Fearing the abortion debate

I'm not Roman Catholic, but I know these conspiracy theories about the real loyalties of Catholic leaders are bunk.

So should Michael Coren, as he's been a Roman Catholic more than once in the life-long pinball game that's been his religious pilgrimage.

In a column in yesterday's National Post, Barbara Kay writes:

Pundits Michael Coren of Ontario and Richard Martineau of Quebec don't normally coincide polemically. But they have lately converged on one issue.

Both have elected to gin up fears that Andrew Scheer's campaign promise not to introduce an abortion law might, in the (unlikely) event of a CPC majority, yield to his fervent pro-life convictions. And both have justified their scaremongering through guilt by association.

In a late-August Maclean's article, Coren brings his insider knowledge as a former Catholic to bear on his claim that Canadian women's continued right to unfettered abortion might be compromised by a Scheer government. Scheer, after all, believes abortion is a "grave sin." Therefore, "(c)an we believe Scheer when he says that, given the power to stop it, he simply won’t do so?" Maybe we shouldn"t believe him, Coren muses. Because even though Scheer has not himself labelled abortion as the "crime of murder," "he has certainly associated with people who do."

[Barbara Kay: Stop the Conspiracy Theories About Canadian Catholics in Government]

In the last 50 years, nearly every Canadian prime minister has been a Roman Catholic. (The two who weren't are Kim Campbell [Anglican] and Stephen Harper [Christian and Missionary Alliance]). So what were these past (and present) Prime Ministers' positions on abortion over the years?

Pete Buttigieg tries to define when life begins

Last week, South Bend, Indiana mayor and Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg said on a radio talk show that he supported abortion on demand right up to birth.

In a September 6 interview on The Breakfast Club, Buttigieg told host Charlamagne Tha God: "There’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath."

A lot? Not really.

Do a search on the words "life" and "breath" (and derivations) on BibleGateway, and you come up with 15 verses. (I used the English Standard Version; other English translations may produce somewhat different results.) Of these, the majority use breath as a figure of speech representing life itself: for example, "Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life [i.e. that was alive] died" (Gen. 7:22). "Breath" also represents the shortness of one's life (e.g. Job 7:7), or the end of it (e.g. Ishmael, who "breathed his last and died" in Gen. 25:17). So we can dismiss these verses, as they neither prove nor disprove when human life begins.

That leaves us with three passages using the word "life" and "breath" that we can infer associate the beginning of life with the first breath.

In Genesis 2:7, "the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." Of course, "the man" is not all men: specifically, it refers to Adam, the first man. He was made, not born: God fashioned him out of inanimate matter and breathed life into him. So Adam is a special case; his origin story is not typical of all human beings. We wouldn't argue that all women are made out of a man's ribs, just because Eve was made from one of Adam's, would we?

Perhaps Job 33:4 is more helpful to Buttigieg's argument. Elihu, Job's friend, says to him: "The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life." Here, at least, Elihu is a normal man, not the prototype of the human race. But note what he tells Job only a moment later: "I am toward God as you are; I too was pinched off from a piece of clay" (33:6). Neither Job nor Elihu were actually fashioned from clay. He is speaking poetically, not literally, about their common descent from Adam. So it's safe to say verse 4 is also figurative. This passage does Buttigieg no good, either.

We're left with Revelaton 11:11: "After the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet." These are the two witnesses that prophesy to the world before the Beast kills them. Then, three and a half days later, they are miraculously resuscitated and raised into heaven. Revelation is a book of apocalyptic literature, meaning it couches its message in symbolism and metaphor. The whole book is, in fact, a supernatural vision, not something that has literally occurred in the real world. It is not a good idea to establish a firm point of doctrine based on this passage. Plus, like Adam, the two witnesses are a special case, not the norm.

I have seen one other passage used by the Left, for example on the Christian Left blog, in defense of the assertion that life begins with the first breath:

I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live." So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army."

However, like the passage in Revelation, this one proves nothing. First, it's a vision: an image Ezekiel was shown that represented the restoration of the nation of Israel following its exile by the Assyrians around 722 BC. Second, even assuming for the sake of argument that these bones had real existence, then again, they were miraculously brought back to life. This is another special case, not the typical birth of ordinary human beings.

Buttigieg, who identifies himself as an Episcopalian, has gone to heroic lengths to rationalize his positions as the only acceptable option for professing Christians. All he does is betray the terrible theological foundations of so-called "progressive Christianity." His exegesis of the Bible is execrable. Worse, it's cynical. He seems to think that Christians are stupid and gullible, and all it takes to "guilt" them into line is to quote a verse or two from the Bible.

The Democratic Party has, for some reason, been labeled the "party of science" over and against, supposedly, the Bible-thumping, climate change-denying, women's healthcare-defunding Republicans. Science tells us when human life begins: a new, genetically distinct human being comes into being at conception. The unborn human organism is undoubtedly alive: it is organizes, adapts to its environment, grows and develops, consumes nutrients, and so forth. And it is incontrovertably human, because it has human DNA inherited from human parents. Why won't Pete Buttigieg and the Party of Science defend life based on scientific definitions? Because i's not about science, but politics. The Leftist political dogma of "reproductive justice"—a euphemism for abortion, which is neither reproductive nor just—trumps objective truth. Simple as that.

Nothing to see here

Today on the Crusty Curmudgeon, we juxtapose, courtesy of Mollie Hemingway:

President Barack Obama told a group of young African leaders on Monday that harvesting organs from humans that are killed as part of an African ritual was "craziness" and a "cruel" tradition that needed to stop. He warned of dehumanizing marginal groups of humans and of the problems that arise when "you are not able to see someone else as a human being."

Meanwhile, back in the States . . .

On the topic of human organ harvesting, President Obama's spokesman Josh Earnest has said that President Obama has chosen not to watch the video footage of Planned Parenthood officials dissecting human fetuses for parts. Nevertheless, President Obama has vehemently defended the abortion group.

[Full Story]

Some humans are more human than others.

"We played the flute, and you did not dance": thoughts on Saturday's incrementalism vs. immediatism debate

On Saturday evening, I enjoyed a late dinner and viewed a live stream of a debate titled "Pro-Life Incrementalism vs. Abolitionist Immediatism." Gregg Cunningham of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform argued in favour of the incremental position, while T. Russell Hunter of the International Coalition of Abolitionist Societies, and the founder of the Abolish Human Abortion (AHA) movement, argued for the immediatist position. (Henceforth I will call the latter the "absolutist" position: while I have no particular prejudice against their preferred term, I just feel that visually, "immediatist" and "incrementalist" may appear too similar in print.)

The event, which took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was streamed live via YouTube and can still be viewed there.

My first post as a blogger for Faith Beyond Belief was about taking an incremental approach to ending abortion on demand. After viewing the debate, I firmly continue to stand behind that post. Quite frankly, I found Hunter's argument unconvincing.

Both sides made rhetorical missteps, but Russell Hunter came across as unprepared, strident, and preachy. (After Scott Klusendorf paraphrased a well-known legal aphorism while commenting on the debate on his Facebook page, an interesting side discussion ensued about its origin. Although the proverb is by no means original to him, it was Carl Sandburg who most famously quipped, "If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell." Hunter certainly did his fair share of yelling on Saturday night.)

After the debate, someone on the debate's event page posted that Gregg Cunningham "ended up conceding the debate" in his answer to one audience question: "If you had the opportunity, if a bill was presented to you, that would abolish abortion completely, except for one child, you had to let one child die, there was one exception, what would you do?" He replied, "The answer, quite simply, is no. . . . I would say, 'Get thee behind me, Satan.'" His response consciously echoed Hunter's, to whom the question was originally posed.

Supposedly Cunningham conceded the debate to the absolutist side because by his answer he admitted that he could not sacrifice the life of a single unborn child for the sake of the greater good. I didn't see it that way. Rather, I heard what I perceived to be a loaded question intended to manipulate emotions in favour of the absolutist side (the man who posed the question was wearing an AHA shirt). Of course there would be no practical benefit to such a law; the hypothetical was contrived for emotional impact, as if to compel Cunningham to tell that innocent little unborn baby to her face that she must die for the greater good. (I think the questioner must also have confused incremental strategy with utilitarianism.)

I suggest an alternative form of the question, one which I hope will preserve the same moral issue present in the one asked at the debate, but hopefully without the transparent emotional appeal:

If you had the opportunity, if a bill was presented to you that would abolish abortion completely, except that the law would not come into effect until the end of the month and the status quo would remain in the meantime, what would you do?

Of course, I would sign that bill in a heartbeat, because it would mean both a soon and definitive end to the scourge of abortion.

I would be curious to see how an absolutist would answer it, though. I would think that their devotion to ideological purity would catch them on the horns of a dilemma.

And in the final analysis, it's that purism that renders the "abolitionists" (I reject their claimed monopoly on that term) so irrelevant. Incrementalists see victory over abortion on demand as achieved in a series of small steps, some of which have resulted in victories. Absolutists see any sort of partial legal restriction on abortion as implicitly saying "then you can kill the baby" if those restrictions don't apply in his case. If you can't outlaw abortion all the way, they say, you shouldn't go at all. So far, this approach has achieved exactly zero successes. Maybe they should stop calling themselves "abolitionists" and adopt the label "armchair quarterbacks."

Members of AHA spend a lot of time outside abortion clinics, protesting what goes on inside and counseling women not to have abortions there. I have no doubt that they changed many minds, and deserve unqualified credit and praise for the good they have done. Their activities are praiseworthy, but they are not a vindication of the abolitionist strategy. Do sidewalk counselors persuade every woman who comes to the clinic for an abortion not to have one? Do they blockade the clinic to prevent everyone they don't persuade from entering? If not, are they not tacitly acknowledging that women are legally allowed to enter an abortion clinic and kill their baby? How is this not the abolitionists' own "then you can kill the baby"?

We need the absolutists' zeal. We need their calls to the church to awaken out of its lethargy and do something to stop the killing. What we don't need is the kind of almost priggish commitment to an ideology that has thus far probably not prevented a single abortion, and treats allies as enemies.

Friday in the wild: May 9, 2014

Hello! This might be a longer installment than usual, simply because I was unable to post last week, so I have about two weeks of interesting (and now, slightly stale) stuff to pass around. Which is fine with me.

First, an intriguing article from The Art of Manliness, which promotes traditional masculine virtues. It's intriguing not merely because of the subject matter—though as someone who enjoys the occasional glass of whiskey, of course I enjoyed reading about a shared interest—but because the blog owners are Mormons, who would not normally drink alcohol. It's a guest post. Obviously there's plenty of room in the tent for varying views on masculinity! (AoM featured articles on cocktails and pipe smoking as well in the past.)

In spite of its sometimes tumultuous history (see the Whiskey Rebellion), whiskey is a drink that men have enjoyed for centuries. Men like Mark Twain, Winston Churchill (often accompanied with a fine cigar), and Clark Gable imbibed regularly. When one thinks of masculine images, you often conjure up a picture of a man in a tweed coat with a glass of whiskey in his hand by the fire. If you’ve ever wanted to be that man and explore this manly tradition, you’re in luck. While we’ve given you a primer on Scotch whisky, today we’re going to broaden that and talk about whiskey as a whole—especially how to enjoy it!

[Read How to Drink Whiskey]

Boom

I've often planned to take on the bodily-autonomy argument for abortion rights (aka the "violinist argument" formulated by Judith Jarvis Thomson) as a blog project. I may still do so, but not too soon. It would seem too much like getting on the bandwagon, after Matt Walsh blew it out of the water.

Read. Learn.

I Am Afraid of This Indisputable, Pro-Choice Argument

Perry Noble on abortion: Swing and a miss

Pastor Perry Noble of the South Carolina megachurch NewSpring is no stranger to intemperate and ill-advised remarks. This Monday, he did it again, with a blog post criticizing a planned boycott of Girl Scout cookies by some pro-life Christians, because of a supposed connection between the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) and Planned Parenthood (PP), the largest provider of abortions in the U.S.

First,Noble prefaces his remarks by affirming that he is indeed "unapologetically pro-life" and that denying that human life begins with conception is "nothing more than intellectual dishonesty." I commend him for doing so, because if that affirmation were not there, I would have no idea he was pro-life from his unfortunately muddy thinking

"Investigate some abortions as homicides"? Um, not exactly

I have just read what may very well be the most egregiously slanted writing on an abortion-related news story that I have ever seen—and that's saying something.

The headline on the CBC Web site reads: "Investigate some abortions as homicides, Tory MPs ask RCMP." Similar headlines have been published all over Canada, as Google News indicates, since the original story comes from the Canadian Press.

Here are the salient points from the CBC article:

Three Conservative MPs want the RCMP to investigate any abortions performed after 19 weeks in Canada as possible homicides.

The MPs from Saskatchewan, Alberta and Ontario make the request in a letter on House of Commons letterhead to RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson.

In the letter, the MPs say abortions performed at 20 weeks gestation or later breach Section 223a of the Criminal Code. . . . (emphasis added)

A longer version of the story from The Huffington Post includes:

In their letter, the MPs wrote that between 2000 and 2009 there were 491 abortions performed on Canadian women who were pregnant for longer than 19 weeks. They contend that at this stage of gestation, the abortions involved live babies.

"These are vulnerable, innocent children that homicide has been perpetrated on," Vellacott said Thursday from Ottawa.

The comments sections of the various papers make the predictable response the 3 MPs are morons, are trying to bring Canada back to the Stone Age, "My Body My Choice," yada yada yada. Many commenters claim that late-term abortions are illegal. In fact, there is no law whatsoever regulating abortions in Canada: they can be performed at any time, for any reason.

However, the CBC site did something that none of the other news outlets did that I saw: they included a copy of the actual letter. Addressed to RCMP commissioner Richard Paulson, and sent in the names of MPs Maurice Vellacott (using his letterhead), Leon Benoit, and Wladyslaw Lizon, the letter reads, in part:

Recent public reports have revealed the possibility of numerous breaches of the Criminal Code—to be specific, homicides—in Canada which need to be investigated.

These killings appear to have started out as attempted abortions, but the babies were born alive. At the blog, Run With Life, you will learn: "From 2000 to 2009 in Canada, there were 491 abortions, of 20 weeks gestation and greater, that resulted in live births. This means that the aborted child died after it was born. . . .

According to the Criminal Code, a child is considered to be a human being and a person after proceeding fully from the mother's womb, therefore, based on Section 223(2) of the Criminal Code, there should be 491 homicide investigations or prosecutions in connection with these deaths.

Nothing in the CBC's article mentions that the real thrust of Messrs. Vellacott, Benoit, and Lizon's letter is the alleged practice of allowing live human beings to die after they have been born and become a human being (by legal definition) during a failed abortion. Had the abortions been carried out successfully, and the fetuses died, they would have been perfectly legal. As it is, however, if these born human beings were allowed to die through neglect, then there are 491 cases of culpable homicide that ought to be investigated and, if necessary, charges filed.

And yet the CBC set the actual letter side-by-side with the slanted CP story, and never noticed the disconnect between claim and reality. Your tax dollars at work.

Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984)

It seems a bit odd to eulogize a man who has been gone for nearly 30 years, but it seemed a fitting way to note the centenary of Francis Schaeffer's birth.

Schaeffer was arguably one of the most influential Christian apologists of the 20th century (along with C. S. Lewis). Although I read several books by Lewis before ever cracking open a volume of Schaeffer, it was the latter that has had a more profound effect on my worldview—especially his books The God Who is There and Escape from Reason, and to a lesser extent Art and the Bible and Pollution and the Death of Man. It was through Schaeffer that I first discovered the value of presuppositional apologetics, and he may have been my first few baby steps toward Reformed theology. And, although he was not a direct influence on my own views, in the late 1970s he was one of the earliest Evangelical pro-life voices, whose influence made opposition to abortion a Protestant, not merely a Roman Catholic, concern.

Also, as I have noted previously in my lightning review of The Church at the End of the 20th Century, although some of his work feels dated today—much of his ministry during his most productive period was with the hippie counterculture of the 60s and 70s—many of the worldview issues he raised back then have come full circle. With the rise of draconian campus speech codes and pointless activism like the recent Occupy movement, perhaps we're in need of a fresh look at Francis Schaeffer.

Sanctity of Life Sunday in the wild: Jan. 22, 2012

Today is the 39th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision of the United States Supreme Court, which legalized abortion on demand citing a supposed right to "privacy." Thus it is also commemorated in many churches as Santity of Life Sunday, as normally the third Sunday of the month would be the one closest. National Sanctity of Human Life Day was originally proclaimed by Ronald Reagan, and the tradition has since been continued by both Presidents Bush, but not either Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama—which really tells you all you need to know about the powers-that-be of the Democratic Party when it comes to the issue of unborn human life. In Canada, our lack of abortion restrictions is due to the R. v. Morgentaler decision of January 28, 1988, not Roe, so Sanctity of Life Sunday may get a nod in Canadian churches, if that. Nonetheless, American policy and tradition tend to have an effect on Canada as well.

Typically at around this time of year, the blogosphere starts to buzz a bit with life issues, and so I've decided to highlight a few of the posts that attracted my own attention over the last few days.

Two qualifications you apparently don't need to be a CUSA councillor

The Carleton University Students' Association (CUSA), the student union that can't make up its mind whether it's a Gestapo or Politburo when it comes to its pro-life subjects, is at it again. They have released proposed referendum questions for this year's general election. Not every proposed question deals, directly or indirectly, with the issue of abortion or campus pro-life clubs, but #4, specifically, does:

Are you in favour of banning groups such as Lifeline, the Genocide Awareness Project, Campaign for Life Coalition and other organizations whose primary purpose is to use inaccurate information and violent images to discourage women from exploring all options in the event of pregnancy from Carleton University campus?

Are the unborn "individuals"?

As is my occasional wont, I got into it again today with the usual crowd of pro-choice folks tweeting their bumper-sticker slogans on Twitter. Today, the argument was that the unborn are not "individuals," by virtue of the fact that they depend on the body of another human being to survive.

You'll note that this is a functionalist definition of the term. Functionalism defines a person (or a human being or individual, as the case may be) by their function or behaviour: in other words, how human you are depends on what you can do, not on who or what you are.

Contrast that with the primary definition of "individual" as given at Dictionary.com: "A single human being, as distinguished from a group." A fetus certainly does meet this definition: a DNA test would rule out her being one of her mother's body parts, for example.

Aha, my Twitter opponent countered, but what about twins, then? Identical twins have identical DNA. Was I arguing that they are not individuals?

First of all, this missed my point, which was that they are individuals with respect to their mother. Fetuses are not body parts. What they are in relation to each other, on the other hand, is beside the point. (And even the fact of identical DNA is not so cut and dried.)

But nonetheless, I decided to press this question just a little farther. What do you do with conjoined twins? Take, for example, the Hensel twins, who share several vital organs. Abigail and Brittany Hensel were not separated at birth because of the unlikelihood of one twin surviving. They are highly coordinated and have learned to walk, swim, drive a car, and even type, even though each twin controls one arm and one leg. They are absolutely dependent upon one another for survival.

Are they individuals, I asked? Repeatedly. I got a lot of filibustering and personal abuse. What I did not get, however, was an answer.

Despite the necessity of the Hensel twins' functioning together, they are individuals. They have different likes and dislikes. They have different tastes in clothing, such that their joined garments are specially tailored to express their individuality. They each had to earn their own driver's licenses. So despite their dependency on each other's bodies for survival, they are indisputably individuals. And that is according to a functionalist definition.

How human you are does not depend on how dependent you are on another human being. Abigail and Brittany Hensel are not each half-human or half-individual because they could not survive separately. And neither are the unborn because they cannot survive outside the womb. The facts of life simply do not square with glib pro-choice rhetoric.

Last Chance U.'s student goobermint does it again

Well, you can say one thing for CUSA: at least they're being consistent. Whether they're voting to decertify any campus club that disagrees with official pro-choice dogma, calling pro-life advocates Holocaust deniers, or cancelling charity events that raise funds to find cures for diseases that don't kill enough minorities or women, you can usually count on the Carleton University Student Association to hop on the hot-air balloon of stupidity and drift up into Cloud Cuckoo Land.

On Monday, CUSA voted again to decertify Carleton Lifeline, the campus pro-life club, as the National Post reports:

Carleton University’s official student association has banned the Ottawa institution’s anti-abortion club, offering it just one way to get back into good graces: support abortion rights.

On Monday, the Carleton University Student Association (CUSA), decertified Carleton Lifeline for its anti-abortion views. It told the club that being against abortion violated CUSA’s anti-discrimination policy, but that it could get recertified in a day or two.

"We invite you to amend your constitution to create one that respects our anti-discrimination policy as laid out above," wrote Khaldoon Bushnaq, CUSA’s vice-president of internal affairs. "If you are able to resubmit a constitution that meets our criteria by Thursday, November 18th we will be able to certify your club for this semester."

[Full Story]

Translation: "By all means the pro-life group can have its status back, just as soon as it stops being pro-life." Nice club. Shame if something happened to it.

As club president Ruth Lobo points out in the article, Lifeline hasn't had an issue with CUSA since 2007. If they havent changed their constitution, then obviously CUSA's complaint about it not meeting policy is bogus. The last time Lifeline was decertified, it was a knee-jerk reaction to a debate held on campus a month earlier on whether elective abortion should be legal. This time, decertification comes a month after some Lifeline members were arrested for "trespassing" (on their own campus) for displaying the graphic Genocide Awareness Project. It looks to me that the CUSA's accusation of "discrimination" by Lifeline is a fig leaf meant to cover up CUSA's own discrimination against students who refuse to toe the line of official orthodoxy. (If GAP showed bloody images of dismembered Palestinians instead of dismembered fetuses, would we even be reading about this?)

A blog I read earlier today (and unfortunately can't find now, to give proper credit) put it well: CUSA discriminates against opinions contrary to its own policies, then through compulsory fees, compels pro-life students to discriminate against themselves. I guess we'll see in the next few days whether the usual public pressure at CUSA's idiocy makes them blink. Again.

Choicers roasting on an open fire

Oh, brother:

A newly revealed poster picturing the ultrasound of an unborn Jesus with a halo is adding fuel to the abortion ad uproar in the United Kingdom.

ChurchAds.Net’s “Baby-Scan Jesus” poster, which will be used for a 2010 Christmas campaign, has already started stirring debate months before the holiday season. Although the poster’s creators say it is meant to spark conversation about the meaning of Christmas, critics of the poster say it is too political and see it as a counterattack on the recent first-ever TV ad for abortion services.

[Full Story]

According to the poster creators:

the poster idea came from the 21st-century convention that proud parents-to-be show the ultrasound of their baby to family and friends.

“Our new Baby-scan Jesus poster uses this convention to place the birth of Christ in an ultra-contemporary context,” the group explained. “It is highly impactful. It has a sense of immediacy. It creates anticipation. And theologically it speaks of both the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ.”

But some British (presumably pro-choice) secularists believe otherwise: “The image is too specifically associated with pro-lifers to be seen in a benign context," says Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society.

Poor pro-choice secularists. Someone ought to tell these fossils that their rhetoric is well outdated. Sonograms have been commonplace for years; it's practically a given that an expectant mother will have some taken during her pregnancy. As the ChurchAds.Net folks point out, moms-to-be like to show them off. I've been to homes where they were hanging on the fridge. As Albert Mohler has pointed out, ultrasound has had an enormous impact on the current generation of young voters and their perception of the abortion issues: these older teens are "the first to grow up with ultrasound images taped to the refrigerator door. . . . This generation understands the issue in terms of infant human life. They do not see a mere fetus. They recognize a baby." Indeed, sometimes these kids take for granted that the ultrasound on the fridge is just another, earlier kind of baby picture.

But the post-menopausal remnant of militant pro-choice "secularists" misses the point. Instead of the familiar image of an anticipated new life, they see the abortion that never was. Instead of the anticipated hope of life eternal, they continue their quixotic struggle against the death of their dusty rhetoric. Well, good riddance.

(H/T: Big Blue Wave.)

And now, presenting what may very well be the stupidest question ever...

Just tweeted this evening by a self-described "prochoice Christian":

If chastity and abstinence works [sic], where did Jesus come from?

No, seriously.

You need a license to drive and own a gun, but anyone with a computer can use the Internet. Explain that.

Follow-up: what about "therapeutic abortions"?

David Kjos made a really good comment on my previous post on abortion arguments on Twitter. Since Haloscan will be going bye-bye in a couple of weeks, I thought it appropriate to simply copy the comment here and reply rather than do so in the comments. (I have also decided to temporarily shut down the commenting feature until something more permanent than Haloscan can be implemented, which unfortunately automatically gives me the last word, so I hope David doesn't mind, at least for awhile.)

He writes:

This is off-topic, but ...

On the "therapeutic abortion":

I can agree if certain death for both mother and child is imminent. But I don't believe abortion to save the life of the mother should be a foregone conclusion, or considered self-defense.

First, it's not self defense because the child is not assaulting the mother.

Second, what mother or father would not -- or should not -- stand between an armed assailant and their child, or risk their lives in any number of ways, to save that child? We naturally expect that kind of self sacrifice. How is risking one's life in order to carry a child to term different?

Back on-topic, you are so right about the absurdity of the extreme case argument. What if a[n unemployed] green man from Mars with no medical insurance and no family or church to call upon suddenly needs a gizzard transplant? Am I allowed to rob a bank to finance the operation?

Thanks for the question.

I suppose that the textbook case of a life-threatening pregnancy is an ectopic pregnancy, in which a zygote implants somewhere other than the uterine lining, typically the Fallopian tube. Many ectopic pregnancies will abort spontaneously, but about half do not. Left untreated, a developing fetus will eventually grow to the point that it causes serious tissue damage or hemorrhaging that can lead to the death of the mother - and therefore also of the unborn child, who is almost always non-viable at this stage of gestation. Recent surgeries have successfully saved the life of both mother and child, but my arguments here are based on the past situation where no such surgery was available (and my assumption that such procedures are still somewhat rare and experimental).

A therapeutic abortion is not "self-defense" in the same sense as, say, shooting an armed robber or a rabid animal that is attacking you. Rather, it's more like defending yourself against a life-threatening cancer. While I don't regard pregnancy like a disease by any stretch, the situations are comparable in that nothing is attacking the mother with malicious intent, but an otherwise normal biological function has gone very wrong and now threatens her life.

So the situation that I was considering when I wrote my previous post was not merely one in which the mother is risking her health by carrying the child to term - rather, it is one in which (as David says) death is virtually imminent and drastic measures must be taken to prevent it. Not doing so isn't a mere risk, nor is it analogous to a parent risking his or her own life to shield a child from harm; it's tantamount to suicide.

Suppose a patient went into a surgeon's office and requested the amputation of her leg above the knee. No medical condition required the amputation; the patient simply had a sexual fetish associated with amputees. If the doctor carried out the surgery, it would be a mutilation and he would be guilty of medical malpractice. (In fact, the desire to become an amputee is considered a mental illness called Bodily Integrity Identity Disorder.) On the other hand, if the same woman had cancer, and the only way to stop the disease were to amputate her leg above the knee, the same procedure (while still disfiguring) is now life-saving surgery.

And this is how I see abortion in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, when no other life-saving measure is possible that would preserve the life of both mother and child. Obviously I don't deny that the unborn child is a human being deserving of life, or that therapeutic abortion is other than a necessary evil. It's just that in some cases, drastic measures are required to save one life instead of losing two. The intent is not to kill, but to save life, albeit with "collateral damage."

Again, let me stress one more time: such conditions are very rare. And just because some abortions may be medically justifiable in the face of a life-threatening pregnancy, that does not mean we can morally justify millions of abortions that have been carried out for no medically necessary reason.

Trotting out the "12-year-old rape victim"

I have recently been following - sometimes against my better judgment, and frequently against my better emotional fitness - the #prolife hashtag on Twitter. In addition to the expected news stories and retweets, there are a small but vocal cadre of poor-choice Twittererers who also make liberal use of the tag. Not that they have much to say: mostly factoids, misrepresentations of the pro-life position, and vapid bumper-sticker aphorisms that don't really mean anything: "If you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?" (When you thnk killing people is a valid moral option, should I trust you with the choice?)

Inevitably, at least daily, someone will bring up what pro-life writers like Scott Klusendorf call the "hard cases." On Twitter, this tweet is typical of what I see:

[W]hat about the 12 yr old girls who have been raped by their fathers & could die during pregnancy.

This one is so extreme, it manages to hit all the talking points: very young pregnancy, rape, incest, and danger to life. Surely, in such an instance, we can tolerate just one abortion, right?

But hold on. First of all, any one of those "hard cases" is very rare. And I'd hazard a guess that all four at once is so exceedingly rare, it's well nigh impossible.

And that's the main problem with "hard case" casuistry: at best, you can make a case for abortion in those hard cases, but you can't justify extending the argument to any and every abortion being morally permissible. If I were to admit that abortion is justified for the 12-year-old incest-rape-victim ectopic-pregnancy girl, how does that justify the hundreds of thousands of abortions that are carried out every year on adult women whose pregnancy is healthy, normal, and the result of a consensual sexual encounter where the condom happened to break?

The question to ask in these cases (unfortunately too complex to express in 140 characters) goes something like this:

If I concede that abortion is morally justifiable in this hard case (be it rape, incest, or whatever), will you join me to oppose abortions carried out for no such pressing reason?

If the pro-abortion-choice person says yes, as Klusendorf says, you may have gained an ally in working to end abortion on demand. On the other hand, if she says no, then she isn't really concerned with the hypothetical 12-year-old rape victim. The "hard case" exception is a red herring.

The unstated assumption in this argument is that "if difficult circumstance X [as well as Y, Z, and W in this particular epic tweet] obtains, then abortion is justified." But it's not necessarily so.

I'm a hard-justice kind of person. Not only do I support the death penalty, I feel it's also justified in a number of serious offenses beyond homicide - rape being one of those. String the rapist up by his testicles with concertina wire, and let him bleed to death. But it doesn't follow that a pregnancy caused by rape justifies an abortion. Regardless of his origin, someone conceived by rape is still a human being. A woman raped has certainly been victimized, but that cannot justify her victimizing another human being in turn, because of the sins of his father. It seems to me also that the same argument applies to the case of incest.

In a very small number of pregnancies, there is a very real danger to the physical health of the mother. And in this case, I believe that a therapeutic abortion may be justified if it would save her life. Although it is an unpleasant alternative, it might be an act of self-defense. Better that one person lives, than two die.

The use of a 12-year-old in this argument is ambiguous. Is it dangerous to the health of a girl of that young age? In that case, it's just a variation on the "health of the mother" argument. If it's simply a matter of a 12-year-old girl being too young to be a mother, on the other hand, then it's no different from any appeal to poverty or bad circumstances. Being 12 years old does not change the humanity of your unborn offspring, and therefore its moral status is no different than the offspring of an adult woman with a healthy pregnancy: you can't just "choose" to kill human beings merely because you don't want them.

It is wrong to kill blameless human beings without appropriate justification. That is axiomatic. And I don't find anything in the above to be appropriate justification. There is no "12-year-old pregnant rape and incest victim" exception to the axiom, no matter how many times the pro-poor-choice tweeters trot it out.¹ The purpose of these "hard cases" is not to make a coherent argument for abortion rights; rather, it's intended to short-circuit your reason and go for your emotions. (After all, who would be so heartless as to "punish" a 12-year-old girl with twin Lovecraftian horrors of pregnancy and childbirth?) Don't be snowed, and don't be afraid to call it the emotionalistic nonsense that it is.

Postscript: If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, my nick is "RansomOttawa." If I recognize you as a personal friend or someone I know (or am interested in) from online, I'll probably return the favour. I do tend to be a bit high-volume when it comes to trading blows with the #prochoice clowns, so be warned.

Footnote

¹ My opponent in this instance, however, didn't find this so axiomatic: as he later said, "there are no absolutes in this world"; and, a few minutes later, "I think there absolutely should be a victim exception." Wrap your head around that dizzying intellect for a minute. Then, he called me an idiot for pointing out the obvious.

Pro-choice fascism strikes again; or, a lecture you can't refuse

Pro-choice activism is now officially the new kindergarten.

On Tuesday night, pro-choice activists at McGill University unveiled their new campaign for abortion rights in Canada. It goes something like this:

Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
And on this farm he had a cow, E-I-E-I-O
With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there
Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O

See for yourself:

Yes, this is exactly as irritating as it sounds, so I'm not going to post subsequent installations. In part 2, the videographer notes that he's filming fascism in progress, as the "protesters" move from bad songs to bad jokes, then actually have the temerity to start complaining that they did not give permission to be filmed. (It apparently never occurs to them that no one was filming them outside.) The videographer does not give in - there are close to 20 installments, if you have the stomach for it.

There is, of course, not even a token attempt to reason with Jojo Ruba - who, despite their false assertions that he had no right to be there, was as usual an invited guest of a campus club at a sanctioned event. The purpose was to run out Jojo's clock, nothing more.

Arguably the most iconic scene of the novel and movie The Godfather occurs when Corleone family lawyer Tom Hagen flies to Hollywood to reason with studio owner Jack Woltz, to persuade him to cast Don Corleone's godson, singer Johnny Fontane, in a movie. Woltz refuses; he has a personal grudge over a girl that Fontane seduced away from him. The next morning, he wakes up and finds himself sharing his bed with the severed head of his prize race-horse.

In the past, Jojo and like-minded pro-life advocates have been able to air their views, whether via lecture or debate, without being drowned out. But as more and more pro-choicers find themselves on the losing end of effective arguments for life, they have abandoned any semblance of reason (Choose Life McGill tried to find a debating opponent for Jojo, but were unable) and gone instead for more direct action: what free-speech advocate Nat Hentoff has termed the "mob veto."

The debates were reasonable. Singing "Old MacDonald" to shut a public speaker up is the horse head in the bed. And we're going to see a lot more of it. Fortunately it will have the unintended consequence of showing how intellectal fascism has taken over the next generation of pro-choicers. This is what our universities are grooming, people.

Unintentionally ironic Pro-Choice Quote of the Day

One of the few bits of vapid pro-choice pontification that randomly appears on Twitter's #prolife hashtag:

When you force someone to do something, that is not choice. Prolife don't care if women choose life- they will force her anyway.

Meanwhile, Jojo Ruba's talk "Echoes of the Holocaust" is scheduled to begin as planned at McGill University in a little over half an hour, despite the official "censure" of the student blackshirts. I wonder if his audience will be free to exercise their choice to hear Jojo speak? Or will the SSMU force the closure of the event, as their counterparts at St. Mary's did in February?

Pro-choice rhetoric: emptier than a vacuum chamber in geosynchronous orbit.

Is mob rule on the menu at McGill?

Remember last February, when Jojo Ruba's talk "Echoes of the Holocaust" was shut down by spineless officials at St. Mary's University after a handful of student fascists shouted him down for the better part of an hour?

It is starting to look like the pro-abortion damage-control apparatus is gearing up for Jojo's upcoming talk at McGill University in Montreal, where the pro-life club Choose Life McGill will be hosting Jojo on October 6.

The Student Society of McGill University (SSMU) has recently granted Choose Life provisional club status. Basically, they are on a three-month probation during which they must hold a certain number of events and prove they are an active club, as a prerequisite to full club status being granted. This was not, naturally, well taken by the campus womyn:

Women’s Studies student Andrew Thorne, watching from the gallery, claimed Choose Life was a structurally violent group and opposed its legitimization through SSMU.

“Pro-life is inherently violent against women and against human rights,” he said of the ideological mandate of the group.

[Full Story]

During the debates over campus pro-life clubs at Carleton three years ago, we saw the same rhetorical tactic. It is irrelevant whether any actual violence takes place or can be attributed to the activities of "pro-life"; all the womyn have to say is that opposition to abortion on demand is "inherently violent against women." (As I've asked before: if talking about abortion is inherently violent, what does that make an actual abortion?)

Choose Life McGill has already held one event: the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, in which a number of women told the story of their negative experiences with abortion. Predictably, this has already been denounced as "scare tactics" by the campus feministas, who were apparently freaked out by being forced to see graphic images of women holding an "I Regret My Abortion" sign. (Time to break out the smelling salts again.) And there were protestors on site as well:

“I am deeply disturbed...that someone might walk to class and encounter signs that target a difficult decision that they had to make.... Whether they are made to feel ashamed for a minute or for the rest of the year, it’s not okay,” they said.

Arts Senator Sarah Woolf (U2 Political Science and Women’s Studies) student participated in the pro-choice protest and agreed that Choose Life’s activities, including hosting SNMAC, are offensive.

“As a woman on campus, their activities are offensive to me. Within the context of their current activities, I don’t want them on campus,” Woolf said.

[Full Story]

We can't have the poor dears be made to feel uncomfortable, can we? It's ironic that the campus blackshirts should accuse Choose Life of being "manipulative", while at the same time attempting to shame them off campus with manipulative emotional blackmail.

But never mind emotional blackmail: how about the normal kind? Last night, a motion - co-authored by the aforementioned Sarah Woolf - censuring Choose Life for scheduling Jojo's talk was passed by the SSMU Council. Should they go ahead, apparently their eligibility for funding will be revoked. ProWomanProLife has the full text of the motion, including:

Whereas this event violates tenets of social justice, anti-oppression, and respect. . . .

Be it further resolved that the SSMU demand that the Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson intervene in order to cancel the event regardless of any inconvenience this will cause Jose “Jojo” Ruba or the Choose Life Club.

Yep, you have to love the way the campus blackshirts think: in the name of fighting "oppression," call upon the power of the university administration to ausrotten an ideologically impure lecture and public assembly.

Tuesday night, assuming it goes forward, is going to be interesting.