Jivin J’s Life Links 3-14-11
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- Apparently, the Abortion Care Network doesn’t understand that there are repeat abortions. From one of their brochures (entitled “You Are a Good Woman”) posted at the Abortioneers:Since 1973, when the United States Supreme Court made abortion legal, there have been more than 53 million women in America who have chosen abortion. Those abortions also involved nearly 53 million men.
- At a Washington Post blog, Rosalind Helderman discusses the process which new abortion clinic regulations in Virginia will be installed. Abortion clinics will have to abide by new regulations on January 1.
- Federal prosecutors have filed suit against a man named John Kroack in Seattle for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act: According to the complaint, Kroack first entered the health center on Jan. 5, 2010, and struck up a conversation about abortion services. Kroack grew agitated but left without incident.
Two days later, Kroack was spotted walking in a wooded area near the center. At 10:30 a.m., he entered the facility and again struck up a conversation about abortion.
… Kroack became irate and tried to force his way into the clinic exam area…. Kroack kicked and slammed himself into the door several times while shouting.
Mar.14, 2011 2:00 pm |
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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.
That first link is complete drivel. Even if 53 million women choose abortion, it wouldn’t make it right! If 53 million people drove drunk, it wouldn’t make it okay. If 53 million people became cannibals, it wouldn’t justify cannibalism. I’d say the overwhelming majority of people (if not all) lie at some time in their lives, but it doesn’t make the lie good. Justifying murder based on the concept that ‘lots of other people do it’ doesn’t make any sense. It’s just a lie.
This reminds me a lot of that syrupy-sweet video that someone spliced with brutal footage of a second-trimester abortion.
My response is, Yes, we DO know you, we have seen and helped many women just like you, and we do NOT blame you or hate you for considering abortion.
We honor you and the miracle that you are taking part in, instead of prying open your body, scraping the miracle out of you, and throwing it in the garbage. We will help you improve your life circumstances, instead of leaving you to return to whatever trying circumstance led you to abortion to begin with.
We just want to help you AND your baby have good, healthy lives, instead of you having a scarred life and your baby getting no life at all.
At this point I’m beginning to think that it’s just pro-choicers who pull the “you’re a bad woman if you have an abortion” schtick. I have asked people lots of times how often they hear pro-lifers calling women “baby-killing whores” and I always get the Deer in the Headlights.
What abortioneers know about post-abortive women and pro-life women would fit in a thimble, in a very tiny thimble, perhaps in a Barbie doll’s thimble.
Look at those numbers quoted again..
“MORE than 53 million women chose abortion”, yet
“… involved NEARLY 53 million men” ???? Since it takes both a woman AND a man to make the baby that is being aborted, if 53 million women “chose” abortion, that would involve EXACTLY 53 million men. What do they think, that some of those babies were conceived “immaculately” or what?
Either that, Pamela, or they are admitting that men are able to take advantage of abortion on demand in the sense that one man is able to get multiple women pregnant and then just shell out a few hundred bucks to make the problem go away.
Bobby,
You’re a math guy. Do you mind if I ask which types of math specifically? All in general? I have a Big Gargantuan Humongous Test on Wednesday and I hope that it is possible to absorb math abilities through the computer.
Vannah,
Of course! My area of expertise is in something called algebraic topology, but I can teach almost all undergraduate math courses; all the calc sequences, proofs, linear algebra, modern algebra, combo, analysis, topology, number theory- you name it. Everything except numerical analysis. Seriously, if you have any questions, you can email me or ask me here. I mean, it’s what I do for a living.
Could you simplify sequences? Please? :D
No no, you’ve got it wrong MaryRose. You’re comparing a legal act with illegal acts, that’s just not valid. Drink-driving and cannibilism are illegal for good reasons, abortion isn’t illegal because there isn’t a good reason for it to be so.
If 53 million women wanted the right to vote we’d give it to them – that’s right, we did! If 53 million people decided universal healthcare was a good thing we’d probably get it – that’s right, we’ve started down that road! 53 million women wanted abortions – it’s legal.
Reality, Keep drinking the kool-aid. Legal does not make right. 53 million abortions do not a justification make. 53 million dead, many more wounded. 53 million lies, bought and paid for. 53 million opportunities for growth and acceptance and love, lost through fear and manipulation. 53 million more reasons to turn to Christ.
Legal does not make right. Legal does not make wrong either. And abortion is legal.
53 million abortions are an outcome, justification is not required. It just is.
53 million never born, just what have we missed out on? We can’t have any ‘memories’ of someone never born. We didn’t exactly build houses and cars or create jobs because we were expecting them to be around.
Many, many more million denied opportunities for growth and acceptance and love, lost through fear and manipulation because people turned to Christ.
Come now, “Reality,” I never justified the deaths of those persecuted for religious crimes. I needn’t support one or the other.
just what have we missed out on?
More to the point, just what have those 53 million missed? Just what did those 53 million lose?
They didn’t ‘miss’ or ‘lose’ anything – they never reached sentience. Can you remember teething as a young baby or anything like that? No. you can’t.
Oh, I get it. Consciousness makes the person. Memory makes the person. No memories? Not a person, says “Reality”! Oh, and it also means you can’t lose your life! *eyeroll*
What do you mean by simplify sequences?
Bobby, it means “make it easier” “break it down for me” I got lost on those too.
Reality… put “slavery” in all your quotes about abortion being legal. I guess you support that as well, eh?
“They didn’t ‘miss’ or ‘lose’ anything – they never reached sentience. Can you remember teething as a young baby or anything like that? No. you can’t.”
As MaryRose already pointed out, Reality, if your statement proves anything, it proves too much. It seems that you are saying that you must have memories in order to lose something. Thus, as you correctly imply, it would not be morally wrong to kill a young baby since they would not be remembering their time as a baby anyway.
I’m grasping here to try and understand what your defense of abortion is. Nearly every post you give seems to indicate a different reason for why you believe abortion should be morally permissible. You aren’t able to articulate your position well at all, and I’m not convinced you’ve given much serious thought to this issue.
Are we talking about sequences in the context of the calculus or another context? What kinds of things are you doing with them?
Vannah, I’m not a math person at all – I took calculus and a bit beyond for my electives in college but stopped when I was like “wait, I’m the only non-engineering person in this room…why?” – but I have tutored a high school student in math for years now, among other subjects. Bobby is a way better bet than me, though! But I thought I’d throw it out there anyway, for future reference. :)
I have to say, nothing has given me a more thorough understanding of math than going through it all a second time at real-time pace! Back when the boy I tutor was doing geometric proofs I’d often be like, “Why don’t you start on social studies first. Read this chapter and I’ll quiz you in ten minutes,” and then furtively read the math chapter preceding that night’s homework assignment so that I had a friggin CLUE what I was “helping” him with. Major refresher courses were needed there.
It’s so cool to go through all the cumulative subjects step by step, one on one, though. See him suddenly grasp things, and have little aha moments of my own. That must be what it’s like having a kid, I guess – you get to re-learn and rediscover everything all over again!
MODUS TOLLENS 4EVA. (Even though we’ve moved well beyond that now, there will always be a place in my heart for the logic proofs. Seeing how it affected his English and social studies assignments – made him better at avoiding common lazy fallacies – was so awesome. Though putting up with the adolescent rage-fits that so often accompany logic proofs was…not so awesome.)
Dirtdartwife, give it up. There is no correlation between abortion and slavery. Enforced gestation and slavery, now there’s a correlation.
Ah, you seem to be grasping the point Bobby! There are numerous reasons why abortion is ‘moral’, depending on the thoughts, beliefs, motivations and needs of the people given a choice.
MaryRose stated that aborted fetuses ‘lost’ or ‘missed’ something. My point is that a lifeform of any type which has not developed to the stage where it has sentience, memory or cognition cannot do so. There is nothing going around saying “oh woe is me, my place in school, the person I would have loved, the job I would have had – they are all waiting for me”.
“Reality”,
So you admit that your definition of personhood focuses strongly on memory and the ability to reason?
Reality,
According to the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights , the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independance, the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Convention, and many other documents, abortion is a denial of human rights, namely the right to life. Still think it’s ok?
As for correlation between abortion and slavery, both were denials of rights to a particular group of people based on factors that are irrelevant in determining humanity. We can add the haulacaust in Germany to that group too. And according to you, slavery, along with the haulacaust, was completely moral, since it was legal, and if they managed to pass a law legalizing rape, that would be moral as well.
As for your “sentience/self awareness/memory” reasoning, that also justifies killing of people who are unconcsious, in a coma, or even sleeping, as well as children up to about preschool age. After all I don’t remember anything up to about then. Release the woman who killed her baby while playing farmville! According to “reality,” this baby was not a person and did not have the right to life!
No MaryRose, don’t try to put words into my mouth. I was only discussing your ‘loss’ and ‘miss’ points. Not the entire subject.
Show me where those documents state “abortion is a denial of human rights, namely the right to life” NAR. Show me.
The correlation is between the denial of rights under slavery and the denial of women’s rights to not suffer unwanted gestation. Or don’t the women count?
The holocaust (not haulacaust) is a completely different scenario to abortion, in every way.
“And according to you, slavery, along with the haulacaust, was completely moral, since it was legal, and if they managed to pass a law legalizing rape, that would be moral as well.” – er, no. That’s your poor extrapolation. There are laws and legal acts which I fundamentally disagree with but since they don’t impact negatively on me to any great extent I let them be.
Do you not understand the difference between a developing fetus and someone who has been born, lived life, has thoughts, memories and comprehension (well most) but who has suffered a debilitating event? Your final sentence is just ridiculous.
Okay, Delusion, let me walk you through it.
Abortion takes the life of a human being. Therefore, the human loses his or her life. Abortion also takes a great many opportunities from said human. Therefore, said human also loses a great many opportunities. Simply because the child does not KNOW that he or she has lost these things does not remove the reality that he or she has, in fact, lost them. If I sin steal my sister’s shirt and she never knows that I have stolen her shirt, it does not change the fact that I did, indeed, steal. It does not make the shirt mine.
but since they don’t impact negatively on me to any great extent
I knew it would rear it’s ugly head soon and what do ya know? There it is.
Show me where those documents state “abortion is a denial of human rights, namely the right to life” NAR. Show me.
I didn’t say that it said exactly that. (notice the lack of quotation marks in my statement)
It’s what we call basic logic. All of these articles provide for a right to life. Abortion takes the life of a human being. Therefore, abortion denies the right to life provided for in these articles.
Or don’t the women count?
Of course women count. But why should a women’s right to a lifestyle override another human’s right to life? And what about unborn women, whose lives have been needlessly ended, and post-abortive women whose lives have been permanately damaged, and women who are victims of predators, or women who are forced to have an abortion? Do they count? And gestation can’t have been that unwanted if the woman was willing to have sex, because yes, sex does cause pregnancy.
The holocaust is a completely different scenario to abortion, in every way.
Fine. Prove it.
There are laws and legal acts which I fundamentally disagree with but since they don’t impact negatively on me to any great extent I let them be.
Unless you were a Jew living in Nazi Germany, the holocaust wouldn’t “impact negatively on you.” Unless you were a black living in America before the abolition of slavery, slavery wouldn’t “impact negatively on you.” If you’re a predator, rape wouldn’t “impact negatively on you.” But, despite your arrogance, laws on based on you.
Do you not understand the difference between a developing fetus and someone who has been born, lived life, has thoughts, memories and comprehension.
Age, residence, dependance, experience and abilility to defend oneself come to mind, but none of those are qualifications for personhood.
Your final sentence is just ridiculous.
That’s because it uses your logic. That baby isn’t going to remember that time in its life, therefore it didn’t have a right to life.
That’s not a walk MaryRose, its more like a drunken stumble. Your ‘sister’s shirt’ analogy is not applicable. A fetus can’t do, achieve or own anything until it is born. Therefore they can’t ‘lose’ or ‘miss’ anything.
“I knew it would rear it’s ugly head soon and what do ya know? There it is” – care to explain your statement Praxedes? I was talking about things such as tax breaks and grants to religious organisations, funding to certain NGO’s, the way some financial institutions function etc.
NAR, it may be your logic, it’s not everybody’s. Nowhere in the UN’s Declaration does it mention fetuses or the unborn. I guess that’s because not many people in the world consider them ‘applicable human beings’.
“But why should a women’s right to a lifestyle override another human’s right to life?” – abortions aren’t undertaken purely because of ‘lifestyle’. I have already stated my opposition to the use of force or coercion. Sex does not have to lead to a child, we are not animals rutting in the field. If sex wasn’t meant to be something for more than mere procreation why do women have a clitoris?
You equated abortion to the holocaust, demonstrate why.
I guess that’s because not many people in the world consider them ‘applicable human beings’.
According to science, fetuses have been proven to be human beings. Unless you can give me a reason why someone with human characteristics and human DNA is not a human being, the unborn have a right to life as much as you or I. Besides, the declaration doesn’t specifically mention other groups either but that doesn’t mean that the rights don’t apply to them.
I believe Paraxades was talking about how you don’t seem to care unless the law impacts you specifically, which comes off as being very selfish.
abortions aren’t undertaken purely because of ‘lifestyle’.
93% of abortions are for social reasons. And while not all of them are technically ‘lifestyle’ reasons, only 7% are health related.
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/reasonsabortions.html
Sex does not have to lead to a child, we are not animals rutting in the field.
It is true that we have developed contraceptives, but they aren’t perfect, and when they do fail, sex leads to a child. That does not make it okay to kill the child.
If sex wasn’t meant to be something for more than mere procreation why do women have a clitoris?
I never said that sex can’t be for pleasure, but reproduction is also part of sex. It encompasses both, just like eating is both for pleasure, and for energy.
As for abortion and the holocaust, both killed millions of innocent people. I’m amazed that you couldn’t figure that out on your own.
And as I have said NAR, it’s not all about the science. Many things aren’t.
‘the unborn have a right to life as much as you or I’ – opinion. The right to life of the pre-existing person (the woman) come first.
From the UN Declaration:
‘All human beings are born’
‘All are equal before the law’
‘Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.’ (hello homophobes!)
‘Everyone has the right to freedom of thought’ – tell that to certain faiths.
‘Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security’ – hello! GOP!
If you read the document you’ll find there are many things which fetuses are simply physically or mentally incapable of doing. And many which the governement doesn’t meet, particularly republicans.
I do care even when it doesn’t impact me specifically. If the impact on myself and other objectors is minimal however, why kick up a fuss about it. I disagree with govt. funding of religious groups but the impact on myself and other objectors is minor so very few spend time and energy fighting it. I’m not homosexual but I fervently detest the homophobia which prevents gays marrying and being able to work openly in many spheres. I argue for that cause.
‘93% of abortions are for social reasons’ – and who are you to decide how ‘social’ those reasons are, what the real cost to people is and to what extent those factors may be justifiable?
“but reproduction is also part of sex” – when two consenting partners decide that that is their intent or an acceptable outcome.
“As for abortion and the holocaust, both killed millions of innocent people” – they are still entirely distinct scenarios in their intent and impact. Some countries annual road death toll is the same as your average major volcanic eruption or an epidemic of some sort – how similar are their intent and impact? Figure that out.
“Reality”,
Your ‘sister’s shirt’ analogy is not applicable. A fetus can’t do, achieve or own anything until it is born. Therefore they can’t ‘lose’ or ‘miss’ anything.
I will assume that you are simply misunderstanding and not an idiot.
The sister’s shirt scenario was a comparison but not really an analogy. I was making the point that perception is not reality. That even if the fetus does not know she is losing her life, it does not mean that she does not lose her life. I used the sister’s shirt comparison so as to avoid your inevitable cry of “foul” due to slavery or murder references, which was in and of itself more charitable than usual for me.
I would like to hear you cite another instance in which it is morally permissible to rip an innocent living human limb from limb.