Jivin J’s Life Links 2-1-11
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- In Canada, the Carleton University student association has upheld its decision to ban the university’s pro-life club.
- A federal judge has struck down a Baltimore city ordinance which required crisis pregnancy centers to post signs saying they don’t perform abortions:“Whether a provider of pregnancy-related services is ‘pro-life’ or ‘pro-choice,’ it is for the provider – not the government – to decide when and how to discuss abortion and birth-control methods,” [U.S. District Judge Marvin J.] Garbis wrote. “The Government cannot, consistent with the First Amendment, require a ‘pro-life’ pregnancy-related service center to post a sign.”
The Center for Reproductive Rights is planning to appeal.
- The Delaware Family Policy Council is calling on U.S. Attorney Charles Oberly to launch a federal investigation into the DE abortion clinics which were recently dropped as members of the National Abortion Federation:Council President Nicole Theis said Dr. Arturo Apolinario – whose listed phone number on several medical websites is the same as that for Atlantic’s Wilmington clinic – has let his controlled-substances license expire, meaning he could be in violation of federal drug laws if he has prescribed or administered any of the drugs since June 2009….
Theis added that Apolinario is the only doctor other than Gosnell who her organization knows is associated with the Atlantic clinics.
Feb.01, 2011 1:00 pm |
Blogs |
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.
Silly journalist! They said it was because of the student association’s “policy against discrimination”. Clearly, they meant to say the association’s “discrimination policy”. As in, they have a policy to discriminate against anyone who believes something that those in power don’t happen to like.
When I was in college, the campus groups for PP supporters and Feminist Majority[sic] supporters made me nauseous, but I would not have used student organization policies to keep them from meeting, unless they were blatantly not playing by the rules. I saw it as my job to try to reach them, just like I wanted to reach everybody else.
Free speech for me, but not for thee . . .
I stumbled upon this paragraph in a blog post by Ta-Nehisi Coates, on the abortion/slavery analogy:
“In that difference lies the racism implicit in the abortion/slavery analogy Santorum employs and Klein defends. The analogy necessarily holds that the enslaved were the equivalent of embryos–helpless, voiceless beings in need of saviors. In this view of American history, the saviors, much like the pro-life movement, are white. In fact, African-Americans, unlike, say, zygotes, were always quite outspoken on their fitness for self-determination. Indeed, from the Cimaroons to Equiano to Nat Turner to Harriet Tubman to the 54th regiment, slaves were quite vociferous on the matter of their enslavement. It is simply impossible to imagine the end of slavery without the action of slaves themselves. And it is equally impossible to say the same about the end of abortion, if only because fetuses are generally incapable of egressing from the womb and setting up maroon societies, publishing newspapers or returning to the womb to “liberate” other presumably endangered fetuses.”
I think that has to be one of the worst examples of logic I’ve ever come across. First of all, it disingenuously focuses on the exact wrong part of the analogy – the helpessness of the embryo versus the legal status of it - the better to take offense by inferring that slaves are being called helpless and non-sentient etc.
Second, the implication is that if it is impossible to imagine the end to slavery without the actions of slaves, it should be impossible to imagine the end of abortion without the actions of fetuses. Except that, of course, every single person opposing abortion was a fetus, so in some ways the movement IS brought about by the actions of “fetuses” – just, after they have moved on from being fetuses. The claim is that fetuses who have left the womb don’t return to it to rescue others – but that’s what the pro-life movement is, in fairly melodramatic terms. I really kind of couldn’t believe that, writing that sentence, the analogy didn’t seem glaringly obvious.
Third, this argument misses the clear point that according to its own logic, if slave-owners had simply killed all slaves before they were mentally and physically capable of rebelling, then slavery not only wouldn’t have ended – but SHOULDN’T have. Because of course it is not out of complacency or just sheer lack of desire that fetuses don’t rebel, but rather due to the fact that they are killed before they are able to rebel - as evidenced by the fact that many of them do rebel once they are mentally and physically capable.
Fourth, of course, slaves certainly had a hand in their own freedom, but without the support of non-slaves, freedom would likely never have come about. Without citizens willing to debate, soldiers willing to fight, and government officials willing to enact legislation, what was once rebellion would never have become the status quo, but would have always remained a counter-movement. The fact is, free white people were in charge of stuff. Those people had to be persuaded – intellectually, morally, or physically – to support, or at least tolerate, abolition. Certainly the efforts of enslaved, non-white people helped persuade, in all of those ways, but at the end of the day, nothing changes if nothing changes. So this idea that the support of non-fetuses invalidates the cause doesn’t even hold up in the twisted analogy. Free people ended slavery, because they were the ones with the power to both end slavery; and born people will necessarily need to be the ones to end abortion because they are the ones with the power to do so.
I was just kind of dumbfounded by that entire paragraph. There are few things I hate as much as crummy logic.
But religion defies logic…it borders on faith and a set of must do that only the disciplined shall be…