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AT LAST: Michele Bachmann open to presidential run in 2012

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Rep. Michele Bachmann

Joy! Fox News has the story. (H/T Dad and Mary)

Excerpt:

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is the keynote speaker at a GOP event in the early presidential caucus state of Iowa later this month, and a spokesman said Wednesday that the Tea Party favorite has “not ruled out” a bid for president.

“Nothing’s off the table for her,” said Andy Parrish, Bachmann’s chief of staff. “She’s looking forward to traveling to Iowa for the fundraiser, and you know, she’s looking forward over the next year to traveling and sharing the story of why we can’t re-elect Barack Obama as president.”

[…]Bachmann, who has drawn a national following with frequent guest appearances on cable and network news shows, broke fundraising records with an $11 million haul en route to winning her third term in Minnesota’s 6th District. She also founded the congressional Tea Party caucus.

Bachmann, 54, is a native of Waterloo, Iowa, but as a child moved with her family to Minnesota. On Jan. 21, she will deliver the keynote speech at the Iowans for Tax Relief PAC Taxpayers Watchdog Reception in Des Moines — an event co-hosted by U.S. Rep. Steve King and other prominent Iowa Republicans.

Parrish wouldn’t say whether Bachmann would talk presidential politics with state GOP leaders. He said she made several trips to Iowa in 2010, and while he wouldn’t reveal specific travel plans in the coming months, he said she could end up in other early caucus or primary states.

Bachmann has also been mentioned in recent weeks as a possible U.S. Senate candidate against Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2012.

Here’s why we like her so much – she’s a fusion of social and fiscal conservatism.

Excerpt:

Last month, Bachmann said the session of Congress that starts today — with its new pro-life Republican majority — should de-fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

Bachmann says she will press for the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives to pass a bill sponsored by fellow conservative luminary Mike Pence, an Indiana congressman, to de-fund Planned Parenthood when it convenes in January.

“Well, I think one thing that we can do, quite simply, is to withhold funding from Planned Parenthood,” Bachmann said when asked by CNS News about what Congress can do to protect unborn children.

“It wouldn’t mean that Planned Parenthood would go out of existence, because they do have their own independent funding, but what it would mean is that the taxpayer would no longer be funding that,” she said.

Bachmann also talked with CNS News about the latter point — ObamaCare and abortion funding — as a reason Republicans should pursue de-funding ObamaCare as well.

“For the first time in American history under Obamacare–socialized medicine–under President Obama, we have federal funding of abortion,” she said. “President Obama denies that, but we know that it’s already happened in the state of Pennsylvania. And so, therefore, it’s imperative that we in the House completely defund Obamacare so that we no longer force Americans to violate their moral conscience and pay for other people’s abortions.”

Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman, is referring to the $160 million the federal government gave the state under ObamaCare to set up a high-risk insurance pool, but the terms of the pool allowed for the money to pay for elective abortions. That was also the case in New Mexico and Maryland until the National Right to Life Committee blew the whistle and both the Obama administration and officials in the three states backed down.

Bachmann also told CNS News that Congress should de-fund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), an agency that has worked hand-in-hand with the China population control officials who have used forced abortions and other human rights abuses to enforce its one-child policy. It has also promoted abortions in nations with pro-life laws.

“I think it is incumbent upon us as the members of Congress to let people know–not for the purpose of scaring them–but to let people know the stark fiscal realities that we’re facing right now as a nation,” she said. “And can’t we at minimum start with defunding things like Planned Parenthood and paying for other’s people abortions that are highly controversial and are violating our principles of the Declaration of Independence, our inalienable right to life. That we can at least agree on, that we should defund that.”

She is also conservative on foreign policy.

YAY! She’s my absolute favorite! Because she’s the best!

BACHMANN/DEMINT IN 2012!

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Polemics

Analyzing four bad arguments in favor of abortion rights

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The post is here.(H/T Rational Theism)

Excerpt:

As a bioethics student, I’ve encountered several challenging arguments in favor of abortion.  In my research on the subject, there have been several authors who’ve forced me to think about the issue more deeply and to sharpen my arguments against it.

But there are also some pretty bad arguments out there.  In popular-level discussions about abortion, you’ll often hear pro-choice advocates use arguments that completely miss the point and that show a lack of familiarity with the arguments on the pro-life side.  In this post, I want to point out four such arguments and show how they’re really nothing more than red herrings.

  • The first bad argument for abortion is the idea that you can be personally against it, but you shouldn’t force your beliefs on others.
  • The second bad argument for abortion is that a woman can do whatever she wants with her body.
  • A third bad argument is that it’s a women’s issue, so men have no right to tell a woman that she can’t have an abortion.
  • The last bad argument for abortion is that it should be legal because women will keep having abortions even if it’s not, and we should at least ensure that they will have them in safe environments (instead of in back alleys with rusty equipment).

Click through to read the whole thing and get all the responses!

Polemics

Mary takes on a pro-abortion “Christian” woman

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Our commenter Mary likes to debate online. She found a pro-abortion woman to fight with. The pro-abortion woman explains in the post how she supports abortion in her work on “maternal health” in the developing world.

The pro-abortion woman’s first argument is that because we don’t have funerals for miscarried babies, that proves that the unborn aren’t human:

We don’t issue death certificates for miscarriages, nor traditionally perform funerals for them. My mom miscarried at six months before she got pregnant with my first brother. She didn’t consider herself a mother until she had my brother two years later. That is anecdotal of course.

Her second argument is that making abortion illegal is not practical:

This is a genuine question: how do you see ending abortions being carried out? I understand on an abstract level what I think you and others who are pro-life want–no more abortions (unless perhaps in the case of the mother’s life being in danger?). But practically, what would that look like? Making abortion illegal? Incarcerating doctors who perform and women who have abortions? Increasing access to family planning? Better sex ed? Better health care? Increased social services for poor women? All of the above? I can’t get behind something that says “Don’t have sex or live with the consequences.” It’s incredibly impractical.

And finally, she argues that people who are some pro-life people are “religious, misogynistic crazy people”, so the unborn have no right to live:

I guess that’s what frustrates me about the stunt from last week–it was meant to terrorize and disrupt, but I don’t see what it did constructively to further their agenda. Honestly, all it did was solidify for most people there that anti-choice activists are religious, misogynistic crazy people. Not very helpful.

That’s it. Those are her 3 arguments. I should add that this woman thinks that she is a Christian. But she finds chastity and personal responsibility for one’s own decision to treat sex as recreational “impractical”. Incredibly impractical.

Mary to the rescue

And now, here comes Mary:

Thanks for posting this, James-Michael. And thank you for asking the questions, “Rachel”. I love it when I’m given the opportunity to be persuasive on a topic which is close to my heart. :)

Rachel:
Regarding miscarriages, I actually think that there *should* be funerals for children that die before birth. I am close to someone who lost children in a miscarriage and the pain she feels is as real as that of a mother who loses a newborn. I think that our society does women a disservice when it ignores the reality of loss in the instance of miscarriage. Our society’s omission in the case of miscarriage is no grounds on which to disregard the humanity of the pre-born.

You bring up the issue of practicalities, which is a good one. A very similar argument was brought up by those in favour of retaining legal slavery in the British Empire. But thankfully, we no longer have legal slavery in the western world. Just because something will require work does not mean that we should avoid it – especially when it is something as important as this. I support abortion being made illegal, except in the instance of saving the life of the mother. I would support incarceration for doctors or nurses who subsequently performed such illegal abortions, and for those who sold abortificants. I think there needs to be better education regarding foetal development, I believe that women should be offered an ultrasound of their baby, and I would love to see the resources currently being allocated to abortion being reallocated to crisis pregnancy centres.

I think it’s also vital to recognize that the pro-life position is based on the following sound logic:
1) Taking an innocent human life is wrong (we call it murder).
2) The pre-born child is scientifically definable as a human life and is as innocent as they come.
3) Abortion takes the life of a pre-born child.
4) Abortion takes an innocent human life.
4) Abortion is therefore wrong.

As a fellow woman, I would also like to challenge you to seek better things for women. Your commitment to maternal health is commendable. However, did you know that abortion increases the incidence of miscarriage in subsequent pregnancies? Did you know that it has been implicated in a dramatically increased incidence of breast cancer? And this is in addition to the psychological damage done to women who have abortions. Abortion is bad for women. Check out Feminists for Life. This organisation believes that women deserve better. I love that.

Think also of the unborn women. Women’s health begins in the womb. Pre-born women have a right to life too. Surely their right to life is of greater importance than any other right of the mother’s, except her right to life. Did you know that abortion is used by societies that do not value women to eliminate women? Sex selective abortion and female infanticide are common in China and India. Women’s rights are not furthered by offering women the right to kill their own children.

Thank you for reading.

And then the strange pro-abortion “Christian” replied with craziness:

Mary, I will join you in lifting up miscarriage as loss. I’m not sure, though, after reading your comments that you want to have dialogue with me because your only questions to me about breast cancer, miscarriage, and gender-selection are rhetorical in tone.

I would still be interested in hearing how you would address eliminating abortions. Women with unintended pregnancies will seek abortions, illegal or legal. So, how do we go about eliminating (or more practically, reducing) unintended pregnancies in the first place?

Go here to read the whole thing. Mary tells me that she’s going to go right back there and reply to Rachel again, but she was too tired to do it on Tuesday night. If you feel like debating, like Mary seems to like to do, then you can march right over there and help her out.

Learn about the pro-life case