Marches for Life in San Francisco and Paris
While the annual March for Life in Washington, DC, is the pro-life movement’s flagship event mourning the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s infamous Roe v Wade decision, there are 2 other emerging marches – in San Francisco and Paris.
I realized just how big a deal the Walk for Life West Coast had become when reading this view of it today from the other side, at SocialistWorker.org:
In a few weeks, on January 23, anti-abortion bigots will bus tens of thousands to San Francisco for their annual “Walk for Life.” Their mission is “to be a vocal and visual message that people of the West Coast stand for life.”
A few years ago, during the first “Walk for Life,” while our counterprotest was outnumbered, it was much closer in size. But since then, we have seen that their side get more organized, while our side hasn’t been able to meet the challenge….
Indeed, last year’s 5-yr-old W4L West Coast garnered a whopping 32K in attendance. This year’s featured speakers are “[t]wo young women who stood on opposite sides of the abortion debate until a few months ago” – Lila Rose and Abby Johnson.
So the 2010 event should be excellent. One of these years I’m going to head west instead of east for the March… or maybe do both, which would be quite something.
Coincidentally, W4L West Coast co-founder Dolores Meehan will speak at their “sister” event in Paris on January 17, Marche Pour Le Respect de la Vie. According to the Catholic News Agency:
The Paris March… has become a rallying point for pro-lifers across Europe…. [It] attracts groups from France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the UK, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland and the U.S.…. Last year’s March drew an estimated 15K to 20K participants.
The event began in 2005 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the French law legalizing abortion….
Meehan… [said] she was… “intrigued” by the similarities between the French and the Californian events.
“Both the March and the Walk for Life West Coast began in 2005, both take place in cities with a strong history of radical and countercultural action, both draw impressive numbers of young people, and both recognize that without compassion and justice there can be no common good or true Culture of Life.”
The French event… notes that despite its world-leading contraception rates, France has the second highest abortion rate in Western Europe.
So, as our socialist friend noted but couldn’t quite put into words, the pro-life view is gaining traction, and the pro-abortion view is dying a slow death, fitting. It’s particularly cool to me that of all the West Coast cities pro-lifers could have chosen for their march, they went straight to the liberal bastion, the belly of the beast. Quite bold and brave.
Gotta mention I think the San Francisco and Paris March websites and logos are looking far superior than those of the DC March, both of which appear quite dated.
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.
From SocialistWorker.org:
“As long as the cost of an abortion is prohibitive, as long as women are stigmatized for having abortions, as long as the “common sense” in society is that abortion is a bad thing, women will continue to be second-class citizens, at the mercy of government policy.”
Who, besides extreme pro-choicers, believes that women are second-class citizens in the U.S.A?
I just want to say not all social workers are socialist, pro-abortion, or liberal.
I am one of the few pro-life, democratic, and conservative social workers. There are others like me. We used to meet!
kmann, no worries, this was a socialist worker website, not social worker website.
Off topic,
Barak Obama, who is not an honest anti-war liberal like I am, and the corrupt Supreme Court have granted the president and his designees the ability to call anyone an “enemy combatant” on mere suspicion and deprive them of all civil and human rights.
Barak Obama, Mr. Constitutional Lawyer himself argued for the position. No other president has ever sought such.
No wonder he can’t see the humanity of unborn children, he doesn’t see the humanity of anyone. And now the Supreme court has given him the power to declare anyone a non “person” with no rights whatever.
Read it and weep.
http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1887-dred-scott-redux-obama-and-the-supremes-stand-up-for-slavery.html
Dred Scott Redux: Obama and the Supremes Stand Up for Slavery
WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD
FRIDAY, 18 DECEMBER 2009 14:18
While we were all out doing our Christmas shopping, the highest court in the land quietly put the kibosh on a few more of the remaining shards of human liberty.
It happened earlier this week, in a discreet ruling that attracted almost no notice and took little time. In fact, our most august defenders of the Constitution did not have to exert themselves in the slightest to eviscerate not merely 220 years of Constitutional jurisprudence but also centuries of agonizing effort to lift civilization a few inches out of the blood-soaked mire that is our common human legacy. They just had to write a single sentence.
Here’s how the bad deal went down. After hearing passionate arguments from the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court acquiesced to the president’s fervent request and, in a one-line ruling, let stand a lower court decision that declared torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention, while introducing a shocking new precedent for all future courts to follow: anyone who is arbitrarily declared a “suspected enemy combatant” by the president or his designated minions is no longer a “person.” They will simply cease to exist as a legal entity. They will have no inherent rights, no human rights, no legal standing whatsoever — save whatever modicum of process the government arbitrarily deigns to grant them from time to time, with its ever-shifting tribunals and show trials.
This extraordinary ruling occasioned none of those deep-delving “process stories” that glut the pages of the New York Times, where the minutiae of policy-making or political gaming is examined in highly-spun, microscopic detail doled out by self-interested insiders. Obviously, giving government the power to render whole classes of people “unpersons” was not an interesting subject for our media arbiters. It was news that wasn’t fit to print. Likewise, the ruling provoked no thundering editorials in the Washington Post, no savvy analysis from the high commentariat — and needless to say, no outrage whatsoever from all our fierce defenders of individual liberty on the Right.
But William Fisher noticed, and gave this report at Antiwar.com:
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal Monday to review a lower court’s dismissal of a case brought by four British former Guantanamo prisoners against former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the detainees’ lawyers charged Tuesday that the country’s highest court evidently believes that “torture and religious humiliation are permissible tools for a government to use.”
…Channeling their predecessors in the George W. Bush administration, Obama Justice Department lawyers argued in this case that there is no constitutional right not to be tortured or otherwise abused in a U.S. prison abroad.
The Obama administration had asked the court not to hear the case. By agreeing, the court let stand an earlier opinion by the D.C. Circuit Court, which found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – a statute that applies by its terms to all “persons” – did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law.
The lower court also dismissed the detainees’ claims under the Alien Tort Statute and the Geneva Conventions, finding defendants immune on the basis that “torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants.”
The Constitution is clear: no person can be held without due process; no person can be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. And the U.S. law on torture of any kind is crystal clear: it is forbidden, categorically, even in time of “national emergency.” And the instigation of torture is, under U.S. law, a capital crime. No person can be tortured, at any time, for any reason, and there are no immunities whatsoever for torture offered anywhere in the law.
And yet this is what Barack Obama — who, we are told incessantly, is a super-brilliant Constitutional lawyer — has been arguing in case after case since becoming president: Torturers are immune from prosecution; those who ordered torture are immune from prosecution. They can’t even been sued for, in the specific case under review, subjecting uncharged, indefinitely detained captives to “beatings, sleep deprivation, forced nakedness, extreme hot and cold temperatures, death threats, interrogations at gunpoint, and threatened with unmuzzled dogs.”
Again, let’s be absolutely clear: Barack Obama has taken the freely chosen, public, formal stand — in court — that there is nothing wrong with any of these activities. Nothing to answer for, nothing meriting punishment or even civil penalties. What’s more, in championing the lower court ruling, Barack Obama is now on record as believing — insisting — that torture is an ordinary, “foreseeable consequence” of military detention of all those who are arbitrarily declared “suspected enemy combatants.”
And still further: Barack Obama has now declared, openly, of his own free will, that he does not consider these captives to be “persons.” They are, literally, sub-humans. And what makes them sub-humans? The fact that someone in the U.S. government has declared them to be “suspected enemy combatants.” (And note: even the mere suspicion of being an “enemy combatant” can strip you of your personhood.)
This is what President Barack Obama believes — believes so strongly that he has put the full weight of the government behind a relentless series of court actions to preserve, protect and defend these arbitrary powers. (For a glimpse at just a sliver of such cases, see here and here.)
One co-counsel on the case, Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, zeroed in on the noxious quintessence of the position taken by the Court, and by our first African-American president: its chilling resemblance to the notorious Dred Scott ruling of 1857, which upheld the principle of slavery. As Fisher notes:
“Another set of claims are dismissed because Guantanamo detainees are not ‘persons’ within the scope of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – an argument that was too close to Dred Scott v. Sanford for one of the judges on the court of appeals to swallow,” he added.
The Dred Scott case was a decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1857. It ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants — whether or not they were slaves — were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States.
And now, once again, 144 years after the Civil War, we have established as the law of the land and the policy of the United States government that whole classes of people can be declared “non-persons” and have their liberty stripped away — and their torturers and tormentors protected and coddled by authority — at a moment’s notice, with no charges, no defense, no redress, on nothing more than the suspicion that they might be an “enemy combatant,” according to the arbitrary definition of the state.
Barack Obama has had the audacity to declare himself the heir and embodiment of the lifework of Martin Luther King. Can this declaration of a whole new principle of universal slavery really be what King was dreaming of? Is this the vision he saw on the other side of the mountain? Or is not the nightmarish inversion of the ideal of a better, more just, more humane world that so many have died for, in so many places, down through the centuries?
“A few years ago, during the first ‘Walk for Life,’ while our counterprotest was outnumbered, it was much closer in size.”
Closer? They were still greatly outnumbered. Granted, the Walk for Life was relatively small that year because it hadn’t gotten the publicity it has received more recently. Oh, and their numbers fell dramatically with each passing year, which is why they were “much” closer at first. The second & third years (probably the first year, too, but I wasn’t there), their counter-protest was so dismally small that they tried to compensate by moving up as we went along, so there were always a handful of counter-protesters near the front of the march. In fact, either that year or the third year, major pro-abortion groups were openly advising their people NOT to go to the counter-protest because they knew they couldn’t mobilize enough people to do anything more than look pathetic… and this is San Francisco we’re talking about!
I have been to both DC (6 times) and SF(1)…both are the same and yet so different. SF starts their walk out with young attactive women holding a banner speaking to the women, “Abortion Hurts Women”. The protesters in SF are a little more “colorful” let’s just say. I was there last year and I am sure the crowd will only grow more this year!
I’ll be in DC again this year. I would love to go to Paris!
Why don’t these anti-choicers have the honesty to call this the Walk against abortion, rather than disingenuously call it the walk “for life”.
Anti-choicers don’t give a #@%@* about the unborn after they’re born.I’ve said this many times here before. When will you guys learn?
Robert Berger: “…rather than disingenuously call it the walk “for life”. Anti-choicers…”
Anyone else see the hilarity in that?
“You guys shouldn’t use rhetoric! Only WE can use rhetoric!”
Sorry Robert B
I am a pro-lifer who brings food, clothing and good cheer to those who need it. Every woman who wants to keep in touch, we do. We do not have a lot of money – but through the generosity of others we were able to provide food, clothing, furniture, transportation, diapers and other things to women in need. We have even paid a water bill and paid rent to save a family from eviction.
Mostly we offer friendship – because we truly care.
I’m sorry that you think that pro-life is only about one thing – but it’s about all things that have to do with human life at every stage.
It is in the heart that we mostly serve. Women need to know that others care and that we have faith in them. We want them to thrive and grow – I personally encourage women to finish their education, get good jobs and know that their life is not over just because they are Moms. In fact – it’s just beginning!
As a former math major – a theory is dis-proven by one counter example – so while you said that “anti-choicers don’t give a #@%@ about the unborn after they’re born” the counter example is me and countless others who do the same.
Theory dis-proven. Sorry – now you know at least one person who does care – and I know dozens of others that care plenty.
We use our own money and food – taken from our own labor and families to help others in need.
It’s the natural loving conclusion from a life of service to others.
Hi Robert,
Happy New Year.
It’s been called “March For Life” for decades, but that could change… I’d proudly “March Against Abortion”.
You know Robert, we all have families that we take care of. We care about the born. Stop pointing a collective finger at us, please. We all have problems, but a baby should NEVER be sacrificed because of them.
Joy,
Not only do we do everything in our power to help the parents of babies and kids with donations of formula, diapers, maternity and baby clothes, furniture and other resources, we have the pro-aborts trying to prevent us from doing that very thing. They do their best to shut us down or limit what we can do….so much for “choice”.
“I’ve said this many times here before. When will you guys learn?”
Robert, merely saying something is so doesn’t make it so. Where’s your evidence? And what exactly do you mean by your statement to begin with? That someone “doesn’t care” about babies or people in general is an awfully hard statement to prove, especially about people you’ve never met.
If you’re life most pro-choicers who rant about this, you probably mean, “you’re all Republicans who don’t believe in the government spending taxpayers’ money on social problems like poor mothers and children, and therefore, you don’t care, etc” well then, just say so. At least give us a basis to argue on.
If that’s the case, I myself can prove you wrong, because I’m a pro-life Democrat who is not at all opposed to social spending on the poor. Did you know that there is a whole organization called Democrats for Life?
Even if all pro-lifers were extremely socially conservative Republicans, you would still lose, because being one is not at all the same thing as “not caring” about born people.
All the prolifers I know, including me, work PERSONALLY to protect women and their children both before and after birth.
I think the real reason people like you make these statements is some combination of a) you have no conceivable rational basis to support your position in favor of abortion, so you have to resort to name-calling out of impotence; b) you are angry at us and simply intended to hurt us in the worst way possible. C. S. Lewis once said that when you insult a person, you don’t make the charge against them that you think is true, but the one that would hurt him the most if it were true.
Either way we’re on to you. Please do us a favor and retire this objection permanently.
I meant “fiscally conservative Republicans,” sorry.
Sigh – here we go again.
Robert, I’m a child welfare social worker who has chosen this low-paying profession because I wanted to help people. I’m also an adoptive mom.
Also, did you see Jill’s post on helping the people in Haiti? If we just care about “fetuses,” why would she post this information?
Also, like Kay and others have pointed out, the THOUSANDS of crisis pregnancy centers around the country give assistance to many women AND their children every year on shoestring budgets. Their services are free of charge. These are the centers the pro-choice movement attempts to defame, harass, and shut down. It’s a wonder they even survive.
So I’m just wondering: when will YOU get it?
Robert Berger,
You don’t really believe the illogic in your statements do you?
If we are going to talk about being disingenuous, wouldn’t you agree that a “pro-choice” counter protest should be called a MARCH FOR DEATH?
“anti-choice”. Have you thought through the silliness of that latest buzzword? In the context of intentionally killing an innocent human being through the act of abortion, you bet I am “anti-choice”!
(Sighs) Here we go again.
To Mr. Berger:
1. I’m not a Republican or a conservative.
2. I choose the low-paying profession of social work because I wanted to help people.
3. I am an adoptive mom.
4. Recently Jill posted information about helping the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. If “antichoicers” just cared about “fetuses,’ why would she share this information?
5. Like Kay and others have pointed out, there are THOUSANDS of crisis pregnancy centers that help pregnant women AND their born children. These centers operate on a shoestring and their services are free of charge. Yet, the prochoice movement is constantly trying to harass, defame, misrepresent, and close them down.
In conclusion, my question is: When are YOU going to get it?
sorry, posted twice!
I’m not a Marxist or communist. I’m not left-wing,just liberal, and being liberal is not necessarily the same as being left-wing.
I believe in capitalism and the free market.
I’m not politically correct or a multiculturalist. I don’t see racism in every corner.
I’m all for private charities, and adoption etc.
I don’t LIKE abortion, and I don’t WANT women to
have them. I’m not opposed to children being born.
But like many other people, I feel that it is wrong to try to force women to bear children against their will, especially if they lack the means to take decent care of them or a pregnancy would harm them physically or threaten their lives.
Childbearing is a personal choice, and not something which the government should mandate for women. It has absolutely no right to interfere with this highly personal choice, nor do other people such as abortion protesters.
Bringing poor,unwanted children into the world has catastrophic results for society; it only increases poverty,unemployment and crime,and creates a vicious cycle of more poverty and human misery.
The world does NOT have unlimited rsources of food, water and other necessities, and there is a limited amount of inhabitable space on earth.
Overpopulation may not be an immediate problem, but eventually it WILL become something too aswful to imagine if the world allows population to grow unchecked indefinitely.
Even if global warming is not a fact, the world does face extremely serious environmental problems,and we cannot afford to become compacent about this.
Crisis pregnancy centers and private charities can only do so much.They cannot possibly provide for all the poor. To use them as an excuse for advocating making abortion illegal is extremely foolish. They are nothing but a bandaid on flesh wounds.
This is why I am pro-choice.
“Bringing poor,unwanted children into the world has catastrophic results for society; it only increases poverty,unemployment and crime,and creates a vicious cycle of more poverty and human misery.”
Robert,
While you have a right to your opinion, I think you are being overly dramatic. You only have to look to Haiti to see that earthquakes and hurricanes are catastrophes; being poor or unemployed are not.
You’re being disingenuous to say you don’t like abortion and you don’t WANT women to have them. Abortion is the perfect solution to the problem of overpopulation, no? And since the poor are miserable, why don’t we start encouraging the poor to have abortions? . Maybe offer tax or cash incentives? That WOULD be the compassionate thing to do
Robert, thanks for presenting your arguments in a respectful manner. Although I disagree with you, I hope that you do understand now that many prolifers DO care about social justice issues. Please don’t believe all the negative stereotypes the media presents about us. By the same token, prolifers should not stereotype all prochoice people as uncaring monsters.
One question, though — do you think that the government should pay for abortions?
Robert: “This is why I am pro-choice.”
In refernce to your “overpopulation” and “poverty” arguments….
Do you support killing newborns for the same reason?
Robert Berger
” It has absolutely no right to interfere with this highly personal choice, nor do other people such as abortion protesters.”
This is a complete fallacy. If this “highly personal choice” involves the intentional killing of an innocent human being, I and any clear thinking person has a responsibility to interfere.
How you can reduce killing a baby to merely a “highly personal choice” is disturbing. You have to think beyond the pro-choice rhetoric. There are real consequences (death) to this “highly personal choice”. Choices have objects and consequences. The consequence of this “choice” is the killing of an innocent human being.
Convince me why a pregnant woman should have the ability to “choose” to kill her unborn child. No rhetoric. Just give me logically valid and morally sound arguments.
That last post was mine not “p”
Robert, I too am glad that you at last got rid of your name-calling and attempted a rational defense of your views. Too bad it’s such a shoddy one.
“I don’t LIKE abortion, and I don’t WANT women to
have them.”
Why? Is there something WRONG with abortion or something? Your words give away a lot. So many pro-choicers will wring their hands over the horribly different choice women have to make when it wins a point for them and makes pro-lifers look heartless. Then they’ll turn right around and dismiss our concern for the unborn child by insisting that it’s just a glob of cells and never can or will be anything like a baby. If that’s the case, no woman should ever be any more anguished over having an abortion than she should be about having her appendix out. You can’t have it both ways. The reason why abortion is difficult and horrible for a woman is that it kills her child. Can you think of any other reason? Not if you’re honest.
“I feel that it is wrong to try to force women to bear children against their will.”
This really distorts the situation. Prolifers who have worked with women in this situation know that a great deal of the time it is outside coercion by the parents, boyfriend or others that more or less forces a young woman into abortion. Or it’s the lack of resources or help or support from society, as I have written about before here in the case of young women in college. But you don’t very often hear the pro-choicers speaking up against this type of force that leads a woman to have an abortion against her will. I wonder why? In fact I know why: it’s not choice they care about, but abortion.
All women have a very strong urge while pregnant to protect the lives of their children. Fear and coercion can weaken it. Having a me-first philosophy drummed into your head from the time you are born can weaken it too. Please don’t pretend that it’s a natural situation for a woman to be opposed to giving birth to the child she is carrying. It means that something is very wrong.
Most of the rest of your reasons can be reduced to: abortion solves problems. It will help get rid of poverty unemployment crime, and even the global climate crisis(?)
Do you really think anything is acceptable as long as it solves a problem? If someone is blackmailing me over something in my past and threatening to reveal everything and ruining my life, is it OK to get my shotgun and blow the blackmailer away? It sure as heck resolves the problem, but at what price?
If caring for my born children makes it impossible for me to exercise my right to go to college, am I permitted to drown them in the bathtub? Problem solved right? There are certain things we are not permitted to do because they’re wrong, no matter what problems they solve.
“Crisis pregnancy centers and private charities can only do so much.They cannot possibly provide for all the poor. To use them as an excuse for advocating making abortion illegal is extremely foolish. They are nothing but a bandaid on flesh wounds.”
I am with you here. We need to seek better solutions in society for the problems of the poor, especially poor women. Pro-lifers are well aware that crisis pregnancy centers can’t do everything. But seeking these solutions does NOT make abortion necessary. Let’s strive for solutions for women that respect both their lives and dignity and the lives and dignity of their children. No society that does not recognize the inherent rights and dignity of every single human being can ever be a healthy society or ever solve any of its problems in a just way.
THAT is why I’m pro-life.
On the subject of healthy societies (and sick ones), here is Planned Parentood’s attempt at aid to the earthquake victims of Haiti. You guessed it: condoms, birth control and abortion. Because, you know, the earthquake didn’t kill quite enough of the population for them.
In short, the group PROFAMIL, a group in Haiti to which PP is asking everyone to donate, gives out condoms and contraceptives in poverty stricken areas. It also complains that Haiti, a largely Catholic country, prohibits abortion.
http://www.lifenews.com/int1437.html
Typical. Robert, does this sound like good problem solving for a devastated Haiti to you?
I find it sickening.
No, I don’t advocate killing newborns.Neither does president Obama,even though there have been blatant lies about him being an advocate of “infanticide”, something he has never supported.
You can rail all you want against abortion,but this will never stop it, and neither will making it illegal again in America, which would only make a bad situation far worse, as it always does.
Instead of futile protests, why don’t you people do something really constructive like lobbying the government to provide subsidies for poor pregnant women so their children won’t be born into poverty and be at grave risk of malnutrition,
poor housing, woefully inadequate education, and
being surrounded by violence,crime and drugs?
These poor pregnant women would be far less likely to seek and obtain abortions if they could get this.Charities are a good thing, but they can’t possibly provide enough to change conditions in America so that abortions will become rare.
And no, I don’t consider abortion to be murder.
It’s a tragedy, not murder.Abortions don’t happen for the same reasons that people commit murder, either out of malice or because of drug addiction etc.
And stories about so many women suffering permanent guilt,remorse,sorrow and mental disease have been greatly exaggerated. Most don’t.
In fact, many feel relieved after them.
And I’m very skeptical about the link between abortion and breast cancer. My mother, who had three children and no abortions, is a breast cancer survivor, fortunately in good health today
and mentally alert at 92.
Many distinguished scientists and doctors are also highly skeptical about the link,too.
The personhood amendment is insane. It will open up the slippery slope to making America a police state in the futile attempt to stop abortion and enforce anti-abortion laws, make contraceptives illegal, thereby only INCREASUNG abortions and creating a black market in contraceptives. I’m adamantly opposed to it.
Life begins at birth. Obama no doubt agrees with me,but he was understandably reluctant to say this when he made the”above my pay grade statement” for fear of losing votes.
We don’t even do enough to take care of poor children who ARE born in America, so we can’t afford to try to force women to bear children against their will.
There has to be a better way to deal with the terrible problem of abortion. Making it illegal is totally counterproductive.
Robert,
“Life begins at birth.”
You can’t really believe that. Basic science says you are wrong. Also, phe philosophic fallacies implied in such an absurd statement are quite distinguished.
the rest of your rant is full of illogical statements and fallacies. I will only comment on ONE.
“Abortions don’t happen for the same reasons that people commit murder, either out of malice or because of drug addiction etc.”
The result of abortion in the killing of an innocent human being. Don’t agree with that? Then refute me.
The reasons which lead up to an abortion don’t change the RESULT which is the killing of an innocent human being. So you are saying that the intentional killing of an innocent human being (abortion) is not murder because of REASONS? What? Please enlighten me with these reasons which should allow for the legal killing of an innocent human being?
I asked you to: “Convince me why a pregnant woman should have the ability to “choose” to kill her unborn child. No rhetoric. Just give me logically valid and morally sound arguments.”
Yet you continue to regurgitate the same poor logic and scientific ignorance. I’m beginning to think you are just a troll who isn’t interested in a rational discussion.
Robert,
If you believe it is wrong to kill newborns to save them from poverty, then why is it ever okay to kill a human to save him/her from poverty? You cannot deny that a fetus is a human, so why do you advocate killing some humans for one reason and others for another?
Is it because a fetus is not self-aware? Neither are newborns. In fact, there is a famous por-choice philosopher who actually supports infanticide due to poverty because she honestly admited that any criteria to prevent personhood from applying to a preborn could also be applied to newborns.
So I ask you again, why is it okay to kill preborns for reason X, but not okay to kill newborns for reason X? What is the qualitative difference?
“Instead of futile protests, why don’t you people do something really constructive like lobbying the government to provide subsidies for poor pregnant women so their children won’t be born into poverty and be at grave risk of malnutrition,
poor housing, woefully inadequate education, and
being surrounded by violence,crime and drugs?”
Robert, instead of actually answering anything I’ve said, you are merely coming up with more of the same. I already thought we were through with this objection.
Democrats for Life in Congress have indeed come up with such legislation, called the Pregnant Women Support Act. President Obama has failed to support it. Most Democrats have failed to support it. They came up with their own version of the bill, one that like the current “health” care bill, primarily pushed abortion and contraception instead of real solutions. Maybe you should take your beef with Obama and the present Democratic leadership. (I’m a registered Democrat myself, by the way, so I’m not saying this merely out of political opposition). The point is that many pro-lifers do support such legislation. There is no reason to stop working toward an end to the legalization of abortion to do so. Many do both.
Again, Planned Parenthood’s solution to the need for food, clothing, shelter and clean water for the Haitian people is to ask people to donate to an organization that passes out condoms and mourns that Haiti doesn’t have legalized abortion. If I lived in Haiti, I would say “thanks for nothing.”
Your statement that and end to legalized abortions will only increase abortions is likewise unsupported by fact and statistics actually show the exact opposite. Those states in the U.S. that have enacted restrictions on abortion (such as informed consent, and parental notification laws) in fact have the fewest abortions. Before Roe v. Wade, there were in fact few abortions in the U.S. The numbers climbed sharply after legalization. Restrictions do have an effect. Most countries in Europe have a smaller rate of abortion than the U.S because they restrict legal abortion more (it’s mostly severely restricted after the third month).
But the greatest effect will come when the culture itself turns away from abortion as a solution, and this has happening right now. As I said, the biggest motive toward abortion is personal coercion or societal attitudes that weaken the maternal instinct. Stop drumming it into the heads of girls and women that abortion is the solution, and this is half the battle. And educate society to have a real respect for human sexuality and its consequences and you will help bring a halt to abortions and many of the miseries that poor single mothers face. We once had such a culture in the U.S. and no, it was not a police state.
As for the abortion-breast cancer link, you haven’t read about the latest studies posted on this site, have you? Providing anecdotal evidence from a single case isn’t much in the way of proof. The pro-choice fanatics are flying in the very teeth of the evidence when they insist otherwise, as they have been doing for years. But fanaticism will make you do that.
Last, your feeble attempts to assert that “life begins at birth” will just be laughed at by any real doctor or scientist. Please get yourself an education. You need one in many subjects.
As for Obama agreeing with you that “life begins at birth,” I doubt, it because he did indeed vote against the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, an act that provided for protection for infants born alive after an attempted abortion. Jill has all the details and they are irrefutable.
“THAT is why I’m pro-life.”
Posted by: Lori Pieper at January 15, 2010 11:11 PM
Excellent post.
* * * *
Robert Berger,
As long as you are a moral relativist, you won’t come to know the TRUTH. That’s your first hurdle if you want to understand the pro-life position.
Thanks, Janet!
You can talk all you want about the”right to life” and the “sanctity of life” and the need to “stop abortion”.
But as the old saying goes, be careful what you ask for. If the US government is foolsih enough to make abortion illegal again,the results will be hoorendously bloody and catastrophic, especially if it is stupid enough to make contraceptives illegal and pass a personhood amendment.
You have to realize that women will seek and obtain abortions whether they are legal or not, and you cannot escape this fact.
Your goals and expectations are totally unrealistic. And how the heck will the government enforce the law? How will it stop abortion?
No government has ever been able to do this.
And if the government tries to, it would create nothing but a police state with the government constantly prying into our lives.
This wouldn’t be the kind of”freedom” conservatives claim to want, but something similar to Orwell’s 1984. Is this what America was meant to be?
In order to try to enforce laws against abortion, the government would have to have thousands and thousands of anti-abortion agents scouring every corner of the 50 states 24/7.
And this still wouldn’t stop abortion.
A situation like this would be a nightmare for America.And many innocent people would be arrested,prosecuted, imprisoned and possibly even executed. I wouldn’t want to live in an America like this.
I’ve been watching father frank Pavone’s anti-abortion programs on EWTN. The man is totally deluded. He thinks that abortion will be stopped some day. He’a dead wrong.
Robert Berger ,
More ranting and again no answering of questions thrown your way. The reason you don’t answer them is because then you are forced into seeing the moral and logical bankruptcy of the pro-abortion mentality.
If I was “pro-choice”, I would want to be 100% sure my beliefs were correct. The stakes are too high here for error. 50 million dead babies and counting are pretty high stakes.
If I was “pro-choice” I would want to be able to defend my position with certainty and be able to answer the charges coming from the pro-life side. If I was “pro-choice” and the pro-life side was saying I support the killing of innocent human beings, I would want to be able to refute them 100%. If I couldn’t refute them, my conscience and intellect wouldn’t allow me to be “pro-choice”.
I don’t know how you do it…. I don’t know how anyone can remain “pro-choice” when faced with science, logic, and a well formed conscience.
Robert says “In order to try to enforce laws against abortion, the government would have to have thousands and thousands of anti-abortion agents scouring every corner of the 50 states 24/7. ”
Uh. No. Robert, remember that abortion was illegal in this country prior to 1973. Did such a situation as you discribe exist? No, of course not. Stop with the hyperbole, and try to think rationally.
Sorry, but you don’t understand what I was trying to say.Of course, the kind of government attempts to enforce laws against abortion didn’t exist. But abortion was very common before Roe v Wade, and the law was just never enforced.
There was absolutely nothing to stop women from getting them. It will be the same if Roe v Wade is overturned.
What I meant was, in order to really try to enforce laws against abortion, the government would have to have agents scouring every corner of the country to try to stop abortions. But this still would not work, and it would cause a massiv intrusion on the privacy of countless Americans.
It WOULD be rather like Orwell’s 1984.
That’s why when anti-choicers who say”we must end abortion” are deluding themselves. You can’t “end” abortion because women will seek and obtain them whether they are legal or not. This is the way things have always been and always will.
Making abortion illegal doesn’t end them.It only makes them much more dangerous.
This is the wrong way to deal with this terrible problem.
When Nicolae Ceausescu made abortion illegal in Romaniany years ago,as well as contraceptives, the rate of women dying from abortions went up 700 per cent.
And many,many children born to poor parents who could not take care of them grew up in horrible conditions in state orphanages, where they grew up so emotionally stunted and neglected that they
were never able to live normal lives. Do we want smething like this to happen in America?
It could.
Robert says “But abortion was very common before Roe v Wade, and the law was just never enforced.”
Robert, that’s just not true. Doctors were prosecuted for performing abortions very frequently.
The way to stop abortions is to crack down on the doctors who perform them. It’s actually pretty simple.
Robert, I think you’re misunderstanding the facts. The countries with the strictest abortion laws have the fewest maternal deaths. Look at Ireland. We don’t see massive numbers of women dying because abortion isn’t legal there.
Making abortion illegal would decrease the numbers of abortion. Even pro-abortion groups admit that the numbers of abortions per year skyrocketed after 1973. That’s using the most liberal estimates of the number of illegal abortions.
Making abortion legal didn’t drastically reduce the number of maternal deaths, either. The number was steadily decreasing before 1973 and simply continued to go down (percentage-wise) after Roe v. Wade.
Robert,
How many women do you KNOW who suffered from illegal bloody abortions?
Your “doomsday” scenarios are a bit troubling to me. Just because something “could” happen doesn’t mean it will. Do you make life-altering decisions (besides buying insurance or something similar) on what “could” happen? None of us can see the future, but still… isn’t there room for hope not despair? Just something to think about…
Have a good day, Robert. I have to run…
“Gotta mention I think the San Francisco and Paris March websites and logos are looking far superior than those of the DC March, both of which appear quite dated.”
Jill,
I agree! I’m sure there are several very good artists who read your blog. I can think of one moderator in particular.
Maybe the March for Life group could ask for submissions of new ideas or even hold a contest. Just thinking..
It would be more accurate to say that befor Roe v Wade, the law was very rarely enforced, and that only a tiny handful of doctors were prosecuted and imprisoned.
And furthermore, many,many women went to unsafe back-alley abortionists, which were extremely risky.
Ireland’s anti-abortion laws are a joke.Irish women has routinely gone to nearby England for safe,legal abortions.
But in poor countries around the world, it’s routine for women to die from botched illegal abortions. And those who rail at Obama for rescinding laws providing help to countries which provide abortion services are unaware of the fact that this will save the lives of many women because they will get contraceptives to prevent those abortions, and much other help will come to those countries.
The Bush administration’s foolish and counterproductive stance on this issue caused the death of many desperately poor women, and increased poverty and misery around the world.
And no, you just can’t enforce laws against abortion. And governments which try to get tough on it do nothing but cause an enormous amount of death and destruction, and yes, they do increase abortion.
Robert,
Would you answer the following:
“How many women do you KNOW who suffered from illegal bloody abortions?”
Also, Robert, could you please provide statistics about how Bush’s policies “caused the death of many desperately poor women, and increased poverty and misery around the world?”
Robert says “Ireland’s anti-abortion laws are a joke.Irish women has routinely gone to nearby England for safe,legal abortions.”
Yes, Irish women go to England for abortion. People also go to Nevada to visit a prostitute. It doesn’t mean that the laws in the home state or country are a “joke.” Looking to the women going out of country for abortion, we see that Ireland has a much lower rate of abortion than any other developed country.
Ireland simply prosecutes and strips the medical license of doctors found to be performing illegal abortions. We could easily do the same, as we did prior to Roe.