Abortion “common ground” suggestion: emulate NYC anti-smoking campaign
RH Reality Check has launched a new “common ground” site, inviting pro-life and pro-abortion thinkers to explore areas where we can work together.
Of course, the upper echelon of the abortion movement has no intention of finding common ground, which Obama himself recognized in his Notre Dame speech as ultimately “irreconcilable,” as The Guardian headline from that date indicated.
The tag on that headline reveals why the push for “common ground” by Obama and his minions: They’re losing the PR battle. As I’ve said before, only those losing appeal for compromise. Winners don’t have to and shouldn’t. At any rate, pro-lifers never will.
Nevertheless, I have a “common ground” suggestion, inspired by New York City’s planned anti-smoking campaign. Obama said yesterday in a meeting with Catholic reporters…
I don’t know any circumstance in which abortion is a happy circumstance or decision, and to the extent that we can help women avoid being confronted with a circumstance in which that’s even a consideration, I think that’s a good thing.
It sounds an awful lot to me as if Obama thinks there is something wrong with abortion, much like NYC officials think there is something wrong with smoking. Here is their plan, according to AOL News, July 1:
Blackened lung tissue. Amputated finger tips. Tracheotomy scars. Sound appetizing?
These images could be part of a new antismoking campaign…. A proposal from [NYC’s] Dept. of Mental Health and Hygiene suggests prominently displaying antismoking signs near the cash registers of all cigarette retailers.
The legislation would be the first of its kind in the U.S. And while Canada, New Zealand and Australia currently have sign requirements, NY would be the first to include graphics….
The graphic nature of the graphics has drawn some complaints. Though gruesome visuals have been the most effective way of inciting New Yorkers to pursue quitting… forcing people to look at them while they shop may be controversial.
The measure is for the collective good… Commissioner Thomas Farley [said].
Here are the salient points, from the New York Times:
“It’s really about getting them at the point-of-sale moment,” said Sarah Perl, the health department’s assistant commissioner for tobacco control….
“We want them to also think about the consequences about what it will do to them,” Ms. Perl said….
“This type of signage which communicates purely factual information about a commercial transaction is legal,” she said.
This sounds completely translatable to a common ground anti-abortion campaign. Newsday added:
Perl… says it can be effective to display gruesome health effects such as amputations and throat cancer.
If we all agree abortion is something be “avoid[ed],” as Obama said, then we could easily launch the same sort of anti-abortion campaign, using “factual information about a commercial transaction” at the “point-of-sale moment,” as Perl stated, of signs showing abortion at abortion mills, since it “can be effective to display gruesome health effects….”
Can we all agree on this “common ground” approach to lower the need for abortion, something all sides appear to agree is a goal?
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.
Lots of people think that abortion is wrong and horrific but still support its legality because they worry that making it illegal will only make maternal deaths spring up. The president takes this stand, which, from my experience, most people take.
As someone who is a pro-life advocate, I think that we need to acknowledge and embrace several things:
-those who support abortion; this will be the most trying obviously, since they don’t want to be our friends, but Lincoln always said that you defeat an enemy by making a friend (well, I don’t have the exact quote), and I agree completely
-stop fighting for it to be made illegal and start fighting to make it go away: that means fighting for prenatal care, anti-poverty measures, education reform, improved children’s rights conditions around the world, et cetera.
Once things improve, women will definitely have less abortions. Then once the crisis is fought, we go after the fact that it is still legal. If pro-choice wants to devote their time to expanding abortion and nothing else, then we can take the high road here and honestly devote our time to expanding everything else and, de facto, we’ve defeated abortion.
As I’ve said before, only those losing appeal for compromise. Winners don’t have to and shouldn’t. At any rate, pro-lifers never will.
Common ground and compromise are two different concepts. Common ground refers to things that both parties want. Compromise refers to both parties giving up something they want, to achieve something neither really wants but both are okay with for the time being. I would really, really love to hear a pro-life argument against adoption streamlining, reforms in higher education, etc.
I wish I had audio from an argument between abortionists Warren Hern and Mildred Hanson at a National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar. Hern advocated crushing the fetal skull and watching for brains to ooze out of the mother’s cervix (“calvarium show”) in order to ensure that the structure you’ve grabbed really is the fetal head and not a maternal structure. Hanson pointed out that of all fetal tissues, brain tissue was most likely to cause a potentially fatal clotting disorder (disseminated intravascular coagulopathy or DIC) if it got into the mother’s bloodstream. The sharp edges of the newly-crushed fetal skull scraping across the cervix would, she pointed out, allow fetal brain to get into the bloodstream easily.
The two argued for a while. It was most enlightening.
I’d love to see people use the argument — the actual audio, perhaps also with transcript — to let women know exactly what a D&E dismemberment abortion does not only to the baby, but to doctors who could stand there arguing about the best way to deal with a freshly-decapitated baby.
Leroy Carhart’s testimony on how he performs abortions would also be great as a teaching tool:
Carhart: My normal course would be to dismember that extremity and then go back and try to take the fetus out either foot or skull first, whatever end I can get to first.
Question: How do you go about dismembering that extremity?
Carhart: Just traction and rotation, grasping the portion that you can get a hold of which would be usually somewhere up the shaft of the exposed portion of the fetus, pulling down on it through the os, using the internal os as your counter-traction and rotating to dismember the shoulder or the hip or whatever it would be. Sometimes you will get one leg and you can’t get the other leg out.
Question: In that situation, are you, when you pull on the arm and remove it, is the fetus still alive?
Carhart: Yes.
Question: Do you consider an arm, for example, to be a substantial portion of the fetus?
Carhart: In the way I read it, I think if I lost my arm, that would be a substantial loss to me. I think I would have to interpret it that way.
Question: And then what happens next after you remove the arm? You then try to remove the rest of the fetus?
Carhart: Then I would go back and attempt to either bring the feet down or bring the skull down, or even sometimes you bring the other arm down and remove that also and then get the feet down.
Question: At what point is the fetus…does the fetus die during that process?
Carhart: I don’t really know. I know that the fetus is alive during the process most of the time because I can see fetal heartbeat on the ultrasound.
A commenter at NewsBusters said that this last little snippet would be powerful on billboards.
They always claim that we’re making stuff up and faking things. So I say use their own words to bury them as much as possible.
It’s true, Alexandra, that common ground and compromise are two different concepts. And the average self-identified “prochoice” citizen has far more common ground with prolife organizations than with prochoice organizations. Like prolifers, the typical prochoicer supports waiting periods, informed consent, parental involvement, safety standards, collection of reliable statistics, and other things that prochoice organizations staunchly oppose. So common ground with prochoice CITIZENS is a great strategy for prolifers. And a lousy one for prochoicers, since the only common ground they have is “At least some abortions should be legal” and “We should make lots of contraceptives readily available.”
When I read this post, I immediately thought about Dems for Life promoting State Senator Roy Herron (D) TN who is running for governor. They had the nerve to make him Pro Life Democrat of the week. The only thing they could say about him was his introduction of a ban on smoking in state owned buildings….this makes him pro life. As a pro lifer from TN I end with my comments on Herron.
PRO-LIFE DEMOCRAT OF THE WEEK: State Senator Roy Herron
Roy Herron is a Tennessee politician and a member of the Tennessee State Senate for the 24th district, which encompasses Benton, Decatur, Henry, Henderson, Lake, Obion, Perry, Stewart, and Weakley counties. He was first elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1986 to fill Governor Ned McWherter’s seat. He served in the House in the 95th through 99th Tennessee General Assemblies and has served in the Senate since the 100th General Assembly. He is floor leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus and the chair of the Select Committee on Children and Youth. He is also a member of the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee, the Senate General Welfare, Health and Human Resources Committee, the Senate Government Operations Committee, the Joint Tenncare Oversight Committee, the Joint Select Committee on Education, and the Joint Committee on Charitable Gaming.
Roy Herron graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1975, and from Vanderbilt University in 1980, with a M.Div. and a J.D. In 1975 and 1976 he was a Rotary Scholar in Scotland at the University of St. Andrews. He works as an attorney, a businessman, and as adjunct faculty at Vanderbilt University. He is a former United Methodist minister and the author of the books Things Held Dear: Soul Stories for My Sons (Westminster John Knox Press, 1999), Tennessee Political Humor: Some of These Jokes You Voted For (University of Tennessee Press, 2000, with L. H. “Cotton” Ivy), and How Can A Christian Be In Politics? (Tyndale House, 2005).
Roy Herron has introduced legislation that would ban smoking in public buildings, and he supports expanding the ban on smoking in state-owned and operated buildings already in place. Roy Herron is also the co-chair of FaithfulDemocrats.com, an online community for Democrats of Christian faith.
On April 8, 2009, Herron announced that he would be running for Governor of Tennessee in the Democratic primaries
Comment by owner of blog….
If this wasn’t so sad I would laugh
I have watched this man fight against pro life bills in the Senate and try to kill them in committee with his long winded stories that become more dramatic with each telling……but he hides behind pro life rhetoric and is a shrewd foil for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. The nerve to run on a pro life platform…….and get this “honor.” Someone who follows this closely said it well….”I guess criteria for being a ‘Pro-Life Democrat of the Week’ includes consistently voting against the pro-life constitutional amendment each of the five times it has come before the state Senate since 2001. Actually Senator Herron has not only voted ‘no’, he has led the opposition during Senate floor debate.” He will hide behind the health of the woman exception but even those marginally involved understand that this loophole opens up abortion on demand for any reason……thus his long winded dramatic stories about his twin sons and that he wanted his wife to abort rather than risk her life. He knows that twin to twin transfer had no danger to his wife but to his pre born sons. After one of his long winded dramatic retelling (AGAIN) of this story with salient facts left out…someone asked him how his sons felt now hearing that their father wanted to end their lives in the womb….he just smiled and said, they have heard the story. I talked to him after the session once and pointed out that the condition that his wife had in no way put her life in danger and the way he told the story led the listener to believe that. He just smiled and changed the subject.
Even worse he introduces bills he knows are really intended to masquerade his real position or that he knows will be struck down by his friends in the ACLU as unconstitutional and does it only to provide cover for his real agenda. I personally have more respect for Rep. Sherry Jones and Senator Beverly Marrerro who are pro choice and don’t try to hide it from anyone. This man is a charlatan…..but he opposes smoking?? So Dems for Life honors him??? Go figure.
If we pro-lifers see abortion as murder, how can any “common ground” on the issue be viewed as anything other than compromise?
The “common ground” delusion is the bait of Satan and we should not take it but expose it for the lie that it is.
Jill is absolutely right. They are losing the PR and we should turn up the heat not turn it down. Why? Because “these truths are self-evident”.
I agree completely with what HisMan says. There is no “common ground” on this issue.
I’m very encouraged as it sure seems to me that the pro life side is winning. Now we just need to elect a majority of pro life politicians.
DeMint/Palin 2012
Again, will someone please explain to me a logical pro-life opposition to reforms in education, adoption-process streamlining, etc. I am very curious to know.
Opposition to reforms in education?
I don’t think that pro-life ought to ever have an opposition to education reform or adoption (though adoption is difficult, too, and it ought to be acknowledged that it is not a simple thing to go through with).
I think that I would be curious to see why anyone who is pro-life would oppose that, too.
In my own opinion, pro-life’s real problem is that it spends too much time trying to cut off access to abortion and not nearly enough time fighting for alternatives. Basically, if pro-choice devotes its time to expanding abortion (which it does), then pro-life should devote its time to expanding choices, instead of devoting its time to hating pro-choice and making abortion illegal. Preaching won’t work. Making abortion incapable of having an argument (but what if they’re poor, et cetera) will work. We have to fix the root.
Hi Alexandra.
“Again, will someone please explain to me a logical pro-life opposition to reforms in education, adoption-process streamlining, etc.”
I am ALL for reforms in education. The state of education is pretty sick if you ask me. College is the new high school. I don’t know anything about the other point.
Hi Alexandra,
What reforms in education are you talking about?
Abstinence? Comprehensive sex ed?
At this time, does the government have more money to throw at these programs?
My logical argument – we don’t have money to do it. Let the parents do their job of teaching their own kids. Big government is not responsible for creating responsible parents and responsible kids.
Posted by: Alexandra at July 3, 2009 11:58 AM
—-
I’m all for providing a comprehensive high school course on natural human development, without an explicit sex education component beyond the basic physiology.
There are mixed messages when one talks about responsibilities when it comes to life and sex education, and that’s inherent in the abortion-choice viewpoint.
Here’s the problem: the greatest responsibility we ever face as human beings is being responsible for our own completely dependent children. This is not something schools can or should teach. That is the role of parental responsibility, because it has to do with our posterity – our grandchildren. This needs to be passed down from generation to generation. If we pretend that others can do that job, then we abdicate our own responsibility towards our children.
As related to abstinence and sex education: abstinence is guaranteed 100% effective if those practicing it are 100% responsible for the consequences. When it comes to pregnancy, that takes the joint commitment of two people, at least one make and one female. Our society doesn’t enforce that responsibility at all when it comes to pregnancy, but without it, you don’t have a society at all.
Abortion cuts to the very heart of a society’s on-going life. Until men are demanded by society to be responsible for their sexual behaviors, there is little hope for a true meeting of hearts and minds.
I agree, Vannah, only by providing better alternatives and a better support system for mothering women, in addition to education, not illegalization, will we truly make abortion uneeded and unthinkable.
Janet 12:38 p.m.
Just what I was going to ask Alexandra. If by education reform, you mean Comp Sex Ed, more people need to understand exactly what that is. It includes explicit explanations of intercourse and masturbation (with the caveat that it should be done in private, I envision a voyeurs lobby to take issue with that in the future!) which SIECUS deems appropriate for “5 to 8 year-olds”.
I recall one of the most disturbing aspects of Huxley’s Brave New World was the encouragement educators gave the children to play games like “Hunt the Zipper”. These SIECUS descriptions are about two steps shy of such depravity, and worded so one can ammend one word to consenting individuals instead of adults in the descriptions. Frankly, schools have no business teaching what parents ought–and PARENTS decide when and what is age-appropriate, not the government.
Education reform is necessary, I whole-heartedly agree. My 14 yr old’s health class watched a graphic birth video, leaving many to proclaim, “Gross!” “I never want to do that!” [enter PP] but absolutely NO fetal development is taught, 20 years ago my sex ed portion of health also lacked this. I think a push to educate about the embryology and fetology of humans belongs right in the mix. We’ve got college-educated women procuring abortions swallowing hook, line and sinker the abortion industry’s lies that “it” is a blob. Imagine if our preteens were equipped with the truth–and understood that those living human beings are the consequence of sex. A birth video is too much of a jump ahead, IMO.
Adoption streamlining? I only have the experience of a sister who worked in placing children in overseas adoptions and it seems like everything is very complicated, and limited to quite wealthy families. Many protections are in place to ensure good homes and families and a balance needs to be struck between the child’s well-being and simplifying the process.
Bobby, I completely agree!
Janet, the reforms being discussed are not involving kids, for the most part (though sex ed is one aspect of what many people consider common ground, and one I would completely understand people here not considering to be so, which is obviously fine). They are reforms at the college level to accommodate students who are pregnant or have children. I don’t know the specific proposals but like I said in the last discussion on this, a lot of the “common ground” stuff sounds pretty much identical to the things FFL has been saying for years.
If they don’t get done because of lack of government money that’s one thing; I don’t really care too much about that, but about the principle of the rejection of these points simply because pro-choicers are discussing them. I am honestly baffled by people who say that they would oppose things like this. For what reasons? Simply because pro-choice people support them? I am really trying to understand this position. Like I said in the last discussion, I skimmed the RH Reality Check site on common ground and a lot of it dealt with reforms in higher education, streamlining the adoption process (whatever that means; I don’t even really understand the problems with it, just the symptoms, so I don’t know any proposed solutions), improving maternal health, etc.
It is not compromise. Like I said before, these types of things are changes I would want to see made even if abortion were illegal. They are changes that would support the non-abortion choices women currently have available, and would support those women even if abortion were no longer a viable option.
Saying abortion should be avoided and saying it shouldn’t be allowed are two different things entirely.
Pro choice isnt losing any PR battle. We just voted in with an overwhelming electoral vote, the man you call our most pro-abort president ever. No, the reason for finding common ground is to get people working together to help women and families. It’s odd that you can’t see that.
Rachael,
That all sounds nice and good, but there will always be those who will, in their own minds, need abortion.Education is good but only if the one on the receiving end is willing and able to learn.
I think the quickest way to make abortion “unthinkable” as you say, would be to make it illegal and jail any person for life who’s involved in an illegal one.
Alexandra,
I misunderstood what you meant by “education”. I agree with you, I’m not sure why you are asking pro-lifers to defend a point that you know we all agree on. You know I’m being facetious in my response at 1:36 to Rachael C.
No need to debate that. :)
Margaret,
If you read Alexandra’s post and mine above, you know I agree with that, that we need to help women and children. I don’t know any pro-lifer who doesn’t feel that way. Obama won a large electoral majority, but not a large majority at all. His election was not an overwhelming win for pro-aborts.
I am George Tiller by Ted Bundy
All you folks who want to engage the ‘dead babies r us’ crowd in civilized dialogue about how to reduce the number of murdered prenatal children, knock your selves out.
Conversations with these people will be as meaningful and productive as tea and crumpets with Osama bin Laden and his band of merry murderers.
How do you ‘reason’ with people who view their victims as less than an animal, even less than a plant? Or who acknowledge that the pre-natal child is a fellow human, but so what?
These people are delusional. They are void of ‘reason’. If they have convinced themselves murdering prenatal children is OK, then how can you trust anything they have to say regarding anything else.?
the bin Laden crowd is only repsonsible for a few thousand deaths. The ‘dead babies r us’ folks’ world wide body count is in the hundreds of millions.
Shun these people, until they have regained their senses and acknowledged their crimes against humanity.
Do waste waste time and energy trying to engage them, but instead invest your time, energy and money in defeating them any where you encounter them. They are white washed walls and bottomless pits.
yor bro ken
stop fighting for it to be made illegal and start fighting to make it go away
Vannah, in your list of things to do to make abortion go away, you don’t even address the one thing that is, by far, the root cause of abortion more than anything else: sexual promiscuity (i.e. sex outside of marriage).
In abortion statistics, do you know what condition results in the greatest likelihood a woman will not abort when pregnant? Being married!
Women who are married constitute the tiniest group of those who abort their children.
You mention things like poverty, lack of prenatal care, and poor education. But these conditions are far, far less significant in predicting abortion than this one single thing: whether a woman is married when she becomes pregnant.
If you want to truly put effort into making abortion go away, the most effective thing to be done is to help people live according to the (age-old, traditional) virtue of reserving their use of sexual intercourse to marriage alone.
Plenty of well-to-do, unmarried women have abortions. Women who are wealthy, have great medical care, and great educations, have abortions. Women who are married, no matter their social or educational status, have very, very few abortions. This is the simple reality.
I’m not sure why you are asking pro-lifers to defend a point that you know we all agree on.
I’m asking that because people here keep saying, “There is no common ground.”
Sorry to change topics, but the big news story right now is Sarah Palin is not running for reelection which is no surprise…. but the big surprise is she is resigning effective the end of this month.
I don’t understand why she is resigning now and not completing her term? Even if she wants to run for President it’s a long way until 2012 (unfortunately!)
Maybe there is a personal or health problem we aren’t aware of.
Joanne, thanks. Posting on this.
It should be noted that when I looked on the news, Sarah Palin’s resignation was listed under (I repeat: under) “A Brief History of Bikinis” and “Sports That Your Doctor Hates.”
I was amazed.
I’m not sure why you are asking pro-lifers to defend a point that you know we all agree on.
I’m asking that because people here keep saying, “There is no common ground.”
Posted by: Alexandra at July 3, 2009 2:28 PM
I see. I thought you were addressing all of us as a group. I think the problem is that you might interpret “common ground” to mean working on issues surrounding abortion, but that’s not going far enough in pro-lifers eyes. Those things you propose are great things and are definitely good for society, but they don’t eliminate abortion which is the goal of pro-lifers. Personally, we don’t know what the phrase “common ground” means coming from our President, because we know by his actions that his goals are no where near eliminating abortion/making it illegal and egal abortion is non-negotiable. Instead of saying “there is no common ground” we could say “there is no common ground” unless it will end abortion.
While fighting poverty, providing medical care and improving education are all worthy goals and can contribute to a decrease in abortions, I am not convinced we can ever eliminate a perceived “need” for abortions – not even close.
First of all, I do not think it is in the scope of our ability to eliminate strife from the human experience. There are measures we can take, through government and within the private sector, to promote the best possible social conditions and to assist those in need, of course. But people are always going to struggle and crappy circumstances can strike anyone at anytime. This leads to my second and main point.
The driving force behind abortion is the ability to become unpregnant. The appeal of making the pregnancy disappear is always going to sound better than trying to secure the resources needed for the next 18+ years, even if the resources are readily available and the forms are handed to you on a silver platter. Pregnancy and child-rearing are difficult, even for the most advantaged among us. We will never be able to stop these things from being difficult and our pleading will not measure up to the quick fix abortion sales pitch. Our best bet, as Scott Johnson noted, is to convince people to wait until the stability of marriage for sex, when they are in a support system ideal for raising children. I suspect if people are no longer allowed to discreetly kill their children, they’ll have more incentive to use foresight and the waiting until marriage idea (or a fairly strict guideline of sexual discretion outside of marriage) will seem more appealing.
I think the problem is that you might interpret “common ground” to mean working on issues surrounding abortion, but that’s not going far enough in pro-lifers eyes. Those things you propose are great things and are definitely good for society, but they don’t eliminate abortion which is the goal of pro-lifers.
No, I understand that. I agree with Janette that no amount of reform and restriction and regulation will eliminate abortion. Obviously these common-ground initiatives will not go far enough.
My point is only that it’s disingenuous to say that there is no common ground. There is — at least, I hope there is; I’d be pretty appalled if the pro-life movement opposed some of the things being discussed on the sites Jill is linking to. This attitude that only “losers” talk about these things is probably not a constructive one, as far as most Americans are concerned, and I would be sad if the pro-life movement as a whole made its mark by opposing such things on “principle.”
“This attitude that only “losers” talk about these things is probably not a constructive one, as far as most Americans are concerned, and I would be sad if the pro-life movement as a whole made its mark by opposing such things on “principle.”
I see your point Alexandra, but after 36 years of legalized abortion (many of us remember a time when it was illegal, you don’t have that “luxury”) it’s time for a radical change. Common ground talk that Obama has in mind will not go far enough. On the “loser” idea – you know you aren’t “a loser”, I know you aren’t “a loser”, so just keep fighting for LIFE. We all have our part to play.
On the “loser” idea – you know you aren’t “a loser”, I know you aren’t “a loser”, so just keep fighting for LIFE. We all have our part to play.
Oh, I don’t really care if people actively support things like reforms in higher education. I don’t think that supporting these things means stopping or slowing any push for personhood amendments etc. I just question the wisdom of linking to articles by people who are talking about things like adoption reform, making college education more accessible during and after pregnancy, etc, and saying, “NO there is NO common ground.” Really? Is that the pro-life movement, then? Seems like a pretty losing argument, honestly. It allows the pro-choice side to define these initiatives, these discussions, as pro-choice. RH Reality says, “Hey, women in college need better options,” and people here say, “No common ground.”?
Radical change has not happened yet. Maybe it will happen next year but probably not. But there are changes that CAN and SHOULD be made, regardless of whether radical change comes now or later. Changes that will support women and save lives. Changes that will help alter the way our society views pregnancy and motherhood, and will alter the tone of the abortion debate. I have yet to hear a logical argument by anyone at this site for why these changes are something they wouldn’t support. All I hear are declarations of impending victory and an insistence that there is no common ground.
I’m not really talking about you, here, Janet. Just talking.
Common ground is great, and all, so long as that common ground means that abortions become illegal and criminalized. And I’m not saying women ought to be criminalized, I’m saying those “doctors” who would put women through an unsafe illegal proceedure–the real killer of women–ought to get thrown in jail.
“Again, will someone please explain to me a logical pro-life opposition to reforms in education, adoption-process streamlining, etc. I am very curious to know.”
Alexandra, would this have changed your decision?
Jasper, as you well know by now — me having explained it to you before, here and elsewhere — my decision to go to an abortion clinic for a manual vacuum aspiration was ultimately made because my doctor diagnosed the pregnancy as non-viable, and for health-related reasons I didn’t want to sit around and wait to miscarry. I agreed not to discuss this here, since it makes some members uncomfortable, and so that’s all I’ll say; you’re welcome to go back to our past conversations if you want more of the details refreshed. I will even send you the links to them, if you e-mail me.
That said, abortion was something I strongly considered before all of the problems; and afterward I was pretty relieved to just be not pregnant anymore. Looking back on the circumstances I probably would have been less likely to immediately consider abortion if there was greater support for non-abortion options. Supporting these options has always been a passion of mine, and has always been something I’ve been vocal about; but it was after I found myself unexpectedly pregnant that I realized how important it is to amend institutions so that they accommodate women whose situations currently make abortion seem like the “default” option for them.
Posted by: Christina at July 3, 2009 10:50 AM
Question: At what point is the [human] fetus…does the [human] fetus die during that process?
Carhart: I don’t really know. I know that the [humnan] fetus is alive during the process most of the time because I can see [human] fetal heartbeat on the ultrasound.
——————————————————-
(This last quote puts a nice little pink or blue bow on the rhetorical package.)
“Later, under cross examination from the Attorney General’s counsel, Carhart stated:
“My intent in every abortion I have ever done is to kill the [human] fetus and terminate the pregnancy.”
—————————————————–
Notice the sequence of events:
1. “I know that the [humnan] fetus is alive during the process most of the time because I can see [human] fetal heartbeat on the ultrasound.”
2.”My intent in every abortion I have ever done is to
kill
the [human] fetus…
3. “…and terminate the pregnancy.”
——————————————————–
The ‘common ground’ we seek is for the proponents of elective abortion on demand to acknowledge that the ‘choice’ or the ‘reproductive freedom’ they advocate is homicide.
Leroy Carhart has connected the dots for them. If they disagree with him they should tell us so and for what reason.
yor bro ken
“but it was after I found myself unexpectedly pregnant that I realized how important it is to amend institutions so that they accommodate women whose situations currently make abortion seem like the “default” option for them.”
why should abortion be an option at all?
It shouldn’t be. It is, and regardless of whether it remains an option or does not, women and children will benefit from having other options supported and accommodated.
Please refer back to our past conversations for more information.
Hey Jill. Just watched today on EWTN the debate of Doug Kmeic vs. Robert P. George about this so-called “common ground” issue with Obama and his administration. The program is called “The World Over” hosted by Raymond Arroyo, they played parts of the debate held at Catholic University of America on May 28, 2009. Robert George from Princeton gave an excellent response to Kmeic as to why there is no “common ground” with an administration devoted to NO LIMITS or regulation of abortion in any way shape or form. Jill he mentioned your name at least twice concerning the Born Alive Infant issue and how you held that Down’s Syndrome aborted baby until he died at Christ Hospital. He exposed how Obama has no real interest in “reducing the numbers of abortions”, even at ND how he chose his words very carefully and only stated his interest in “reducing the numbers of women SEEKING abortions”. He listed numerous ways Obama could help reduce the numbers of abortions but how he has dismissed everyone of those actions. At the end of the program they said there is a tape of this debate EWTN gave their phone as (800)854-6316 to order the DVD the catalogue number is WOD 357 or the CD number is WOC 357, I am sorry I didn’t get the website. I hope they might let you put up at least some excerpts of this tape on your blog. I think everyone should see it. God bless.