As an adopted son myself, I completely identify with the sentiments expressed by Kevin Williamson in his NRO note to House Republicans: that they eschewed the wide-ranging wishes of the public because they feared backlash in a couple of seats (yes, we’re looking at you, Rep Ellmers and Walorski) further proves to me that politics is all about protecting incumbency and has nothing whatever to do with principle. The US government as designed has lost its way, an inevitability, really, once politicians began using the Constitution as a kind of glorified Chinese menu, picking and choosing items from individual articles and clauses in order to create a personalized buffet plate of comfort-food relativism and legal revisionism.
There’s no need for me to (yet again) go into the faulty and incoherent linguistic assumptions that allow this to continue (and that are still defended, sometimes doggedly and to the point of utter psychosis, by those on the right who may make their living off of the continued acceptance of institutionalized interpretive theft); suffice to say, that without an insistence upon originalism, the Constitution is at best reduced to an occasional inconvenience for ambitious politicians.
Instead, I’ll note only this: I have long described myself as “reluctantly” pro-choice — which means pro-choice with a number of restrictions, my imperfect (admittedly) way of trying to balance viable human life with a woman’s control over her own body.
As Williamson points out, only 17% of those who even call themselves pro-choice support the latest “civil right” pressed by Obama and the remnants of the Sanger eugenicist movement, as it’s merged with the establishment feminist movement — that civil right being the “right” to wait until the last minute to decide if the living being in utero lives or dies.
What used to be a question of viability is now an assertion that “viability makes no difference, this is about individual autonomy and choice” — with the obvious oversight that the pre-born child, whose life is certainly viable outside the womb but whose inability to crawl out on his or her own when they sense the biological mother harboring them is ready to grant license to some disinterested doctor to jam a scissor blade into their skulls, has no choice at all in the matter.
The radicalism of people like Obama, or the nouveau eugenicists like the execrable Amanda Marcotte, who somehow speaks for a slew of equally willing murderers, has moved me closer and closer to the pro-life camp. I can’t quite get there yet: I still believe viability is the “reasonable” compromise in the balance of liberty issues that rub against each other at the nexus of women’s rights to have final say over their own bodies and the rights of living humans to be brought to term once they’ve reached the point where they are capable of living outside some dithering, inconvenienced woman who believes them disposable, often merely to maintain some kind of lifestyle they feel entitled to (remember: adoption is always an option).
A baby at 5 months, as I know personally from looking at ultrasounds of my own two children, is quite alive and quite human. The reluctance to protect them — even from ostensibly pro-life Republicans — from the twisted propaganda campaigns they fear the left will level against their re-election bids, is the height of cravenness.
Were it me, and were there a party ready to take on the task? Tar and feathers might send an appropriate message.
My own metamorphosis to unreservedly Pro-Life came as a result of trying to answer philosophical questions which seem never to be part of the debate. Are we destroying something? If “yes,” what is this “thing.” Is it human life? Is it innocent? The answers to those questions, when I was honest with myself, trumped questions/issues of personal autonomy. Regardless of the circumstances, the innocent human life to be destroyed by definition played no role in its own existence. No amount of personal expediency nor any amount of desiring to be rid of the result of a criminal act would in allow the the taking of a life of one who was not involved.
SCOTUS shortcut those discussions in 1972 and we are the worse for it.
What ever happened to “safe and rare”?
Advances in treating pre-mature births has turned me on the issue of late term abortion.
Lefties don’t seem happy with a victory unless the loser is forced to pay or do something against their will.
For YEARS I have tried to get people on the right to acknowledge the woman’s right to decide how her body should function. For MUCH longer I have tried to get people on the left to acknowledge the child’s right to life once it is clear s/he can survive (ie, viability which has slowly gotten earlier and earlier though I think we are close to the maximum with 21-22 weeks). I am not happy with 22 or even 20 weeks anymore….18 weeks is my cut off. That gives a woman 2-3 months to decide.
I have never found anyone that is staunchly left or right willing to accept ANY ‘viability’ standard – regardless of the range. It is up to the majority of people…us…to bring the rest along. Given 80% of the middle 80% don’t bother to vote, it will remain a place the far right and left can rally their troops.
By the way: all that evil needs to survive and flourish is that it be the lesser evil.
For the life of me I can’t understand or envision a legitimate reason for a woman to wait more than 20 weeks to abort their baby. When it happens, the woman outta be permanently sterilized ‘cuz of they’re too stupid and cruel to be a parent.
I’m willing to extend Marcotte the benefit of the doubt, and reckon that her bloodlust for the unborn is due to a deeply-suppressed wish that her mother had shown more mercy, and ended her life before it had the chance to turn into the joyless and chaotic existence it has become.
we can just leave things how they are now and focus on other stuff
For YEARS I have tried to get people on the right to acknowledge the woman’s right to decide how her body should function.
That’s a strange way of wording it: “how her body should function.”
The “should function” is hard-coded by the double X (among other genes), and the reproductive system is brutally single-minded about its Prime Directive.
Like the nature that finds its way in Jurassic Park, conception eventually asserts itself despite measures to prevent it. That’s how a woman’s body “should work” when sperm enters the birth canal.
Women already have the right and the ability to decide whether sperm enters her birth canal or whether something thwarts its long swim once it’s been deposited. Only rape (marital or otherwise) is a violation of a woman’s ability to control her body: all other unintended pregnancies are just nature finding a way to fulfill its Prime Directive.
As long as both parties are fertile, every act of copulation carries the risk of pregnancy. Grown-ups accept that fact; adolescents cry foul.
All that evil needs to survive and flourish is that it be the lesser evil.
Excellent observation, including the correct use of the subjunctive.
Consider it stolen.
There is an unbroken line between conception and death. It’s human all the way, and murder to deliberately end that life. Any other argument about when those cells “become human” will not stand up to any kind of close scrutiny.
While it’s true that the woman is the host, the baby is a distinctly different entity. The baby isn’t “her body.”
I did not arrive at that position overnight. What pushed me closer long ago was reading about what the typical abortion looked like. It’s barbaric. I made it the rest of the way slowly over time.
However, I am not interested in passing laws against abortion before the first trimester. I’m not even sure where the line should be drawn legally. That is something that should be hashed out by rational actors. Too bad there aren’t any available. Obama certainly isn’t one of them.
Rather than passing laws, I would rather just try to convince people that it’s wrong. It kills the baby, it harms most of the women who have them, and it cheapens life overall in our society. If death is so easily dispensed, why not start killing more people who are inconvenient?
I meant that there aren’t any rational actors available who are in a position to pass laws. There are plenty around here.
What cranky said.
>we can just leave things how they are now and focus on other stuff<
like what?
tar & feather news
Renee Ellmers Call Your Campaign Team, You Have A Primary Challenge
Well, almost.
Grown-ups accept that fact; adolescents cry foul.
Killing a nascent human life as “back-up” is immoral, even if it is legal.
The whole abortion-on-demand-and-no-apology crowd isn’t about adulthood or individual responsibility, it is about control
And when you can convince a significant amount of the population that individuals don’t matter, it’s their utility to the group, you’ve gotten half way there to controlling the masses.
we can focus on stuff like enjoying the weekend
well, two Gosnell cheerleaders are taking to rewriting Jeff’s post
https://twitter.com/Sarah_Oy/status/558826576562102272
Hamsters can focus on stuff like pretending they’re not condoning mass murder for money.
You mean like permitting abortion through the 18th week of gestation? Because a saline bath is the same thing as an act of God?
this issue just isn’t something your piece of shit federal government is supposed to insert itself into one way or another
it’s an issue what should be left to the states simple as pickles
Republicans have no especial moral authority you know
they’re just whores
and as such they need to be constrained by the Constitution i think
sure it should be a state issue but, Roe v Wade kinda made it a Federal issue.
The bear is right, hamster. Take it up with Harry Blackmun, et al.
i may at that Mr. McGehee
after I get my stuff out of the dryer
The whole abortion-on-demand-and-no-apology crowd isn’t about adulthood or individual responsibility, it is about control
And when you can convince a significant amount of the population that individuals don’t matter, it’s their utility to the group, you’ve gotten half way there to controlling the masses.
This is true in another sense – by controlling the political message, they have a captive/non-thinking voter base. It isn’t even about abortion anymore. It becomes “my body, my choice” taken to a shrill of nonsense.
Because women have lots of choices that are pretty much ignored. Abstinence, birth control, adoption and parenthood.
But of course. It’s hard to be persuasive in wet clothes.
damn skippy
You will never unthread the Gordian knot of when life begins, or viability, or any other secondary issue of the conflict until responsibility is introduced into the discussion.
Do women give up the right to their body when they offer it freely to a man? Let’s have THAT discussion. There are laws that won’t let you kick a manipulative and threatening drifter out of your home if you’ve unwittingly and mercifully provided shelter for them and they’ve come to expect it. Sweet mercy. The blurred line is in responsibility, not in when life begins.
Excellent suggestion, Joan —
Just like “race”, the argument over abortion is fraught with people who look at their opponents as not debating in good faith and everyone gets tangled up in tangential issues.
“Do women give up the right to their body when they offer it freely to a man?”
What the hell are you talking about?
I thought it was just me that didn’t get it, RC.
She’s talking about pregnancy, the natural consequence of intercourse, which, as Di pointed out above, is the female body functioning the way it should.
The corollary thought is, does a man assume certain responsibilities, as they used to say, when he accepts what’s been freely offered?
does a man assume certain responsibilities, as they used to say, when he accepts what’s been freely offered?
Heh, if he doesn’t a shotgun wedding has traditionally been the answer.
Heh, if he doesn’t a shotgun wedding has traditionally been the answer.
There’s the rub, Lee. Our culture no longer accepts, let alone enforces, the mutual responsibility of men or women when pregnancy “happens.”
Not that couples didn’t take their chances when deciding to dance between the sheets — they knew, either explicitly or implicitly that if pregnancy did occur, consequences would include a marriage of necessity.
To whom a woman gives up the right to her body is not the man she agrees to have sex with, but the temporary resident aka baby. Then both parents have a minimal 18 years of obligation or they relinquish those rights via adoption.
Contemporary culture has muddled and blurred human rights and obligations. Now the female and the female alone makes all decisions about the life/death/support of the separate and unique human being that grows within her. Men are not allowed any choice post ejaculation, yet may end up with obligations totally dependent on what the woman decides.
Such a morally untenable condition makes for hostility between the sexes rather than helping them become a team.
Feature, not bug.
One reason the Left has a hard time with our position is that they believe it’s not really our position, that it’s a proxy for “women must be punished for daring to be sexy.”
You know, that old crap where women were the chattel of their fathers, then husbands, and so banning or limiting abortion is just another way to keep women down.
Telling, that: they’ve decided that our argument is (a) not about what it’s about and (b) about power, ultimately.
Exactly what their arguments always are.
#waronwomen
Barack Obama Official Twitter Account Follows Crude Sexist Anti-Sarah Palin Account
I bring up the sheltering issue because it’s a parallel to a viewpoint in law that instinctively succors the helpless, even at great cost to the Samaritan who “opens their home up” to another, invites them in, stores their things and lets them imagine a place of safety and human sustenance.
Does a woman have to give up her right to her “home” when she invites another in? No. And because that answer is–HAS to be– “no” right out of the gate, before we even argue the finer points of responsibility and law, that is why we dance on the head of a pin trying to define life.
What is the point of arguing about when life begins as though we don’t know how it happens?
I speak to women only in this: a woman invites a man into her very interior knowing full well if she’s invited him to leave his progeny there, or whether she has made other arrangements. And if she has, through determination or negligence, made it very likely that the two of them will have created a life, a life that finds shelter and nourishment within her very “house” then where life begins is a ploy. Where does her responsibility for that occurrence begin? It begins when she learns how babies are made. Period. If you do x, y will likely happen and you can’t be 100% sure that your precautions will hold.
Let’s just talk about when the woman is responsible for her actions. Before the first glass of wine? Tell me when did women become helpless cattle of instincts and passion? When it quit costing them to act that way. Men got the shotgun threat. Women get free condoms and still get a pity-pass. We won’t address that. We’ll giggle about paying for milk when the cow is free. For an otherwise healthy, well-adjusted woman to lower herself to the wretched “choice” of abortion says plenty about her command of her own sovereign being, her own control of who and when. Her “choice” about her body is about who she chooses to be at every moment: the ruler of her Self or a mindless, pitiable cow.
The whole so-called feminist “yes” means “no” nonsense is an outcropping of this crippling accommodation of women’s apparently weak fortitude. They are encouraged to be emotional, societal parasites– which is why they project that attitude on their unborn child: an unwelcome parasite disrupting the comforts of her home.
Much easier to play in the penumbras of mystery than to speak plainly, if brusquely, about the real problem. Much easier to posit a thousand pitiful scenarios of rape or ruin than to just point to the first problem: when does responsibility begin? I’m beginning to think that for women, it never does.
Thanks, Joan. If I understand you correctly, I agree.
Sex is not free of consequences. However, the left has done all it can to remove consequences. I don’t think that has worked out well at all, but I also think it has worked out as they wanted it to.
Geez. I should get a blog… sorry for the long comment.
Yeah Darleen, the sad thing is in past times the mutual responsibility for a conception was met with a marriage contract heavily enforced by societal pressure. But marriage is not regarded like that in this post enlightenment age. Marriage these days is regarded as nothing more than a public display of romantic love, and maybe a tax break or two, build on the shifting sands of feelings.
The responsibility for raising kids is on the village now, or at least as much as the parents wish to pass on, and marriage subject to abandonment on a whim with no harm no foul. Hell, I doubt teenagers today place no more importance on marriage than joining a book club. In fact, perversely, these days societal pressure pushes boys into irresponsibility and emotional detachment from any conception, being as the life or death of said conception is beyond his control.
No, it was appreciated, JOA. And I understand the responsibility argument completely, just as I understand where and what it has done to women and the whole idea of feminism: it’s anathema to equality, yet it poses as a kind of empowerment. Which it is, legally, just as is, say, affirmative action. It’s the government empowering irresponsibility and giving it a pass.
I’m where I am now because it’s the best I can come up with as a political and moral stance generally. For me, given the federalization 0f Roe v Wade, the best first step toward pushing back is by encouraging states to pass the very restrictions I support — and to use viability as a strong indictment against the abortion on demand crowd, particularly at that point where what is happening is, axiomatically, murder.
Abortion clinics are closing. Slowly, we’re winning.
Oh, I appreciate your pushing back on the viability question, and all who do. It’s a blind alley, unfortunately. I’m pretty sure if the abortion industry lobby loses on that point, they have quite the card up their sleeve for the mother’s health, potentiality, economic viability, or some such. The flesh is in their teeth, the jingle is in their pocket.
I’m taking an asymmetrical nudging approach, much as the Left loves to do. I’m bringing back personal shame, disgust, and shunning of such stupidity. How could so many women find themselves so “unfortunately” pregnant? There can’t have been 50+ million extenuating circumstances. Not in a society as advanced, genteel, scientific and progressive as ours. Not with every prophylactic imaginable, every empowerment available, and so much sex education so widely distributed in our society. It must be something else.
I refuse to let everyone have it both ways. They want to argue viability, I’ll argue about when a mother’s own societal viability begins. It’s Julias all the way down.
Hence the Supreme Court’s decision to “settle” the vexing question of pseudogamy in the near future.
No doubt with all the finality of Roe and Dred Scot.
Saw the Twitter thread, and of course, if you’re pro-life, why you must just LOVES you some rape! Yep, that’s the level of logic we’ve all come to know and love from the mouth-foaming fems.
What a horrific thing to compare a woman to, as “harboring” life. O, what gnashing of teeth that caused! Why, how dare someone compare a woman to an object that provides safety and shelter! Geez, it’s not like someone trotted out some pun on the welcoming of seamen…
Here’s my question: who carries a rape baby around for 5 months, then kills it? Is this an epidemic? Am I really that out of the loop?
what kind of woman reports a rape to the police and then doesn’t have an abortion?(dna stuff saved)
yea rape matters
DETROIT — Nearly five years after the discovery of 11,000 abandoned rape evidence kits in a Detroit police warehouse sparked outrage, only about 2,000 of the kits have undergone DNA testing,
BRAVA, Joan!
[stands, applauds]
“Here’s my question: who carries a rape baby around for 5 months, then kills it? Is this an epidemic? Am I really that out of the loop?”
Well, all sex is rape. At least, that’s what the feminists were saying yesterday. I have no idea if they’re saying that today. Someone have Lena Dunham on speed-dial to find out their latest self-loathing screed?
Offhand, I’d say the kind of woman who takes five months to decide that she hadn’t really consented to sex after all. At least not enthusiastically.
Alternatively, the scorned woman avenging herself on the cad who knocked her up and then moved on to a fresh hook-up instead of staying in a relationship with her.
-Damn interesting discussion.
-My two cents [on a debit card, of course]…
Whether the pregnant woman had consensual sex or was raped, there is now another Life involved: the baby. That this small Life is programmed to developed inside of the body of a woman is of absolutely no concern Morally – it is a Human Life and, therefore, it has all of the rights that have been endowed to Human Beings by the Creator. Case closed. No appeal possible, if you are a believer in Freedom and Ordered Liberty.
When does Human Life begin? My theory is at conception – this based on my understanding of the Soul. But we have no scientific proof when Life begins – and we may never. If we believe that all Human Beings are endowed with The Right To Life, then I believe [and it is only a belief; Jeff’s reasonable approach is just as Legitimate] we should not risk ending an innocent Life for ‘light and transient causes’, as is were. Therefore, all abortions must be illegal.
And, since The Constitution does not grant any power to the national government concerning this practice, it is a matter for the Several States to act upon – if they so choose.
To achieve Victory in the War Against Abortion, we, who are against Abortion, are, ultimately, going have to win over the people’s hearts and minds.
Human life is meaningless (humans are unique in their intellectual development and accomplishnents, sure, an animal like no other, but biologically of little difference or significance) unless there’s a a supranatural soul that’s granted to us. Then there’s embedded meaning.
There you have it, the key to human life. Either we are, or aren’t, creatures designed to house and nurture souls for a short period of time. If not, then Animal Husbandry polity as endorsed and practiced by Leftists (who are all atheists…imagine that!) is acceptable, and necessary.
Jars of Clay, or herded beasts. Choose your own way.
If we are herded beasts, then we need to increase the convenience killings. There are a lot of beasts who are doing no work but are taking my money for their upkeep. It’s time and past time they were slaughtered.
Soylent green is PEOPLE.
Secular Arguments for Life
When does Human Life begin? My theory is at conception – this based on my understanding of the Soul.
Bob, spiritually speaking you are no doubt right, but for the purposes of law I would be happy to define the beginning of life as the first heartbeat.
Course Iran will have better luck negotiating with a progg for a nuclear bomb than a conservative will negotiating for the life of a baby. They seem to become uncommonly un-bipartisan and non-compromisey when it comes to pro-life.
Herded they are, by their uber-masters. But only for as long as their votes are needed.
Once these masters assume #CONTROL, without need for their votes, those beasts will discover what happens to ‘useful idiots’ once their value is spent. Then, the slaughters, as we’ve seen historically, will begin in earnest. Eugenics and all of that. After all, animals need population controls, or they tend to breed like Australian rabbits.
Serr8d, this really struck me:
“There you have it, the key to human life. Either we are, or aren’t, creatures designed to house and nurture souls for a short period of time. ”
I’m going to ponder deeply on that, especially since I thought the answer was “42”.
will robinson behold
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It is something to ponder, indeed.. 93 93/93
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