Stanek weekend Q: Is abortion your litmus test when voting?
Leslie at The Passionate Prolifer Turned Abolitionist took exception this week to KNUS talk show host Krista Kafer, also a fellow at Colorado Christian University, who said, according to Leslie, “she wouldn’t have a problem voting for a ‘pro-choice’ candidate since abortion is just one of a number of issues women care about.”
Leslie went on to list 10 reasons why such thinking is “deeply flawed.”
Are you a one-issue voter when it comes to abortion?
On a related issue, in an apparent violation of a 2004 USCCB resolution stating that “Catholic institutions should not honor pro-abortion politicians or provide them with a stage that would suggest support for their actions,” the Connecticut diocesan newspaper publicly praised pro-abortion Democrat Congressman Joe Courtney, who holds a 100% rating from NARAL, for his work giving amnesty to illegal immigrants.
Was this an example of laying down with dogs to wake up with fleas?
Can one vote for, work with, and publicly praise a pro-abortion politician?
[HT: Susie]
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.
As a Catholic, the stubborn blind eye towards pro-abortion politicians and then equally stubborn support for ideas (propagating amnesty as the only “humanitarian” way to deal with the illegal immigration crisis) without apparent critical thinking by bishops is frustrating. But I do believe this is a generational thing. The older generation is SO strangely attached to the Democratic party that somehow they can’t separate themselves from their affection and affinity for it as the “party of the underdog.” The rest of us living in the wake of that generation are far less likely to wrap our identities so closely to a political party.
I have A bumper sticker on my car that says We vote pro life. If they can’t get it right on that issue, how could I trust them on any issue.
Grace is right about the older generation. They are more concerned about their money that it becomes the main thing with them. Or they are so pro union. I ask them what they would say to God about why a pro union vote was more important than life.
I was recently speaking in a pro life denomination on a state referendum concerning life that was strongly endorsed by the denomination. Many of the older people got upset and said that by my talking about this issue would lose them their 501(c) 3 status and their contributions would not count on their taxes. First of all they were wrong which I pointed out that I was not talking about a political party or candidate but a referendum which is permitted and their tax exempt status was not threatened. It was upsetting to me to think that they were more upset about tax deductions than life. In a way I wish all that would go away so people gave out of their heart without the hook of tax deductions.
I think it is necessary to apply the Pro-Life litmus test.
Any person who is unable to discern that we need to protect innocent lives from harm is someone who is unable to make any decision with moral capacity.
If children in the womb are discardable commodities, then so are soldiers. Such a person can believe that children don’t vote, so they don’t matter. The poor are worth less because they have less influence. The environment cannot protect itself from our exploitation.
A person must be right on abortion if we can trust them to be right about anything. Otherwise, dollars trump principles.
The only way I could vote for a pro-abortion candidate is if ALL of the candidates are pro-abortion. None of them are qualified to lead, so I would have to pick the one who would do the least amount of damage.
(The “least damage” principle is often my normal voting criteria, anyway.)
Nope
With very little shift in abortion laws that actually do anything, other topics are more meaningful in shifting abortion rates.
This person proves they don’t really believe that abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human life. Can you ever imagine a Christian talk show host saying they would vote for a candidate who promoted killing two year olds because it was only one issue of many? Obviously this host does not really believe the unborn in the human womb has the same right to life as the two year old.
While I don’t consider myself a single issue voter (I consider a myriad of issues when I vote) I believe there are some things that can automatically disqualify a candidate. Championing the right to kill an innocent human being (whether two year olds or those still in the womb) is one of those issues. Championing a right to beat your spouse would be another.
There are just some positions so repugnant that, if taken, outweigh any of the other positions that candidate may take.
Jonathan –
So let’s say candidate A says they will try to ban abortion, and they want to raise taxes by 400%.
Candidate B says they won’t ban abortion, and they want to cut your taxes by 10%.
Changes in abortion law have a 2% chance of happening – but tax changes have an 80% chance.
You’d vote candidate A?
That’s my issue. I voted Bush (all of them!). I voted Dole – I voted GOP for many, many years. Nothing really changes – it just doesn’t. Bush is super pro-life and Obama is super pro-abortion because Bush passed a law that has never been looked at since, and Obama didn’t support that law that has never been looked at since.
It just doesn’t make sense to me to make it into a single issue vote.
If you would have lived prior to emancipation, Ex-Gop,would you have made the same arguments regarding a political candidate and their position on whether or not to ban slavery? Would taxes have been your most important issue then as well? Besides there are hardly any pro-life candidates who also say they want to raise taxes 400%. So that’s a red herring. It is also completely untrue that abortion laws don’t have much chance at changing. Just observe how many states have done so. Also don’t forget judicial appointments which effect things greatly. Pro abortion judges strike down pro-life laws whenever they have the opportunity. The current Justice Department has sued pro-life advocates as well (something that has not happened under previous administrations). Then there is Obama’s justice dept suing Catholic nuns for not supplying abortificacients. I could go on and on about the myriad of ways abortion is completely affected by those we elect. So your points are simply incorrect.
We have passed more pro-life legislation under Obama than all previous presidents, combined.
I could still never vote for Obama. His lack of respect for the Right to Life was merely a harbinger for his lack of respect for anyone’s natural rights.
Del
Is this an accurate statement?
Compared to 10 years ago, 99% of abortion that were legal then are still legal now, though in a handful of states, it is a little harder to get an abortion.
Is that fundamentally true, or would you reword it?
Yes abortion is my top issue and I let people know. Life is about being who you are. Im not here to win a popularity contest. Some ppl like my position and some dont. But ive never lost any sleep over it.
Dear friend Ex-GOP: Your statement is true, but I don’t think it is important. It is not our immediate or final goal, to simply make abortion illegal.
The only metrics that matter are the total number of abortions, and the rate per 1000 women.
But there is a synergistic relationship between the falling rate of abortions and the incremental passage of laws to protect women from abortion predators.
I believe that the debate over the laws helps to expose the nasty condition and the sleazy culture of the abortion industry. The laws and regulations are a way to educate women, and the truth wins.
Meanwhile…. When we elect politicians who are pro-abortion, they pretend to reform healthcare. But in reality, they only force us to buy healthcare insurance while compelling us to support abortion in violation of our consciences.
Can’t vote for pro-borts, because they don’t respect human rights.
Ex-GOP, would you ever consider donating money to cancer research? After all, billions of dollars have been poured into it over the last 40 years yet millions of people are still dying from it and a cure hasn’t been found. As with the GOP and abortion, there are some cynical cranks that think cancer research organizations have or could easily find a cure yet they won’t do it because they have a financial disincentive to actually solve the problem.
Del –
If that’s the end game, then I think I can certainly, with good conscience, put abortion as a back burner topic to vote on.
If a woman is poor and doesn’t think she can afford a child, a better understanding of abortion practices isn’t going to push her to life. Being able to support the child is going to push her to the side of life.
If pro-life politicians, and I guess their supporters, really don’t care about making it illegal, and just want to motivate people to choose life – then the conservative side is a losing battle. When I see stats of why women have abortions – I typically don’t see things like “I thought the facilities would be nice and it would be a great visit”.
Navi –
Yes, I have and will.
The stats are proof that what cancer research is doing is working. Survival rates for various types of cancers are massively higher than they once were. I don’t see that statistical evidence in what pro-life politicians are doing.
I’m not saying that pro-lifers shouldn’t vote for pro-life candidates – I’m not saying many of them don’t mean well. I’m just saying that trying to make the point that a vote for a pro-lifer is going to do anything substantial to policy is laughable. We have decades of proof without much change in rates, policy (that makes a difference), or public opinion.
See, the thing is, it doesn’t matter if your side ‘wins’, of course we want our side to win. When it comes to abortion and voting we have to remember that ‘ethics’ and ‘winning’ are not the same thing. I find many people have difficulty with macro situations, so it helps to clarify things by putting it into the micro. So think of standing on an island with 99 other people and a person washes up from a shipwreck. Now island law says majority vote is required for any new members to join the community. Since not joining the community would mean tossing an exhausted and injured person back into a merciless sea without any other recourse a vote against him joining the community is, in effect, a vote for execution. Every person gets one vote and voting is public and tabulated immediately. When it’s your turn to vote the tally is already 60 people for exclusion, it doesn’t ‘matter’ what your vote is, his life is already forfeit. If you are a moral person, you are still going to vote to save his life, even though you know your vote will mean nothing, because you can’t vote for killing him, not ethically.
A ‘pro-life’ politician may not change anything, no babies may be saved, in fact the pro-life recoil from a pro-abortion politician getting elected may, in the long run, produce more pro-life grass root change. Or he might be really stupid in other areas, or change and start voting pro-abortion once he’s in office. Or he might have no chance of actually winning. Etc, etc, etc. It doesn’t matter. When someone stands up and says ‘it’s okay to kill babies’ and another person stands up and says ‘it’s not okay to kill babies’, that’s not just a line in the sand, it’s a grand canyon. You can not ethically or morally cast a vote for the person who thinks murder is ethical and should be legal. It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it doesn’t matter what comes out. Either you are willing to stand up and say ‘no, murder is not acceptable’ or you lack any sort of moral conviction or ability to stand up for what you believe. There is no middle ground, no ‘well, I don’t like murder but I love his stance on breadlines’, it’s completely black and white. The irony, of course, is if people actually acted with moral conviction, we would ‘win’, we only lose because so many people lack any sort of moral conviction that they would rather vote for a ‘win’ than for ethics. The lesser of two evils is a messy and nasty choice, but it’s rare that your only option is murder vs murder. Stand for something, or you’ll fall for everything. If you are against murder, be against murder, regardless of whether or not that places you on the ‘popular’ or ‘winning’ side of anything. And when you are considering pros and cons, if you think murder can be overlooked, you have a serious ethical problem.
Abortion is my litmus test. I don’t just vote for a person’s political positions, I vote for a person. If information is available about a candidates moral character, I look at it. A pro-abortion position indicates a flaw in moral character to me. So given a choice between a candidate that is pro-life and pro-raising taxes and a candidate that is pro-abortion and pro-lowering taxes, the pro-life candidate gets my vote. Every time. Life > money
Yes, Jespren!
Excellent post Jespren!!!
Jespren – I think that is one of the more compelling arguments. Paladin (a great individual who used to be on the site) had a version of it and it makes sense.
My biggest issue with it though is there is a difference in saying you’ll allow deaths in certain situations, and somebody who says they actively promote death.
So I lump the following folks all together:
– A pro-choicer who says abortion should be allowed
– A pro-life politician who votes for a ban on abortions at 20 weeks, doing nothing about the 98% or so plus of abortions that occur
– A supporter of stand your ground laws or those massively pro-gun, knowing that these policies lead to increased deaths
– Libertarians who want to dial back health care by decades and roll back social support programs.
In all these cases, people have policy that will lead to deaths. In none of those cases are people saying “I want x person to die”, but all have policies that lead to death.
So last statement – I do see a difference between Democratic politicians that want to keep abortion legal but see it as a bad thing and want to reduce rates – and those that seem to see no moral issue with it what-so-ever.
Ex-GOP, there is an old story about a little boy on a sea shore after a storm, he’s walking down the shore and throwing star fish washed up by the storm from the sand back into the sea. An old man walks up and tells the boy ‘why bother, look’ he points out at the miles of shoreline dotted with star fish ‘you can’t possibly save them all.’ The little boy triumphantly picks up one more star fish and throws it back proclaiming ‘I made a difference to that one.’ A pro-life politician who votes for a 20 week abortion ban may not save 98% of the babies killed by abortion, but he is doing what very little he can do *right now* to save even one. Bans which only deal with some abortions are problematic, not in the immediate-they save some lives which would otherwise be lost-but rather because if Roe v Wade is ever overturned then abortion rights revert, in all likelihood, to the state, which will then have to deal law by law with the ‘incremental’ approach which may make actually criminalization abortion in full more difficult. But one does not borrow trouble from the future. Row v Wade may be overturned, it may be overturned in such a way that all abortion is made illegal by recognition of human life as legal ‘people’, it may be overturned in such a way that more firmly supports abortion throughout all nine months without any ability to regulate it, or it may be overturned and drop it back to the state level. But it won’t happen today, which makes any legislation which saves some lives worth pursuing, not because you can save every person with that law, but because you can save some. Do you think lawyers who fought for escaped slaves rights before the civil war, who may only save *this one* from being returned to their master gave up because they couldn’t save every one?
“a supporter of stand your ground laws…knowing these policies lead to increased deaths” first off, they ‘know’ no such things, such laws have been shown to reduce crime, not increase it, thus *lowering* death and injury of INNOCENT members of society. if you are referring to a possible increase (which also hasn’t been conclusively or statistically shown) of criminals who knowingly put their own lives in danger to commit crimes being shot by law abiding citizens who are defending themselves and their property, well, that’s a rather different ethical dilemma than considering the murder of innocents. Moreover, you’re assumption that those who push for these things not only accept but *expect* more deaths from their laws is wholly inaccurate. People push for such laws because they believe they will *lower* deaths and crime. That is not an argument of ethics, but of cause and effect.
“libertarians who want…social support programs” again you assume that both their expectation and assumption is more deaths, when the Libertarian (or Constitutionalist, etc) who support these things do so because they believe ‘dial’ing or ‘roll’ing back these unconstitutional programs will have a positive effect on society. More lives saved, less poverty perpetuated, a greater quality of life. Again, this is not an ethical issue-both sides believe their efforts will save more lives/better more lives-this is a debate of cause and effect. One side believes to cause the effect wanted action A must be taken, the other side believes action B must be taken. Neither is remotely relevant to the ethics of legalizing intentional killings of innocent human beings.
As for your last statement, so you’d accept that position on the murder of other children if the parents decide they don’t want them? So a politician who believes infanticide is a bad thing, wants to support safe-haven laws to reduce rates, but ultimately, thinks it should be up to the parents to either care for, give up, or destroy their 2 month old would have your vote as long as they were ‘good’ in other areas like being for free health care for that infant if the parents decided to keep it? The logical fallacy of treating abortion like cigarettes should be painfully obvious. Abortion isn’t a ‘libertarian’ evil which harms only those who seek it and should therefore be legal but unfortunate, it’s the active destruction of a third party which is exactly the purpose of government to protect people from. Your argument is logically and ethically flawed.
The more you type, the more you seem to be talking out of both sides of your mouth.
So you should support these bans like a 20 week ban which still upholds 98%+ of abortions because it is at least something – yet you conclude saying that if a person is a person, any support if supporting murder, so you can’t vote for them. So you’ve essentially just discounted voting for darn near anyone.
I think the misunderstanding you have in my position is that you equate any drop in rates to legislation. I don’t think legislation is every going to actually be the answer in this country. At best, I think you’ve got a fragmented state view where women end up crossing state lines, but the majority of states (great majority) have legal abortion much in the same shape we have it now. Reducing abortion to me, means understanding why, and working to fix that.
So in my last statement, I’m saying that I don’t see much difference between a Democratic politician that wants to reduce rates and a Republican pro-lifer – except that I think that the Democrat is more realistic of the situation.
Unfortunately, it seems like the abortion debate has driven the middle ground out – so you’ve got far left Democrats on the status quo, afraid to say anything against abortion rights – and you’ve got far right Republicans in a quest to appease the base without actually doing anything substantial.
Hardly discounting voting for ‘darn near anyone’. a vote against abortion is against abortion. If you vote for a ban on abortions past 20 weeks you aren’t voting *for* abortions before then, you are voting against abortions past 20 weeks. If you then vote against a 12 week ban, you would be voting *for* abortions. By voting to ban something you are not either implicitly nor explicitly for everything else you didn’t ban. Voting to ban abortions after 20 weeks says absolutely nothing about what someone thinks about abortions at 18 weeks, 9 weeks, or 3 weeks. That a 20 week ban can pass but a 4 week ban can not is an example of moral hypocrisy, but passing the 20 week ban still isn’t taciturn approval of earlier abortions for any ‘yes’ vote, merely a an example of overall moral inconsistency. There are both politicians who have voted ‘yes’ on *every* pro-life bill to reduce or ban abortions, as well as politicians whose answer to such things is theoretical only because they have never had to vote on such a bill. Then there are politicians who have voted against abortion bans or restrictions and therefore explicitly *for* the continuation of abortion. I don’t equate any drop in rate to legislation, there may be drops in the rate of abortion for many reasons, but legislation does equal drops in abortion. Where pro-life legislation has been passed, the rate of abortion drops. This is because abortion is ultimately a consumer product that is controlled by market pressures like any other luxury product rather than a necessity of life which does not respond to market pressure. People want abortion, in the vast majority, because it is being peddled to them. Stop the peddling, and nearly all abortion stops. It’s much like formula in that regard, woman are made to breastfeed, and with only extremely rare exceptions the mother/baby dyad is perfectly capable of thriving without supplementation. In places were formula marketing does not exist, breast feeding rates remain extremely high, very few woman have a *need* to buy expensive formula to feed an infant. But where formula marketing is found, suddenly woman ‘need’ formula because they are largely ‘incapable’ of feeding their own young, breastfeeding rates plummet and formula sales rocket. Put restrictions on that marketing and formula sales drop, breastfeeding rates rise. That’s because formula is a luxury, a want, not a need. Likewise abortion; it’s a want, not a need. It’s not like food, which people will seek to obtain regardless of restrictions or marketing. People NEED food, you can change what type of food people buy through marketing and restrictions, but people will still obtain food. they will go to any lengths to obtain it; regardless of how it impacts the rest of their life. We know through market analysis restrictions upon abortion cause a drop in demand, it’s simple economics played out all over the world, less access to abortion equals less abortions, more restrictions on abortion equals less abortions.
Democrats don’t want to reduce abortion, they never have, their standard response to every humanitarian crisis is to throw abortion and birth control at it. Their decades long response to any form or regulation is to pick unfettered access to abortion on demand over health, medicine, or other services. (I am speaking of the democratic party not of any specific individual)
I’m sure there were a lot of individuals-actually as a student of history I know there were-who thought the debate on slavery in America had driven out the middle ground. Surely reasonable people could have made a rational ‘middle ground’ on the slavery issue. They could have regulated slavery so that the slave had some legal protection to protect them from abusive masters while still allowing masters to have their cheap labor. Certainly slavery should remain legal for the common good of those who just had no other choice but finding out ways to make it rare and safe could be championed. But no, those abolitionists just couldn’t be happy with that. They past incremental law after incremental law, all the while pushing each law to it’s breaking point in court to get the most out of it that they could until, finally, all slavery was illegal. How divisive of them.
Ex Gop is so passive aggressive. I dont believe you are pro life as you say you are. If Im wrong then good for you. AND most every time I see you here it is you talking out of both sides of your mouth. So you would like to get to the bottom pf the reasons women have abortions and reduce that number? Unless youre out there doing pro life work it wont happen. 3000 to 5000 abortions a day in the US alone. Once the abortion law was passed more women began aborting. Many just use it as birth control. Why? Because they CAN! Pass laws that make rape murder theft drinking and driving legal and all would increase. Its simple really.
Reasons women abort. Boyfriend/husband pressures them. Failed birth control. Health prolems with the baby. College plans ( cannot be pregnant ) pressures from parents. Fear of weight gain ( no im not kidding ) selfishness. Covering up an affair. In a nutshell its sexual sin. If youre too poor to have a baby then dont have sex. If you dont want a baby to ruin your college plans dont have sex. I know women who have multiples because that is their birth control! Many are now sterile because they believed the abortion would be safe. It wasnt. I know a 26 year old girl who is in menopause because of an abortion. She came home from the clinic and collapsed. She was rushed to the ER where an emergency hysterectomy was performed because she was bleeding to death.
Most Republican politicians do not want abortion to be made illegal. They want it to continue as one issue that garners them 99% of the vote of a certain portion of the populace.
Jespren –
Can you confirm, briefly what you are saying – the abortion is simply a frivolous decision driven by an over abundance of clinics. If clinics didn’t exist, women simply wouldn’t want abortions. That is what you seem to be contending, but I want to confirm.
Heather (and the three people that liked your comment)- you are free to believe whatever you want.
What I’d ask though is, why are you so threatened by somebody whose pro-life stance looks different than yours?
It appears you want to put people in a box, and if they don’t conform, you want to kick them out of the club.
If you want to define what a pro-lifer is, feel free – but by the guidelines that I feel like I could put together by this board, the pro-life club is a pretty small club.
Here are facts we do know:
Fact 1- In the seven-year period from 1973 to 1979, the number of abortions more than doubled, whether we take the CDC (Center for Disease Control) numbers (from 615,831 to 1,251,921) or AGI’s (Alan Guttmacher Institute) numbers (from 744,600 to 1,497,700).
Fact 2- Abortion rates are currently dropping.
Fact 3- There has been a reduction of abortion clinics and an increase in abortion restrictions in recent years.
Now can we contribute the entire reason for a decline in abortion on reduced access? Of course not. But it would be equally foolish to discount the correlation being in existence at all. Which is what Ex GOP seems to want to do.
Ex-GOP, the term ‘luxury’ is used in it’s technical sense, it’s a term used in social sciences to refer to things non-essential to the continuation of life or the continuation of life within a specific society. Clothing can be considered a luxury item within specific societies. The only universal needs are food and water, everything else is a luxury driven by pressures outside the human body’s need to exist. Certain other things, like clothes or literacy, may be needs in certain societies. To the vast majority of people there is nothing frivolous about abortion and the technical term shouldn’t be taken to mean that. What it does mean is, like all luxury items from vacuum cleaners to reconstructive surgery, it responses to market pressure. In places-and this is seen worldwide-where there is little access to abortion there is little abortion and where there is much access, much abortion. You can find technical papers written on it if you dig a bit, but the concept is also obvious-if the number and restrictions of clinics didn’t matter than abortion proponents wouldn’t care if there was only a very few places to obtain abortions or if women had to travel to obtain them, because the number of abortions would remain unchanged regardless, as would their income. It doesn’t. In just one year Texas saw an average of a 13% drop and a localized drops over 20% by enacting safety regulations that closed clinics. There is a single isle in Canada which has no abortion clinics-and while the local population could easily travel if they *needed* abortions, they don’t, abortion numbers among Prince Edwards Island are much lower than among general Canadians. Likewise Ireland is within the EU, travel is easy, yet Irish woman abort at much lower rates than other EU citizens because abortion clinics simply aren’t readily available. You don’t even have to go that far, look at the U.S. in NY where abortion clinics are plentiful the abortion rate is around (according to CDC but remember all reporting of abortion is voluntary in the U.S. so these figures are best-guess not truth) 28.6 per 1000 women, while in Mississippi which to my memory has only 1 abortion clinic it’s 3.8 per 1000 women. These figures include women who traveled to another state to acquire it, so surely some of those 3.8 per 1000 women in Mississippi traveled to another state to abort, yet the number even with ease of travel between states is hugely different. By more direct comparison Georgia is very similar to Mississippi in rural/city population and subculture but they have more than 20 abortion clinics and their number is 16.7. Will *some* women go outside the law and outside of ease to acquire an abortion? yes, in the same way some people go outside the law and outside convenience to acquire slaves, or hit-men, or to buy elephant ivory. But the small criminal element in any society is present regardless, and they obviously don’t care about the legalities or ethics or their chosen actions. The vast majority of any society, however, follow the law when it comes to luxury items. They acquire them as a part of life, sometimes a very important part of life (consider how important a personal car is to our current existence, but if the personal car was outlawed tomorrow society would also adjust, neighborhood cars, cars belonging to extended families, city-loaners, public transportation, etc, would fill the void very rapidly. Society adjusts when a want is taken away)but will live without them if they are unavailable. From all over the globe we know abortions go up with availability and down when difficulty in introduced in their acquisition. That’s why the abortion industry fights tooth and nail every regulation-it harms their ability to market their product to women-and why abortion is an active sales business, read Blood Money or any number of things from the more recent Abby Johnson on the amount of high pressure sales that goes into abortion.
I was born in 69 and abortion passed in 73. It was my understanding that abortion would not be taken lightly and would be reserved for serious conditions and circumstances. Rape life of the mother etc. But fast forward the clock and look at it now! Abortion on demand without apology. Women are now sex objects and abortion is the solution. Yet they feel empowered. I was reading about the porn industry last week and many of the actors and actresses have come up hiv + Others ( like Tracy Lords became pregnant doing porn and had an immediate abortion. The root of abortion is sexual sin!
Why would a woman go into menopause because of an abortion unless she had to have both her uterus and ovaries revived as a result of malpractice?
Because everything WAS removed Tenn!
Say Tenn…did you ever kill any of your children through abortion? If so what was the “good reason” behind it?
Why do I get Jonathan’s posts (via email), but they don’t show up here. Is he banned? Does he delete them? What’s up?
Ex-GOP, I don’t know, but I have the same question…
Jonathan –
Nope – you are misreading my views.
My understanding from Jespren’s post is that he saw it like sonic restaurants. I’ll go to Sonic if it is down the street, but I won’t go to another state. I felt like he was simplifying the view of it – saying that abortion simply exists because it is available.
I think we all know that if abortion was outlawed in 25 states tomorrow, abortions would still take place – both legal and illegal – all over the country.
Regulations and laws certainly decrease it – but as others have pointed out, legislation alone won’t eliminate abortion.
Ex-GOP, not that I mind or find it offensive, “Jespren” after all is a made-up name of my own invention, but ‘Jespren’ is a she. ;) I use ‘Jespren’ because Jessica is about as unique as saying ‘a female’ and gets very confusing online.
And it’s not like Sonic, but more like child marriage. It happens in every society because some people just don’t care, but make it legal and socially acceptable and it isn’t a rare aberration but a common thing. If you regulate it, it becomes rarer, you can ban certain forms of it or change laws to make it safer while reducing it’s occurrence, but even when you criminalize it, it will still happen some. That doesn’t mean you keep it legal because they ‘would still take place-both legal and illegal’. While sex is a necessity of life (or at least the continuation of life) sex with a child, or sex between child is not. So the legality, social agreeableness, and ease of availability strongly impact how frequently it occurs. Same too with abortion.
Jespren
Apologies! At times people have thought I’m a lady – I think because most of the folks on this site are women. Or maybe because I like kids. Anyway, yeah – I wasn’t offended, but nice to be treated correctly!
Socially acceptable – agree with those statements.
We’ve gotten pretty far off topic – but I suppose my summation is that I think rates are affected lots of ways – not just through regulation – and the current pro-life political view is 100% regulation and very little in the way of prevention or support for those who are pregnant. Thus, I find it hard to align myself to saying that I’m going to vote on one topic, that being the convention way we accept politicians and how they think they’ll affect the abortion rates.
I so wish that if a woman got pregnant in the US today and her first thoughts were “I can’t do this, I must get an abortion” – that we had both a church culture that fully embraced and supported that woman, and that we had a better social program network so that financially, the woman didn’t feel so overwhelmed. I believe this country will always have legal abortion. I don’t believe it needs to be treated like it is now.
I mean, have you read through the comments of the quote of the day today? You just don’t see people that say “wow, that’s horrible for parents to go through – how can they be helped and how can society react to these situations”. Instead, it’s a long list of how awful these murderous parents are.
Ex-gop and Jespren, I wish I knew what was going on with my comments. Every time I post a comment, there is a message saying it needs to be approved by the moderator. That never ends up happening for hours or even days after I first post it. I am extremely frustrated by it. Is there a certain number of comments you have to post before the comments stop being automatically moderated? I have not violated the commenting guidelines. I can’t figure out what the problem is. But it’s not on my end. Can you see my three previous comments on the article? Because it looked to me like they had all eventually posted.
Moderators, if you are reading this, a comment about what I can do about this situation would be extremely helpful because currently I am very frustrated….
I believe Jespren clarified her position sufficiently. So I don’t really need to go into that. I agree fully with it. And of course she wasn’t saying that legislation alone is the only option. Furthermore, as pro-lifers, that’s not all we focus on.
Many pro-lifers have adopted. Many others donate of their time and money to crisis pregnancy centers that seek to help the pregnant woman who feels she has no options.
I and other pro-lifers in my area will stand on the sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood with pamphlets to hand out to pregnant women giving them other options (one option being the crisis pregnancy center a few doors down). At that crisis pregnancy center, they can not only get counseling, but also other valuable help. Donations collected for these women include maternity clothes, baby formula, diapered, and even baby furniture. I bet wherever you live there is a pregnancy support center not far from you that is funded and staffed by pro-life individuals who care about giving pregnant women help.
Legislation is one prong of the pro-life cause. And it is a very important prong. Because regardless of whether making it illegal to kill all innocent human beings eliminates all killing (of course it won’t) it will decrease it and it is the right thing to do (just the same as keeping it illegal to kill innocent already born humans even though that doesn’t completely eliminate murder)?
But that being said, legislation isn’t the only prong of the pro-life strategy and to proclaim otherwise is simply wrong.
I am an abortion litmus test voter, but I’m pro-choice. I vote only for pro-choice candidates for all elective offices except sheriff.
City council representative, mayor, state comptroller – I won’t be responsible for a nickel of government money going to anyone who will use his or her office to ban abortion or as a stepping stone to gaining another elective office which he or she would use to ban abortion.
The issue of party is not mine. A few years ago, in a state where I lived a long time ago, a pro-choice Republican and an anti-choice Democrat were running for governor. I would have selected the Republican without question, however much I disagreed with him on other issues.
I believe that each individual person is and should be responsible for the state of his or her own body, and no one should ever be allowed to victimize a person’s body.
If a woman chooses an abortion and later regrets it, that’s her problem and her fault.
If the woman wants an abortion but some anti-choice person has managed to ban abortion in the US, and that woman dies, is permanently injured, or even has the slightest pain in childbirth, the anti-choice person is guilty of a significant sin of aggression against that woman. I wouldn’t ask God to forgive that anti-choice person ever.
“no one should ever be allowed to victimize a person’s body”
I totally agree. That’s why I’m against abortion, which victimizes the body of the unborn.
Perfectly crystalized response, Lrning. I was thinking exactly the same thing when I read that incredibly ironic statement.
Lrning –
I understand completely. For me, a zygote, blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is not a person, so for me, induced abortion chosen by the woman doesn’t victimize a person unless the doctor commits an act of malpractice which victimizes the woman. For you, a zygote, blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is a person and is equal to any born human. We just fundamentally disagree on what the unborn are.
However, since none of the born have a legal right to use the blood or organs of another person to extend their life spans, even if the unborn were legally recognized as persons, I don’t see how they would have such a legal right, either.
In fact, that would be particularly true for cases of early medicinal abortions, which merely detach the placenta from the woman’s body on the side of the placenta made of her own tissue and then expel the placenta-plus-embryo, without ever touching the embryo.
choiceone,
We currently have the legal obligation to care for and sustain the lives of our minor children. I imagine if the unborn were legally recognized as persons, they too would have a right to life that would impose obligations on their parents.
But regardless of the legal issue, abortion takes the life of an innocent human being and therefore is immoral.
Interesting to see you comment about God and sin while supporting the killing of innocents.
Hi Choiceone,
“that would be particularly true for cases of early medicinal abortions, which merely detach the placenta from the woman’s body on the side of the placenta made of her own tissue and then expel the placenta-plus-embryo, without ever touching the embryo.”
Even if this is precisely how most abortions work, the problem here is that the foreseen effect of “detaching” the placenta and “expelling” the placenta and embryo is the death of the embryo. The fact that taking a certain action will knowingly and directly result in the death of an innocent human being, unless there are proportionate reasons like the life of the mother is at stake, makes the action immoral. Now I assume the rejoinder here might be, as you mentioned above, that you do not believe the embryo is a human person. But then that is a separate argument, having nothing to do with this “bodily rights removal” argument given above.
” since none of the born have a legal right to use the blood or organs of another person to extend their life spans, even if the unborn were legally recognized as persons, I don’t see how they would have such a legal right, either.”
Here is the problem with this analogy. The state of pregnancy is natural i.e. it conforms to the nature or purpose of the female reproductive organs. Hence if a woman has an embryo living inside of her, then that embryo is exactly where an embryo should be and the woman’s reproductive system is functioning properly relative to its design (whether that design be by God or evolution or whatever). The point is that there is an order to things and that we must respect that order.
Contrast that to the blood and organs analogy. The purpose of your say kidney is not to help someone else or to be hooked up in any way to someone else. It is for your body and hence, no one has a right to it. However, in order to fulfill a greater good (that of returning proper function to someone who needs a kidney) you may freely donate it to them or hook yourself up to them in order to preserve the higher proper function of life for another human being. But this is by no means a requirement as it is an extraordinary use of the kidney. The womb, though, has the specific design and purpose of being a place to nourish and protect an unborn human being. Your kidney is for your body and hence cannot be FORCED to be used by someone else. The womb is FOR an embryo or fetus. That is its purpose. That is what it is there for and hence, the kidney (or blood or other organ) and womb are not analogous in this situation. That is why the violinist analogy and all other analogies similar to that fail. They do not take into account proper function and the order of nature which all other rights are based on.
Bobby
Bambino
:) Hope things are going well for you and your family.
Hey man! Indeed, things are going quite swimmingly.