilty of murder themselves. They are not victim. So if you really believe that abortion is murder, then you should want the law to reflect that. And if the law reflects that, then women obtaining abortions illegally would have to be put in jail, at the very least. And if you’re a scary fundie, you should be pushing to stone her in the public square. If you don’t like any of that, then you have a serious problem with consistency in your beliefs on this issue.
Cam, 2:42p, asked: “Would you care to support your talking out of @ss with an actual anecdote?”
Sure. See Diana’s 3:21p post, where she pressures pro-lifers to support stoning of aborting women.
Diana, 3:21p, said: “The fact that historically this was the case doesn’t make it consistent.”
Diana, you may not like the pro-life position, but it is what it is. If you want to continue to argue for punishment of aborting women, be my guest.
“So what? let’s stop the killing first then figure out how to deal with the perps later…”
Ya… there’s WMDs in Iraq too…let’s go get em.
Jill,
Diane’s not “pressuring” you to do anything, nor is she “agitated.” What’s the next level of hyperbole, “forcing us at gun point” and “whimpering?”
Oh? “So if you really believe that abortion is murder, then you should want the law to reflect that. And if the law reflects that, then women obtaining abortions illegally would have to be put in jail, at the very least. And if you’re a scary fundie, you should be pushing to stone her in the public square. If you don’t like any of that, then you have a serious problem with consistency in your beliefs on this issue.”
What’s this? Sweet talk? Perhaps to you…
What part of “should” and “if” do you find so authoritarian?
PIP, I hear that the abortionists were held accountable. The women should have been also.
Jill,
Heaven forbid I engage in a little hyperbole. You do it all the time. Are you the only one that is allowed to put a bit of spin on things? The only one who is permitted to use rhetoric or to go a little over the top for a laugh or to make a point? Sheesh. Touchy.
“Diana, you may not like the pro-life position, but it is what it is. If you want to continue to argue for punishment of aborting women, be my guest.”
All I was doing was pointing out that it’s inconsistent to claim that abortion is murder and then not treat women who obtain abortions the same way as any other individual who hires someone to commit a murder for them.
Now, if you continue to insist that the pro-life position is that abortion is murder, but women who pay doctors to murder their babies aren’t themselves murderers, then your view is inconsistent. I don’t happen to like inconsistencies. If you want to run a reductio on your own view, though, be my guest.
“What part of “should” and “if” do you find so authoritarian?”
Lol. Seriously, I find “thou shalt not” (booming god voice as lightning strikes Mount) a hell of a lot more authoritarian than “should” and “if”.
And I hope you know, Cam, that if I was going to sweet talk you, I’d be engaging in much better (and more fun) hypotheticals then “If abortion is murder”.
Women who allow an abortionist to kill their children are just as much murderers as are the abortionists. I have to follow the rules of society. I have never killed anyone. We have all these killers walking free. Sorry, I feel like being blunt today. If you would kill your child what else are you capeable of?
Diana,
perhaps we need some sort of thing that was done in South Africa post-apartheid. They called it “The Truth and Reconciliation Commission”. The idea was to help heal many, many (some very grievous) wounds in their society/country. I very much tend to agree with Cam here, unless there is some sort of healing process and not just condemnation, legislators will continue with the status quo.
I am torn between the two….I don’t know for sure whether women should be punished in every case or not. I believe that women who commit abortions have become part of the crime. Many of them I believe are actually murderers, killing their child because of their own selfishness, knowing exactly what they are doing, and not caring…these particular women, if judged on a case by case basis, and found to have been knowledgable of what she was doing, should be punished. In what way? I don’t know. How would you prove that her intent was evil? I don’t know. These are just my feelings. But I know there should be some kind of penalty for a woman who knowingly ends her child’s life.
I also believe that there are so many women who genuinely have no idea what they’re doing until after it happens, that I do consider them partially victims, because they were lied to and deceived, and the lifetime of grief they will have to endure as a result of their abortion would be enough punishment in my eyes… Also, I think of the many teenagers who are being forced or coerced by their parents, boyfriend, etc to have abortions. It seems that girls are being lied to left and right about abortion….It’s become so common for people to regard life in the womb as “potential life” instead of actual life, when this is biologically inaccurate…. people don’t even realize what they’re doing, even though inside, their conscience may be screaming it’s wrong, they are being told on so many sides that it’s not, they are confused and misguided….and abortion has been legal so long that many women really do consider it a constitutional right, and believe that their baby is no more than the “product of conception”, some “tissue”….it’s amazing to me how many women have still been telling me that unborn children are really nothing but blobs of tissue. If people keep telling these lies, people will still keep believing it, despite evidence to the contrary. I don’t know, it makes it difficult for me to see this happening and still want these girls to be punished, when many times they turn around, seek forgiveness, and then make efforts to help the pro-life cause, discouraging other women from making the same mistake they did.
I don’t know if these are irrational feelings, or if ignorance really should be considered an excuse in any situation?
Bethany, you said it better than me. I agree with your post more so than my own.
Bethany,
You’ve pulled out so many nuances of the situation! Not only is your position internally consistent, but I think the law would agree with you (under the assumption that abortion really is murder). I’m curious, though, in your opinion, does a woman who doesn’t believe that she is ending the life of a person count as one who is knowingly committing murder?
I’m not trying to pull anything over on anyone, I’m just curious about your opinion.
John,
Truth commisions can be wonderful things. Honestly, though, I don’t think we need a truth commission here. Truth commissions are about getting out the truth of some horrible political event (be it genocide or years of tyrannical killing of political opposition, etc). Now, I know you believe that the country has lived through years of ongoing infanticide, but I don’t see it that way. As such, a truth commission wouldn’t, to my mind, be appropriate. Nifty idea, though.
Diana,
the truth commissions had much opposition, both before and while they were occurring. In many ways it is a really brilliant strategy for the healing of someone who has been aggrieved . If you realize that nothing glosses over the past (aka Northern Ireland) but to live, you must go forward, then a form of these commissions is ripe within a divided democracy. If there is still more fighting (a new civil war), sometime I’d hope people would wish to heal.
perhaps a combined truth-commission + (the American traditional) Town-Hall-Meeting may be more favourable.
“And I hope you know, Cam, that if I was going to sweet talk you, I’d be engaging in much better (and more fun) hypotheticals then “If abortion is murder”.
Yes, I just don’t understand why Jill is “arguing” that talk of “murdering” pre-borns is somehow sexually arrousing. ;-D
She’s a twisted lil’ fetisher!
Bethany,
I’ve had a couple of friends who put their babies up for adoption rather than abort–prolife poster moms so to speak. Both of them seem haunted by it years later, wondering what had become of the kid and such, if the kid would ever seek them out. However, they were also single and childless, so you gotta kind of put things in context, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were lied to and coarced. I’ve known far more women who were casual, not at all troubled, and comfortable answering questions about their abortions. Generally, people with issues fixate on something with which to conflate.
As far as lies though, an emotional-apeal’n Jill-o-phile basket case such as yourself is the farthest thing from any sort of credible source of information. For example, calling hyperbole (the blob argument) a lie is itself hyperbole, and if held to the same criteria… you’re lying.
Do you have any supposed “actual” lies you’d like to invoke?
You’ve pulled out so many nuances of the situation! Not only is your position internally consistent, but I think the law would agree with you (under the assumption that abortion really is murder). I’m curious, though, in your opinion, does a woman who doesn’t believe that she is ending the life of a person count as one who is knowingly committing murder?
If she had aborted before personhood was legally established, I think that the girl could be given the benefit of a doubt. But if after personhood was established, and everyone knows it is illegal to abort a baby, because it is now legally considered murder, I don’t think it should be an excuse.. unless the girl was coerced or forced to have the abortion, etc… of course, this is just the opinion that comes to mind when I first think of it. Like I said, I’m torn…
My biggest concern is not the prosecution of women…it’s just getting women to stop killing their children and hurting themselves.
As far as lies though, an emotional-apeal’n Jill-o-phile basket case such as yourself is the farthest thing from any sort of credible source of information. For example, calling hyperbole (the blob argument) a lie is itself hyperbole, and if held to the same criteria… you’re lying.
Eh, whatever Cameron. Your opinion on this really doesn’t matter, when I’ve heard it directly from the horses mouth.
Do you have any supposed “actual” lies you’d like to invoke?
Well, since I have no idea what that means, I guess I don’t.
cameron, why are you being a jerk to Bethany? What in the world did she ever do to you? Just because you don’t like what she said doesn’t mean you get to call her an “emotional-apeal’n Jill-o-phile basket case”.
You would be much better received if you stuck to arguing opinions and stoped with all the Ad Hom’s.
Cameron, by the way, Milehimama has responded to your post here, in case you miss it (it’s been bumped off the page).
Thanks, Lauren!
Thanks for the link Beth, but I don’t see the point of continuing anyhow. She’s just repeating the questions like a vacuous debater stalling for time, and apparently hasn’t read anything I provided per her request. No further effort is warranted.
“cameron, why are you being a jerk to Bethany? What in the world did she ever do to you? Just because you don’t like what she said doesn’t mean you get to call her an “emotional-apeal’n Jill-o-phile basket case”.”
I call it like it is. I’m an arrogant and crass jerk, but the truth doesn’t hurt me.
“You would be much better received if you stuck to arguing opinions and stoped with all the Ad Hom’s.”
Ad Hom’s are the norm here if you haven’t noticed. I personally find it offensive that Bethany thinks all aborting women are hapless victims of lies, and that they’re being coarced and such. This is, in no uncertain terms, demonization and a baseless appeal to emotion. If Bethany doesn’t want to be insulted for her illegitimate notions, then she should try to transcend them with legitimate arguments. For example, we were talking about punishment of aborting mothers, yet it somehow turned into a rant about something else without ever actually addressing the issue. It’s an annoying wast of space here.
Thanks for the link Beth, but I don’t see the point of continuing anyhow. She’s just repeating the questions like a vacuous debater stalling for time, and apparently hasn’t read anything I provided per her request. No further effort is warranted.
Uh huh…or maybe you just won’t respond because you know what the honest truth – as you see it – would justify. You know she has you beat. Milehimama, great job!
I personally find it offensive that Bethany thinks all aborting women are hapless victims of lies, and that they’re being coarced and such.
Show me where I said that “all” women are hapless victims of lies? I recognize that there are some women who know very well what they’re doing.
Um, no, I’m repeating questions because I have not received an answer.
And you are right, I did not read the entirety of the Google hits on fetal myelination that you provided, although I was already somewhat familiar with several articles appearing on the first and second page of results. Fetal myelination is a rather tangential subject to the original debate, anyhow. You didn’t respond comprehensively to the original request, which was a list of your sources that movement by a fetus in the third trimester are solely reflexive.
BTW, would “rubbing my two working brain cells together” be considered a reflexive, or a spontaneous movement?
Let me know if you lost track of the original questions posted that you haven’t answered. It is telling that you posted that you don’t have an answer on a completely different thread.
Well HighAltitudeBreeder,
To reiterate, yes, the evidence suggests that the fetus is in a coma, unconscious, not alert, and unaware of stimuli up until birth. I don
For your review, the questions asked so far include:
“If a 24 week gest. age baby can cry in pain outside the womb, why assume that the nervous system does not work inside the womb?”
“Also, are you saying anyone in a coma for any reason at any time should be killed or is somehow not alive to begin with?”
“Could you please direct me to the specific sources you reference to assert that fetal movements are not spontaneous, but rather are only reflexive?”
“You assert that a baby is in a coma until birth – is that correct?” (Note: the question was what YOU are asserting. “Coma” is distinct from “not alert” or “sleep like state”. Perhaps we should define our terms. Please define “coma” as YOU are using it.
“At what point do you believe a baby comes out of the coma – upon exiting the uterus, upon having the umbilical cord clamped, upon taking his first breath? Or perhaps you believe a baby is in a coma like state until their newborn reflexes disappear? Please specify.”
“I’m also unsure if your premise is that a fetus is in a coma, and therefore cannot feel pain; or, that a fetus cannot feel pain and is therefore in a coma. Please specify as well.”
And a rather rhetorical one:
“It really seems to depend upon one’s definition of pain- is it a physiological response to noxious stimuli, or is it the psychological and emotional response that constitutes “pain”?”
I’d be happy to read the entirety of the Brain Research Reviews article if you can provide a link. I haven’t read it because I haven’t found the article. The only link in that particular post was to a Google search.
“For your review, the questions asked so far include:”
LOL
I should’ve guessed you don’t know how to look up a Journal citation that you’ve been provided.
Read the article first, and if you still feel so compelled to ask me such asinine questions, I’ll be happy to ridicule you then.
C:\Documents and Settings\Lab 501 C1\My Documents\ScienceDirect – Brain Research Reviews The importance of
Sorry, I don’t have access to your “My Documents” file. It is on YOUR computer. Is there a link on the internet (it will start with http:// or www.)
BTW, still waiting for answers!
Ooopsss..
here
OOooooh… but you might not have access…
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Brain Research Reviews
Volume 49, Issue 3, November 2005, Pages 455-471
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doi:10.1016/j.brainresrev.2005.01.006
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Guess MileHiBreeder’s questions have been answered.
Cam,
I skimmed the article, and saved it for further review at a less busy time.
However.
It did not answer the questions, especially the ones that asked what YOU, PERSONALLY, believed and how YOU are definining certain words. (How could it? Unless you wrote the article?)
Didn’t know there was a 24 hour deadline to peruse a 21 page article. I guess it’s just easier to refer opinions to an journal – keeps you from actually examining and explaning yourself.