Tag Archives: Support for the legalization of abortion

Favorites, Politics, Pro-life reasoning

How pro-life apologetics–and a little common sense–could have swayed the elections

Leave a comment

I’m re-running this in honor of Rand Paul turning the tables on the Left and asking if they are OK with killing a 7 lb. baby in the womb.  I much prefer Cruz or Walker over Paul, but it was a great answer.  We need more of that!  

Also see Turning rocks into softballs where I offer some other tips on how to respond to the questions about rape, incest or abortions in general.  

We need to be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves!

—–

A few gaffes – most notably by candidates Akin and Mourdock – cost the Republicans two Senate seats and possibly the White House.  But with just a little common sense and some simple pro-life arguments they could have easily turned this to our advantage.  Romney and others could have done the same thing whether the specific rape/abortion questions came up or not.

The errors resulted when the candidates tried to articulate theological concepts that can’t be distilled into sound bites and that are virtually certain to be misinterpreted by the media and voters.  If you are running for office you should be skilled at knowing what hot topic questions you’ll get and how to steer the answers to your advantage.

So when the topic of abortions in the case of rape and incest came up, they didn’t need to get theological.  They could have noted any or all of the following.  Consider how simple yet accurate these arguments are and how they would resonate with the average voter – even pro-choice voters, the majority of whom side with pro-lifers on topics like parental notification, late-term abortions and taxpayer funding of abortions.

  • Rape is an incredibly serious crime and I support punishing it to the full extent of the law.
  • Incest, in this case, isn’t about 30-something siblings who are attracted to each other, it is about innocent young girls being abused by relatives.  That means it is rape.  Here’s a perfect example.
  • Statutory rape is rape, and the most rampant kind in our society.  Planned Parenthood has been caught countless times on audio and video systematically hiding statutory rape.  If elected, I will not only fight to stop their Federal funding but I would work tirelessly to hold them accountable for their crimes of hiding these rapes. If a 28 yr. old guy is statutorily raping your 13 yr. old daughter or granddaughter then Planned Parenthood will be glad to destroy the evidence and hide the crime – funded by your tax dollars!  They have also been caught hiding sex traffickers, and the opposition to sex trafficking is one of the few issues where Democrats and Republicans have common ground.   Surely we can all agree that we don’t want our tax dollars to fund organizations that hide that crime!
  • If you want to entertain capital punishment for the rapist then we could debate that, but why would the innocent child have to suffer for the father’s crimes?  It is a scientific fact that the unborn are unique human beings from fertilization.  Go check out any embryology textbook.  Let’s put the focus on punishing the guilty rapists and those who hide their crimes.
  • If you want to understand the theology about God’s sovereignty I’d be glad to share it with you, but that is beyond the scope of this debate and would take some time to explain.  But you don’t have to be a theologian to know that rape is evil and hiding the crimes of rapists is evil.
  • Roe v Wade won’t be overturned and even if it was it wouldn’t make abortion illegal — it would just turn it over to the states.
  • Remember that the official platform of the Democrats is now pro-abortion, not pro-choice.  They want abortions without restriction — which would include partial-birth abortions (aka infanticide) — and they want pro-lifers to fund them with their taxes.  That means Democrats want more abortions, not less, and they want others to pay for them.  Obamacare is already forcing people to pay for some abortions, and it is deliberately violating religious freedoms and conscience clauses.

They could also respond by asking some of the questions the media never asks pro-abortion candidates:

1. You say you support a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices in regards to abortion and contraception. Are there any restrictions you wouldapprove of?

2. In 2010, The Economist featured a cover storyon “the war on girls” and the growth of “gendercide” in the world – abortion based solely on the sex of the baby. Does this phenomenon pose a problem for you or do you believe in the absolute right of a woman to terminate a pregnancy because the unborn fetus is female?

3. In many states, a teenager can have an abortion without her parents’ consent or knowledge but cannot get an aspirin from the school nurse without parental authorization. Do you support any restrictions or parental notification regarding abortion access for minors?

4. If you do not believe that human life begins at conception, when do you believe it begins? At what stage of development should an unborn child have human rights?

5. Currently, when genetic testing reveals an unborn child has Down Syndrome, most women choose to abort. How do you answer the charge that this phenomenon resembles the “eugenics” movement a century ago – the slow, but deliberate “weeding out” of those our society would deem “unfit” to live?

6. Do you believe an employer should be forced to violate his or her religious conscience by providing access to abortifacient drugs and contraception to employees?

7. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, Jr. has said that “abortion is the white supremacist’s best friend,” pointing to the fact that Black and Latinos represent 25% of our population but account for 59% of all abortions. How do you respond to the charge that the majority of abortion clinics are found in inner-city areas with large numbers of minorities?

8. You describe abortion as a “tragic choice.” If abortion is not morally objectionable, then why is it tragic? Does this mean there is something about abortion that is different than other standard surgical procedures?

9. Do you believe abortion should be legal once the unborn fetus is viable – able to survive outside the womb?

10. If a pregnant woman and her unborn child are murdered, do you believe the criminal should face two counts of murder and serve a harsher sentence?

How hard would that be?  Instead, Akin, Mourdock et al answered foolishly and cost us Senate seats and possibly the presidency, and they missed an easy opportunity to educate people on the most important moral issue of our time.

Please equip yourself with basic pro-life reasoning and be prepared to share it.

Pro-life

“But they might be poor!”

6 Comments

There are lots of bad pro-abortion arguments, but one of the worst is that the unborn might end up poor.  Here are a few things wrong with that.

1. Even if that would be justification to kill an innocent but unwanted human being, that uses the wrong definition of poor.  There are very, very few truly poor people in this country.  Most of the poor (who, as Roxanne notes, are only poor because someone has to be on the left side of the Bell curve) live better than even royalty did 200 years ago.  Some people are so “poor” that they can’t afford to work because they’d be taking a pay cut from their benefits.

That definition of poor would mean that 90% of the world should have been aborted.  Ask anyone using that argument how many Third World countries they have visited.

2. Even if they really would be poor their entire lives and even if that would be justification to kill an innocent but unwanted human being, note the word “might.”  It is the sadly pessimistic but false view of Liberals that once your family is poor that you always stay that way.  But people often move between economic classes.  Hey, just graduate high school and don’t have sex out of wedlock and you are very unlikely to be poor, even by the U.S. definition.

Killing them because something “might” happen sounds like Dr. Nick Riviera from The Simpsons (“Just to be on the safe side, we better pull the plug.”)

3. As with nearly all pro-abortion arguments, it ignores the right to life of the unborn.

4. Using that logic we could do poor people a favor by killing them outside the womb, too.  After all, the size, location, level of development and degree of dependency have no bearing on the value of a human being.  The world just rationalizes it so they can kill unwanted human beings.

—

Sadly, many of those using this argument claim the name of Christ.  A woman in a Bible study once used that as her justification to be “pro-choice,” even though she had been in church her entire life.  The notion that the author of life (Acts 3:15) would be pro-abortion is ridiculous.

If you want to help poor people, that’s great.  But killing them is a dubious way of going about it.

Politics, Pro-life reasoning

How pro-life apologetics–and a little common sense–could have swayed the elections

12 Comments

A few gaffes – most notably by candidates Akin and Mourdock – cost the Republicans two Senate seats and possibly the White House.  But with just a little common sense and some simple pro-life arguments they could have easily turned this to our advantage.  Romney and others could have done the same thing whether the specific rape/abortion questions came up or not.

The errors resulted when the candidates tried to articulate theological concepts that can’t be distilled into sound bites and that are virtually certain to be misinterpreted by the media and voters.  If you are running for office you should be skilled at knowing what hot topic questions you’ll get and how to steer the answers to your advantage.

So when the topic of abortions in the case of rape and incest came up, they didn’t need to get theological.  They could have noted any or all of the following.  Consider how simple yet accurate these arguments are and how they would resonate with the average voter – even pro-choice voters, the majority of whom side with pro-lifers on topics like parental notification, late-term abortions and taxpayer funding of abortions.

  • Rape is an incredibly serious crime and I support punishing it to the full extent of the law.
  • Incest, in this case, isn’t about 30-something siblings who are attracted to each other, it is about innocent young girls being abused by relatives.  That means it is rape.  Here’s a perfect example.
  • Statutory rape is rape, and the most rampant kind in our society.  Planned Parenthood has been caught countless times on audio and video systematically hiding statutory rape.  If elected, I will not only fight to stop their Federal funding but I would work tirelessly to hold them accountable for their crimes of hiding these rapes. If a 28 yr. old guy is statutorily raping your 13 yr. old daughter or granddaughter then Planned Parenthood will be glad to destroy the evidence and hide the crime – funded by your tax dollars!  They have also been caught hiding sex traffickers, and the opposition to sex trafficking is one of the few issues where Democrats and Republicans have common ground.   Surely we can all agree that we don’t want our tax dollars to fund organizations that hide that crime!
  • If you want to entertain capital punishment for the rapist then we could debate that, but why would the innocent child have to suffer for the father’s crimes?  It is a scientific fact that the unborn are unique human beings from fertilization.  Go check out any embryology textbook.  Let’s put the focus on punishing the guilty rapists and those who hide their crimes.
  • If you want to understand the theology about God’s sovereignty I’d be glad to share it with you, but that is beyond the scope of this debate and would take some time to explain.  But you don’t have to be a theologian to know that rape is evil and hiding the crimes of rapists is evil.
  • Roe v Wade won’t be overturned and even if it was it wouldn’t make abortion illegal — it would just turn it over to the states.
  • Remember that the official platform of the Democrats is now pro-abortion, not pro-choice.  They want abortions without restriction — which would include partial-birth abortions (aka infanticide) — and they want pro-lifers to fund them with their taxes.  That means Democrats want more abortions, not less, and they want others to pay for them.  Obamacare is already forcing people to pay for some abortions, and it is deliberately violating religious freedoms and conscience clauses.

They could also respond by asking some of the questions the media never asks pro-abortion candidates:

1. You say you support a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices in regards to abortion and contraception. Are there any restrictions you wouldapprove of?

2. In 2010, The Economist featured a cover storyon “the war on girls” and the growth of “gendercide” in the world – abortion based solely on the sex of the baby. Does this phenomenon pose a problem for you or do you believe in the absolute right of a woman to terminate a pregnancy because the unborn fetus is female?

3. In many states, a teenager can have an abortion without her parents’ consent or knowledge but cannot get an aspirin from the school nurse without parental authorization. Do you support any restrictions or parental notification regarding abortion access for minors?

4. If you do not believe that human life begins at conception, when do you believe it begins? At what stage of development should an unborn child have human rights?

5. Currently, when genetic testing reveals an unborn child has Down Syndrome, most women choose to abort. How do you answer the charge that this phenomenon resembles the “eugenics” movement a century ago – the slow, but deliberate “weeding out” of those our society would deem “unfit” to live?

6. Do you believe an employer should be forced to violate his or her religious conscience by providing access to abortifacient drugs and contraception to employees?

7. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, Jr. has said that “abortion is the white supremacist’s best friend,” pointing to the fact that Black and Latinos represent 25% of our population but account for 59% of all abortions. How do you respond to the charge that the majority of abortion clinics are found in inner-city areas with large numbers of minorities?

8. You describe abortion as a “tragic choice.” If abortion is not morally objectionable, then why is it tragic? Does this mean there is something about abortion that is different than other standard surgical procedures?

9. Do you believe abortion should be legal once the unborn fetus is viable – able to survive outside the womb?

10. If a pregnant woman and her unborn child are murdered, do you believe the criminal should face two counts of murder and serve a harsher sentence?

How hard would that be?  Instead, Akin, Mourdock et al answered foolishly and cost us Senate seats and possibly the presidency, and they missed an easy opportunity to educate people on the most important moral issue of our time.

Please equip yourself with basic pro-life reasoning and be prepared to share it.

Politics, Pro-life reasoning

Government & bedrooms

3 Comments

A common pro-choice sound bite is that “Government should stay out of our bedrooms.”  It is an emotional play on the theme of privacy, but the logic is poor for several reasons.

I don’t know of any abortions that occur in bedrooms.  I’m pretty sure that most take place at abortion clinics.  Rape, incest, pedophilia, murders, thefts and a host of other crimes can occur in bedrooms, but I don’t hear anyone suggesting that the government ignore those.

I realize those items were taking the claim literally, but the pro-choice reasoning also fails in a figurative sense.  Groups that claim to want the government out of bedrooms sure have cashed a lot of government checks for “educating” our youth on sexually related matters.  Planned Parenthood and the like appear to have a great deal of interest in your bedroom activities and those of your children, and they crave and receive massive government funding and do their best to destroy anyone who gets in their way — even breast cancer charities like the Komen Foundation.

If by “government out of our bedrooms” they mean “government out of our sex lives,” then Planned Parenthood supporters should ask that they refund all the money they have received (Over $4 billion since 1987) and get out of our schools.

As with most pro-choice arguments, this claim ignores the primary issue of abortion: Whether or not an innocent human being is killed.  If abortion doesn’t kill an innocent human being, then of course the government shouldn’t be involved in determining whether the procedure is legal.  However, if it does kill an innocent human being, then it really doesn’t matter where the life of the unborn started.   And of course, the scientific fact is that the unborn are unique, living human beings from fertilization.

The government does not get involved in “bedrooms” in the sense that they dictate with whom consent adults can have sex.  But is should get involved when people want to destroy the unwanted human being created in those bedroom activities.

The Democrats want to intrude in the bedroom.  From their 2012 Platform:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

The greater irony and hypocrisy of the Left is that they now want government to be explicitly involved in the bedroom by forcing taxpayers to pay for birth control and abortions.  They don’t mind if that tramples religious freedom.  Pro-lifers are being consistent here: Keep the government out of the bedroom but protect innocent human beings, and respect the First Amendment.

In addition, as Glenn noted in the comments, they also want the government to get involved in the bedrooms of gays and lesbians.  By nature and design those relationships don’t produce children and can never provide a mother and a father to child, so why would they need government involvement?

If you vote for the Democrats, you are voting for taxpayer-funded abortions, less religious freedom and government intrusion into the bedroom.

Christian worldview

“Entitled to every single solitary operation”

3 Comments

If you vote for Obama/Biden you are voting pro-abortion and anti-religious freedom.  Not pro-choice, but pro-abortion — more abortions, funded by all taxpayers. From the Democrats’ 2012 platform:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

That means they favor:

  • 2nd trimester, 3rd trimester and “partial-birth” (aka infanticide) abortions
  • Taxpayer-funded abortions.  That means that pro-lifers will be forced to pay to have innocent but unwanted human beings killed.  That’s not pro-choice, that’s pro-abortion.
  • Increased abortions — They think that there aren’t enough abortions today, so society as a whole will improve if we make them “free” to the mothers.  Giving abortions away seems like a peculiar way to make them rare.
  • More dead black babies relative to whites — Abortions in the black community are already three times that of whites, and they know that figure will increase with taxpayer-funded abortions.  It is the ultimate racism.
  • Restrictions on religious freedoms — It is inevitable, and already evident with Obamacare, that they want to force religious groups to fund abortifacient drugs and abortions.

Now Joe Biden expands on this, saying:

Maybe where Romney is most sketchy is on women’s rights. I got a daughter and lost a daughter. I’ve got four granddaughters and Barack has two daughters. And this is to our core. Our daughters and our granddaughters are entitled to every single solitary operation, every single solitary opportunity!

Click the audio to see how pro-abortion he and his supporters are.  You see, abortion is an opportunity and an entitlement to them.  And if they are entitled to abortions then that means you are obligated to provide abortions.  (Side note: Joe misses the morbid irony that those daughters and granddaughters wouldn’t exist if the mothers had opted for the abortions they were “entitled” to.)

Note that these “pro-women” pro-aborts oppose a ban on gender-selection abortions, nearly all of which kill females for the sole reason that they are unwanted females.

Note what extremists these people are.  Even the majority of self-identified pro-choicers oppose what the Democrats’ platform pushes.  Never let them get away with labeling pro-lifers as extremists.

It is un-Christian and un-American to not only permit the killing of innocent but unwanted human beings in the womb but to force others to participate.  Destroying religious freedom is also un-Christian and un-American.  No Christian should vote for the Democrats.

Christian worldview

Pro-life response of the week

8 Comments

Or month, or whatever. Sometimes I like to turn comment replies into post. Here’s one from the Great pro-life display post.

Hi Mary Kate,

Thanks for visiting and commenting. I hope you reconsider your views. For any pro-choice-to-kill-an-innocent-human-being-in-the-womb argument, ask the same questions about that rationale for human beings outside the womb. Can a woman kill a toddler due to economic, career, romance, etc. concerns? Of course not. So the only question is, “What is the unborn?” The scientific fact is that a new human being is created at fertilization.

Having said that, let’s consider your arguments:

I think that if this country would put some effort into safe and effective birth control, there would be a lot less abortions.

Possibly, but I see a couple problems with that. First, this country does not have a birth control shortage. It is been getting pushed for decades, and the false sense of security it provides has led to tens of millions of diseases and countless abortions.

More importantly, that’s like saying that we won’t make murder outside the womb illegal because there are things we could be doing to reduce murders.

Furthermore, I believe the entire issue should be handled between a woman and her physician.

That ignores the third human being in the equation. How about the unborn and her physician? And could the woman and her physician kill a toddler without consequence? Again, the question is, “What is the unborn?,” and I answered it above.

Everyone else should mind their own business.

Like you are minding your own business here? What about the unborn child’s business? Again, the question is, “What is the unborn?,” and I answered it above. I doubt you’d make the “mind your own business” claim if someone was trying to kill an innocent but unwanted human being outside the womb.

If you really are worried about children, then volunteer to help teenage mothers, adopt orphans, teach children to be responsible and consider the consequences of their actions, teach them how to prevent unwanted pregnancy, and support the family planning efforts of groups like planned parenthood, who prevent far more unwanted pregnancies than any other group among people who can’t afford health care.

I address that more fully in Pro-lifers don’t care about kids after they are born?, but please answer this simple question to yourself: If 3,000 toddlers per day were getting crushed and dismembered because they were unwanted, could you oppose that without being obliged to care for them to adulthood? Or would that mean you didn’t care for them?

Protesting an immoral act does not obligate you to take care of its victims. If you agree with the line that pro-lifers don’t care about the unborn after they are born or that we have a “fetus fetish” or other made-up malady, answer me this: If the gov’t wanted to reduce homelessness by destroying homeless people, would you have a “homeless fetish” and be a raging hypocrite if you protested that but weren’t willing to house them all yourself? Remember, the issue isn’t whether human beings are out of the womb or not but whether it is legitimate to protest an act if you don’t plan to fully fund the consequences of stopping it.

Do you have to be willing to take complete responsibility for human beings you are trying to protect? Can you protest the abuse of the homeless, spouses, children or pets without having to care for them all? (As noted in the link, pro-lifers do a great deal with their own time and money to help women and families in need. I’m just pointed out how fallacious the pro-legalized abortion argument is).

Prevention is the antidote to abortion, not legislation.

Is the prevention of murder, drunk driving, gay-bashing, etc. the answer to all those ills rather than legislation? With that reasoning we wouldn’t need any laws.

Again, the question is, “What is the unborn?,” and I answered it above. “It” is an innocent human being deserving of protection.