Jivin J’s Life Links 1-5-11
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- Is it homicide if a woman tries to kill her unborn child in utero but the child is born and later dies from her pre-birth actions? That’s apparently what happened recently in Indianapolis when a mother ate rat poison a week before giving birth:
Police said Monday that the infant’s death has been ruled a homicide due to poison.The 34-year-old mother allegedly told friends she swallowed rat poison Dec. 23. Officer Kendale Adams says investigators believe it was intentional. He doesn’t know how far along the woman’s pregnancy was at the time.
- The friends took the woman to a hospital in Anderson, and she was transferred to an Indianapolis hospital where she gave birth Friday.
- A doctor at a Catholic hospital in VA is under review because someone has complained that he also performs abortions at Planned Parenthood:
Dr. Richard Willard is an OB-GYN with an office on the 5th floor of the DePaul Medical Building.There has been a complaint he is associated with Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center which is a Catholic Health Care Ministry while performing abortions at PP on Newtown Road….
Willard did not return our phone call, but a similar concern was lodged against him in 2005, and he was investigated by an independent moral theologian who determined since the procedures did not occur on property, DePaul was within the Catholic moral teachings.
View the news report from WAVY.com below:
The baby died Sunday.
Adams says the woman is in a psychiatric ward at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. The hospital declined to immediately release any information.
Adams says the woman could face murder or attempted feticide charges.
I’d be very interested to see how pro-choice individuals view this case since they typically hold that women can do whatever they want to their bodies. “My body, my choice,” right? So if a woman wants to eat rat poison or take some abortifacient herb, that’s the woman’ choice.
Yet, what if that choice leads to the death of a human child post-birth?
Fetuses have heartbeats, but so do brain dead people on life support and tissue grown in the lab – which are both closer to what a fetus pre-brain development is.
Does Amanda imagine a human unborn child at 9 weeks (which is when the fetal period begins) doesn’t have a brain?
We were told babies don’t survive outside the womb unless they are more than 24 weeks. Sive was 23 weeks and 5 days.
Often, the person citing Godwin’s Law never judges the merit of the argument or the comparison and uses the Law to not have to think about the claims made, simply assuming that the comparison is illegitimate. The only reason why the claims are considered illegitimate then is because others make Holocaust comparisons without merit or rationale.Thus, when Godwin’s Law is invoked, Ruba’s Law can be invoked in response, to point out that citing Godwin’s Law does not actually refute the claims of those making the Holocaust comparison. Rather, it has simply become an excuse to not have to think about the comparison and to de-legitimize the person making the comparison.
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.
Ruba’s Law, eh? Is that what I’ve been citing? ;)
The rat poison article is very interesting. Although I imagine that the pro-abort stance will generally amount to, “Late-term abortions are very rare and only acceptable when medically necessary.” Weak!
Q. What is the difference between a woman killing her baby a week before its birth and an abortion a week before its birth?
A. An abortionist doesn’t get paid in the first instance.
Amanda,
Where’s the scientific proof that tissue grown in a lab has a heartbeat?
“Being able to run blood through something doesn’t make you human—in many cases, it makes you a dialysis machine. Having a working brain strikes me as the cut-off point in any case that doesn’t involve trying to control female sexuality because you loathe and resent women. ”
That’s so silly, it’s actually funny. Biology is dependent on ideology?
What Amanda’s argument does show, if nothing else, is that pro-lifers should not base their rejection of abortion on the fact that the fetus has a heartbeat, nor should we use the fact that a certain-aged fetus has a heartbeat to conclude that it is human because this, of course, undermines the humanity of the embryo who does not have a heart developed yet. No, our rejection of abortion is based on WHAT the unborn is, which is a human being. This can be argued in a variety of ways, but never ways which appeal to “accidental” properties or properties that do not define WHAT it is that makes a human a human.
I’ve already caught pro-aborts abandoning the idea that women should be able to control their bodies and apply it to women ought to be able to control their CHILDREN. period. forever. Inside their bodies and out. One pro-choicer once said “Women should get what they paid for which isn’t just an abortion but a DEAD FETUS.”
Look how the pro-aborts attacked the born-alive infant protection act. Look how they salivate at the chance to destroy embryos left by their parents at IVF clinics. What do those babies have to do with a woman controlling her body? They don’t. They just want to be able to kill children wherever whenever it suits them.
How can this obviously mental woman be charged with anything when all she did was perform a late term abortion?
Tiller did the same thing and Sarah Brown suffered for years before finally dying at age 5 from complications that were directly brought about by the abortion Tiller performed. Was Tiller ever brought up on charges? No.
Our society is schizo when it comes to pregnancy and children. You can thank abortion for that.
The abortion apologists will naturally blame pro-lifers for the death of Adams’ child. Because when people who don’t respect the lives of the unborn try to kill them before they’re born and succeed in killing them afterward, naturally the ones responsible are those who tried to defend their rights before anybody else cared enough to.
I like Ruba’s Law, but it needs to be pithier. In fact, the actual Godwin’s Law simply states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler or Nazis approaches one.” To be appropriately responsive, Ruba’s Law should be similarly short and to the point. Something like, “The probability of an appropriate comparison to Hitler or Nazis being dismissed is directly proportional to the volatility of the subject being discussed.”
…Something like that, anyway. I am not very snappy today, I think. *le sigh*
Good points of course. If we accept the failed logic that a certain sort of brainwave defines humanity and right to life, we lose a bit of credibility. What makes a human a human is not their ability to read or write, but their DNA. What makes me alive isn’t the fact that my brain is functioning but the fact that I have life, that is
the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
The Nazis killed this many human beings in 12 years:
30,000,000
The abortionists have killed this many human beings in 45 years:
1,600,000,000
Any questions?
Is Ruba a Jew? Reason I ask is because the ADL, which speaks for American Jews, absolutely abhors the comparison of abortion to the holocaust. As you know, Reformed Judaism and many conservative Jews are pro-choice – and yes, they have rabbinical scholarship to back them up. They would certainly be offended by “Joe” who actually says that abortion is worse than the taking of the lives of those post-born, fully actualized human beings, who were killed,in horrendous conditions, by the Nazis who remained, to their deaths, Christians. I have been to Dachau. To say that abortion is comparable is truly, truly ridiculous. There’s a reason why the “pro-life” movement does not include vast numbers of non Orthodox Jews.
http://www.adl.org/media_watch/newspapers/20060319-Lexington+Herald+.htm
The ADL also comments on an anti-Semitic strain in the extreme “pro-life” movement.
http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/3265_12.asp
“There is no definitive ruling within Reform on abortion, but there is a strong tendency to favour the liberal viewpoints of Jewish tradition; abortion is allowed in various circumstances where facilities are available for it to be carried out legally and safely. The right of an adult woman to make decisions about her own life and to have sovereignty over her own body are additional factors to be considered. Some Rabbis extend the principle of mental anguish and regard abortion as permissible “when the woman has serious emotional reservations about having the child” (Barbara Borts, Abortion – A Jewish Response, page 6). In the case of an unwanted child which may be unloved and uncared for, perhaps even abused, the quality of its life has to be taken into account. However, abortion as a form of contraception cannot be sanctioned.”
http://www.reformjudaism.org.uk/a-to-z-of-reform-judaism/medical-ethics/abortion.html
So Sydney, why isn’t the “pro-life” movement going after the IVF clinics. They’re “murdering” babies, right? At the least, the pro-life movement should insist that clergy be allowed to baptize the babies in the clinic. Right?
“I’d be very interested to see how pro-choice individuals view this case since they typically hold that women can do whatever they want to their bodies. “My body, my choice,” right? So if a woman wants to eat rat poison or take some abortifacient herb, that’s the woman’ choice”
The first question is – what are the laws in Indiana? But here’s my question. In a time of cash strapped state agencies, should child protective agencies be tasked with following pregnant women. In other words, if calls come in to the hotline, that a pregnant woman is drinking alchohol, should the state take custody of the woman’s fetus? How bout if she’s eating the wrong things? If a miscarriage occurs, should the state investigate to see if this was caused by malfeasance by the woman carrying the fetus? Should pregnant women be required to check in with state authorities, on a regular basis, to determine if the fetus is being properly cared for?
Inquiring minds want to know.
CC, Are you really comparing a woman miscarrying with a woman eating rat poison with the intention of killing her child?
Also, I’m sick and tired of this concept that because their ancestors were a large portion of the victims of the Holocaust, Jewish people are the deciding factor in the comparison between one Holocaust and another. While it is important to be considerate of the feelings of those most affected, it is also important that we not allow their feelings to overshadow TRUTH.
CC,
Actually there are some pro-lifers who go after IVF. One such group of pro-lifers is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does NOT approve of IVF because unwanted pre-born humans are aborted in the process of using the IVF method. So yes, there are pro-lifers who are against IVF.
The Holocaust and Abortion have a very important thing in common:
The massive slaughter of human beings.
Why are pre-born babies “less human” than humans out of the womb? We’re all made of the same material. We all have the same basic biological make up. We all develop and grow and learn. Pre-born babies have been known to suck their thumb, flip around inside the womb, kick and bump. I’ve been pregnat, so I’ve experienced this phenomona for myself. I can tell you I wasn’t just carrying around “a bunch of cells” in my body, I was carrying a LIFE.
And for the 94 thousandth time Jews were NOT the only ones to die in the Holocaust.
Catholics and others died, too. In fact, one Catholic was declared a saint because he gave his life for another. His name is Maximillan Kolbe. He was a prisoner in Auschwitz and he died in the place of someone else because that person had a family.
The Holocaust is not just Jewish “property”. Lots of people lost their lives that weren’t Jews.
This isn’t to diminish the pain and the fact that Jews were targeted, but they were not the only ones to die in the Holocaust.
We must learn from past mistakes. Determining any human as less than human simply because they do not look, act, think or feel the same way one set of human looks, acts, feels, thinks is a grave mistake whether it’s a particular race or a pre-born human. We’re ALL human beings. We’re ALL created the SAME way. Human egg plus human sperm equals human being.
I totally agree with Bobby and MaryRose. When brainwaves and heartbeats begin are just two-by-fours to the heads of pro-choicers, trying to get through to them. But the fact that a human life has begun should be all the point that’s necessary. As the human grows – ages – more and more aspects of it’s life are added.
CC, you’re new at this subject, aren’t you? Because you’re last post isn’t up to teen-age level in sophistication.
And a holocaust – genocide – of a whole group of people has many examples in history. Isn’t wiping out millions at their youngest and most vulnerabe age comparable to the Holocaust of WWII? Don’t we get an extra twist in our guts at the news of schoolchildren being killed, like Arafat at Maalot?
I do wonder if the woman who intentionally consumed rat poison during pregnancy wasn’t a case of a failed suicide attempt or self-destructive behavior (with dire consequences for the baby), a cry for help, or both, or just a cry for attention. Also, state law cut-off for abortion is 24 weeks and I’m not sure what kind of feticide laws are on the books.
I would like to add one thing:
I would think that those Jewish persons who comprehend the humanity of the preborn would feel it very important that we do recognize the similarities of the Holocaust with abortion. It seems that those touched by the Holocaust would want more than anyone else to prevent the occurrence from repeating.
And CC, you have been around these blogs long enough to know the reality of abortion. Are you really going to say that ripping infants limb from limb is more humane than gassing them? I’m not going to say either is more humane than the other, personally. I consider them both travesties and absolutely avoidable.
There is nothing in Jewish or Christian moral teaching to support unlimited killing of every member of the human race through prenatal homicide.
The abortionist mentality is without foundation in moral philosophy, in logic, in human (or placental mammal) biology or any true religious tradition.
“I’d be very interested to see how pro-choice individuals view this case since they typically hold that women can do whatever they want to their bodies. “My body, my choice,” right? So if a woman wants to eat rat poison or take some abortifacient herb, that’s the woman’ choice.”
You and other like-minded people keep bringing up situations like this as an example of a supposed inconsistency in the pro-choice position; that abortion is legal and yet a person can still be charged with manslaughter or homicide for acting in a way that leads to the death of a fetus in utero. In doing so, you misidentify the root cause of this inconsistency and thus misplace the blame for it: prosecutors and lawmakers pursuing an agenda that conflicts with the spirit, but not the letter, of the case law as it currently relates to abortion. Most if not all pro-choice people would agree that it’s insanity to bring criminal charges for the death of a fetus, precisely because of the huge gap in the law that you have observed. But unfortunately, the constitutional right to abortion is quite narrow, legally, and so agenda-driven legislators and criminal prosecutors can skirt the logical implications of that right without explicitly violating it. My ideal solution would be to enact laws that clearly state that rights are accrued only at the point of birth and never before, thus making it legally impossible to bring a charge of homicide for the killing of a fetus.
“There is nothing in Jewish or Christian moral teaching to support unlimited killing of every member of the human race through prenatal homicide.”
Really? Are you a rabbi? Are you even Jewish? Would you seriously tell a pro-choice rabbi that you know Jewish moral teaching and law better than they do and that they’re wrong?
“So Sydney, why isn’t the “pro-life” movement going after the IVF clinics. They’re “murdering” babies, right? At the least, the pro-life movement should insist that clergy be allowed to baptize the babies in the clinic. Right?”
That’s an interesting point. I’ve never heard of anyone protesting outside an IVF clinic before, even though the “official” pro-life position seems to be that embryos are morally equivalent to fetuses, and probably far more embryos are created, destroyed, or frozen as a result of IVF treatments per year than abortions occur.
Why should location make a difference as to when rights are conferred?
Pro-life Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s insurance death panel kills another victim.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_transplant_coverage_death
In regard to the rat poison case, one wonders if all the woman will really be able to be charged with is practicing medicine without a license.
Of course, up until a law was passed in 2005 Indiana abortion clinics could operate without any health, safety or licensing standards–so even that charge probably wouldn’t have stuck, back then.
CC said:
“So Sydney, why isn’t the “pro-life” movement going after the IVF clinics. They’re “murdering” babies, right? At the least, the pro-life movement should insist that clergy be allowed to baptize the babies in the clinic. Right?”
CC, did you realize that from the point of conception those embryos are baptized in the Holy Spirit? We do not give life. It is the Holy Spirit who is the giver of life.
CC said:
“They would certainly be offended by “Joe” who actually says that abortion is worse than the taking of the lives of those post-born, fully actualized human beings, who were killed,in horrendous conditions, by the Nazis who remained, to their deaths, Christians. ”
CC,
First of all, Joe never said abortion was ‘worse”. Here is what Joe said :
“The Nazis killed this many human beings in 12 years:
30,000,000
The abortionists have killed this many human beings in 45 years:
1,600,000,000
Any questions?”
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
But I say to you that they are both terrible evils and it could be debated that a mother killing her child is ‘worse’ then an adult killing another adult. I would love to clarify this for you but first define for me what you mean by ‘worse’.
Erin Manning said:
“In regard to the rat poison case, one wonders if all the woman will really be able to be charged with is practicing medicine without a license.”
Erin, she should at the very least be sentenced to mental health counseling for several years. You can’t do something like that unless you are really, really, depressed and want to hurt yourself too.
mp,
That article is a perfect example of why we need to get rid of Medicare all together. Obamacare is the road to what happened in Arizona for all of us. You can expect this kind of thing when you empower our government with control over our health care. But the Democrats would do just that to all of us if they get their way and we fail to repeal Obamacare. The problem here isn’t JUST funding. The problem is that the government should not be in control of our health care decisions period. I was glad to see the House moving aggressively to repeal Obamacare. I hope they start some serious debate around Paul Ryan’s plan soon so we can keep control of our own selves.
CC said:
“In other words, if calls come in to the hotline, that a pregnant woman is drinking alchohol, should the state take custody of the woman’s fetus? How bout if she’s eating the wrong things? ”
No, but the government already makes it illegal for any business to serve french fries cooked in fat. If they can get away with that now just wait till they have everybodys complete medical records on everybody. They will creep it in. First this year a spot for you to tell them who is your medical insurance provider. Then collecting all your medical information from them under the power given to them by Obamacare. Then they’ll pass ever more laws about what we can eat too if they can. Inquiring minds know that is where we are headed. Maybe Obamacare was the wake up call we needed. Now we can not only repeal Obamacare; but also to get rid of Medicare and replace it with something like Paul Ryan is putting forward. Something that gets government out of our health care decisions.
“That article is a perfect example of why we need to get rid of Medicare all together.”
If you say goodbye to Medicare, you say hello to crippling old age poverty in America.
You also say hello–again–to poor houses, county farms and REAL death panels.
Sorry, that’s a nogo, a non-starter.
Anyway, I could never take Paul Ryan, the guy who cast the deciding vote on Medicare Part D, seriously. He created a giveaway to the drug companies, which is exactly what they wanted.
Joan said (in response to my argument that nothing in Judaism or Christianity supports the killing of unborn children):
“Really? Are you a rabbi? Are you even Jewish? Would you seriously tell a ‘pro-choice’ ‘rabbi’ that you know Jewish moral teaching and law better than they do and that they’re wrong?”
Yes, I would.
I am not a rabbi, nor am I even Jewish. That gives me something in common with “pro-choice” “rabbis” who are themselves neither rabbis nor Jewish.
Abortionism is the negation of all moral and human values. It is certainly the negation of all Jewish and Christian values, as it allows for the complete destruction of all human beings made in the image of God. You can either be a Christian or Jew or you can be an abortionist. You cannot be both.
The abortionist mentality states that all human beings can be destroyed and all of us can have our entire human lifespans taken away from us. It completely negates the right to a full human lifespan lived in accordance with our nature and therefore destroys the foundation of all human rights. It is completely pointless to talk about rights or philosophy or religion once you support the complete destruction of the human species.
How about the possibility that the rat poison eating woman has some very serious mental health issues?
mp 4:31am,
I well remember the days before Medicare and my grandparents and elderly relatives all received the necessary medical care and hospitalizations. In fact, it seemed to me they were always in the hospital for some reason or another. There were no death panels and I do not recall them going to a county farm or poor house. I’m not sure they even existed. In fact, my elderly relatives were financially solvent, owned their own homes, and managed their finances very well.
Enter the gov’t and you have out of control expenses, corruption, gov’t control, and wasted billions.
“Yes, I would.
I am not a rabbi, nor am I even Jewish. That gives me something in common with “pro-choice” “rabbis” who are themselves neither rabbis nor Jewish.”
In that case, they’d probably take you about as seriously as I do, which is not much. Maybe you could lecture them on proper kosher eating habits while you’re at it, since you seem to be an expert on religions you don’t even belong to.
“In fact, my elderly relatives were financially solvent, owned their own homes, and managed their finances very well.”
Oh, well since your elderly relatives are financially solvent homeowners, that means all elderly people are. I’m glad you cleared that one up: no elderly person is incapable of affording their own medical care without Medicare or other government assistance.
Would pro-choicers feel comfortable telling the Jewish Pro-life Foundation and their rabbis that they are wrong? Who cares if a majority of Jews are pro-choice…everyone knows 100 percent of people can believe one thing and still be wrong. And there are many Jews who ARE pro-life and back it up with Jewish law and tradition.
http://www.jewishprolifefoundation.org/
Joan:
You did not refute anything I said. In typical abortionist fashion, you simply evaded any rational response.
I stand by my point that unlimited killing of human beings is contrary to the fundamental moral teachings of Judaism and Christianity, as well as being totally contrary to natural law. I do not think you are remaining true to the moral teaching of these great religions if you believe in destroying the whole human race through abortion violence.
Even if such “rabbis” were to dismiss my arguments without refuting them (which I do not believe they can) that would not prove I was wrong. It would only demonstrate that they did not like my arguments and did not want to deal with them. The arguments could still be either right or wrong.
Try actually responding to an argument I make and try actually refuting or attempting to refute it.
Respond to and try to refute this argument:
You cannot be a Christian or a Jew if you would support or allow unlimited killing of us human beings in the first nine months of our lives and would allow us to be deprived of our entire human lifespans.
“Would pro-choicers feel comfortable telling the Jewish Pro-life Foundation and their rabbis that they are wrong?”
Unlike Joe, I don’t make it my business to tell practitioners (much less scholars) of a faith that they don’t know their own religious doctrine. In any modern, enlightened religion there is room for reasonable pluralism.
“You did not refute anything I said. In typical abortionist fashion, you simply evaded any rational response.”
There is nothing to “refute”. You’re sitting here trying to tell me that you are more qualified to interpret Jewish religious doctrine than doctors of the faith are. It’s just stupid and arrogant. Would you go and argue with a Buddhist monk about some aspect of karma or reincarnation?
mp said:
“If you say goodbye to Medicare, you say hello to crippling old age poverty in America.
You also say hello–again–to poor houses, county farms and REAL death panels.
Sorry, that’s a nogo, a non-starter.
Anyway, I could never take Paul Ryan, the guy who cast the deciding vote on Medicare Part D, seriously. He created a giveaway to the drug companies, which is exactly what they wanted.”
mp, Ryan’s plan has no benefit decreases to the ones that already depend on Medicare so your so your crippling old age poverty story would fall under the category of “fiction”. It phases Medicare out over time by replacing it with something else for future generations. Ryan obviously realized that Medicare Part A-Z needs to go so he has proposed, and is wanting to eliminate whatever Medicare drug company give-away that you are referring to. At least read the plan and pick it apart; it makes no sense dismiiss it out-of-hand. Especially since you think Obamacare was misstep. That is unless you actually think Obamacare didn’t go far enough and that the misstep was that they didn’t go immediately to a single payer system where everybody is forced onto government health plans. Is that what you meant when you said Obamacare was a misstep in the right direction?
Experts can be wrong. If I see what I consider to be an unsound argument, I will attempt to refute it. I will not be concerned about who is making the argument, only whether or not the argument is sound.
“Modern enlightened religion”? ”Reasonable pluralism”? What is “modern”, “enlightened” or “reasonable” about unlimited killing of helpless innocent human beings?
There IS something to refute. I made a statement which I believed to be true. Either accept it or refute it.
Yes, I would argue with a Buddhist monk about karma or reincarnation if I thought he was wrong. What is wrong with engaging other people in debate?
Maybe you could lecture them on proper kosher eating habits while you’re at it, since you seem to be an expert on religions you don’t even belong to.
This coming from a self-absorbed, self-professed, cultural-catholic, vocal abortion-promoter who attends Mass twice a year.
Thanks for my first belly-laugh this week, joan.
Cha-ching! +6 = $24
I am Catholic and there is no negotiating on our 2,000 + year old faith. Two top Jewish rabbis in Israel just denounced abortion, too. Anyone who is pro-abortion is neither Catholic nor Jewish. I can label myself a Mercedes Benz but that doesn’t make me a fancy car. Finally, Tibetan Buddhists in particular are well trained in debate. They have debating festivals where everyone gathers to debate points. It is an integral part of their religious training for monks and nuns. They are very open to debating with you and as long as you’re polite, take them on!
There is a latin term for taking a position that depends on your audience’s lack of knowledge in hopes that they will believe you because they don’t know any better: argumentum ignoratum. ;>).