Pro-Life Prohibition
Under different circumstances, the political Left in Canada might have been a natural home for the pro-life movement, especially that part of the Left with social gospel underpinnings. The leftist New Democratic Party, after all, has always drawn a significant number of its leading members from the mainline churches. With an emphasis on group rights, state-supported compassion, and special compensations for the weak, the progressive movement is at least theoretically a good fit for a principled commitment to the most vulnerable of human beings. The Left’s championing of women’s sexual freedom and self-determination, however, seems to have made protection of unborn children a political non-starter.
The conservative side of politics used to uphold the sanctity of life, with religious and social conservatives favoring humane limitations on the abortion license. But in the last twenty years or more, the emphasis in the modern conservative movement has been on freedom: free market competition, freedom from state interference in personal affairs, and freedom to express unpopular ideas. In that context, abortion law looks less like the protection of life than like the state meddling in private conduct, and therefore like an unjustifiable impingement on freedom of conscience. Avowedly pro-life politicians frequently declare their unwillingness to limit others’ “choice,” and both the libertarian wing of the political right and secular fiscal conservatives seem to find the pro-life position irrelevant or harmful.
For these reasons, legal restrictions on abortion are now nearly impossible to contemplate in Canada, a fact that pro-lifers, through their silence, implicitly acknowledge. In a prosperous, sexually liberated culture such as ours, it seems we can no longer imagine a law restraining a woman’s unfettered right to abortion: everything we have become — career-oriented, pleasure-seeking, committed to ideals of self-fulfillment and free choice — militates against it. And yet, even abortion’s staunchest defenders must recognize at some level that a culture that kills its unborn children in such numbers (reportedly about 30 abortions for every 100 live births) and with such indifference is an unhealthy one, both demographically and spiritually. The pro-choice determination to keep pro-lifers silent betrays that knowledge.
The Oliver Capkos of the country reveal a contradiction at the heart of our professed values — defense of the weak, the pursuit of justice, and the right to life — that few Canadians have the honesty or courage to confront.
Great conveyance of ideas, Janice. Bravo!
The Demographic Collapse of Pagan Rome
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-demographic-collapse-of-pagan-rome.html
America’s future, just keep voting Democrat. (They’ll give you a free phone, too.)
I am puzzled that no one approaches the abortion issue from a responsibility perspective. Only a relatively small number of pregnancies result from rape. Most pregnancies outside of marriage occur in a situation of consensual intercourse. If society insisted that a man and woman act responsibly or accept that their actions have consequences many abortions could be avoided. In many cases if not most abortion is a cop-out, a failure to act responsibly – it is throwing away an unborn child because we have messed up.
A man and a woman need to respond to their failure in a responsible way. When a child is conceived that child should be provided a loving, caring, nurturing father and mother in a protective home environment. I know couples who have married and done this. Alternatively they should want to see the child placed in an adoptive home that provides these things. This will not be easy because it will mean the biological mother has to go through nine months of pregnancy and quite often a very painful birth process and then having to give up the child she has become attached to.
The biological father should be supporting her during this time for example if she is on maternity leave – this should not be the responsibility of a nanny state and employer. Some women may choose rather to go the route of being a single mother but single mothers becoming the rule or the fashion – as it seems in the country where I am now living – is often irresponsible because it puts an inordinate burden on one parent to raise her child, a task which should be shared. Anyone who has children should be well aware how much a child needs a stable home, with love and disciple, and a mother and father who are an example or role model to them of a faithful commitment.
I make no excuse for being pro life, pro marriage, pro family, pro adoption and not ashamed to say so.
If society insisted that a man and woman act responsibly or accept that their actions have consequences many abortions could be avoided.
I agree with the sentiment expressed in your comment but society already does insist that a man who helps to create a life be responsible. He is required to support that life with child support payments and this requirement exists regardless of whether he is allowed to participate in the child’s life. Pro choice women have no qualms about supporting this gender discrimination.
Even in a country, like Austria, where the government is strict about child support and will jail fathers for non-payment this financial help is not nearly adequate for a single mother raising a child for the next eighteen years. She needs far more – much which cannot be bought with money.
You have conveniently ignored my comment about the “inordinate burden” placed on a single mother. When loving married couples often struggle raising their children, how on earth can you expect a single mother without a 24/7 supportive father to cope as well because of receiving a generous child allowance? Do you think this allowance can really make up for the child not having a dad at home?
While you have picked up an important sentiment in my comment you have missed the fact that I have sought to focus positively on things that should be really important if a society wants to be strong and stable: marriage, family, adoption, protection of life, the avoiding of many abortions and individual responsibility. Many abortions today are simply a selfish abdication of responsibility.
While I recognize that we live in a messed up world and our best efforts often fail, I also notice that those who come to hold deep Christian convictions speak up about and address these concerns – unlike many of their critics.
how about not having SEX with a man until you are MARRIED dolt. really the poor single mom would NOT be single then but no you want sex without resposibilty, GROW UP
I think you’re missing a fundamental cultural feature … the “right” to be free of consequences. In this case, due to widely-available contraception in all its variety. (1) Reliable contraception —> (2) De-linking of the sex act from procreation —> (3) Promiscuous sexual activity without consequence, with the corresponding decline in the societal valuation of marriage —> (4) Attitude of entitlement to same —> (5) Destruction of consequences when they “unexpectedly” occur, aka abortion. Your suggestion that man and woman should deal responsibly with their “consequences” is made anachronistic in step 3.
Can Christians, in all their love and concern, doing all their charity work, promoting valid stable marriages, etc., make this change? Personally I think it’s too late; the secularist socialists have triumphed with the corporate media as their Wormtongue and the courts as their Nazgul. The Christians are slowly sliding down the ramp into the Coliseum once again, so to speak.
In effect, what your suggesting is not only that all of us are obliged to follow your religious ideas when it comes to abortion, but that all will be well if we all accept your sexual morality as well. There are lots of practical reasons to oppose prolife—it results in the unnecessary death and suffering of real women, for starters—but the principled objection is that it amounts to the establishment of a religion by government action. It’s not just that you’re selling a version of human development that even Aristotle would have laughed at—the sacred biology of the anti-abortion folks is about as rational as transubstantiation—but you’re trying to enforce a Puritan ethic of exclusive monogamy by penalizing people who have sex outside of marriage or even inside of marriage for non reproductive reasons. That just isn’t any of your damned business.
You’d like to think that the only reason for these ideas is because of some “ancient, hokey religion or out-moded superstition,” but the basic biological facts support us. The one and only reason that sex exists for the human organism is for procreation. The only reason that we like sex and that it’s fun is because our genes want to get passed on, and sex is the vehicle whereby that happens.
No matter how good your birth control method is, it is not 100% effective even if you use it correctly. You will not be able to find a single birth control method on the market today that advertises itself as 100% effective when used correctly. Therefore, if you embark on a lifestyle of consequences free “safe” sex, there is no reason to believe that you won’t ever get caught by an unexpected pregnancy sooner or later. This in and of itself should be reason enough for even the irreligious to not have sex unless they are with someone with whom they could stomach spawning a child. Why should you adopt an attitude of “oops” and just throw away the life of a child because you were being irresponsible with your life and your choices?
Of course, you will say there is no child there, but even pro-choice women freely acknowledge the inconsistency of their position where unborn children are concerned. They admit that an unborn child is a baby and a human where the mother wants it and they believe it is such, but it’s only so much trash when it’s the result of human irresponsibility in the matters of their sexual behavior.
There you go. It’s not religion at all. It’s just selfish convenience based around the desire to completely decouple sex and procreation even though it’s not possible.
Your biology is simply theology. For example you insist that “the one and only reason that sex exists for the human organism is for procreation.” This familiar dogmatic assertion is obviously false since, whether they are right to do so or not, many, many people engage in sex for a variety of reasons including the fact that it feels good. Your confusion is understandable, though. Many people just don’t get it that there is no reason that sex exists in nature since, so far as we know, nature has no purposes whatsoever. At best, what there is, is an explanation for why sex exists as it does in human beings. The funny thing is, even if you look at the matter from this point of view, i.e., natural selection, your recycled moral theology is very likely false. Human females, unlike many other animals, are not just sexually responsive when they are ovulating. Now it may just be an accident that this is true, but most people who have considered the matter figure that non-reproductive sex is probably adaptive because it promotes lasting social bonds. So there is at least one other reason that “sex exists for the human organism.” Of course nobody is claiming that sex has something to do with reproduction, simply that reproduction is hardly its only function.
Human life begins as a one-celled zygote that nobody in their right mind would ever mistake for a human being. Eventually this zygote turns out to be a tax payer. The grand scandal, what I call the scandal of epigenesis, is that there is no obvious point that divides in two the continuum between human microbe and human being. That’s inconvenient, but it’s what we’ve got to deal with. In such cases, the rational thing to do is to come up with reasonable solution that works practically. And that’s what most ethical traditions have indeed done, though they haven’t all come up with the same criteria for what counts as a person. The rabbis, for example, regarded the fetus as a limb of the mother. The Muslims (and St. Thomas, if I remember rightly) didn’t consider the fetus besouled until quickening. Of course, if you subscribe to the Casper-the-Friendly-Ghost model of the relation of mind and body, you probably figure that a soul gets inserted at some point in the process, presumably by God. On this view, the soul is as undetectable in the fetus as Christ is in the consecrated Host so nothing prevents you from asserting that the soul is already present in the zygote or even in the gametes that proceed it. You are welcome to whatever theory you like. Don’t try to claim it has anything to do with science, however, or make it the basis for telling women what to do with their own bodies.
Actually, Jim, the zygote is no more a part of the woman’s body that it is a part of the man’s body, nor than I am a part of my dear mother’s body. The zygote, the emryo, the foetus, the baby and the six-year-old are all dependant on the parent for survival, but none of them is a part of the parent the way an arm or a leg is. So when you say that a mother should have control over her own body, do not neglect to consider the other body also. It is the verdict of nature that children must grow within the mother in the early stages of developement, and be born through pain. That is unfair, but you cannot claim to be a moral entity if you destroy the child within you for selfish reasons, or if you advocate for it and suborn others to do it. Neither can you claim that law is based on expedience and not on morality.
You write “It is the verdict of nature that children must grow within the mother in the early stages of developement, and be born through pain.” I thought you guys were down on the deification of Nature? Nature doesn’t deliver verdicts. Consciously or unconsciously, your language echoes Genesis, but whether pagan or Christian, your outlook is theological.
Prolife would be a more intellectually defensible position if it were part of a reasoned rejection of the separation of church and state.
Anonymus, I confess to having been under the influence of Jon Meacham’s impressive biography of Thomas Jefferson, which I finished reading about an hour before posting the above comment. So the language is, I suppose, closer to Eighteenth Century than to Genesis. I could have written “nature and nature’s God,” and “law” instead of “verdict”, but why quibble over that?
I am perfectly happy with the separation of church and state, but appalled and terrified by a separation of morality and state, or by the idea that the state can define what is moral without reference to theology. And reference to theology leads inescapably to church, because you cannot just dismiss 5,000 years of institutionalized thought about life, death and morality. We have seen in the Twenieth Century what happens when Nietzean man defines his own morality, and we are seeing now what happens when post-modern man does the same thing. If the annihilation of 50 million prepartum humans for purposes of mere convenience is not a holocaust, then what is it? We need to tread far more softly on this subject than the extremes of either side want to do, because there is indeed a competition of interest between the body and will of the mother, and the rights of a prepartum human being who cannot speak for himself. Meanwhile stop the holocaust, and find alternatives to death, such as adoption and foster care, for example, and debate what circumstances would argue for a legal abortion on humanitarian grounds.
I’m glad you agree with me that the prolife position is essentially theological. You claim to be in favor of the separation of church and state, but evidently not when it matters.
Your idea that all religions, even all varieties of Christianity, equate abortion with murder is factually incorrect. Getting monumentally upset about abortion is actually a pretty recent phenomenon, at least outside of the Catholic church. The various Abrahamic religions opposed abortion mostly because they were against anything that had to do with sex or tended to improve the rights of women, not because they couldn’t tell a fetus from a baby. The current hysteria about abortion took 40 years of ginning up.
Hi aharris, Why do you waste your time responding to Jim Harrishmuck?
Please don’t waste your time and energy on the likes of Jim Harrishmuck a.k.a. Jim Hitlerson. He has venomous opinions on every topic, even ones he knows nothing about. He is simply too ignorant to understand how ignorant he is. However, he thinks he knows everything about everything and thinks he has the solution to all of the world’s problems. The guy is what Thomas Sowell might call a self-anointed messiah. He believes that civilized and successful people and countries are intrinsically evil and he has a vicious hatred of Jews and Israel. His posts are often incoherent ramblings. He evades questions, he tells outright lies and he throws tantrums. Please don’t waste your time and energy on this immature, malignant, narcissistic, attention-starved, anti-Semitic demagogue.
People come here to shout at people like Jim Harrison because it makes them feel smart.
Jim Harrison, HillelA, Cynical Wonder, Lonnie Wild, and Zeke make everyone else in any room look like geniuses because they are so stupid.
And there is a type of person who needs that kind of validation.
Too many of that kind of person here at PJMedia.
Which is why this is a 3rd rate site.
Everybody, please check out post number 24 at the following link: http://pjmedia.com/blog/who-is-john-kerry-trying-to-kid/ .
Only a psychopath (which unfortunately covers a large segment of the left like you) thinks a 6 – 8 month along baby isn’t human and shouldn’t be protected.
Fortunately pro-choice abortion extremists and psychopaths like you are in the absolute minority and the pendulum is poised to swing back as the public continues to find out what is actually going on in the abortion mills in western nations at the hands of leftist extremists (full term babies being induced into labor pulled out legs first then having scissors stabbed into their brains for no reason with no anasthesia, being dismembered, being left to die on the table, dumped into buckets alive, murder laws systematically flouted, etc).
I don’t suppose it ever occured to you that there is nothing new under the Sun? Societies go through cycles and we are in the beginning of our death throes. Permiscuity leads to disease. Homosexual behavior leads to disease. When the disease reaches levels that science can’t keep up with and reproduction is threatened then “morality” or a change in the rules kicks in.
Morality isn’t any more “old fashioned” than permiscuity is. Both are as old as mankind itself. If a curb isn’t put on this behavior you can kiss the human race goodbye because any chance of having healthy babies is becoming a rarity.
It is everyone’s business because in Canada it’s the taxpayer who pays for the ‘consequences’ of unwanted pregnancies. If the issue is all about a woman’s choice, then she should take at least a modicum of responsibility and pay for the abortion herself.
the father should be MARRIED to the mother
The religious conviction that an unborn fetus is the result of a sexually transmitted disease is almost universally a belief of the left and the left’s sheeplike minions.
The sheeple should have a care to determine just who the wonders of Planned Parenthood are aimed at. It isn’t at that special group who also religiously believe that they are the right sort, it is intended to thin the herd of the wrong sort. If that isn’t true, then someone explain the strategy of abortion clinic siting in urban, non-caucasian neighborhoods in humanitarian terms that are not a complete fabrication.
This religion, the Church of Pro-Choice, by any definition cannot last more than a generation, because all of the participating adherents will die. Well, except for the priests of the religion, who will procreate and make fortunes arising from the practice of their peculiar institution’s ritual of infant sacrifice.
Less and less space for pro-life advocacy?
Less and less space for actual free speech and exchange of ideas.
At the risk of sounding crude, the “Choice” exists, and always has… it is the “Choice” made before legs are spread….
(and, as noted above by others, the ‘incestuous rape’ rubric is a red herring)
ta
Mankind has wondered, forever, what separates man from the rest of the animal kingdom. Besides the obvious, God says so, one of the other reasons is that we general see sex as an enjoyable activity and WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO CONTROL OURSELVES.
Yesterday, watching EWTN 500,000 people marching for life what caught my eye was the women holding up the signs that said something like : I murdered my own baby but what I notice is how they now have sweet sweet smiles on their faces despite the wicked deed and then i thought how God raised all their children without being exposed to the pain of human birth and human experience out side Mama’s womb but remain little wiggle life . Then I remember the sin of King David and Bathsheba and to add to the wickedness and great human stink King David murdered Bathsheba’s husband . Then God kill their first born son for their great sin after they had much time to love honor and cherish the babe . But Truth be real ,this first born son brought up in heaven was far more happy then the the stick in the mud 2nd son King Solomon judging by his preserved books he wrote.What he would do for the Love of heaven books have been written as Jesus say: “Something more than Solomon is here”
But now hen I go to the 11th heaven Where the Temple of Solomon is here and the giant ring of power landed in the great sea as the Solomon sanctuary I see how Wise King Solomon is very happy today and united with the firstborn
I have pity with atheist , agnostic , unbeliever ,doubter the misery they suffer living in only one small world and trying to look better than the other people you just run out of time to do this and great mercy is needed to get back that sweet smile on your face again: Gentle Love covers every mistake if not now latter
Hello, we are having the second round of our presidential election yesterday and today and I was wondering who I should vote for.
Melissa Ohden: Aborted At Birth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdm-i62hRdc&feature=related
Watch this and see a miracle of Gods hand.
Wow! I’m speechless
this is up there with the story of the three youths not burned by the furnace of the King of Babylon and the saving of Moses and Jesus from Pharaoh then Herod
I bow my head low to such a woman favored by the True God
Abortion is a tricky subject. My first thought is that it is none of my business. It’s the mother’s body and should be her decision. Contraception has given women the ability to enjoy sex relatively safely but accidents happen, pills get forgotten, that one chance in a hundred that the pill doesn’t work, whatever. To me, abortion should remain legal for the woman that can’t afford a baby or ,of course, for medical reasons can’t carry a baby to term or in the event of rape. I have no sympathy for those that want a “designer baby” though. Those that abort because the baby is the wrong sex or has the wrong color eyes or whatever.
Some are saying the father should be financially responsible for the child and I agree but today, many one night stands occur where the man and the woman may not even know each other’s first name. By the time the woman realizes she is pregnant the man is long gone even if she can remember what he looked like. What is she going to do, sue the pharmaceutical company because their product missed one? About the only way you are going to prevent unwanted pregnancies is to make girls and boys sterile until they decide they are ready for a child. Even then I doubt it would catch them all.
As to Planned Parenthood having an ulterior motive, this is possible but my thought is that they are a corporation, their purpose is to make money. They set up shop where the most customers are. I’m not saying that black men can’t keep it in their pants. The facts are unemployment is high in the lower class neighborhoods, black, white, brown or green. When you got no money you do what you can for fun and sex is free. Until you can find a safe,cheap, totally reliable form of contraception this problem is not going away. The big corporations are not going to try to find it because there is no market for it after a point. If they did come up with a product that would reversibly sterilize people, they would only make two sales, the treatment and the reversal. Of course if they did make this product there would be more people screaming it was thwarting God’s will, we have no right to sterilize people, this is the Devil’s product! In other words, you can’t win and you just plain can’t legislate morality. Abortions are going to happen, legal or not.
Make up your mind. It’s her body and her right to choose or it isn’t. Why she makes the choice (including designer babies and sex selection) is even less your business than that she makes the choice.
I didn’t say it wasn’t her choice, I just said I didn’t like the idea of designer babies. I mean how many abortions would she go through before she found one she liked?
One measure of the difference between civilization and barbarity is the price of life, and in this society life is getting cheaper by the minute.
But what you CAN do is stop asking the rest of us to pay for it.
It’s her choice whether to have sex or not. Once she starts sharing her body with another human being, it stops being solely her choice. After all, human beings are supposed to have an inalienable to their life.
There is no shortage of children — but a shortage of willing parents.
So, rather than fret over the symptoms (ie, abortions), worry about the two actual problems: 1) why no-one who thinks things through wants to be a parent anymore (hint: parenthood is akin to self-sabotage nowadays, and people are going Galt on kids) 2) why despite modern contraceptives, women still end up risking their health with an avoidable, dangerous and painful procedure.
People are too selfish to have kids, or they don’t have enough money (assuming they are responsible). Besides, with the way things are today, having kids and trying to raise them is a scary proposition. I have a 2-year-old and I’m terrified.
Perry.
It is not about the mothers body. It is about the child’s body.
We spend millions of dollars and lots of time and legal energy deciding whether or not to execute a known psychotic killer, someone with whom we have tens of years of experience. Learned heads ponder.
Yet we delegate the same decision to a single young woman, with no knowledge of the future worth of the child. We could raise the child for so much less than the cost of incarceration of a single nutter.
Finally, the adoption demand exceeds the supply… so we adopt Russians.
It does not compute
“It’s not about the mother’s body. It’s about the child’s body” So, a woman of child bearing age’s sole function is to serve as a brood sow?
“We delegate the same decision to a single young woman……..” You’re saying that women aren’t smart enough to make their own decisions; with their families or their doctors?
“We could raise the child for so much less……” Who is “we?” And, isn’t the Tea Party, for example, a strong supporter of cutting back on entitlements; things like the W.I.C. program, subsidies for child care, etc.
“It’s not about the mother’s body. It’s about the child’s body” So, a woman of child bearing age’s sole function is to serve as a brood sow?
Well duhhh? Why was she born female then? If not have babies?
Where was anybody saying that? If she doesn’t want to be pregnant, maybe she shouldn’t be having sex. That is what sex is for … you know, pregnancy. It’s not just a fun recreational thing our bodies can when we’re bored on Friday nights after a long night of drinking at the local bar. If that was really all it was good for, we’d evolve to no longer be able to have sex, it’s an extremely expensive way to mix our genetics.
You’re a male – of COURSE you are FOR abortion. It saves your tookus from any unwanted responsibility.
Abortion is/was and always will be about a man’s liberation – NOT a woman’s liberation. Abortion gave whore’s to men without any of the consequences. Brainwashing women into having no regard for their bodies was just an added bonus.
“It is not about the mothers body. It is about the child’s body.”
Uh, no. The body of the mother can not and will not be used as an incubator against her will. It doesn’t matter how she got knocked up, where it happened, or who the father was, the woman is the one who gets to decide whether or not that pregnancy will be carried to term. I could care less whether she was a slut who couldn’t keep her legs shut with an “aspirin” or a good Christian girl who gave into temptation. It is her choice.
According to your moral standards, a woman’s choice to have unprotected sex gives her the right to destroy an innocent human life. OTOH, men have to accept responsibility for their choices. Why are women held to a lower standard?
A woman has the “right” to kill a baby a day before it’s due to be born because she wants to.
Same people say the woman doesn’t have the “right” to smoke when she’s pregnant as it’s evily harming the unborn baby.
Same people argue *against* murder and assault laws covering unborn babies being killed and battered at the hands of violent boyfriends and rapists.
Leftist psycopathy defined.
Men always have the first choice before the fact. After the fact they have more choices, absent the fathers standing behind them with shotguns. That is what often drives the choice of the pregnant women, so no, taking into account biological realities, things are as fair as they will ever get.
With that attitude, you couldn’t have chosen a better name than “Cynical Wonder”. Pity.
Cynical
Where do I say anything about brood cows? I only say that once someone engages in sexual activity the innocent third party the child has rights also. Nowhere do I oppose contraception. I do oppose ‘sluthood’ as a life style that kills innocents and sends the nation the bill….
Further you intersect the choice for sex, unprotected sex at that, with the choice of child murder… on what planet does that make sense?
Steve B. “We” are the public coffers that pay for the downstream health care, mental care and infertility treatments. (Fact, each abortion lowers the chance of normal conception and normal birth by a significant and measurable amount.)
A single young woman decides to become sexually active. THAT is the choice, the child is the consequence. We do not allow individual ‘single young women’ to make life or death decisions about, oh, say someone who mugged them or someone who is on death row or etc.
What every pro-infanticide person is saying is ‘kill the baby’ as it is inconvenient to me.. might even make me have to man (woman) up and be a real live responsible person
I do oppose ‘sluthood’ as a life style that kills innocents and sends the nation the bill…
So at the core of your argument is disapproval of how others live their lives and assuming and claiming that they are the parties getting abortions. I’m guessing that like your fellow moralising busybodies you don’t have a shred of proof of your assertions.
Slice and dice all pro life arguments and this is the core of it: people are having sex and fun, and you guys don’t like that. It’s judgemental douchebaggery. The far right claims that Obama is a marxist because he thinks he knows better than the people do, but when *you* guys rail about ‘sluthood’ (looking down on people since you know better than they do), why, it’s not marxist, no sir.
Then, when you get called on being judgemental douchebags, the standard reverts to “yeah well I’m not going to pay for it.” As if this is a big deal. What do you think the entire outlay for women’s health is? How much is your share of that, and how much goes to abortion? I’m guessing that your share of the entire government outlay is about $5 a year, tops. And that which goes to abortion is maybe $1.50 a year, tops.
In that case, if the government were to reduce your tax outlay by $1.50 annually, is anyone here gullible enough to think this would make the likes of you STFU and go away? Of course not.
In truth the money is an excuse. It ain’t about money. It’s about you thinking you’re better than others and can stand in judgement of them. You’re little more than the garden variety busybody.
I dont support making abortion illegal. However I dont want to pay for it, and all who have abortions should know that what they have done is take a human life, and no amount of rationalizing, sophistry or philosophy can change that FACT. My wife had an abortion with her first husband and it haunted her till the end of her life.
My comments are not about abortion, but rather about freedom of speech in Canada.
In many areas of Canadian polity, most notably abortion, homosexual marriage, use of marihuana, Canadian foreign policy, language policy between French and English & numerous federal economic policies, there is little or no debate in English other than that defined by the official tone of two of Toronto’s four dailies (the other two are dismissed by the policy makers as loonie toon) and the government funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Recall that there is no guaranteed freedom of speech in Canada. There is a “hate speech” law which can be arbitrarily used–and has been in the past–to determine what clergy may or may not say within the confines of a house of worship as religious teaching, unless that house of worship is Islamic, in which case anything goes.
The basic ethos of speech in Canadian society–from the schools to Tim Horton’s (a widely patronized chain of coffee shops) is that one should say nothing that COULD be interpreted by someone (not necessarily the listener, perhaps a complete stranger overhearing a conversation) as potentially offensive.
Unaccountable “human rights” tribunals are the arbiter of political correct speech, and from their non-judicial decisions (by that I mean that there is a low to none standard as understood in criminal law) there is no recourse, as their penalties are enforced by the full weight of the civil and criminal law.
I know that many of the opinions ventured by me as a university student in Canada (graduated in 1985) or by my father as a university professor of English literature (1960′s-1970′s) would now render us both unemployable and completely ostracized.
Look north, Americans, for your vision of Obama’s America.
Here is a link so you can read up about the history of abortion laws and removal of same in Canada. http://www.hackcanada.com/canadian/freedom/canadabort.html It is a reasonably good and accurate article.
I am still not quite sure if you (the author of this piece) are Canadian or are really even talking about Canadian abortion policy or lack thereof. I like the person who commented above me (former Canuck, now a naturalized Yank) do have some Canadian background, but, I can see he is considerably younger than I am. And our viewpoints politically, judging by his comments, are vastly different. I would not agree at all with his statement to look north for the vision of Obama’s America. For that, you need to look a lot further – over the pole and back down into Russia and Communist China.
But, be that as it may, I was around when Dr. Henry Morgantaler was a well known name in Canada, and I am a female who was of ‘breeding’ age in those days too. I remember the whole debate well.I remember when abortion was decriminalized in Canada. I remember the 3 member committees that had to approve abortions. I remember the political arguments and it puts me in mind of what happens here in the US on a daily basis, year in and year out, but especially in election years. For the most part, it is quiet about this issue in Canada these days (although every so often activists cross the border into Canada and cause a big kerfufle).
It is easier to read the article I linked (or would have if there was a way to actually ‘link’ but the URL is there) so I won’t go into the whole history of why Canada has no abortion ‘law’ per se, but I will say that illegal abortions killing many young women in back alleys, the realization that enforcement was difficult, the lack of access to the stipulated committees (and their uneven application) for many people not close to hospitals, etc. form much of the reason. The government spent years trying to convict Dr. Morgentaler for the abortions he performed in clinics but juries refused to convict. The government gave up because the people obviously were not liking the way the law was written – even with abortion being decriminalized, it was still a crime UNLESS you were approved by a committee of 3 and the abortion was performed in a hospital. And, at that time, I believe that an abortion was only permitted until 12 weeks into the pregnancy.
I am pro-life – many, probably still most, people in Canada are – however, since I will always think like a Canadian I guess – no matter how long I live in the US and remain an American citizen. I believe that my beliefs are MY beliefs and I should not impose them on anyone else – which is not the American way. We who think Canadian, live our beliefs but that is our choice and our business and we expect others to use their own brains and do what is best for them. Therein lies the much of the difference between Canadians and Americans. Canadians think differently than Americans – even today, even with all the influences from the south/the US. Canadians also tend to be more laisse faire. And I hope they stay that way. The last thing I would want to see is Canada become the US. The US is a very stressful place to live because of the polarization, the ‘everyone is in everyone else’s business’ thing. There are many great things about America, Americans and American life but those ‘attributes’ are not them.
“in the last twenty years or more, the emphasis in the modern conservative movement has been on freedom: free market competition, freedom from state interference in personal affairs, and freedom to express unpopular ideas. In that context, abortion law looks less like the protection of life than like the state meddling in private conduct, and therefore like an unjustifiable impingement on freedom of conscience. Avowedly pro-life politicians frequently declare their unwillingness to limit others’ “choice,” and both the libertarian wing of the political right and secular fiscal conservatives seem to find the pro-life position irrelevant or harmful.”
BRAVO CANADA!!! Maybe they will save conservatism from the clutches of the busy-bodies and religious idiots with nothing better to do. Clearly the Canadian REAL conservatives have learned well from the US where the “conservative” politicians still havent gotten the memo that if they insist on sticking their noses up womens vaginas…they will just end up sucking ass!
Oh and watch all “defenders of free speech” come back and insult me personally for my opinion. I care about fiscal and personal responsibility. And all the anti-abortion fascists are gonna destroy that. If you dont like abortion…dont have one! But mind your own business.
Would you be agreeable to me owning a few slaves? If you don’t like slavery, don’t own one!
A modest proposal: All unwanted babies who would be aborted should be instead brought to term and sold by the mother as slaves. The mother would receive compensation for the inconvenience of bearing them, and the buyer would have the benefit of cheap labor in addition to the gratification of knowing that he has saved someone from death. The babies don’t matter, they never did, and they should be grateful to be alive.
My comment was to show the absurdity of the ” if you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one” argument. That argument presupposes that there isn’t another person of value ,involved in the decision.
I have absolutely no arguement with your post, Buster. I though you made a clever analogy, and I was using satire to magnify the point. I am afraid Terence, below, missed my point too. “A Modest Proposal” is the title of a famous satire by Jonathan Swift and my “proposal” is not so very different from his.
@Bigfoot
No worries there. Your point was, and is, well taken. A cursory look at earlier commentors, however, reveals a lack of anything like value systems, basic rationality or even grounding. Some real darkness.
I’ve also been on the same page with Keaton several times past.
Best to you both. Terry
They really do come out. Mention abortion and they come out.
I’m seeing new names issuing comments the likes of which any civilized person would consider monstrous, no matter their pro/con orientation.
Whether it is a “culture of death” or just a life-hating pseudo-pragmatism, the driving force behind the pro-abortion rights worldview is a terrible fear that there is such a thing as Innocent Human Life and, if we acknowledge it, will establish the value which is the source of all values.
A hierarchy of values allows us to differentiate between “the GOOD” and (gently) the NOT GOOD. Rather than finding freedom in truth, many of the pro-choice/pro-abortion rights advocates see only an unfathomable burden. In their world, freedom somehow exists apart from reality, and in this case, the reality of life itself made manifest in a human being.
As long as someone can evade values they can evade standards. In this, the
pro-choice advocates think they are most free. They believe in equality as “equivalency,” meaning, there is no GOOD to be achieved by ANYONE because there can and must never be a standard by which such things are measured.
Funny thing about Conservative Canadian politicians who dont talk about abortion…THEY GET ELECTED! hahaha
I’m not sure what you’re responding to, unless you thought I was referring to politicians or some such.
My comment, which I thought plain to read, refers to the diminished worldview of people who are either at odds with, or ignorant of, the hierarchy of human values and the recognition that any meaningful (in human terms) reality has its beginning in OUR beginning, which is conception.
Please forgive my lack of clarity.
Yeah well sometimes being on the spot does give a prospective….
In my case, retirement giving time to ponder, and relative isolation from the “madding crowd”.
Don’t mean I’m right but I do have an opinion.
Canada for the longest time, was dominated by the 25% franco-phone critical mass which was going through a process of moral revolt. In the past, Quebec was ruled/dominated by the RC church and the late 20th century was an “awakening”, old establishments were being cast aside, more like a revolt.
During the 70′s adult entertainment (stripclubs) exploded in Quebec and the phenomina spread to the rest of Canada….probably because of franco-phone political influence….
A rapid breakdown of old standards resulted, cheered on by the dominating “baby-bombers” a phenomina more powerful in Canada than elsewhere in the world.
This resulted in several decades of social democrat dominance of Canada’s political scene…..with the usual results.
Conservatives were splintered into factions which exasperated the effect. Then the Conservatives merged into one (1) party. Aided by the tax and spend social democrats, the Conservatives finally gained power by making hard choices. Firstly fiscal, then law and order were the priorities, then dismantling the fire-arms (long gun) registry, abortion out of necessity was avoided…..
Perhaps the existance of several generations of welfare recipients, cheaper to abort.
However, I detect an undercurrent now not that comfortable with abortion on demand….perhaps a blowback to 3rd world immigration of unassimilatables.
Immigrants don’t abort…..
Race is a powerful, subconscious matter.
Tain’t right, tain’t wrong, just is….
I respect a woman’s right to eliminate her gene’s from the gene pool. Who am I to question natural selection? I raised my children right. They know that if they make a mistake I will be there to support them and there will never be an unwanted child that comes from them. We should encourage liberals to self-select, perhaps offering a flat-screen TV for every aborted fetus and a lifetime of free internet for every vasectomy. Wouldn’t that be a great vote getter.
In a few years the problem will take care of itself. I know it sounds cruel, but all just wars fought ruthlessly usually are.
Except that the only fatalities are innocent individuals, not suicidal “choice exercising” members of NOW.
I appreciate your frustration and I understand your sentiments. If ONLY the problem could be eliminated through the exercise of free will among persons carrying a defective survival trait. Alas, the mystery of the individual eliminates that possibility. Remember, it is the pro-abortion advocate that argues there is no difference between the woman’s body and a fetus, or a mother’s body and a baby.
Wrote the above.
Never mean to post anonymously. Sorry.
Terry
Sorry, meant to sign the above. Terry
As long as situational ethics is protected, those who call for the ethics that exhibit continuity, instead of isolation – time and words will be wasted.
I submit that those who want taxpayers to pay for ending life that hasn’t been born are trying to end their discomfort. Well, the price of life being taken from those who haven’t been borne – this is outright banditry.
For accusations of meanness is part of the smoke screen who fear being challenged, because they know they have constructed a house of cards.
“THE FEMINISTS” is the most explosive expose’ of the 21st Century. Get it. Read it and recommend it to everyone you know. For the first time go on the offensive and make Americans understand who these people are and why every American woman, her daughters and granddaughters are so at risk.
The future of American men & women is very bleak unless you act now!
Do you really want your sons to marry young women who have slept with dozens of men and have aborted one or more of their babies, are binge alcoholics and have one are more venereal diseases?
Do you really want your daughters, friends and associates to be such women?
Their numbers are growing exponentially!
Do men really want to marry such women or only prefer to sleep with them?
Such women then grow old, poor and bitter!
http://www.undergroundfreedompress.com
Sincerely,
James E. Joyce, author