Connecting the violent dots
From World magazine, April 28 ed:
Violence has become a way of life for students in America – and even for students in seemingly out-of-the-way and unlikely places like Blacksburg, VA….
Students have come to believe that they can control that violence – that they can, at will, dial it into or dial it out of their lives just as they please. And they have come to believe it because that is what we as a society have taught them.
American students have heard this for a generation and more on a dozen different fronts. In ever-increasing intensity, our movie and television industries have cranked up both the kinds and the volume of what is said to be permissible violence. Don Imus and his violent vocabulary may have been temporarily silenced, but the nation’s music industry remains saturated with lyrics that make no effort to hide the hideous nature of their subject matter. The practice of abortion – typically (and understandably) highest in cities and counties occupied by big state universities – argues powerfully to every participant that the taking of a tiny human life is just fine so long as it’s accomplished quietly, antiseptically, and within the law…..
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.
Holy presumptions about correlation and causation Bat Jill!
Pathologically speaking…psychiatrists do not consider abortion a violent or aggressive behavior.
Also, while scientists are pretty much concluding that media exposure to violence begets violence… parental mediation is the unanimous prescription.
I’ve been waiting for this comparison to come about…and her it is in it’s fallacious glory.
here*
yes Jill, you couldn’t be more correct-
Oh for Chrissake, Jill, don’t stoop to this. Don’t exploit a tragedy for your own good. This is as bad as the WBC.
I see the problem somewhere else – in the fact that it’s so friggin’ easy to get your hand on a gun in the US. Teaching 10 year-olds how to shoot so they can “defend” themselves isn’t exactly the right way to ensure safety in the streets.
This is possibly the most distastful thing I’ve seen on your blog, Jill. You’re exploiting a horrible action for your own political ends. What disrepsect for the dead, and the tragety of VT. First 9/11 is made into a political platform, and now VT.
I agree that this is fallacy. As I’ve mentioned, pro-choice does everything it can to assuage any concern that abortion is violence against human life.
IMO, this shows not that increasing violence has desensitized us to where we’re willing to do such things casually, but rather that pro-choice folk are aware that we’re not so desensitized that the truth about abortion’s violence can be aired casually without incurring a bias toward life.
True Believer pro-choice advocates, however, will embrace their ideal regardless of whether the culture at large comes to understand abortion as an act of violence against innocent human life. That’s apparent whenever one sees a reaction to demonstration of abortion’s violent character; the fetus is immediately compared by some to leeches, parasites, and so forth. It’s not a vulnerable fellow-traveller deserving our protection, it’s a perpetrator against an unwilling mother on a level with a rapist: mother as victim of her unborn child.
It’s perverse.
I was wondering how long it would take for her to draw a comparison between the two… I’d actually thought she wouldn’t. Guess I was wrong. Wow, Jill, dumb much?
“It’s not a vulnerable fellow-traveller deserving our protection, it’s a perpetrator against an unwilling mother on a level with a rapist: mother as victim of her unborn child.”
While we’ve all heard the parasite rhetoric… I think most reasonable people who seek abortions are not wholly uncomfortable about it because of the FACT that it is not a self-aware person, but they are not so callous as to pretend that there isn’t something sad about it all… unlike removing and killing a parasite.
While we’ve all heard the parasite rhetoric… I think most reasonable people who seek abortions are not wholly uncomfortable about it because of the FACT that it is not a self-aware person
HOw do you feel about Peter Singer’s stance on infant euthanasia? He uses their “lack of self awareness” as a justification for infanticide. He believes that parents should be able to decide within a certain period of time after the baby’s birth whether they want to keep the baby or not, and that they should have the legal right to kill it if they so choose. In Singer’s opinion, a human is only achieved “personhood” when it is
“autonomous”, “self-aware” and has a “capacity for having interests”. He says that a newborn baby has no such ability.
In contrast, he believes that any human who has lost (or has not achieved) these things (fetuses, infants, the mentally retarded, those suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s, etc, is a non-person and therefore does not have the rights of a person and can be euthanized.
What do you think?
but they are not so callous as to pretend that there isn’t something sad about it all… unlike removing and killing a parasite.
Really? What is sad about it, Cameron? Can you please explain to me in your words, what a person might find sad about terminating a pregnancy?
Cameron,
parental mediation is the unanimous prescription.
If it was unanimous then 12 year olds couldn’t get abortions without their parents permission.
Less says she left home because her parents stuck their noses in her business.
The law allows children to have sex, become pregnant and murder their own children without any parental input.
JK says “Kids have sex, no matter what adults tell them to do or not to do, kids will still have sex. It even goes to say that if you want to make sure a kid does something, outlaw it, ban it, or make it taboo, all the more inticing for the kid.
But you say “parental mediation is the unanimous prescription.”
Speaking of parental mediation, where are your parents? Isn’t it past your bedtime?
mk
“HOw do you feel about Peter Singer’s stance on infant euthanasia? He uses their “lack of self awareness” as a justification for infanticide. He believes that parents should be able to decide within a certain period of time after the baby’s birth whether they want to keep the baby or not, and that they should have the legal right to kill it if they so choose.”
That’s easy. According to my dictionary, It’s infanticide, and not euthanasia unless the baby was suffering.
Any more stupid questions?
Oh… yes there’s one more.
“Really? What is sad about it, Cameron? Can you please explain to me in your words, what a person might find sad about terminating a pregnancy?”
Having to deal with people like you for starters.
That’s easy. According to my dictionary, It’s infanticide, and not euthanasia unless the baby was suffering.
Why is it wrong, Cameron? Because it’s morally wrong in your opinion, or simply because the law says so? What if the laws changed to support Peter Singer’s views?
Is a newborn any more self aware than a 20 week fetus?
Having to deal with people like you for starters.
Nice dodge.
“Speaking of parental mediation, where are your parents? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
Your whole purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.
I think the insult fest has officially begun…. absent any capacity to acknowledge that parents have a role in the behavior of their children.
not euthanasia unless the baby was suffering.
Hmm, depends on how you define suffering. Peter singer seems to think that mental illness is enough suffering to support euthanasia. What do you think?
“Is a newborn any more self aware than a 20 week fetus?”
Self-aware is not used to legally justify abortion.
“Nice dodge.”
…to a nice loaded question. What’s the matter… you sound like you killed your fetus or something…. probably a couple.
“Hmm, depends on how you define suffering. Peter singer seems to think that mental illness is enough suffering to support euthanasia. What do you think?”
I think if I were you, I’d be really worried about someone euthanising me.
Self-aware is not used to legally justify abortion.
Really? Then why did you just use it to justify abortion?
…to a nice loaded question. What’s the matter… you sound like you killed your fetus or something…. probably a couple.
No, I asked a very reasonable question, Cameron. You said that pro-choice women would not be so callous as to not be sad about “terminating a pregnancy”. I asked you why they should be sad about “terminating a pregnancy”. It’s that simple. Do you have an answer?
I think if I were you, I’d be really worried about someone euthanising me.
Got anything better to respond with other than your second grader response, “You’re stupid”?
You know, I often think about ignoring Cameron, but I realize that the more he talks the more he looks like a buffoon. He uses 4 syllable words in one sentence, then can’t spell a 5 letter word. He leaves words out and puts words where they don’t belong. It’s like he’s looking at his older brothers term paper but he’s copying it wrong.
Anyway,
I figure let him talk. He gets a cheap thrill and we get to say, “This guy is on your side? Just one more reason to come over to ours!”
mk
I have to agree, MK! Keep him and SOMG here. They do half of our work for us. :)
Any pro-aborts unwilling to consider a connection between condoned killing of preborn children and the escalation of violence in our youth is in denial.
Today’s youth are products of the abortion mentality. They go one of two ways, obviously. They either completely reject it, knowing what it is like to be a choice and knowing what it’s like to have lost siblings and friends to abortion; or they accept it, becoming even more cold-blooded than their teachers.
Jill, my God. there are crazies in the world.
The kid who did it was mentally ill, that has absolutely NOTHING to do with abortion.
We either have people like you out there pointing to video games, abortion, or some other irrelvant political base
or the others who completely deny that gun control and sales are an issue in this country, not to mention medical care and the expense of health care.
“No, I asked a very reasonable question,”
This is nothing reasonable about that question. People are not as happy about getting abortions as you’d like to think they are.
I don’t know about any of you, but I certainly haven’t “lost” any friends to abortion.
This is nothing reasonable about that question. People are not as happy about getting abortions as you’d like to think they are.
And the question remains…why?
And no, I have never thought that women are happy after having abortions. I believe that the majority of cases, the woman suffers a LOT after abortion. Emotionally and physically. I’m simply asking why YOU feel that women should be sad because of terminating a pregnancy.
“I figure let him talk. He gets a cheap thrill and we get to say, “This guy is on your side? Just one more reason to come over to ours!”
Oh no… don’t take all ma pro-babiez-killers from me!!!
LMAO
Jill, how can a person know what it’s like to loose siblings and friends to abortion? The whole point of abortion is to terminiate a pregnancy: if the pregnancy is terminiated, the fetus is never born. If the fetus is never born, than it never grows up, and thus other individuals can never know it. People cannot loose friends to abortion. Siblings can be lost to abortion, but the sibling will never be known to the remainder of a family. Your statement makes no sense.
Bethany, I’d rather have a thousand Cameron and SOMGs than even one of HisMan.
Same here, Less.
I havent seen HM around lately, I must say its a bit of an improvement.
Dont get as angered and the arguments are at least a bit more civil.
“I believe that the majority of cases, the woman suffers a LOT after abortion. Emotionally and physically. I’m simply asking why YOU feel that women should be sad because of terminating a pregnancy.”
Because it could have been something wonderful.
Oh Jill. You’re pathetic.
Thank you Less and Alyssa
I’m trying to figure out what’s worse… Comparing abortion to VT or blaming the VT shooting on Emily Hilscher.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21576271-5001021,00.html
Alyssa, 7:28p, said: “I don’t know about any of you, but I certainly haven’t “lost” any friends to abortion.” Less concurred.
Oh, yes you have, Alyssa. At least 25% of your generation has been killed by abortion, what could have been your best friend or future husband, etc.
Less, it must make sense to you even if you reject many aspects of Christianity. Speaking on a grander scale, we all believe in karma, although we call it other names.
Nature and the scheme of things are disrupted by taking matters into our own hands and killing preborn children. The delicate balance of humanity has been thrown way off. Now there are nations with huge gender imbalances and nations with huge underpopulation crises.
Not only are there people missing from your personal sphere, people are missing from humanity. Abortion is going to prove catastrophic.
“Oh, yes you have, Alyssa. At least 25% of your generation has been killed by abortion, what could have been your best friend or future husband, etc”
Jill, we all know that part of the argument is flawed. We could turn around and say it could have been another rapist, thief, Hitler, or McVeigh
“Nature and the scheme of things are disrupted by taking matters into our own hands and killing preborn children. The delicate balance of humanity has been thrown way off. Now there are nations with huge gender imbalances and nations with huge underpopulation crises.”
Nature has a way of working itself out despite our best efforts to do otherwise.
Dan, I’m not disputing that. I am simply saying that if 25% of one’s generation has been wiped out, some of those 25% would have intimately and positively touched those remaining.
My other point was that abortion has tilted the balance of humans in dramatically negative ways from which we will likely never recover.
Jill, I can’t miss what I never had.
Cameron, 8:03p, said: “Nature has a way of working itself out despite our best efforts to do otherwise.”
Conveniently said when discussing abortion. Are you so laissez faire when discussing global warming, animal extinctions, or overpopulation?
animal extinction/overpopultion are natural occurences that can go hand in hand and happen when things go out of wack, but they do eventually equalize.
As for global warming, the jury is still out, could it be natural? yes, are we speeding it up? most likely.
The point is nature would survive, it is simply we may not along with other species.
We’re looking out for more ourselves and our resources more than anything else in terms of global warming.
Nature will equalize/adapt and move on, it is us and other animals who live on the planet that may not.
THIS… thread.. as opposed to the other one… reminds me the white supremacists trying to make an immigration issue from the VT shootings
I think it’s rather arrogant to think that humans really had that much of an impact on global warming. Sure we’ve probably done SOMETHING but we don’t really know enough about earth’s climate cycles to really claim that humans are the sole cause of global warming.
Animal extinctions have been happening since the Cambrian explosion. We’re merely in the middle of the 6th great extinction…this current pattern of extinctions has been happening for thousands of years.
I concur with Alyssa: I can’t miss what I never had. You say we’ve thrown off the balance of nature: how do you know that? How do you know that it negativly affects nature? How do you know it isn’t a very natural response to an already overgrowded planet? I’ve not heard of a single nation that has an “underpopulation crisis.” Want to prove that one? I know that nations have lower birth rates, though in most cases this is due to women having children later, or choosing to not have children.
Sure, I believe in karma: heck, for all I know, abortion reaps huge karmatic consequences. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to tell a women to not have one. It doesn’t affect my viewpoint at all, frankly.
I mean, Less…if our future husbands have been aborted…then why are we with two very marrying-type men? Why do I have a group of friends and best friends that I would die to protect? Didn’t all my friends and my future husband get aborted?
“Are you so laissez faire when discussing global warming, animal extinctions, or overpopulation?”
That would be nature working things out. Perhaps, you’re projecting your interest in that vampire eternity thing that comes after death onto populations now. The eternal population… never evolving never going extinct.. dwelling in specie heaven.
Oh, but Alyssa, she’s talking about good marriage type men who would save us from our heathen-y ways, and best friends who would judge us when we disagree with them, instead of just agreeing to disagree.
Faulty logic, Jill- abortion has existed for thousands of years. And next I suppose you’re going to go after Pro-choicers for contributing to the delinquincy of minors. Last time I checked, we don’t go around blowing up Catholic churches. Bombs are planted at abortion clinics on a regular basis. There’s a reason that Planned Parenthood- often even clinics that don’t perform abortions!- have to have police there to protect women from physical violence by protesters, which I once witnessed firsthand. Don’t accuse us of contributing to the violence of society if you aren’t willing to look objectively about how very violent pro-lifers are compared to choicers. You think we are violent? You guys are the ones flashing pictures of dead babies. “Oh, no, we don’t want our children exposed to violence on TV and in the movies!” Then you go stand out on the corner waving around signs with bloody fetii on them. Hypocrisy much?
Virginia Tech can’t be rationalized. I think we need to stop blaming and politicizing and just let the people mourn.
Less, 8:23p, said: “I’ve not heard of a single nation that has an “underpopulation crisis.” Want to prove that one?”
Less, I know your modus operandi is to ask for proof of things and then never follow up, but at any rate….
Google “population crisis” and you’ll be surprised that information on the underpopulation crisis dominates.
Google “underpopulation crisis” for more.
Go to the CIA World Fact Book here: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html. Of 222 countries listed, 96 are not producing children at replacement levels (2.1), including the U.S. The U.S. only grows d/t immigration, legal and illegal.
Look up Spain, France, Russia, Japan…. for such a woman of the world, there’s an entire critical area you’ve missed in this discussion.
Erin, abortion has not existed on the grand scale it does now. Check out the gender imbalances in India, Pakistan, and China. Check out the countries (in post above) that are dying off thanks to “family planning.” Your side has aborted 1 billion people out of 6.5 billion remaining in the last 2 decades, which you think is a good thing. In actuality, it is catastrophic.
As for violence, pro-lifers oppose it, oc. Interestingly, I was just reading liberal bloggers yesterday who were complaining the media hasn’t covered the Austin bombing properly.
And our “flashing” pictures of babies your side has killed is violent on our part? That’s rich, Erin.
Cameron, because of your threatening and obscene posts last night, you are now banned from this site.
Cameron, I will not miss you one bit!
“Cameron, because of your threatening and obscene posts last night, you are now banned from this site.”
Aw Shucks, I was looking for him!
Jill, burden of proof rests with the person who makes the claim. It isn’t my responsibility to prove your allegations. If you’re going to make a claim, prove it: you make the claim, you back it up.
Your CIA link gave me the following: The requested object does not exist on this server. The link you followed is either outdated, inaccurate, or the server has been instructed not to let you have it. The top five search engine sources were about the overpopulation crisis: one was about Russia’s decline in population, and the remainder were conspiracy-theory type pages.
I know in Italy, another country that’s having an “underpopulation crisis,” the primary reason for lack of children is the fact that women are marrying later, produing fewer children, or not having children/getting married at all. Many countries have declining birth rates for that reason: Germany, the US, and from what I hear Japan as well. Are you wanting to “fix” that too? I have lived in both Germany and Italy, and my fiance is Japanese: all of this is from firsthand experience.
I wonder, Jill, if you would consider the women in Italy that choose not to marry early and have lots of kids are “immoral” in your eyes for “not knowing their places”. And if that’s the reason that the population is declining, would you still have a problem with it? Would you support the idea of legislation in Italy that effectively coerces women to put themselves through as many pregnancies as the government thinks they can handle? I wonder. I really do.
You either believe that human life has intrinsic value (with or without belief in a Creator) or you don’t
The people who support abortion, and Cho (the Virginia gunman) believe exactly the same thing, that is, that people can be killed.
The only difference between them, is degree. Abortion proponents believe that people can be killed unilaterally and with impunity before they’re born.
Cho believed that people could be killed unilaterally and with impunity because he wanted to deliver “a message”.
Not a whole lot of difference between the two. Abortion teaches that people can be killed (and opinions very widely as to the reasons). Euthanasia (especially in the case of Terri Schindler) teaches that people can be killed if their quality of life doesn’t match our utopian standard (opinions vary widely as to what those standards are).
Cho was taught that lesson. He wasn’t taught the intrinsic worth and dignity of all people regardless of their gestational age, handicap or life situation. He also (and more importantly) wasn’t taught his own intrinsic worth as a human.
The way to help prevent future Chos, is for our society to acknowledge the inherent worth and dignity of human beings from womb to tomb.
The whole point of abortion is to terminiate a pregnancy: if the pregnancy is terminiated, the fetus is never born.
My wife had a C-section, her pregnancy was terminated, and my “fetus” is now 17 and getting ready for college.
Tony, I’m pro-life and everything, but there is quite a difference.
Cho was mentally disturbed and the act was senseless. We can’t look at a tragedy and say that abortion caused it. People who commit mass murder many times cannot be rationalized. This tragedy can’t be completely rationalized and not all of these stuff can be prevented (the response could have been better, that’s beside the point though). You can’t always tell when someone is going to start shooting dozens of people.
What happened to people that are just crazy? Is every crazy person a product of society? If so, what does abortion have to do with it, since many pro-life countries are equally, if not more, violent? Abortion is a form of murder but it hardly influences people that are intrinsically violent. See what I”m saying?
Cho was mentally disturbed and the act was senseless.
Senseless to you. But do you think that if Cho believed every life was precious, he would have gone on his rampage killing all of those people?
Tony, senseless to everyone. I was watching TV for hours, trying to make sense in my mind about how this kind of tragedy could happen. Everyone I talked to, almost everyone in America was almost speechless.
I had to learn, rather quickly, that things like this happen sometimes. The power we have to stop a potentially destructive situation is what keeps America safer.
That last question is kind of loaded. I mean, of course not. But people that do things like that devalue life in a basic sense, and not because of the abortion issue. Saying, oh if only he were pro-life is kind of redundant. Again, violence and massacre happen everywhere. People with psychological problems are also everywhere. There are a variety of factors that influence one’s behavior, development, and mental state. It’s a bit arrogant to claim that you know the source for this problem, and it’s abortion!
No, not that simple. Sorry.
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