Clandestine minor abortions in Seattle: Why the shock?
I read a couple days ago about the Seattle, WA, 15-year-old who got a clandestine abortion with her school’s help but without her mother knowing. Here’s a Fox News recap for those who don’t know about it:
Parents of school children in Seattle are learning a shocking lesson, when it comes to some very important decisions they don’t have a say. The mother of a 15-year old girl recently discovered that Ballard High School helped her daughter get an abortion and never informed her….
Parents signed consent forms for off-school treatment thinking it was limited to emergency health care when the parents could not be reached. But the teen health clinics at 14 Seattle schools are about much more….
The mother says they encouraged her to have an abortion and not tell her parents. She claims her daughter was told that if she informed her parents they would have to pay for the abortion, otherwise it’s free.
The teen clinics are administered by the King County Health Dept….
[T]he girl was called a taxi and transported by herself to a clinic to have her abortion then driven back to finish her school day….
WA State is one of 13 states that does not have either a parental consent or parental notification law.
I didn’t report on it because, really, what’s the beef? WA doesn’t have a parental involvement law, and the stupid mother signed this form for her daughter to get “reproductive health care” without her consent.
But I stepped back today. For the past few years we’ve been ardently trying to tell the American people that “reproductive health care” encompasses abortion, 1st when battling FOCA and then socialized healthcare. Well, here you go, an object lesson.
But really, the school system was obfuscating. Why not clearly say consent covers “abortion”?
A couple other points.
1st, this abortion wasn’t “free.” It was government funded, paid largely by a tax voters approved in 2005 “to help all Seattle’s children become school ready, succeed academically, and graduate from high school.” Did voters really intend for this tax to cover underage abortions? I doubt it.
2nd, this school system is as involved in comprehensive sex ed as possible, herein demonstrated once again to be a failure.
On both those points, here are some excerpts from a 2007 Seattlepi.com article touting these in-school clinics that transport out-of-school for abortion…
Public Health also manages the nearly $3 million in annual funds from Seattle’s Families and Education Levy that cover about 70% of the school-based health centers….
At the clinic, students also can receive vaccines, sports physicals, birth control, pregnancy tests and STD screenings. [Dr. Jeff] Lindenbaum said the clinic normally views the age of consent as 14, and has had no problems with parents questioning access to birth control or STD tests without their permission. He encourages students to get their parents involved, but said evidence shows most teens are sexually active often for 6 months before seeking contraception. The availability of contraception does not foster early sexual activity, Lindenbaum said. While he and the clinic staff encourage abstinence, as a fallback they believe no harm is done by teaching prevention….
And despite students’ initial apprehension of the clinic – wondering if the staff could be trusted and if it was more than just for sex education – most come on a regular basis and recommend it to their friends….
[18-year-old Jasmine] Tantoco has used the clinic during her 4 years at Franklin [a sister school] for her annual physicals and exams and has received HIV tests….
Lovely.
[Help appreciated from Twitter friend Rhondadoty and Facebook friend Rachelle; photo via KOMO News]
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.
Misuse of taxpayer funds.
Fail.
From the Seattle P-I:
“Jill says her daughter, a pro-life advocate, was given a pass, put in a taxi and sent off to have an abortion during school hours, all without her family knowing”
Uh, if the kid is pro-life, why did she have an abortion?
Just saying…
Seems to me that we need a “Truth in Abortion” law passed that requires use of the term in all future and past legislation.
Taxpayers need to know exactly what they’re approving when voting.
But why would we expect orgs like Planned Parenthood to be totally up front about anything? Remember they murder innocent children.
Remember they murder innocent children
Posted by: Phil Schembri is HisMan at March 25, 2010 5:50 PM
According to the law, the fetuses are not children nor are they “murdered.” (And according to a number of major non Catholic religious groups, too). Sorry. Oh, and Planned Parenthood provides pap smears, Mamograms, contraceptives, HIV education and testing. I guess you’re opposed to that, too?
Here in Champaign Illinois, there is a mobile clinic that comes to the two public high schools. Parents have no permission forms, because most parents don’t even know the clinic comes to the school.
I found out by accident when I received an email of the daily announcements, when the students were notified that the clinic will help them with pregnancy testing, std testing and condoms (although they used another word for them – which I guess my brain purposely forgot – so that they would not use the word condom over the intercom.)
The clinic parks on a public street, at least at the high school my daughter attends, so it’s not on school property – and we know that they have referred girls to our local planned parenthood.
When another mother and I complained to the school authorities and requested that the school creates a permission form for the parents with full disclosure – the committee laughed us out of the meeting, and insisted that the at-risk students need the free access, due to possible mistreatment by their parents.
Unbelievable.
Every parent I discussed this with were amazed that such a clinic existed, and they knew nothing about it.
I asked if the school district had enough liability insurance – in case a student is harmed by their recommendations or medicines (we never got a straight answer if they would dispense any medicine). Again – we were laughed right out of the meeting.
So much for education.
“Uh, if the kid is pro-life, why did she have an abortion?
Just saying…
”
Perhaps because she is 15, scared, pregnant, and being told by her school that she can’t tell her parents. When push comes to shove, even people who oppose abortion can succumb to its lure. That’s why it is so important to have other pro-life people there to offer support and to help balance all the “your life is ruined!” statements young people get upon finding out their pregnant.
Yes, this young woman should not have had the abortion, but at 15 she isn’t even legally old enough to consent to sex.
Artemis:
“According to the law, the fetuses are not children nor are they “murdered.” ”
I reply:
In that case, to borrow a phrase from a friend of mine, “the law needs changed”.
Exactly, Edward. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr spoke of Just and Unjust laws. The laws allowing abortion are unjust. They hold no moral authority and must be worked to be overthrown.
According to the “law”, Hitler became Chancellor.
According to the “law”, he took emergency powers and this lead to all the horrors that followed.
According to the “law”, human slavery was permitted.
According to the “law”, the black man had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.
According to the “law”, apartheid and segregation were both permitted.
The “law” has also allowed crucifixion, inquisition, infanticide, human sacrifice and cannibalism.
Almost every crime and injustice has been allowed somewhere at sometime because of the “law”.
The fact that we have “laws” which violate true law (natural law) and allow the unspeakable crime of prenatal homicide, does not in any way diminish the evil of killing unborn children.
Because of the weaknesses of human nature, we have had unjust and immoral “laws” throughout history. Saying something is “legal” or supported by the “law” does NOT make it right or moral.
Artemis and all other child killing advocates MUST repudiate your support for unlimited criminal prenatal homicide. Every time you come here and boast of your support for crimes against children, you simply show your own painful lack of moral and spiritual development.
There aren’t any arguments in favor of prenatal homicide (or postnatal homicide for that matter). Give up your acceptance of pathetic abortionist fallacies and accept the truth.
Artemis:
How silly you are.
Of course I’m not opposed to women’s health care. In fact, I think the woman inside the mother deserves as much care as the woman carrying the woman. In fact, I’m against discrimination and abuse of all women, born and unborn. And yes, I’m opposed to the murder of innocent children, both women and men, in the womb.
Tell me, when are you going to update your dinosaur mentality against women? It’s so bigoted, so uncool.
And regarding the ruse that if somethings legal it make it moral is ludicrous.
God is not mocked my friend and it seems you relish in that.
Uh, if the kid is pro-life, why did she have an abortion?
Posted by: Artemis at March 25, 2010 5:49 PM
* * *
“When another mother and I complained to the school authorities and requested that the school creates a permission form for the parents with full disclosure – the committee laughed us out of the meeting, and insisted that the at-risk students need the free access, due to possible mistreatment by their parents.”
Posted by: joyfromillinois at March 25, 2010 5:59 PM
Usually a state will have a judicial process that minors can go through if they feel at risk by telling their parents. I don’t think Illinois has it in place yet. I hope communications have improved at those schools in Champaign, IL. Your question about liability insurance was a very good one. Maybe we’ll see a lawsuit in the Seattle case.
*****
From the FoxNews story:
“Parents signed consent forms for off-school treatment thinking it was limited to emergency health care when the parents could not be reached. But the teen health clinics at 14 Seattle schools are about much more….”
Apparently parents need to qualify* when signing consent forms for public schools.
* “No abortions, please.”
Posted by: Artemis at March 25, 2010 5:49 PM
Uh, if the kid is pro-life, why did she have an abortion?
Just saying…
————————————————–
artheeasstupidasthedayislong?
The minor child’s philosphy is irrelevant.
Obtaining the parent’s informed consent before her/his minor child submits to elective surgery is the issue.
If my minor son chooses to submit to an elective surgical procedure as routine as a circumcision and representives of the government facilitates the enterprise and intentionally prevents my involvement before the fact then they have arrogated unto themselves both responsibility and accountability institutionally as well as individually.
You liberals are such arrogant asses you think you can violate the sanctity of someones family with complete impunity because you presume you know better and you have the skirts of the ‘law’ to hide behind.
Justice is not reserved exclusively to the government.
God’s judgement will be rendered at the time and the place of HIS choosing, not yours.
Sleep with one eye open and be looking over your shoulder and listening for the footsteps in the dark of night.
The avenger will come when you least expect her/him/it.
It is in the ‘book’.
What was it that Rambo said?
Oh I remember: “They drew first blood.”
If you sow to the wind, you will reap a tornado.
yor bro ken
“God’s judgement will be rendered at the time and the place of HIS choosing, not yours.”
I believe it is at the door my bro Ken.
America is so messed up, it’s a cesspool. What’s going on in Washington is madness.
God in His Loving Mercy is going to bring correction, to get our attention, to save us from ourselves.
What happened with this poor little girl and her child and her family is BO’s vision for America.
He knows what is best.
He doesn’t want any minor child punished with a baby.
He would rather that child kill her child.
And we as a country voted him into office.
Help us, Oh God!
The logic that can be used to call the killing of an innocent human being “health care” escapes me. :(
It’s important to note that the abortion was not done at the school clinic, and that the clinic only provided the referral. Also important is that if the clinic staff or the staff at the facility where the abortion was performed *had* informed the mother, they’d be breaking the law. HIPAA laws apply once you’re 13 in Washington, and conversations between patient and doctor are confidential from that point on.
Second, I find the information from the mother that the abortion “was only free if she didn’t notify her parents” dubious and doubtful. I find it very hard to believe that any facility would have that policy. I’d like to know specifically where she had the procedure done.
Lastly, at least by my reading, the tax law that Jill cites here only applies to the teen clinic, not to the facility where the abortion was done. From the site linked above: “The Families and Education Levy helps by funding school nurses and teen health centers in middle and high schools to improve students’ health and promote healthy lifestyles” — it pays for the Ballard High Teen Health Center, which is operated by Swedish Medical Center (which has an excellent reputation — I’ve had a couple of surgeries there myself). It does not cover the off-campus clinic where she had the abortion, so I don’t see the connection or how the abortion was paid for with tax money.
And while the mother “feels like her rights were stripped away,” in reality she has no legal rights here at all — in Washington State it’s her daughter’s responsibility and right to make decisions about her body whether her mother likes it her not. The clinic staff and the staff where her daughter had the abortion followed the law and did everything they were supposed to. Which doesn’t include calling mom, or making her get mom’s permission.
“and that the clinic only provided the referral”
Not true. They also arranged payment, got her a taxi, and excused her absence.
” in reality she has no legal rights here at all ”
…And that’s the problem. A child should not be allowed to have an elective surgical procedure performed without so much as the notification of her parent.
several things here:
statutory rape of a minor and the school is covering it up?
Do we know who the father is? Is he her age or older?
Secondly, of course the teen health clinic will send her home with more contraceptives.
Third, according to abortion advocates they are saving the health care system money because a live baby costs much more to treat than a dead baby.
of course last, when she ends up with breast cancer in her early 30’s maybe this chicka can sue the school system, the health clinic and the abortionist…
poor poor baby. I feel so sorry for this young girl who’s been sold a pack of lies from sex ed all the way to killing her own baby…. :(
All right Washington state it is time to get going on Parental Notification!! I know you have been working on one and it hasn’t passed yet but PLEASE continue to try!!
As a parent I have every right to know what my daughter and unborn grandchild are doing! It is my job to protect them from the likes of PP!!
Not true. They also arranged payment, got her a taxi, and excused her absence.
You’re correct. But they did NOT perform the abortion. And since the only perspective we have is that of the mother, who sought out TV coverage, there’s no way to know whether the girl was talked into an abortion or if she insisted on it despite clinic advice that she talk to her parents or think about it or look at other options. We just don’t know.
…And that’s the problem. A child should not be allowed to have an elective surgical procedure performed without so much as the notification of her parent.
The whole reason that Washington and other states that don’t have parental consent or notification laws don’t have them is because of situations where it is the parent that is the father of the baby, or where a girl faces violent reactions or abuse — just to name a few. The same goes for the laws allowing 13 year olds to seek out drug and alcohol treatment without parental consent, which allow young people to get help without having to face their parents — something that has led to suicides in the past when teens have chosen killing themselves over asking their parents for help.
My real question about this particular case is what factors caused this young woman to choose the scary and lonely experience of getting an abortion by herself over seeking out the support of her family. The mom described her daughter as “a pro-life advocate”, but was that really a description of the mom and a wish that her daughter really felt the same way? Is it that the mom can’t admit that her daughter would rather have an abortion than come to mom and tell her that she’s pregnant, so she decided to get back at the school by putting the story in the news? And as a person who grew up in Seattle and is very familiar with the school and the city, the fact that she chose the news station that she did — rather than the more respect KING 5 or either of the local newspapers — makes me question whether she had to peddle her story to several outlets and make it bigger than it was to get the coverage.
There are a LOT of unanswered questions here and very little information. One thing is clear: the mother signed a form consenting to what happened, including the lines “Youth may independently access reproductive health care at any age” (that’s the third sentence on the form) and “Consent is also given for referral of care and if needed, emergency transportation, to other physicians, health care professionals, hospitals, clinics, or health care agencies as deemed necessary by the Center and its staff.”
If anyone is at fault here, it is the mother for consenting to care that she realized later she didn’t want her daughter to have access to. The Teen Clinic website says clearly it provides emergency contraception as well as birth control — if mom is pro-life, it seems like she consented to an awful lot that she didn’t really want her daughter accessing.
Oh, and by the way, on the issue of comprehensive sex ed, I can tell you as one of the students who was educated in this same school district that it’s really not all that comprehensive. But it’s still more effective than abstinence only education, which does NOT reduce the rate at which teens have sex. Not only that, teens who take “virginity pledges” tend to have the same number of sexual encounters, but are less likely to use condoms or birth control, making the risk of pregnancy and STDs higher when abstinence is the only teaching teens get.
Here are a few of the many studies showing it doesn’t work:
http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/pdfs/impactabstinence.pdf
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/123/1/e110
http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/pdf/pubs/abstinence_only.pdf
Posted by: Nulono at March 25, 2010 8:46 PM
The logic that can be used to call the killing of an innocent human being “health care” escapes me. :(
——————————————————
That is because there was never any ‘logic’ to be apprehended.
There is not even a pretense of reason.
It is a fantasy or a facade or both.
yor bro ken
Which clinic performed the abortion? Why is it a secret?
Terrorists Could Use Explosives in Breast Implants to Crash Planes, Experts Warn
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/03/24/terrorists-use-explosives-breast-implants-crash-planes-experts-warn/?test=latestnews
The Sun
Plastic surgeons using explosive-laden breast implants in homicide bombers could be a new terror tactic that current airport scanning methods may miss.
Female homicide bombers are being fitted with exploding breast implants which are almost impossible to detect, British spies have reportedly discovered.
The shocking new Al Qaeda tactic involves radical doctors inserting the explosives in women’s breasts during plastic surgery — making them “virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines.”
It is believed the doctors have been trained at some of Britain’s leading teaching hospitals before returning to their own countries to perform the surgical procedures.
MI5 has also discovered that extremists are inserting the explosives into the buttocks of some male bombers.
—————————————————–
Boom or bust…….or both.
Experts say they will keep abreast of the situation.
Are they real or are they centex?
Bill Clinton, John Edwards and Tiger Woods volunteer to do manual exams to detect the falsies.
Explosives inserted in the buttocks.
Now that would be a kick in the ass.
Be on the lookout for the man at the airport with sign on his back written in English and Arabic saying,
‘Kick Me’
yor bro ken
My dad told me about that earlier today, Ken. I brought it to his attention that they would be considered to have been “booby-trapped”.
Don’t kid yourself — The schools will facilitate the abortion regardless of whether there is a permission slip.
They say that parents can’t be notified because some kids come from abusive homes and not telling the parents is a protection for the kids.
But if a child’s home is that dangerous, then the child needs a lot more than a school clinic or Planned Parenthood can provide. That child needs to be served by Child Protective Services and a foster home. Either way, somebody who cares about the child should be notified before an abortion is done.
CeeCee,
Excellent point. The school “knows” these children come from abusive homes but does nothing?
Don’t they have a legal obligation to report suspected abuse?
Even if the girl is aborted she still returns to an abusive environment. This solves what? What if this pregancy was the result of sexual abuse by a neighbor or mom’s boyfriend? You send this girl right back for more abuse.
Artemis, 5:49PM
Its something called human nature. You have a frightened, confused girl and adults offering her what looks like an easy out.
I saw a similar situation where I work. The girl developed complications from her “safe, legal” abortion which fortunately could be treated surgically and she was discharged the same day. Her parents also had to be informed by the surgeon that their daughter had an abortion they knew nothing about.
She went to the ENT surgeon concerning a tonsillectomy and happened to mention her abnormal bleeding to him. He insisted she be referred to an OB/GYN before he would do any surgery. How fortunate for her that she happened to see the ENT doctor as she was developing complications from her “safe, legal” abortion.
Being a frightened minor who had done this without parental consent or knowledge, she likely downplayed or ignored her symptoms, or maybe she didn’t realize they were any cause for concern.
There was also the problem that if she required any treatment, parental consent would be necessary. A real catch-22 here.
Isn’t abortion of minors without the consent of parents just wonderful?
“HIPAA laws apply once you’re 13 in Washington, and conversations between patient and doctor are confidential from that point on.
And while the mother “feels like her rights were stripped away,” in reality she has no legal rights here at all — in Washington State it’s her daughter’s responsibility and right to make decisions about her body whether her mother likes it her not.”
Posted by: Violet at March 25, 2010 9:16 PM
This is insanity.
We don’t believe a 13 year old girl will be mature enough to drive a car for 3 more years, or consent to have sex, yet she is old enough to make the decision to kill her unborn child?
It’s nuts, Looney Tunes.
Our country is sick and corrupt.
Christians, pray!
Violet,
I’m curious about something. If this 13y/o commits a crime, should the parents be notified?
If this 13y/o is abusing drugs and alcohol, should the parents be notified?
If this 13y/o is failing in school, should the parents be notified?
If your 13y/o neighbor vandalized your home or killed your family pet, would you not notify the parents?
In my area (near Philly) a few years back, a CHILD WAS ARRESTED for bringing TYLENOL in his backpack to school. It was considered like bringing “drugs” and it was in the 6 o’clock news and everything.
So children can’t bring Tylenol to school but can get an abortion. HUH. Its Bizarro world.
Another thing Violet,
Should this girl suffer complications from the abortion, are her parents responsible for the bill? Is their consent required for treatment and hospitalization if necessary? Must her parents be informed if she requires surgery or emergency care?
A minor in California threw a blood clot after her abortion, resulting in a stroke. Her parents were not informed of the abortion or required to give their consent, however they must take care of their wheelchair bound daughter.
Would the mother of the Washington teenage be required to do the same and if not, who would care for the girl?
Sadly enough, HIPAA does prevent parental notification in cases of reproductive care and abortion (they are NOT the same) for minors. Anything else, if they’re under 18 and not emancipated… mom and dad still have to sign.
Appendix needs removing? Mom and Dad will get a lengthy educational session with the surgeon and have to sign a release. But not an abortion. It’s very sad.
Why would this be the only surgical procedure that has no potential medical consequences? Of course that is not true… and children WILL die. Maybe not frequently, but even one child dying due to lack of proper medical follow up is too many. Not to mention, of course, the child who is intentionally killed.
If I was this girl’s mother, I think I’d be pretty happy overall with the way things turned out. The pregnancy problem is taken care of, free of charge, and the school honored the consent form that clearly states “reproductive health care”. I would of course give my daughter a stern talking-to, and some kind of punishment would likely be in order for getting pregnant, but in general I’d be happy to know that if she makes any future mistakes like this we’ll be able to get it dealt with affordably. Kudos to the school for handling this discretely and efficiently.
Kudos to the school for handling this discretely and efficiently.
Posted by: Anne at March 25, 2010 11:49 PM
They sure did handle it “discretely”… they destroyed that which constituted a separate entity, the conceived child.
You’d be so happy to see your grandchild murdered as long as you didn’t have to pay for it? Lovely sentiment.
And if they ruptured your child’s uterus or caused excessive hemorrhaging which you had no knowledge of or reason to suspect… leading to potential infections, sepsis, massive blood loss and possibly death?
You are a very irresponsible human being. You are fine with your grandchild being murdered and your child’s health jeopardized… just so long as that pesky pregnancy “problem” goes away on somebody else’s dime.
If I was this girl’s mother, I think I’d be pretty happy overall with the way things turned out…Kudos to the school for handling this discretely and efficiently.
Posted by: Anne at March 25, 2010 11:49 PM
So children can’t bring Tylenol to school but can get an abortion. HUH. Its Bizarro world.
Posted by: Sydney M. at March 25, 2010 11:24 PM
You’re so right Sydney.
I hope Anne isn’t anyone’s mother.
Amen X…:)
It doesn’t sound likely Anne has any children. I think if a baby made it out of her alive she would eat it.
Violet said,
“HIPAA laws apply once you’re 13 in Washington, and conversations between patient and doctor are confidential from that point on.”
Violet,
It sounds sounds like legislated lawlessness and a pedophiles dream. That law needs to be changed. Yhese girls need to be protected.
CeeCee you are spot on. I couldn’t say it any better so I am just gonna copy your post and paste it again.
They say that parents can’t be notified because some kids come from abusive homes and not telling the parents is a protection for the kids.
But if a child’s home is that dangerous, then the child needs a lot more than a school clinic or Planned Parenthood can provide. That child needs to be served by Child Protective Services and a foster home. Either way, somebody who cares about the child should be notified before an abortion is done.
Hey Jill, there is a hearing on Monday 3/29 on the Illinois Parental Notification of Abortion Act. If the judge removes the stay then the law goes into effect and Planned Parenthood can no longer use new their 30 bed abortion mill in Aurora as a destination for minors in the surrounding states. All the surrounding states already have Parental Notification laws so they ship the minors in to Aurora to commit the abortins on them without anybody finding out). I need a win to get over this Obamacare hangover. Please pray people.
Posted by: Elisabeth at March 26, 2010 12:05 AM
I wish anti-choicers would learn to distinguish between their opinion and fact. It’s kind of frustrating to see people just throw around opinions like “abortion is murder” and act as if it’s fact because they feel really strongly about it. And every medical operation carries with it some risk: although abortion is not exempted from this rule, it is much safer than anti-choicers give it credit for (and much safer than many other invasive medical procedures). Oh, and nice of you to downplay the dangers of teenage pregnancy and motherhood by sarcastically writing it off as a “pesky problem”. I guarantee you there is a larger percentage of teen moms living in poverty than there is of women who have suffered a ruptured uterus or what have you during an abortion procedure.
xalisaex, Ed, and truthseeker: that is very sweet of you to say.
From now on, since Obamacare allows federal funding pf abortion, all pro-abort women must consult with government
9hhS etc.) for permission prior to commiting an abortion. And when conservatives take control of the presidency again pro-aborts are gonna wish they hadn’t insisted upon there being public funding of abortions. By doing so they just gave control their reproductive health decisions to the president. Ouch!! They will live to regret that in 2014 when we put a conservative back in the oval office. Repeal and Replace!
Defund Planned Parenthood
Why would any woman want to go into a baby killing mill to get a pap smear anyway. If they had a choice to get it done at a doctor’s office. It would be like going to Buchenwald to take a shower. Ewwww
Abortion is the killing of another human life. That is fact, not opinion. Sorry if you are frustrated by basic facts presented in 5th grade biology.
Ok Anne, help us out.
At what gestational age do you believe it is wrong to kill an unborn child?
Post-viability?
Assuming there is no health risk to the mother, it would be wrong for her to kill her child rather than allow her child to live, right?
Anne,
You’ve obviously had little experience with this issue. Expect to see this girl pregnant again and…again until she finally has a baby. You see Anne, these girls want to have babies. Yes you read that right. How do I know this? Well, mainly because I’ve had these girls tell me time and again. Or they act in such a way that pregancy is inevitable. There are deep pschological issues here and like most major social problems, it simply defies a simple answer.
Ask yourself Anne, why after 37 years of legal abortion is teen pregnancy not an issue of the past, a problem long solved?
Look, the abortionists are morally bankrupt human beings.
Therefore, they will kill unborn children without it troubling them particularly.
They will kill unborn children behind their grandparents’ backs.
They will try to force the taxpayers to subsidize the killing.
They will lie about it.
They will treat this “medical” “procedure” (actually, violent crime) differently from all others.
They will twist and distort our arguments.
They will do whatever they can get away with, they will do whatever is in their self interest and they will do whatever satisfies their psychological needs.
They have been doing all of this for over 40 years and will never stop until we stop them. Jill is right when she says we should not be surprised. This is how they operate.
The question is why has this been allowed to go on for 40 years?
When will the unborn human rights movement get its act together and stop the abortionists from committing these crimes against our children?
My dad told me about that earlier today, Ken. I brought it to his attention that they would be considered to have been “booby-trapped”.
Posted by: xalisae at March 25, 2010 10:20 PM
————————————————–
Darn!
I knew I had missed one.
And it was the most obvious.
Thanks for providing what I lacked.
yor bro ken
Was there an investigation as to the male involved since this is an underaged female??
I can see why mental health services are also offered. The abortion pushers cause further mental health issues in their young victims. Unfortunately such mental health “solutions” will only add layers over the wound but not heal it. That takes the spiritual and moral dimension and THAT isn’t offered in our schools today. Poor victims of the new world order.
And accordingly to where you live in this country now, schizophrenia can be your result. If the child in the womb is wanted it’s a double murder when the mother is killed. If the child is “inconvenient” and therefore unwanted it can be torn apart, burned, poisoned, brains sucked out and tossed as rubbish or gruelly experimented upon.
I often wonder how the pro-abortion folks classify themselves – grown up – as sub-humans?? Unless they believe they were found under cabbage heads they too depend to this day upon their own life’s early stages, uninterrupted … and they too, to this day, are dependent upon the very same things as the child in the womb. So, do they think of themselves as tossable rubbish within their own existenial moment of each day?? They are simply that same human life in continuum. The scary thing for them now is entering into that later stage of life when they become just as dependent as that earliest stage – for life sustaining care. Living beyond the “perfect” years must be frightening as it looms before them in their imaginations!!!
The “crazies” are those who can look themselves in the mirror and rationalize that at one moment, hidden away, they were not human life, but a second later they were. Madness! People are walking around today in our midsts with that kind of insanity going on in their own “thinking”. And underneath it all, they are terrorized people, full of fear, being unable to face, in the graphic pictures of the abortion reality they deny, their own soul’s terminal disease also growing hidden within their own bodies.
Finally, do they walk about, like Lady Macbeth, washing the hands of their minds, attempting to “out damned spot” that has now become a torrent of blood of millions flooding our earth??
Add Anne’s name to list of morally bankrupt thinkers on this board (along with Megan, Violet, Artemis and Ashley).
I keep praying we will frame the issue properly.
This child’s mom is or should be outraged not just because of a clandestine”medical procedure,” but because her grand baby has been killed. How many of America’s grand children have been
dismembered and thrown in bio-hazard bags?
Until we humanize the victims, the pro-aborts keep the
focus on morally neutral nebulous “procedure” chatter.
I keep thinking how every time I found out I was pregnant there was initially SHOCK and AWE and all kinds of other feelings and emotions. It took time to take it all in and come to terms with the information provided by a plus sign.
This girl was COERCED. Before she even had time to think or feel or do anything…a taxi was called for her. Right after adoption was discussed right??
To the mother of this girl if you are reading this please get help for your daughter and for yourself. Please call the National Helpline for Abortion Recovery 1-866-482-LIFE(5433)
or you can email me carla@jillstanek.com
I am so very sorry that only abortion was offered to your daughter as the BEST solution. I am so sorry that your grandchild died.
Posted by: Elisabeth at March 26, 2010 12:05 AM
I wish anti-choicers would learn to distinguish between their opinion and fact.
Posted by: Anne at March 26, 2010 1:41 AM
As a medical professional who works with this population I guarantee you, *I* am not the one who needs to learn to distinguish between opinion and fact.
Violet, from what I’ve read the mother is pro-choice. The form said nothing about abortion, and she didn’t have issue with birthcontrol.
She has issue that her daughter was taken for a surgical procedure without her knowledge. I would be too.
Anne……even abortionists admit that abortion is killing. The say its justifiable killing, but they openly admit its killing. We pro-lifers also say its killing.
you seem to be the only one with your head in the sand.
Carla…I thought the same thing. This girl didn’t even have time to process it all. They just threw her in a cab and took her off the abortion mill. And the fact that she considered herself pro-life…so sad. What kind of emotional toll will this take on this young girl? She will carry this grief for the rest of her life.
Or the mother can contact Abortion Recovery InterNational and our CARE Line at: 1-866-4-My-Recovery and we will match her up with a counselor in her area.
Our counselors must meet the Principles of Care Guidelines for Abortion Recovery Counseling.
If she suffers any grief or emotional distress because of this, it’s only because she’s been brainwashed into believing a bunch of bad stuff about abortion by people with a political agenda. My advice to her would be this: be strong, follow your heart, and don’t let anybody else ever try and tell you that what you’re doing is wrong. Let your own true feelings guide you instead. This is the true path to happiness. Worrying about what other people think is right and wrong will only hold you back.
Let your own true feelings guide you instead. This is the true path to happiness. Worrying about what other people think is right and wrong will only hold you back.
Posted by: Anne at March 26, 2010 11:03 AM
——-
Great advice – how come it doesn’t work for rapists and murderers?
Why should they be hypocritically held accountable for their path to true happiness?
And what would have happened if this young woman had been injured? What if she would have lost a lot of blood? A 15 year old is NOT an adult!
Another reason to home school while we still have the right.
“it’s only because she’s been brainwashed into believing a bunch of bad stuff about abortion by people with a political agenda.”
No, it’s because the knowledge that she killed her own child will weigh heavily on her conscience. Have you read Crime and Punishment? Same concept. No one had to “brainwash” Raskolnikov into feeling guilt over his actions, his own conscience did that on its own.
Thank you Stacy!! Hugs to you!!
Anne & Artemis,
Anne, if we all went through life guided by our feelings, God help us all. Gee, sometimes I don’t “feel” like cooking or making my kids breakfast, but I do. Sometimes I don’t “feel” like getting out of bed in the morning, but I do. Sometimes I don’t “feel” like being nice to the nasty neighbor, but I do. Gee, maybe I feel like slugging that nasty neighbor in the face – but I DON’T. Because I do not let my “feelings” guide my behavior. This is how you can rationalize killing the pre-born child. And Artemis,to respond to your earlier post about the law not referring to abortion as murder or fetuses as not children (oh doesn’t the word fetus come from the Latin for “child”? Go figure) – well, the law at one time referred to black individuals as not being “persons”, upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States, mind you. Do you think Black individuals were subjected to an immoral law by being slaves and not recoginized as “persons”?
To reference Fr. Frank Pavones’s book “Ending Abortion Not Just Fighting It”:
…less widely known is the decision handed down eight months before Roe vs. Wade, in which personhood was also discussed in relation to protecting the environment. In the decision, Sierra Club vs. Morton, Justice Douglas argued in the following words: “The ordinary corporation is a ‘person’ for purposes of the adjudicatory process….So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches,ridges, groves of trees, swampland or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life…With all respect, the problem is to make certain that the inanimate objects, which are the very core of America’s beauty, have spokesmen before they are destroyed… The voice of the inanimate object, therefore, should not be stilled….That is why these environmental issues should be tendered by the inanimate object itself. Then there will be assurances that all of the forms of life which it represents will stand before the court – the pileated woodpecker as well as the coyote and bear, the lemmings as well as the trout in the streams. Those inarticulate members of the ecoglogical group cannot speak…”
Eight months later, he ruled with the majority in Roe vs. Wade that “the word person… does not include the unborn.” THE WORD PERSON DOES NOT INCLUDE THE UNBORN!
GOD HAVE MERCY ON US.
Anne….
“some sort of punishment would be in order for getting pregnant”?!
…so that your daughter will confide in you next time she gets pregnant extramaritally (which statistically speaking she will?)_
I think the pro-lifers who care enough to actually deal with their daughter’s pregnancy with her, instead of relying on profit motivated strangers, have a HUGE moral edge on you. What a way to treat a young lady in crisis!
Excellent post Doe! It reminds me very much of what I try to teach my son. My in-laws will sometimes make excuses for my three year old’s temper tantrums (“He’s tired. He’s hungry” or whatever) but I am trying to teach him that FEELINGS don’t rule our decisions.
What is right will always be right even when we don’t feel like it. The right way to act is the right way to act even when we’re tired, hungry or pregnant with a baby we just don’t “feel” like giving birth to.
Anne: And just HOW would you feel if your daughter died of a perforated uterus, or infection from retained baby parts, etc. etc. following an abortion you knew nothing about ? Surely you’d be first in line to sue everyone even remotely connected to the entire situation.
You know as well as I do that you wouldn’t just sit back and do nothing.
Sydney @ 10:07
Amen!
I noticed that Anne would punish her daughter not for having sex, but for getting pregnant.
What if she was using contraceptives? Would Anne still hold her responsible?
Anne says the girl should follow her heart.
How does Anne know it was her heart she was following? How does Anne know her heart wasn’t telling her to save her son or daughter’s life?
What would happen if Anne’s teenaged daughter got pregnant and her heart told her to keep her baby? Would her heart be wrong then, do you suppose?
What about the woman who kept her pregnancy a secret and then had her boyfriend throw the baby in a dumpster? Or the woman who starved her preemie daughter to death over the course of several months? If these women were following their hearts, was it okay, in Anne’s book? And for the woman who drove her sons into a lake, and the woman who drowned her five children in a bathtub? Weren’t they all just following their hearts?
Scott Roeder certainly followed his heart. I find him a lot easier to understand than the teenaged daughter in this story.
Thanks, Sydney. I hope I did not sound too harsh and did not mean to come across condescending. I was just trying to make a point! I really wouldn’t slug the nasty neighbor in the face – I think you got the picture!
ycw,
Am I understanding you correctly: that you find Scott Roeder, who murdered a man as he served as usher during a Sunday church service, easier to understand than a pregnant and scared teenager who chose abortion rather than tell her family she was pregnant?
I wonder if any of the pro-aborts on this board like Anne, Artemis, and sorry I forgot the other names, have looked at any of the pictures of aborted fetuses/babies? If you happen to click on one of Jill’s links to the right of her page, (I think it’s titled “College retracts ban on distribution of pro-life magazine with graphic images”) you’ll get a real sobering look at the reality of abortion. If this does not sicken you to your core, then I suspect you do not have a fully formed conscience. If you have experienced abortion, I am so sorry for you and will pray for you. We have a loving and merciful God that can forgive all sin and heal those who ask Him.
Doe,
I heard a scary story recently. Apparently, all over the United States there are these buildings, or centers, where all kinds of people, from babies to the elderly, are drugged and taken into special rooms where they are cut open and have parts of their bodies removed or foreign objects implanted. Now, if that doesn’t sicken you to the core, I suspect you do not have a fully formed conscience. They’ve even found some photographs that were taken at these centers, and they’re pretty disturbing. http://bit.ly/9xMtXE http://bit.ly/nMM8V http://bit.ly/aEkXc8
Violet,
I find it easier to understand killing an unrepentent murderer who will continue to take innocent lives while the state stands approvingly by though he has broken even their laws, than to hire a hit man to kill one’s own child in equally cold blood.
Does that answer your question?
Violet. you’re nuts. Those pictures look like normal surgical pictures to me…how do you know they were taken at these “centers” of which you speak?
See, the pictures of aborted babies that pro-lifers have are documented by former abortionists and by current M.D.s and by the people that found these children in the trash. We even have videos of abortions in progress. ya know, proof.
If these “centers” exist of which you speak, then I guess it just goes to show the cruel injustice that occurs when you dehumanize others to suit your needs. sound familiar? Thats exactly what you pro-aborts do to unborn children.
Violet,
I’d have to agree with Sydney. The link you posted looked to me like a picture of some type of heart surgery. You’re actually going to compare aborted fetuses/babies to this? I suppose this is what happens when one does not view human life in all it’s forms as sacred. I remember hearing an interview with Ingrid Nookirk, the head of P.E.T.A./People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals compare the slaughter of 6 million or so Jews during Hitler’s reign to the slaugher of a billion chickens. Sadly, you do not want to see evil for what it is. It’s probably too painful for you to look at these images. At least we have the freedom of looking on the internet because the mainstream media would never show these pictures.
Violet,
I’d have to agree with Sydney. The link you posted looked to me like a picture of some type of heart surgery. You’re actually going to compare aborted fetuses/babies to this? I suppose this is what happens when one does not view human life in all it’s forms as sacred. I remember hearing an interview with Ingrid Nookirk, the head of P.E.T.A./People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals compare the slaughter of 6 million or so Jews during Hitler’s reign to the slaugher of a billion chickens. Sadly, Violet, you do not want to see evil for what it is. It’s probably too painful for you to look at these images. At least we have the freedom of looking on the internet because the mainstream media would never show these pictures.
Sorry for all the repeats-I was having trouble with my computer.
Sydney and Doe,
Violet was just being sarcastic, comparing normal, routine operations which are performed to SAVE lives to abortion-you know; that “operation” performed on a mother to KILL her growing child.
Violet,
I remember wanting to be a doctor when I was young. In 3rd grade or so. I would get my waffle every Saturday morning, spread some strawberry jam on it, and sit down to watch The Operation on TLC while I ate. Shoulder surgery, hysterectomy, liver transplant, even a breast reduction surgery one time. None of those bothered me. I admired the surgeons in their knowledge and skill, and listened intently as they explained every bit of the procedures.
Every. single. time. I see abortion pictures, the abortion procedure-eating or not-I feel as though I want to vomit. When I think about it, it makes me sick to my stomach. Every time. Because I’ve been pregnant, and I’m not in some denial-inspired wonderland that lets me separate what my children are now from what they were when they were inside of me. These are other humans, and it should dismay and distress ANYONE to see little arms and legs mutilated and disposed of as one would a candy wrapper or table scraps.
Great point, Xalisae. I detected some sarcasm on Violet’s part and for her to equate these surgeries morally (heart, shoulder, or whatever) to an abortion is very disturbing. Like you wrote, Xalisae, these surgeries are performed to SAVE a human life or enhance the quality of a human’s life and abortion is the ENDING of a human life. How perverse is that?! Sadly, the woman and/or man (father of child) aborting thinks she and/or he is maintaining their quality of life by getting rid of the child. Most will probably go through some type of post-abortive stress or depression at some point in their lives. I’m reminded of one of my favorite talk-radio hosts, Dennis Prager, speaking of many in the pro-choice/pro-abort camp having an attitude that abortion is really not much different that pulling a decayed tooth. In fact, I really think these people think of an abortion in that way. If I don’t feel or see the fetus – well, it’s just this mass of inconvenient tissue or blob of tumor that I need to get rid of.
Look, let me clarify something. I was simply trying to make the point that there are a lot of things that are hard to look at photographs of but that doesn’t *by itself* make those things wrong.
Don’t interpret that to believe that I condone tossing fetuses in the trash after abortions — I don’t, at all.
And yes, I have seen all the pictures you talk about. Are they hard to look at? Of course. Does that change my opinions and beliefs about abortion? No.
Yes, Violet, obviously every photograph that’s not easy to look at or makes us uncomfortable makes the argument that an act is moral or immoral. But, photos have been a very powerful weapon in making the case for revealing a morally evil act. As written in previous posts, photos of lynchings of Blacks were hard to look at as well as photos of the children that were exploited in factories many years ago, mass graves of Holocaust victims and their skeletal remains, etc. I’d hope you’d agree that these events in history were morally evil? It boggles my mind that you and others can look at these images and STILL believe it’s morally acceptable to kill the pre-born child. If you don’t condone tossing aborted fetuses/babies in trashes, what do you suggest doing with their dis-membered remains? I think Tiller the fetus/baby killer used a crematorium for his discarding. I actually like what a lot of Catholic churces have done (not sure if other denominations have done as well), but given these innocent aborted victims a proper burial.
Doe,
The difference with the pulled tooth/abortion analogy is that nobody grieves the same day every year when you had that tooth pulled.
Well said, Carla. The decayed tooth analogy has more to do with their thoughts before having an abortion. What happens later, as you put it so well, is the pain and suffering after they “pull the tooth”. Thank you.
You are very welcome, Doe. I am glad you are here.
Why Carla…I remember the day I lost my wisdom teeth every year! I mourn, and I light candles…its the SAME THING I TELL YOU.
Obviously, not. You will always remember September 5th and I couldn’t even tell you the TIME of year I had my wisdom teeth pulled. And yet the abortion clinics keep lying to women and downplaying the emotional toll abortion takes on a woman.
Life begins at conception. I celebrate Feb 12th every year…the day my son’s life most likely began. I didn’t even know I was pregnant that day or was going to conceive him that day but once we discovered he existed and figured out the day, Feb 12 (which is also my dead father’s birthday, so its special) took on a whole new meaning!
To equate a new human being to a tooth or a tumor is hogwash science and they know it.
This poor teen girl. I hope she will be able to talk to someone who can guide her through the hurt she will feel.
Don’t interpret that to believe that I condone tossing fetuses in the trash after abortions — I don’t, at all. Posted by: Violet at March 28, 2010 6:57 PM
That’s so absurd it would be hilarious, if only it were not such a tragedy. Let me see if I get what you’re saying, Violet. It’s fine to abort a fetus since it isn’t a person, only an unwanted tissue mass. But once you’ve aborted it, you can’t simply throw it into the trash-can because it deserves some decency?
I don’t get it. Why does it deserve decency after being ‘removed*’ if it didn’t deserve the decency of protection from ‘removal*’ in the first place? It’s only some discarded tissue, let the dumpster dogs fight over it and eat it!
No? That disgusts you? Your inconsistency is inexplicable. Or is it not burial you demand, but only that it be disposed of where it doesn’t offend your sensibilities?
Do nail clippings offend your sensibilities, Violet? Sure, you clean them up when you finish clipping your nails, but they don’t cause revulsion in normal people.
Your inconsistency only makes sense, Violet, if deep down you know that if an object looks like a person, moves like a person, feels like a person, and would have been a person if only left alone, then it is, indeed, a person.
Throughout history, with very few exceptions, genocides have disposed of the corpses of their victims where they could not be seen. This instinctive reaction is an implicit admission of guilt and shame, no matter how convenient nor socially and politically acceptable the genocide was in the first place.
My heart bleeds for your offended sensibilities at discarded fetuses in trash-cans, Violet. (And FYI, that last was sarcasm, Violet. Pardon me if I underestimate your intelligence, but the mental gymnastics you go through to avoid the blindingly obvious when it is inconvenient to you do not inspire much confidence in your intellectual lucidity).
On another note, the participation of your and your ilk on these boards is of great value, because it reveals the total incoherency, intellectual bankruptcy and pathetic absurdity of the pro-abortion movement, and that far better than we could do without your help. So please keep it up!
* See how careful I am to avoid offending your delicate sensibilities?
I respect the opinions of others, even when I don’t agree with them. You may not be aware, but some people see the fetus at any stage of gestation as a human being on the same level as a four year old child. Others see a fetus as gaining that personhood at other stages of gestation, or even not until after birth. Treating an aborted fetus with respect shows respect of all beliefs. There is no point to needlessly offending others.
* See how careful I am to avoid offending your delicate sensibilities?
No. That is not something I can see from what you’ve written.
Violet at March 29, 2010 1:18 PM “…some people see the fetus at any stage of gestation as a human being on the same level as a four year old child. Others see a fetus as gaining that personhood at other stages of gestation, or even not until after birth. Treating an aborted fetus with respect shows respect of all beliefs. There is no point to needlessly offending others.
Respect of all beliefs? You’re going to go the “tolerance” route AFTER the dismemberment of the living human being has occurred? Really? Yes, please point out how ethically disposing of ‘fetal remains’ somehow MAKES ONE RESPECTFUL OF ALL BELIEFS.
How does one “gain personhood”? You’ve either got it or you don’t. A person is a human, a human is a person. Two humans reproducing will (100% of the time) create another human. Fact. Not dependent on how anyone “sees” it.
klynn,
I respect that that’s what you believe. I understand that you feel that embryos and fetuses are people and that abortion is equivalent to murder. I disagree with you, but I have no desire to cause you more pain than you cause yourself.
Thanks again, Carla. It’s great to be on board. I’ve really enjoyed reading all the dialogue!
Great post, Toqueville!
Violet:
Just out of curiosity, Violet, is my 6 year old son “less of a human” since he has not reached full puberty like maybe my 21 year old nephew? I mean, if we’re talking stages of development and all, by what you posted earlier about “some people see the fetus gaining personhood at different levels of gestation” then by this logic it would seem my 6 year old is a lesser human being than my nephew.
Nice reply, klynn73!
Violet,
I respect the opinions of others, even when I don’t agree with them. Posted by: Violet at March 29, 2010 1:18 PM
By all means, Violet. I, too, am good at respecting opinions.
I respect your preference of chocolate ice-cream over my preference for Vanilla, or your preference for coffee over mine for tea, or yours for pop and mine for rock. But I would not ‘respect your opinion’ if you were to say, for example, that it’s ok to sell children into sexual slavery (as they do at the temples in India), or to rape children (as they do in North Africa with the so-called child-brides), or to use them for child pornography (as they do all over the world), or (get ready, here it comes) to kill them when they are at their most defenseless and vulnerable.
Nope, sorry Violet. No respect here. I wonder you even look for it. What do you think I am, some kind of savage lunatic to extend the validation of respect for people that prey on their own offspring? Some sharks do that, Violet, and some other beasts. Among which I do not count myself nor you.
You don’t have the right to those opinions, Violet, because they commit violence on the natural rights of others.
A thousand pardons, Violet, but I regretfully must disabuse you of the fond theory that your and your partisans control the meta-dialogue of human rights. They don’t, nor do you. Very far from it. Which is, of course, why I love it when you spout your nonsense in these forums and give us a chance to make you look like the fools you so manifestly are.
Let me explain.
You cannot try (at least not with any degree of coherence and logic) to demand that people respect your opinions no matter how violent, savage, brutal, inhuman and vicious they may be. It doesn’t work that way, Violet. And thank the God in whom you don’t believe* that it doesn’t work that way. You see, if it worked that way, then anybody could walk up to you and stick a shard of glass into your abdomen and successfully claim the right to do so on the basis that his/her opinion must be respected, even if your right to live is disrespected. Opinions that can validly claim the right to be treated with respect are those that respect the innate rights of others – the right to live, for example.
So, sorry, Violet, but I don’t respect your opinion. I think your opinions are not fit to be held by a vicious animal, let alone by a human. A sow that turned and killed her own litter (as they do when they get old and insane) I would summarily turn into bacon. The only thing that delivers abortionists from such a fate (including the bacon part) is that they are not animals, but people. Violent, savage and brutal they may be, but people they are, and as such merit the right to live, until or unless the law – properly observed – decides otherwise (although frankly I prefer incarceration).
I respect you , Violet, but not for anything you can possibly offer in your favor. Far from it. If you required some dignity to be treated with respect, as a pro-abortionist you’d fall very short indeed. I respect you for precisely the reason that you would do well to respect an unborn child, because you are a person. Pause a moment in your enraged reading of this post (BTW, you really should be careful of that BP), and be grateful that your opponents do not take your arguments to their logical conclusion, for if they did then your life would be in precisely the same danger and have exactly as few and tenuous guarantees as the life of the unborn children that your ilk treat with such brutality.
To forestall you, Violet, in your formulaic and knee-jerk attempt to paint yourself as the victim and claim that your miserable life was threatened on this blog (although I do so hope that the image of the shard of glass and the abdomen – and its implications for a defenseless unborn child – will come to your mind the next time you counsel someone to abort their child), I will reiterate yet again (grammatical note: deliberate repetition to attempt penetration of regrettable mental obtusity) that I totally condemn anyone who takes the law into his/her own hands and commits violence on another person, as in killing abortionists, because as much as they might deserve it for their savage violence on others, they are people. And this, Violet, is precisely the reason I condemn killing unborn children, because they are as much a person as you are. An anti-abortionist who kills an abortionist is not better (and no worse, for sure) than his/her victim. Such an act of violence is just as contemptible and incoherent as a woman demanding protection of her life, but killing the life growing inside her. The end does not, nor ever can, justify the means.
You may not be aware, but some people see the fetus at any stage of gestation as a human being on the same level as a four year old child. Others see a fetus as gaining that personhood at other stages of gestation, or even not until after birth.
How kind of you to educate me in my profound and Dark-Ages like ignorance (for, as is well-know, as a pro-life advocate I must needs be ignorant – and a male, of course, making vassals of the poor women. Thank you for not attempting to solve that little problem).
Let me tell you a charming story, Violet. While living in South America, I had the fortune (let’s put it that way) to live close to a native Indian village. (No, I wasn’t a missionary out to spoil their pristine and innocent culture in my arrogant presumption that mine was better, so save your bile.) The Indian tribe of this village had the charming (and innocent and unspoiled, whatever) belief that a child was not a person until it was weaned. The logic was that since the baby still depended on its mother for sustenance, then it wasn’t yet a person**. Sound familiar, Violet? Until that age, any mother could simply strangle her child (if, for example, the irritating and inconvenient thing cried too much at night and kept her from her precious sleep) and throw it away in the village garbage dump for the dogs to eat. And many did, so many that that tribe is, mercifully, almost extinct now.
Not that strangling was in any way the only culturally sanctioned means to kill the un-person. Dragging ‘it’ out into the marsh and leaving ‘it’ to die of dehydration, or throwing ‘it’ – live – into the swamp, or whatever made the least mess and caused the least inconvenience to the mother. Often simply abandoning ‘it’ in the camp when they made one of their frequent moves was the favorite tactic, leaving the little child for the wild-dogs to kill and eat.
Can you picture the scene, Violet? Can you picture the little baby waking up in the morning to an abandoned camp, stumbling around, hungry, crying for hours for its mother until exhaustion and dehydration silenced its little voice and the dogs started closing in? I hope you can see the picture in all its graphic and heart-rending detail.
It grieves me, Violet, to offend your delicate and civilized sensibilities that would so much prefer the unwanted object quietly and hygienically disposed of (to not needlessly offend, of course), but for the sake your own honesty (if there’s anything left of it), you need to see the picture. If that picture doesn’t make you weep, Violet, then I in turn weep for your children and grand-children, for you have lost any vestige of humanity in your quest for emancipation from the obligations of humanity.
You see, Violet, the treatment of this tribe for its un-persons is a logical development of your precious belief that the beginning of life is a matter of opinion only.
What about you, Violet? Are you a person? Will you still be a person when you are lying in hospital, old, defenseless and depending on others for your sustenance?
Let us only hope, Violet-person, that in your frailty, vulnerability and defenselessness your nurses don’t take into account your proud disregard for human life and your arbitrary definition of when it need or need not be called a person with rights of protection from bestial people with their scalpels and needles and political agendas.
See how careful I am to avoid offending your delicate sensibilities?
No. That is not something I can see from what you’ve written.
Noooo, Really? How embarrassing. And there I was sooo careful to not offend you needlessly! Very clumsy of me. (My initial lack of confidence in your intellectual lucidity was apparently well-founded. That (and this) was sarcasm, Violet. Look it up)
* I hope you notice my clumsy attempts into provoking you to protest that you do, indeed, believe in God. That would make this little dialogue so much more entertaining!
** The logic, one might be forgiven for inferring, is that personhood is in inverse proportion to vulnerability and defenselessness.
Thanks Doe!
First, if it wasn’t clear, when I say that I respect the opinions of others, I mean that I respect the right of others to come to conclusions that differ from mine despite having access to the same information. Furthermore, having an opinion and acting on that opinion are two very different things.
Second, much of your response is based on false assumptions about shared definitions. Clearly, your definitions for what differentiates human flesh from human beings are not shared by many millions of Americans, nor is your belief that all destruction of flesh is murder. If there was agreement, there would be no controversy!
But you take that lead balloon and run with it anyway. News flash: you do not have the authority to define those terms for anyone other than yourself. There is no consensus. There are too many variables, and the topic is too complex.
In the future, you may wish to scan the logical fallacies described here (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/) to decide whether or not what you want to say will hold up under its own weight.
Finally, all of the assumptions you made about me are wrong. You are even less of an authority on who I am, what I believe, and how I would react to your comments than you are about the topic under discussion.
How nice to see you back, Violet-person. I suppose.
Your strained attempts at sarcasm are amusing, if forced. Nevertheless I thank you for making the effort. The ‘newsflash’ thing was clishéd but not too bad.
I hasten to disabuse you yet again of an apparent misunderstanding. I do not care if you do not respect my opinions, Violet. Even after great and sustained physical effort I find I still could not care less, so do feel free to drop the mask that so poorly fits you. I have no respect for your opinions and am indifferent to any synthetic respect you might allege for mine. That my judgment is of no importance to you is, itself, of no importance to me. I do not argue with you in misguided attempt to persuade you, but merely to allow your ethical relativism and intellectual incoherency to be revealed to discerning readers, to strengthen them in their resolve to resist the poisonous spread of your noxious philosophy.
That said, on to the merits (or glaring absence thereof) of your reply.
How nice of you to (however unwittingly) state your epistemology, Violet-person! You make my part so easy it begins to bore me.
How interesting must your life be, since for you to define something as true you need a poll to see if there is a consensus. I’m curious; at what percentage of disagreement do you give yourself the benefit of morally sustainable doubt? If 50% is ok, what about 49%, or, while we’re about it, 0,01%? I am also presuming (from a matter of mere practicality and constraints upon one’s time) that you do not seek universal consensus on every little thing that you gladly accept as true, merely on those you find annoying and bothersome in their historical definition.
(BTW, I am suitable grateful that you do not insult my intelligence by appealing once again to the laws of America as constituting a faithful definition of what is right and what is wrong. It’s not much, but wading through the hopeless morass of what passes for logic in your arguments, I find myself pathetically grateful for any little bit of semi-dry ground upon which to stand and scrape, as it were, the slime off my boots, and to muster courage to face once more the drifting miasma of touchy-feely ‘logic’ and the bottomless quagmire of ‘hope’ and ‘change’. Also, since I am, mercifully, not American, your laws carry no weight with me at all.)
An interesting epistemology is yours, Violet-person. Of great value it surely is if any objective truth turns out to be inconvenient. If magnetic North is an inopportune direction in which to sail, then you simply discard your compass as arbitrary and simplistic and look for a consensus among your fellow-travelers to see if North cannot better be defined as pointing in some less annoying direction.
This is indisputably of great value. Unless there is indeed a North that does not depend on your consensus to be so. But happy sailing, by all means, Violet-person. May the universe promptly realign itself to your every whim and fancy. Good luck with that. Whatever.
Violet-person, this far down the road of moral relativism you wouldn’t recognize an objective truth if it jumped up and bit you (I use tired clichés to make you feel at home. You’re quite welcome). In your efforts to redefine the epistemology of truth and so neuter it of any inconvenient implications in your life, you have surrounded yourself with veils of deception and have lost the capacity to distinguish truth from lies. Your ignorance is not one of innocence, but the ripe fruit of deliberate, persistent and cynical self-deception.
Even the most shining and self-evident truth and the most putrid and transparent lie are equally indistinguishable to you. Your criteria for judging between them is not based on any intrinsic merit they might or might not have, but merely their implications in the universe that rotates around your desires and ego. Indeed, by such criteria lies are far more easily approved, since by their nature they are more plastic, whereas the truth tends to be irritatingly inflexible.
You have discarded your moral compass, Violet-person, and are adrift in a (putatively shore-less) sea of relativity. You are heedless of being inexorably pushed by the tides of your convenience and the winds of your ego ever closer to final ruin on the unforgiving Rock of an eternal and inflexible Truth. A Truth that does not depend on your approval or the consensus of your friends for it to be the Truth, and one that will not accept ignorance as an apology, much less such deliberate ignorance as yours.
I judge you, Violet-person, and find you sorely wanting. Think about that for a minute. That a person as fallible and imperfect as a fellow-human finds you wanting should give you pause to consider how Someone from an infinitely higher moral ground might find you perfectly loathsome, and how such terrible judgment might imply infinitely greater discomfort to you than my toothless disapprobation ever could, were you to persist in your childish refusal to admit the undeniable and in your insistent approval of the indefensible.
I would go on replying to your earnest posts, Violet, but even your rehydrated efforts at sarcasm do not relieve the ennui produced by your deliberately blinkered mind and threadbare self-serving arguments. Go ahead and post, I shan’t bother to reply. If that makes you feel victorious, bully for you. Have a nice little life, ‘ware the rocks.