Tag Archives: Girl

News

Female superintendent and ACLU fascists ban father-daughter school dances

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From the radically left-wing Los Angeles Times. (H/T Captain Capitalism via The Elusive Wapiti)

Excerpt:

Father-daughter dances and mother-son ballgames — those cherished hallmarks of Americana — have been banned in a Rhode Island school district after they were targeted by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU, the self-proclaimed guardian of the nation’s liberty, says such events violate the state’s gender-discrimination law. The organization challenged their existence following a complaint from a single mom who said her daughter was prevented from attending a father-daughter dance in the Cranston Public Schools district.

[…]For its part, the ACLU scoffed at the uproar, calling the change “old news” and defending its legal position in a statement laced with a touch of snark. Here it is, in part:

“The controversy that has suddenly arisen in a political campaign over father-daughter dances in Cranston is old news — the matter was amicably resolved with school officials over four months ago. And it was resolved for a simple reason: the school district recognized that in the 21st Century, public schools have no business fostering the notion that girls prefer to go to formal dances while boys prefer baseball games.

“This type of gender stereotyping only perpetuates outdated notions of ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ activities and is contrary to federal law.

“[Parent-teacher organizations] remain free to hold family dances and other events, but the time has long since passed for public school resources to encourage stereotyping from the days of Ozzie and Harriet. Not every girl today is interested in growing up to be Cinderella — not even in Cranston. In fact, one of them might make a great major league baseball player someday.

“We commend the school district for its resolution of the matter, and are sorry to see some people turning it into a political football — a game that they may think only boys should be interested in.”

It’s a well-known fact that daughters growing up without fathers are far more prone to a whole host of behavioral disorders and tragedies. It’s also well-known, among men, that one the major reasons for a man to get married is because of the social respect of being a provider, protector and moral/spiritual leader. When society, under the influence of moral relativism and feminist ideology, decides to denigrate and marginalize fatherhood, we should expect to see the next generation of girls suffering from it. Girls need their fathers. The more we allow our policy to be made by leftists, the more we cheat young women out of their fathers, and the more we leave them open to tragedy.

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Polemics

A secular case against legalized abortion

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Unborn baby scheming about being only two months old
Unborn baby scheming about being only two months old

Note: this post has a twin! Its companion post on a secular case against gay marriage is here.

Now, you may think that the view that the unborn deserve protection during pregnancy is something that you either take on faith or not. But I want to explain how you can make a case for the right to life of the unborn, just by using reason and evidence.

To defend the pro-life position, I think you need to sustain 3 arguments:

  1. The unborn is a living being with human DNA, and is therefore human.
  2. There is no morally-relevant difference between an unborn baby, and one already born.
  3. None of the justifications given for terminating an unborn baby are morally adequate.

Now, the pro-abortion debater may object to point 1, perhaps by claiming that the unborn baby is either not living, or not human, or not distinct from the mother.

Defending point 1: Well, it is pretty obvious that the unborn child is not inanimate matter. It is definitely living and growing through all 9 months of pregnancy. (Click here for a video that shows what a baby looks like through all 9 months of pregnancy). Since it has human DNA, that makes it a human. And its DNA is different from either its mother or father, so it clearly not just a tissue growth of the father or the mother. More on this point at Christian Cadre, here. An unborn child cannot be the woman’s own body, because then the woman would have four arms, four legs, two heads, four eyes and two different DNA signatures. When you have two different human DNA signatures, you have two different humans.

Secondly, the pro-abortion debater may try to identify a characteristic of the unborn that is not yet present or developed while it is still in the womb, and then argue that because the unborn does not have that characteristic, it does not deserve the protection of the law.

Defending point 2: You need to show that the unborn are not different from the already-born in any meaningful way. The main differences between them are: size, level of development, environment and degree of dependence. Once these characteristics are identified, you can explain that none of these differences provide moral justification for terminating a life. For example, babies inside and outside the womb have the same value, because location does not change a human’s intrinsic value. More at Stand to Reason, here.

Additionally, the pro-abortion debater may try to identify a characteristic of the already-born that is not yet present or developed in the unborn, and then argue that because the unborn does not have that characteristic, that it does not deserve protection, (e.g. – sentience). Most of the these objections that you may encounter are refuted in this essay by Francis Beckwith. Usually these objections fall apart because they assume the thing they are trying to prove, namely, that the unborn deserves less protection than the already born.

Finally, the pro-abortion debater may conceded your points 1 and 2, and admit that the unborn is fully human. But they may then try to provide a moral justification for terminating the life of the unborn, regardless.

Defending point 3: I fully grant that it is sometimes justifiable to terminate an innocent human life, if there is a moral justification. Is there such a justification for abortion? One of the best known attempts to justify abortion is Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “violinist” argument. This argument is summarized by Paul Manata, one of the experts over at Triablogue:

Briefly, this argument goes like this: Say a world-famous violinist developed a fatal kidney ailment and the Society of Music Lovers found that only you had the right blood-type to help. So, they therefore have you kidnapped and then attach you to the violinist’s circulatory system so that your kidneys can be used to extract the poison from his. To unplug yourself from the violinist would be to kill him; therefore, pro-lifers would say a person has to stay attached against her will to the violinist for 9 months. Thompson says that it would be morally virtuous to stay plugged-in. But she asks, “Do you have to?” She appeals to our intuitions and answers, “No.”

Manata then goes on to defeat Thomson’s proposal here, with a short, memorable illustration, which I highly recommend that you check out. More info on how to respond to similar arguments is here.

The best book for beginners on the pro-life view is this book:

For those looking for advanced resources, Francis Beckwith, a professor at Baylor University, published the book Defending Life, with Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Learn about the pro-life case

And some posts motivating Christians and conservatives to take abortion seriously:

News

Parents abort twin boys in quest for daughter

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Mary sent me this disturbing article from liberal Time magazine.

Excerpt:

A couple in Australia — already parents of three sons —have announced they have aborted twin boys in their quest to replace their baby daughter, who died soon after birth. Although sex selection via IVF is illegal in Australia, they petitioned a patient review panel for permission, which was denied. They’ve now appealed to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which is slated to hear their case in March.

In the event that their appeal is unsuccessful, the couple has said they intend to travel to the U.S. for assistance conceiving a daughter. Since 2008, Victoria’s Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act has prohibited sex selection except in cases where it would allow parents to avoid transmitting a genetic disease. It’s legal — though still controversial in many circles — in the U.S., where pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PIGD) is used to separate XX from XY chromosomes for reasons of “family balancing.”

[The woman]… says she is griefstricken over the loss of her daughter. Conceiving a girl has become an obsession “that has become vital to her psychological health.”

The case is stirring up plenty of discussion Down Under, where one doctor — described as an IVF “pioneer” — lined up behind the couple to express his support.

I can’t see how it could harm anyone,” said Gab Kovacs.

”Who is this going to harm if this couple have their desire fulfilled?”

Why are people treating children as if they are accessories instead of blessings? A long time ago, people were more used making sacrifices for their children, but now it seems like they are treating everything – including babies – as something to make them happy. It’s all very selfish.