Friday brought the annual March for Life to Washington, D.C. Held on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, it brings us the bittersweet comedy of watching the media studiously ignore a massive, peaceful protest in the nation’s capitol, even on a slow news day. Imagine the coverage that would be afforded a fashionable leftist cause that brought a couple hundred thousand people together for 37 years, often on a workday. If you could find that many people still deluded enough to protest on behalf of the climate-change fraud, the weekend news programs would discuss little else.
When the media does pay attention to the March for Life, it typically describes the event as a dreary vigil held by a graying herd of humorless, elderly scolds. Have a look at this photo gallery of the 2010 event and decide for yourself if this is an accurate description. Consider also this remarkable survey that shows six in ten young people believe abortion is morally wrong. Pro-lifers are not a dwindling band of tired footsoldiers decomposing at their posts. They’re also not the doctrinaire zealots dismissed by Democrat Party propaganda and popular culture. They were both wise and gracious in their support of Scott Brown during his run for the Massachusetts Senate seat, even though he doesn’t share all of their views. The pro-life movement understood that no face-saving deals with nervous House Democrats would prevent abortion funding from creeping into socialized medicine, sooner or later.
It’s tempting to look upon the pro-life struggle as deadlocked trench warfare against a culture that values self-actualization above duty to the family, especially a family that doesn’t exist yet. Strung above the trenches are the barbed wire of the abortion industry’s financial interests, and the rusted political power of the radical feminist movement. The latter is much diminished from its peak in the pre-Clinton years, but still has disproportionate influence over media coverage, as can be seen from Newsweek’s hit piece on the March for Life rally.
Perhaps it was inevitable that progress would come slowly for the pro-life movement, as every great moral struggle is waged on the battlefield of individual minds and hearts. I’ve always thought Roe vs. Wade was a terrible law, a poorly-reasoned attempt to end an important debate through raw judicial power. Americans could render this law irrelevant, without ever setting foot in a courtroom… by refusing to set foot in abortion clinics. Roe vs. Wade did not accurately express the moral sense of the nation, either in 1973 or today. No law can prevent us from asserting that moral sense through our free choices. I doubt America will ever make abortion completely illegal, particularly in terrible situations, such as pregnancies which threaten the life of the mother. We can understand that extending abortion to the horizons imposed by Roe didn’t make it any less terrible.
The odds against convincing an increasingly self-absorbed culture to make sacrifices on behalf of unplanned children are formidable. It’s interesting that our political class is comfortable demanding all sorts of other sacrifices from us, laid on the altar of our collective good under the guns of our huge, complex government. We are forever told that we must pay our “fair share” and accept the control of the State to achieve social justice… while absolute sexual liberty, including the inconsequential relationships promised through abortion on demand, are offered as a relief valve for the pressure of the State’s demands. We’re told to accept a sexual freedom that bypasses reason, in exchange for Constitutional freedoms which transcend the designs of government.
Those who gather in the March for Life each year are not daunted by the odds they face. Why should they be? Life exists in defiance of probability. Love is an act of faith, a leap from the lion’s head over a chasm of past disappointments and future peril. If your faith does not come from religion, you might find it in statistics. The universe is filled with poison and vacuum. Everything that lives had to win a million coin tosses in a row. Measured against the vast and frigid sweep of existence, the odds that you would be sitting here, reading this, are absurdly small… and yet, here you are. We owe our children the same fighting chance to be miraculous.
Our busy, distracted, abundant lives give us many reasons not to make the incredible sacrifices necessary to bring an unplanned baby into the world. Every year, on January 22nd, thousands of voices fill the calculating air of Washington with one beautiful reason for young mothers-in-waiting to rise above their understandable loneliness and fear, and become incredible. Our bitter politics may never give us a chance to overturn Roe vs. Wade, but we can make it crumble to dust through faith in ourselves, and the future we can share with our children.
I have never wasted a single moment in anger at those who see their lives as a dark labyrinth that ends at the doors of an abortion clinic. I also won’t count a single moment spent in reverence of those who climbed over the walls of that maze as wasted. I don’t torment myself with the celestial question of exactly when life begins, because that’s not the point. The alternative to the awful extremity of abortion is the indispensable joy of introducing this flawed world to someone who might make it better. The timetable of the procedure doesn’t change the nature of the alternatives.
The birth of every child is a victory against despair. Over ten thousand children were born in the United States yesterday. We are winning.
Cross-posted at Hot Air.
Whew!!…..What more can one add to that?
I have a long list of daily “reads”, Doc….But yours has instantly become the one I look to first.
Keep up the great work!
So aptly titled and so very well said. Thank you for publicizing this long battle by the improbable forces of Life against the corrosive evil of child killing that is eating away at our society. This is the only mention of the march that I heard.
Thank you.
I have read most of your posts at HotAir and agree with you 99% of the time. I have personal experiences that compel me to disagree this time. The issue is morality. Reading your missive, the only proper sexual liaison that can occur is between two married people that were virgins at the start. They must carry forward any viable embryos that are formed, even if unintentionally. Everyone else has fallen from grace and must also bear the consequences of their actions to regain their status as moral human beings.
Those that reject that viewpoint are immoral cretins. You espouse personal liberty regularly, except in this one very large case where you can barely abide it. Also, your target MUST be women as men have no legal say in these decisions. I know two women that made this decision, and neither made it lightly. Both had some regrets. I do not consider them immoral people, and they do not either. It is sad that you do.
From: International Family Planning Perspectives, 1999, 25(Supplement):S30–S38
“Results: Approximately 26 million legal and 20 million illegal abortions were performed worldwide in 1995, resulting in a worldwide abortion rate of 35 per 1,000 women aged 15–44. Among the subregions of the world, Eastern Europe had the highest abortion rate (90 per 1,000) and Western Europe the lowest rate (11 per 1,000). Among countries where abortion is legal without restriction as to reason, the highest abortion rate, 83 per 1,000, was reported for Vietnam and the lowest, seven per 1,000, for Belgium and the Netherlands. Abortion rates are no lower overall in areas where abortion is generally restricted by law (and where many abortions are performed under unsafe conditions) than in areas where abortion is legally permitted.”
I offer these data to illustrate how provincial it seems to argue Roe v. Wade. Instead of arguing whether or not abortion should be legal, couldn’t we have just a fraction of that energy devoted to determining why there are so many unwanted pregancies in the first place. Until we address that question thoughtfully, we are just piddling into the wind and the suffering will continue. I have done the homework and the reasons are not what I thought. In near perfect irony, abortion is adaptive.
If reducing the number of abortions from over 100,000 every single day worldwide seems like a worthy goal, let’s take a different tack.
“couldn’t we have just a fraction of that energy devoted to determining why there are so many unwanted pregancies in the first place.”
IMO, the female is unprotected and I’m talking about using condoms. I have often thought that women who push condoms as the way towards protection are women who do not have sex. Anyone having sex knows that condoms interfere with the sensitivity factor and are usually removed a few seconds into intercourse.
Womanhood is rarely uplifted because Feminists are busy lusting upon the exploitation of innocence’s sexuality; Feminists find themselves long past sweet sixteen so they attach themselves to the innocence they can never be.
Whether older women cut off clits or shove pregnant girls into abortion the goal is the same, to kill the innocence that they can never be again.
Queens Bees, they destroy innocent life as their way of denying their demise.
Want to protect young women and avoid ‘unwanted’ pregnancies? kill the Queen Bees whose stings are poisonous.
By the way, what in the heck is an ‘unwanted pregnancy”?
How in the heck do we females get to choose who lives or dies?
‘Unwanted Pregnancies”? Why are we glorifying the Grim Reaper when we could be celebrating the glorious powers of Womanhood.
“Unwanted Pregnancies” and “The Gospel of Social Justice” are how healthy societies become sick and dis-eased and full of death.
CORRECTION
and I’m* NOT* talking about using condoms.
Dr. Zero…it is like your reading from the teleprompter of my soul. Really.
You have overtaken Mark Steyn as my favorite writer.
Downloading your peices is like opening a box of choclates.
You have the remarkable skill of beautiful writing and the same political outlook I possess.
You need to offer your talents as a speechwriter to a certain Alasken lady.
As posted on my Wall in FB: “Dr. Zero’s eloquence seems as effortless as breathing, as routinely glorious as watching another sunrise. A truly marvelous paradox… here are his thoughts in the wake of this year’s March for Life in DC. R.A.P. — Read… Absorb… Pass it on…”
Thanks, Doc.
I look forward to all your posts, Doc, and I’m glad you have your own site from where they can be e-mailed!
My father and one of my brothers make this pilgrimage every year, if possible. I was able to make it twice, when I was on the East Coast. I remember looking ahead of us and behind us to the crowds of young and old stretching far each way, and thinking, “This has to make the news, now: there’s so many of us!” To be shocked that, if it were mentioned or shown on the evening news at all, there would be a shot of counter-protestors alongside a low frontal shot of pro-lifers, so that the massive crowds marching for life looked equal in significance to the few “pro-choice” people gathered at street corners here and there. Because I was young I nearly cried in frustration: but it prepared me for the recent media treatment of the Tea Parties. It taught me, and I’d guess many others, that there is an agenda behind the most innocuous seeming news story we’re fed, and behind every picture we’re shown. The internet is the greatest gift to the pro-life cause because now it doesn’t look to the legacy media to promote or publicize at all, much less honestly. We can talk to each other, see the videos, see the pictures taken by participants and not imagine we’re a crazy principled few in a sea of ‘consensus’.
Another great essay, and thank you.
Where does the essay talk about “proper sexual liasons…between virgins”?
I don’t see any condemnation of women who choose an abortion, only a questioning of the current atmosphere in which a woman’s ability to give life is a burden she is not only encouraged not to bear, but that she is alone (“legally”, in your phrase), her life will be negatively impacted, and her prospects, professionally and socially, will disappear. It is assumed that a man will abandon the results of his actions: where is the morality in that?
raiseya11 — “Reading your missive, the only proper sexual liaison that can occur is between two married people that were virgins at the start. They must carry forward any viable embryos that are formed, even if unintentionally. Everyone else has fallen from grace….”
Did you read the same essay I did? From what text do you draw *any* of that?
“The birth of every child is a victory against despair. Over ten thousand children were born in the United States yesterday. We are winning.”
Beautiful, Doc. As a parent, I rejoice every day.
bellurgan says:
January 24, 2010 at 12:27 pm
‘I don’t see any condemnation of women who choose an abortion, only a questioning …’
“I’ve always thought Roe vs. Wade was a terrible law,”
“Our bitter politics may never give us a chance to overturn Roe vs. Wade,”
This is not only a condemnation, but an urge to put a stop to it. Look, I’ve been married 34 years and have two children. Every time two unaltered heteros have coital sex with climax there exists a finite possibility of impregnation. Every time impregnation happens, Doc’s position is that it should be carried to term. Everyone who does not do this is morally inferior. That label is what I objected to.
‘ It is assumed that a man will abandon the results of his actions: where is the morality in that?’
In law, the man is responsible to at least the extent of providing child support. He can be imprisoned for not paying. Yet he has no say in the woman’s decision. Thus, any act of sex bears a potential fiscal responsibility on the male of many years of labor. I might ask where is the morality in that?
In time, foolproof contraception and genetic repair will be developed and the issue of ‘unwanted’ pregnancies will slowly disappear. With it the occasional need/uses/desire for abortions will vanish as well. All children will be intended, desired, supported, and given every chance to succeed. I will be glad to see when that day arrives.
The Marist survey doesn’t surprise me. Of course more and more younger people are going to believe abortion is wrong.
Pro-Lifers belive in the sanctity of life and have children. They raise these children, teaching them these values.
Pro-Abortionists are more likely to not have children, themselves. Their number, of course are dwindling.
Alright, I can’t bite my tongue…
First of all, most women are not encouraged to choose an abortion; in fact, at most Planned Parenthood facilities, proper sex education accompanies any abortion. The major demographic that is “encouraged” is the same demographic that receives greater welfare benefits, simply for producing another child. I’m certain that most on this board would agree that this is a system, given the current structure, that would seem logical and beneficial for the everyman taxpayer.
Secondly, Roe v. Wade was decided at a time where abortions were dangerous … women have been aborting unwanted fetuses since pregnancy has been understood. Most states in America didn’t even outlaw abortion until the turn of the Twentieth Century, and this was in response to the fact that abortions were considered unsafe for the mother. These abortions continued, despite their complete, 50-state illegality in 1965, through methods and means that were exponentially more unsafe to the mother. Make abortion illegal, and, like the wonderful anti-drug laws, abuses will still continue. I suppose that stiff fines and jail terms will be imposed upon mothers who abort their unborn child? More cattle into the penal system.
The same group that cries that government is “too much in our business” marches and fights for stricter laws and regulation as regards something that affects 2% of the population annually? The same group that screams “right to life” is also in favor of capital punishment, or silently applauds when an abortion clinic is bombed? Or worse, will let a woman bleed to death during a “back alley” procedure, simply because she’s immoral?
Lastly, the same week that the Tea Party protested in Washington, approximately 150,000 gays marched on Washington. A 24-news station (FOX) gave the event approximately 90 seconds of airtime. The majority of references on this station afterward were to the effect of, “they sure left a mess behind, unlike the Tea Partiers.”
To: DOne
Laws are written and based on what a society has deemed to be “normal” and acceptable behavior.
IMO, legal abortion was forced upon us as a society and it has never really been an acceptable practice. Alas, we have it and it has been a stain on our souls for all these years. Life has been degraded to the point of a “choice”. What a f#$%ing cop-out.
Capital punishment has been accepted by our society as a whole for a very, very long time. If society decides to change it’s course and deem it inappropriate, fine. But until then, you can take that argument and put it where the sun don’t shine. mmmkay?
Silently applauding a bombing? really? piss off.
You faux anti-morality argument would make Obama blush.
go peddle that crap elsewhere.
@DOne:
A few points:
1) “. . . in fact, at most Planned Parenthood facilities, proper sex education accompanies every abortion.” Rather like bolting the barn door after the horse is gone, n’est-ce pas? According to many investigations, Planned Parenthood is indeed pro-choice . . . as long as the “choice” is infanticide. Oh, and what the hell is “proper” sex education? More to the point, who has been appointed to determine the answer to that question? Planned Parenthood? Clearly, in the opinion of many, parental input is optional . . .
2) “Or worse, will let a woman bleed to death during a ‘back alley’ procedure, simply because she’s immoral?” So does that mean that Society is guilty for every fatal heroin overdose because it has chosen to outlaw heroin use? When people choose to engage in dangerous and illegal behavior, the consequences are their responsibility . . . including the homicide of that person’s child.
3) “Make abortion illegal, and, like the wonderful anti-drug laws, abuses will still continue.” So we should quit making laws, because 100% enforcement is impossible? The point of law is only secondarily to punish the guilty; the primary purpose is to place the opprobrium of civil society on behavior that is detrimental to it, in order to discourage it and to stake out the boundaries of civil behavior. I don’t know what the penalty of law should be for the pitiable teenaged mother that is the liberal poster child for infanticide, although I have some ideas for the medical assassin involved. Even if the consensus of society is that it should be probation and counseling, similar to drug abuse, at least the penalty of law would demonstrate that we as a society place value on ALL human life.
4) “The same group that cries that government is ‘too much in our business’marches and fights for stricter laws and regulation as regards something that affects 2% of the population annually?” No, we’re arguing that law should be made at the state level. You know, like we do for murder. Is it your contention that, to be consistent, conservatives should consider legislation against murder to be “too much in people’s business”?
Oh, and my personal favorite . . .
5) “The same group that screams ‘right to life’ is also in favor of capital punishment, or silently applauds when an abortion clinic is bombed?” Yes, conservatives do hew to Locke’s formulation of the rights to life, liberty, and property. It is also an indispensable tenet of civil society that a possible consequence of violating the law is the forfeiture of one or more of these rights. Is it your contention that, to be consistent, conservatives must oppose the imprisonment of criminals because their right to liberty is absolute? Or that they must not be fined because their right to property is absolute? It is the contention of many conservatives (though not all; most Catholic conservatives are NOT in favor of capital punishment precisely because of your implicit criticism) that there are crimes for which the right to life itself is forfeited, usually for the deliberate and malicious deprivation of the right to life of another. Treason and child rape frequently come up as well, properly so in my opinion.
As for abortion clinic bombings, they also are a violation of the law. The principled pro-life conservative, I think, sees these in a similar fashion to the way that a principled abolitionist would have seen the crusade of John Brown. While the broad aim may be the same, the tactics pursued by Brown or by any of the abortion-clinic bombers (especially those that deliberately killed abortionists) damage the very rule of law that makes civil society possible. Civil society, in turn, is the only thing that makes judgements such as that which holds that infanticide is wrong possible.
[...] left at this equally excellent post by Doctor Zero on the topic of abortion and the right to life: Victory Against Despair A few [...]
Morality is not set in stone, unlike the tablets Moses carried. For only one reason.
Humans may aspire to a higher sense of purpose, meaning, self-awareness, even altruism. But we all have these little things called hormones coursing through our biological systems that may override our intellectually bound desires.
And so we do stuff. Value all life, but smack a fire ant stinging us. Behead a rattlesnake mere inches from the front porch that our children sit upon. Combine the instant reactions with the intellectual formation of morality and we get a tad confused. Also very human.
Should we put ourselves in the backseat of a car with someone of the opposite sex, become sexually excited, engage our desires? Should we behave as we are taught, even untaught? Should we encounter consequences to either decision, how should we react?
What are we taught and by whom? Buddhists teach not to smack the fire ant. Does anyone else?
As America has become described as a melting pot of peoples and cultures, the side effect is a confusion of flavors, no one flavor ascending to or maintaining prominence. Argue for good or bad on this one. But how does a young person not get confused by all the signals, an ever increasing availability of signals by the way, each one wanting it’s place in the morality play.
“one nation, under God” seems to have given way to “anything goes” over the last half century. But anything doesn’t go. No system of civil anything can tolerate this type of confused behavior. Our legal system attempts to provide a line in the sand as stated above. Although tolerance of many types of behavior is the pinnacle of our founding documents, that line in the sand can only be drawn with the Responsibility Stick. Teaching of this great Truth of Life, responsibility, will be the only thing that makes less law, less contention.
Personal responsibility ideally would make Roe v. Wade moot. Don’t get in the back seat of the car unless you both are prepared to share the consequences. No decision to end a life after intellectually deciding that all life is valuable can result in any description other than premeditated murder. Go ahead and argue about convicted serial killers, et al, all you like. Seems to me that Jeffrey Dahmer is a good example of “what goes around, comes around”. Argue about war all you want. Sure, I’ll be standing at the beach with my 12 guage whenever I hear of Al Queda’s pending invasion of America (try to get the point, not the absurd example). Be prepared to protect your family, even the unborn. Without this basic line in the sand, the fire ants will maintain the higher moral ground.
@ navtechie: Call it “crap” as you will; perhaps the abortion bombing comment was a bit hyperbolic, but I overheard more than one red-stater comment that these doctors “had it coming.” I apologize for painting with too wide a brush.
@ loneloc:
As for your discourse, loneloc … very measured and very reasoned. Logically argued, and I have little to argue, but, still, I must try:
1) The Planned Parenthood clinics provide education to attempt to prevent repeated abortions. They strive to teach responsible behavior so that abortion does not become the birth control option of choice. So, from an absolutist standpoint, I guess that you’re right. From a realistic perspective, it should prove responsible, even from an anti-abortion perspective.
2) Society is responsible for the heroin addict … at least financially. There are numerous state-funded detox programs where our hard-earned tax dollars support those that choose to break the law. In much the same way that we pay for people’s methadone supply, we will be responsible for taking care of the indigent “bleeder.”
3) Interesting point as regards that wonderful social moral high ground; we should be a beacon of righteousness? Hmmm … that’s fine, but I’ll refer you to the statistics posted by doctormom above. Law is not a deterrent, and legislating morality is a tough row to hoe, given its subjectivity.
4) Even if Roe v. Wade was overturned, it would not be enough for the anti-abortion activists. As each state decides, the marches would move to the Boises and Montpelliers until it was back to 1965. So, please don’t tell me that this court decision is the only reason for the 37 annual marches.
5) It is not my contention to disallow imprisonment; it is my contention that if Conservatives value ALL human life, as you say, then this would include those on death row. Your use of the Catholic Church is interesting, but is that the Church’s position, or (as you imply) the flocks’? I would argue that many of the latter support capital punishment, despite what the Pope has decreed.
My last point, which I was remiss in including in my first post, is my question surrounding the abortion pill. The use of this morning after pill has also been decried by anti-abortionists. Why? Basic biology dictates that it takes a week for the zygote to even reach the uterus. Is this really life “the morning after?” The majority of the anti-abortion sentiment derives from exactly that: sentiment. This is usually an emotional (and religious) response against basic science.
@ Robert17:
Oh, and Robert, a wonderful post. I agree that education of responsible behavior is a deterrent and infinitely preferable to abortion.
@DOne:
Very good. Debating the merits of infanticide wears me out, so I’ll be brief in response:
1) Planned Parenthood is on record (including undercover video record) as advocating (not merely reluctantly providing) this . . . service past the point of viability, right up to the moment before the baby’s head crowns. (Actually, I guess that in the case of partial-birth abortion, past that point) To see the word “responsibility” mentioned in the same paragraph as that crew of assassins is nauseating; they advocate the abdication of responsibility through murder.
2) I think you may have misunderstood the point that I was trying to make about the heroin addict. The point that I intended to make was that in your first post, you appeared to blame pre-Roe (and prospective post-Roe) American society for the deaths of women who attempted their own back-alley abortions, or who contracted with a back-alley abortionist, since the fact that abortion was illegal “forced” them into a dangerous situation. My comment was that by your logic, anyone who dies while doing something made more dangerous by the fact that it is illegal could have his/her death laid at the feet of the State — hence my heroin overdose example.
3) By your logic, then, nothing should be illegal, since no system of law can enforce 100% compliance. And who are we kidding — we “legislate morality” all of the time; in fact, legislators seldom do anything else. Only the most extreme libertarians would advocate divorcing legislation from morality . . . unless you want to legalize sex with infants, the return of the Roman gladiatorial bloodsport, etc. More subtly, we “legislate morality” with the progressive tax code, Social Security/Medicare (in a practical as opposed to abstract fashion, since both are morphing into the ultimate Ponzi scheme), the “social safety net” program of your choice, the National Park Service, etc., etc. I’m all for limiting the “legislation of morality” in many of those regards; care to join me?
3a) Regarding the statistics concerning Western Europe that you cite . . . doctormom may be correct that most of western Europe allows abortion for any reason, but conveniently leaves out the fact that none of them allow it for any reason at any time. The most liberal of them, Belgium and the Netherlands, only allow it after the 24th week on the testimony of two physicians that the mother’s physical health is significantly threatened. Even France, la patrie of secularism, les Champs-Elysees of sophisticated hedonism, only allows it after the first trimester in cases where the mother is at significant risk of “grave permanent injury” or if the child is at significant risk of a grave and incurable birth defect. In point of fact, western Europeans find American law on the subject to be morally repellent. Maybe you’re right to mock American exceptionalism, since apparently the only thing that we’re exceptional at anymore is the ripping limb-from-limb or fatally scalding in chemical baths of infants in their mothers’ wombs, which from the beginning of human history has been a metaphor for safe haven. If I were religious, I would beg God for his help for this country; since I’m not, I’ll settle for a Derb-ism: We Are Doomed.
4) I had to laugh when I saw Montpelier on your list. It would be a fine day if Vermont could be swayed by a conservative argument, just as it would be if manna and gold started to pour from the heavens and Al Franken said something funny. Doubtless there would be pro-life marches in Montpelier and Sacramento, just as there would be pro-infanticide marches in Boise and Salt Lake City. That’s how federalism is supposed to work. No, it wouldn’t be enough for the pro-life forces, and they would battle in every statehouse, but they would win in some, and others would assert their right to raise their altars to Moloch a la the ancient Carthaginians.
5) Again, I must not have done a very good job of stating my case. My point was that there is a right to life, just as there is a right to liberty and a right to property, and that all life is valuable. However, a person’s actions can render him/her liable to have these rights curtailed or removed. Precisely because life is valuable, the deliberate and malicious taking of life allows for only one penalty. And for the record, your distinction between the Church and the flock is one without a difference, as most Catholic conservatives (Bill O’Reilly, Ramesh Ponnuru, and St Louis’s prominent talker Jamie Allman are examples) are in fact anti-death-penalty. Since I am neither Catholic nor, indeed, a Christian, I hold to the logic with which I began this point. I fail to see how someone who has forfeited the right to life through heinous and infamous actions has any bearing on the fate of the most innocent among us.
As for the anti-abortion pill, there is a religious and a legal reason to oppose it. The religious reason is obvious, so I won’t waste time on it. The legal reason alludes to the point made by the estimable Doctor above, that to try to determine the point at which the child attains personhood is empirically impossible. This being the case, the only two points that have the potential of being irrefutable in an empirical sense are conception and birth. I prefer to err on the side of life in this regard. (I’ll address the scientistic fallacy in a future post.)
So much for brevity . . .
@ loneloc:
Ginsberg’s “Howl” kept popping into my mind. You’ll probably get another trackback, friend.
@ loneloc:
And an interesting caveat to the Western Europe “condition:” all countries pretty much allow abortion within the first twelve weeks. Apparently it’s fairly easy to find two doctors to attest that the pregnancy endangers the woman’s “mental” health … a qualifier added to the law that presents a pretty wide loophole. The only major Western European nation which completely outlaws abortion is Germany, and they won’t prosecute doctors or patients if it’s conducted within the first trimester.
@DOne:
In my defense, I did mention the first trimester vis-a-vis France, and you’re right about the remainder of them — except, I believe, for Ireland, Portugal, and maybe Spain. I wasn’t holding them up as exemplars; I was merely making the point that to use them as examples of the idea that completely deregulating the practice reduces the incidence is somewhat disingenuous. For the record, as far as the US is concerned, I’d rather see no legislation at all than one with the (as you point out) bogus, fig-leaf, Belgian-style “mother’s health” exception. The French standard of “grave irreparable injury” is closer to the mark, although I’d hold out for imminent danger of the mother’s life.
Oh, and it occurs to me that I have not reciprocated your graciousness in our little exchange. This topic brings out all of my sharp edges . . . As I heard George Will tell (I believe) Bill Bennett once: Even when you err, sir, you err elegantly.