Tag Archives: Pro-Choice

Polemics

MUST-READ: Only personally opposed to abortion?

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Unborn baby scheming about International Life Chain Sunday
Unborn baby scheming about International Life Chain Sunday

The following is a guest post from commenter Mary to commemorate International Life Chain Sunday. Mary urges all of my readers to take this opportunity to stand up for the pre-born.

In my discussions with people on the topic of abortion, I frequently come across people (including many Christians) who claim to be “personally opposed” to abortion (or words to that effect), but who don’t think that it should be illegal. They believe in “a woman’s right to choose”. This all sounds very fine and magnanimous, couched as it is in the language of generosity, but an analysis of the reasoning behind it shows it to be seriously flawed.

Abortion should be illegal for the following reasons:

  1. Taking of innocent human life without morally sufficient reason should be illegal. Where the rationale comes from for believing this basic premise is another topic, but it is agreed on by all reasonable people – theists and atheists alike. (A morally sufficient reason would be something that saves another innocent human life.)
  2. The pre-born child is human. This is a scientific fact.
  3. The pre-born child is alive. This is a scientific fact.
  4. The pre-born child has committed no crime and can therefore be considered legally innocent.
  5. Taking the life of the pre-born child is to take an innocent, human life.
  6. Taking the life of a pre-born child should be illegal.

Abortion should be illegal for the same reason that murdering a newborn or a 2 year old is illegal. We don’t give women the “right to choose” to kill their newborns and for the same reason we should not give them the “right to choose” to kill their pre-born children either. The only case where we would consider it acceptable to take the life of a newborn would be where it was absolutely necessary to save the life of another innocent human being. The same should be true in the case of a pre-born child. We should give equal value to human lives and value life above the right to comfort and convenience.

Our entire legal system is based on the fact that there are certain limits to choice. If the right to choose were applied across the board we’d have to scrap every law in the books. Laws exist to limit choices that are damaging to others.

Legalized abortion is unfair discrimination of the worst kind on the basis of age and location. The right to life of the pre-born is a human right that should be fought for with passion and integrity. If we do not fight for this right we will be remembered in the same way as those who have failed to stand up for the rights of the oppressed in other areas.

Will we be like German citizens during the Nazi regime who failed to stand up for the rights of Jews, despite being “personally opposed” to Nazism? Will we be like those who failed to stand up for the right to freedom of those oppressed by slavery and Apartheid, despite being “personally opposed” to the same? Or will we be like Dietrich Bonheoffer and William Wilberforce who went beyond personal aversion, even though they weren’t members of the oppressed group, who spoke against oppression and who stood up for what was right, in the face of opposition.

I would like to end with two very apt quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King:

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter

Videos

Alan Shlemon defends the unborn in an academic debate

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Look what I found on Youtube, in 7 parts.

Here are the part:

Part 1 of 7

Part 2 of 7

Part 3 of 7

Part 4 of 7

Part 5 of 7

Part 6 of 7

Part 7 of 7

I think he makes a really good case, but you really have to turn up the audio.

News

Obama spent 23 million taxpayer dollars to promote abortion in Kenya

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Story here from Fox News. (H/T Jammie Wearing Fool via ECM)

Excerpt:

A Republican lawmaker is accusing the White House of “unconscionable” and “illegal” acts for its role in Kenya’s referendum on a new constitution, which would legalize abortion in the country for the first time.

Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey cited a report by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, which estimated that more than $23 million in U.S. taxpayer funds have been spent on the referendum, and Smith and other conservatives have complained that at least some of that money has been spent in sport of the proposed constitution, possibly violating U.S. law.

“Under no circumstances should the U.S. government take sides,” Smith said at a news conference Wednesday. “Yet that is precisely what the Obama administration has done.”

He and other lawmakers accuse the Obama administration of offering incentives to Kenya to approve the controversial new constitution, promising that passage would “allow money to flow” into the nation’s coffers. A federal law known as the Siljander Amendment makes it illegal for the U.S. government to lobby on abortion in other countries.

[…]One group that has received almost $3 million from the U.S. government, Development Alternatives, openly supported “advocating for efforts to eventually legalize abortion in Kenya,” Smith said. Another group, The Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review in Kenya, changed the wording of the Kenyan constitution’s abortion clause to make abortion more widely accessible – and has received over $180,000 from the U.S.

Thanks to these findings, nine of the more than 200 organizations in Kenya that received money from the U.S. have been suspended from receiving assistance, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Katya Thomas in Nairobi told the AP Friday.

But the congressmen are asking for more. They want the White House to be held accountable for its role.

“If violations of the law have occurred, which on the face of it they have, the information must be brought before law enforcement,” Smith said. “Not even presidents are above the law.”

We’re in a recession. Many people don’t even have jobs, and yet these socialist bunglers waste 23 million dollars of taxpayer money that could have been used by small businesses to create jobs.

And I thought that Democrats were opposed to American imperialism? I guess not.