Jivin J’s Life Links 6-04-09
by JivinJ
The more I think about it, the more I see how thoughtless Saletan’s argument is. For example, take his argument and use it on other movements. Does he think those who resorted to violence (like John Brown) were the only abolitionists who really thought that slaves were persons? Did William Wilberforce not really believe slaves were equal to free men because he didn’t kill slave traders?…
Without a doubt, the number one reason for abortions past 24 weeks is the late discovery of a fetal anomaly incompatible with life. I’ve talked with many women who find themselves in this situation and it is always an extremely difficult and heart-wrenching situation. Many women even underwent infertility treatments to become pregnant.
But, when the pregnancy goes horribly awry, a Mercy Abortion is the best solution in a no-win situation. These are women who need abortion more than many others.
She and her readers just want “to take a look.” Why? She wants to prove her point that it’s a dingy building? Over Carhart’s safety, and the safety of his staff and patients?
If posting the photos of Carhart’s “dingy” abortion clinic is aiding people who want to harm abortionists, then wouldn’t Carhart also be aiding people who want to harm abortionists because his web site (which is also rather dingy) posts the address of his clinic and maps to it?
Jill from Feministe calls it a “‘How to Lie’ instruction guide.” These kinds of completely irrational reactions make me wonder if some of these pro-choice people could ever be reasoned with. It just appears they’ve gotten to the place where they’re more focused on attacking and belittling any pro-life person or organization that they no longer have the ability to even understand where a pro-life person is coming from.
At the New York Times, one story is front-page news; the other is buried in the back pages. Are anti-war voices that condemn the US military responsible for Pvt. Long’s atrocious murder? No….
But the man who murdered Dr. George Tiller will have to answer not only for his own evil act, but for the pall he casts by association on the good men and women of this country fighting for equality for all human beings, the born and the unborn — for our equal, inalienable right to live. Just being human is enough to give us this right. Smart people share it with dumb people. Good people with bad people. Fully grown adults with the tiniest human life in the womb.
None of us has the right to be jury, judge and executioner. None of us can be trusted with the power to decide, on our own individual initiative, who is worthy of life and who deserves death.
None of us.
Wilson, 28, told Sheffield Crown Court that he lost his temper and felled Mrs. Preece with one blow after she told him she had had an abortion a few days earlier.
“I was angry that she had not asked me if I wanted to keep it,” he said.
He admitted that he punched her in the mouth, knocking her straight to the floor, punched her again and then stamped twice on her head with “severe” force.
[Photo attribution: Daylife.com]
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.
“These kinds of completely irrational reactions make me wonder if some of these pro-choice people could ever be reasoned with. It just appears they’ve gotten to the place where they’re more focused on attacking and belittling any pro-life person or organization that they no longer have the ability to even understand where a pro-life person is coming from.”
With the arguments of men like Frank Beckwith, Robert George, and Patrick Lee, the intellectual debate about abortion is essentially over. One thing I have been realizing lately is that the pro-life side has all the intellectual muscle power and that the pro-choice side is almost void of it. Not that there aren’t intelligent people on both sides, but the intellectual arguments put forth by the pro-choice side have been so thoroughly demolished that their best ammunition comes from ad hominem and behavioral attacks. That is why (among other reasons) the murder of Tiller is such a setback to the pro-life movement. Now they have something of at least some substance to argue against us. This gives them a great talking point that can easily be agreed upon to the exclusion of our reasons for opposing abortion.
The arguments and counterarguments for some moral issues that split public opinion are still being refined and worked on. Abortion is not one of them. And since people NEED to hold onto the right to an abortion, they will grasp at anything that might justify it. It’s too bad that Tiller’s murderer gave them ammunition, and of course, even worse that he actually murdered him.
“I’m with Jen R. of Turn the Clock Forward.”
I liked Jen R. What happened to her that she doesn’t comment here anymore?
“I’m with Jen R. of Turn the Clock Forward. What can we do to help make Randall Terry (pictured left) go away and stay away? Who still supports this guy?”
I still support him. I hope he never goes away.
Randel Terry has more guts than all the Catholic Bishops in the Unites States.
I didn’t like Mr. Terry’s statement after the Tiller murder, and I didn’t like his tactics at Notre Dame. Other than that, he’s usually a decent voice for Life.
The ‘pro-life’ movement is no more monolithic than the movement was to oppose slavery.
Some anti-slavery folks wanted not only immediate emancipation for slaves, but also immediate recognition as equal members of the human race.
Some anti-slavery folks just wanted to end slavery and relocate the former slaves back to their home continent and were in no way amenable to embracing the black man as an equal.
Just because a man was opposed to slavery did not mean he was not a racist.
The National Right to Life Committee has decided that in order to be consistently ‘pro-life’ you have to be opposed to the death penalty. A good number or people who consider themselves ‘pro-life’ do not share that view.
Other ‘pro-lifers’ are so ‘consistent’ in their view that they deem incremental measures that would save some pre-natal children, but would leave others unprotected as intolerable compromise with evil.
William Lloyd Garrison, an unwavering proponent of immediate emancipation calle the U.S. Constitution a covenant with hell and a compact with the devil because it allowed slavery to continue unhendered.
Another purist abolitionist (his name escapes me) rejected Jesus and the bible because neither condemned slavery.
I respect people of conscience who are opposed to the death penalty even though I disgree with their position. Our conscience is one of God’s best gifts to us and we ignore it at our peril.
I would rather work with a person who gives way to their conscience than one who subordinates the dicatates of his conscience to the pressure of the moment.
I respect people who engage in passive non-violent civil disobedience even thouth I may disagree with them about the the issue they are so passionate about. It takes some courage to separate yourself from the herd and declare to the ones from whom you defected that they are wrong and you are right.
One of the traps we, as humans and as believers in Jesus fall into is assuming that anyone who agrees with us ought to respond the same way we do and if they don’t they are cowards and hyprocrits, or at least inconsistent.
God does still speak today, but just because HE spoke something to you does not mean HE intended to speak the same thing to everyone else who calls on HIS NAME.
Do not assume that everyone should think, and speak and respond like you do about anything.
Religion demands conformity, but GOD delights in diversity. HE made everyone of us different in so many ways. No two snow flakes are the same.
(Do not mis-understand me. The liberty to be different is not the license to do wrong. ‘Diversity’ and ‘tolerance’ and ‘pluralism’ are words that have been co-opted by secular and sectarian humanists to excuse and embrace and sanctify abberant behavior.)
Allow fellow ‘pro-lifers’ and believers the liberty to be ‘different’.
If mr. Roeder had come to me and confided in me what he was planning to do to mr. Tiller, I would have given him every reason I could think of NOT to do it. The least of which would have been what it might do to the ‘pro-life’ movement.
The primary reason I would give for NOT murdering mr. Tiller is that GOD loved Tiller so much that HE caculated that Tiller was worth the life of HIS SON Jesus.
mr. Roeder, are you prepared to look GOD in the eye and tell HIM HE is wrong? The bible indicates that some men argued with GOD and won. Are you in that rare company of men?