Some pro-legalized abortions take the view that technically speaking the unborn are parasites and that they are fair game for destruction because they are dependent on the mother and consume some of her resources. As weird as that argument is I actually like when they present it. I think that middle grounders will immediately realize what a horribly wrong attempt it is to de-humanize the unborn.
The response:
By that line of reasoning, a woman would be totally justified in killing her baby a day before its due date.
That absurdity aside, their analysis fails (at least legally, if not morally). While you are never responsible for keeping someone else alive, you are responsible for doing so if you created the situation in which they are dependent upon you. The classic example is a person who is drowning in the ocean. You, as a boater with a life preserver, are under no obligation to help them out of the water. If, however, you were the one who chucked her overboard, then watched her drown, you can bet that a jury would convict your immoral butt for murder, not for ruining her clothes by getting her wet.
Likewise, you are under no obligation to give a dying person a kidney to save his life, but, if you ripped his kidneys out of his body, you would be charged with murder if he died from those injuries. If the only way to avoid his death is to give him your kidneys, you can bet that your options are to fork over an organ or be charged with murder.
I find it scary that people think of little babies as parasites in the first place!
This article is long! You will have to print it out and read it in little bits. It took me 15 minutes to read!
The title is “How Will Conservatism Become Credible Again?”. Paul Ryan is one of the “ideas” conservatives in the Congress. His job is to think up new bills and initiatives that reflect conservative ideals.
Let’s learn about America
Here, he talks about how the conservative vision of government values liberty and personal responsibility over equality of outcomes and “social justice”:
Nowhere was the Western tradition epitomized more memorably than in the Declaration of Independence. By “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” all human beings are created equal…not in height, or skills, or knowledge, or color, or other nonessentials…but equal in certain inalienable rights – to live, to be free, and to fulfill their best individual potential, including the right to the “material” such as property needed to do this. Each individual is unique and possesses rights and dignity. There are no group or collective rights in the Declaration. Nor does basic human equality imply “equal result.” It means “equal opportunity”: every person has a right not to be prevented from pursuing happiness, from developing his or her potential. The results should differ from one to another because “justice” or “fairness” gives each individual what each has earned or merited.
The great conservative purpose of government is to secure these natural rights under popular consent. Protecting every person’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness should be the great and only mission of legitimate government.
He talks about how the Constitution’s purpose is to enable prosperity through free market capitalism:
The authors of the Constitution surrounded economic freedom with a multitude of guarantees: freedom of contract against government interference… private property rights… patents and copyrights…standard weights, measures, and monetary values…punishment of counterfeits…freedom under law for interstate and foreign commerce…enforcement of agreements in law courts… uniform bankruptcy laws, and other protections.
They promoted Smithian free markets to produce resources for strong military defenses and to keep America free of economic dependency on other nations. But they also expected commercial life to encourage certain moral qualities: personal responsibility to work, save, create businesses, hire employees, pay off their debts, earn the rewards of merited effort, moderate appetites, practice honesty and justice in business dealings, self-discipline, industriousness, timeliness, plus trust and confidence in other persons.
And he talks about how America is a country where social conservatives and fiscal conservatives should be united:
A “libertarian” who wants limited government should embrace the means to his freedom: thriving mediating institutions that create the moral preconditions for economic markets and choice. A “social issues” conservative with a zeal for righteousness should insist on a free market economy to supply the material needs for families, schools, and churches that inspire moral and spiritual life. In a nutshell, the notion of separating the social from the economic issues is a false choice. They stem from the same root.
Did you know that Republicans believe in the right to life, the sanctity of marriage and the public expression of faith? These values were present at our founding, and Republicans hold to them because they are American values.
Since America’s first political principles establish a high but limited mission of securing the natural rights of all, conservatives should expect government to fulfill that entire mission…by enforcing every human being’s natural right to life, which is the first clause of the social compact that formed America, the Declaration of Independence.
A credible conservatism will also seek to secure the privileged legal status of marriage. The traditional family must be protected as the indispensable mediating institution for developing the moral qualities of a free people.
A credible conservatism will resist the purging of faith from the public square. It will make public space for the practice of faith because belief is a central pillar of a free and prosperous society. Nor can government welfare programs substitute for the faith-based love that unites citizens in free bonds of charity and compassion.
Recommended for my readers from at home, or abroad, who need a refresher on the vision of conservatism… or a breath of fresh air from the fetid leftist gasses emanating from the White House.
Neil Simpson has created a round-up of links on his blog. All the stories in his round-up are interesting, but this one by Randy Alcorn caught my eye. It’s entitled “The Rise of Child Abuse as a Result of Abortion”. You have to skip down a bit to get to the main point as he first talks for a while about his evil twin.
Here is his thesis:
My belief is that when people believe it’s okay to kill a child before he’s born, because an adult has rights over his life, then inevitably it will become more acceptable to beat him up once he’s born.
And here is his proof:
In 1973, when abortion was first legalized, United States child abuse cases were estimated at 167,000 annually. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 903,000 children were victims of abuse during 2001, a number more than five times greater.
Obviously, this is not counting the 49 million murders of actual children.
Now you might say: “Wintery! Doesn’t abortion decrease child abuse by eliminating unwanted children?”.
Randy says no:
University of Southern California professor Edward Lenoski conducted a landmark study of 674 abused children. He discovered that 91 percent of the parents admitted they wanted the child they had abused.
“Studies indicate that child abuse is more frequent among mothers who have previously had an abortion.” Dr. Philip Ney’s studies indicate that this is partially due to the guilt and depression caused by abortion, which hinders the mother’s ability to bond with future children. He documents that having an abortion decreases a parent’s natural restraint against feelings of rage toward small children.
The attitude that results in abortion is exactly the same attitude that results in child abuse. Furthermore, if she doesn’t abort, the mother can look at her difficult three-year-old and think, “I had the right to abort you.” The child owes her everything; she owes the child nothing. This causes resentment of demands requiring parental sacrifice. Even if subconscious, the logic is inescapable: If it was all right to kill the same child before birth, surely it’s all right to slap him around now.
I think we need to realize what is going through the mind of young women: they want to be happy and they are willing to murder innocent children in order to secure their own happiness. They do not see why anyone else’s rights should limit their own pursuit of happiness. After all, it’s survival of the fittest. The majority of single women are pro-abortion. They believe that their own happiness matters more than moral values and moral duties.
Unmarried women supported Barack Obama by a 70-to-29 percent margin, and they voted for Democratic House candidates by a similar margin — 64-to-29 percent. These margins mean that unmarried women edged out both younger voters and Hispanic voters as the demographic with the strongest support for President-elect Obama. These unmarried women voters joined with younger voters and people of color to create what GQR calls a “new American electorate” — voters with a decided preference for liberal candidates.
Overall, women strongly supported Senator Obama over Senator McCain (56 percent for Obama, 43 percent for McCain). Men split their votes about evenly between the two presidential candidates, with 49 percent for Obama and 48 percent for McCain.
In my series of posts on atheism and morality, I explain why moral relativism is the result of atheism. If you want to stop abortion, there are two things to do. 1) You need to start convincing women that God exists, that objective morality is real, and that moral obligations trump the pursuit of selfish happiness. 2) You need to vote to cut off all taxpayer subsidies for pre-marital sex; sex education, contraception, single motherhood and abortion.
WINTERY KNIGHT 