http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2013/02/08/one-womans-abortion-story Comments On: One woman's abortion story by Max Brantley en-us Copyright 2013 Arkansas Times. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Arkansas Times readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Arkansas Times. robert@arktimes.com (Arkansas Times Webmaster) Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:01 -0500 Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by tfarchsa]]> Fri, 10 May 2013 20:33:51 -0500 Arkansas Times Scott Klusendorf responded to this kind of thinking by stating:

A student at a Southern California college said this to me after I made a case for the pro-life position in her sociology class. She was in effect saying, “Morality is relative; it's up to me to decide what is right and wrong.” We call this moral relativism, the belief that there are no objective standards of right and wrong, only personal preferences. Therefore, we should tolerate other views as being equal to our own.

But as Greg Koukl and Francis Beckwith point out, relativism is seriously flawed for at least three reasons.8 First, it is self-refuting. That is to say, it cannot live by its own rules. Second, relativists cannot reasonably say that anything is wrong, including intolerance. Third, it is impossible to live as a relativist.

1) Relativism is self-refuting—it commits intellectual suicide. The student said it was wrong for me to force my views on others, but she could not live with her own rule. Although our dialogue was pleasant, she clearly tried to force her views on me.9

Student: You made some good points in your talk, but you shouldn't force your morality on me or anyone else who wants an abortion. It's our choice, isn’t it?

Me: Are you saying I'm wrong?

Student: I’m not sure. What do you mean?

Me: Well, you think I'm wrong, don't you? If not, why are you correcting me? And if so, then you're forcing your morality on me, aren't you?

Student: No, I just want to know why you are telling people what they can and cannot do with their lives.

Me: Are you saying I shouldn't do that? That it’s wrong? If so, then why are you telling me what I can and cannot do? Why are you forcing your morality on me?

Student (regrouping): I’m confused. Look, the simple fact is that pro-choicers are not forcing women to have abortions, but you want to force women to be mothers. If you don't like abortion, don't have one. But you shouldn’t force your beliefs on others. All I am saying is that pro-life people should be tolerant of other views.

Me: Is that your view?

Student: Yes.

Me: Why are you forcing it on me? That’s not very tolerant, is it?

Student: What do you mean? I think women should have a choice and you don't. It’s your view that’s intolerant, wouldn’t you say?

Me: Okay, so you think I'm wrong. What is it you want pro-lifers like me to do?

Student: You should let women decide for themselves and tolerate other views.

Me: Tell me, what exactly do pro-choicers believe?

Student: We believe everyone should decide for themselves and tolerate other views.

Me: So you are demanding that pro-lifers become pro-choicers?

Student: What? No way.

Me: With all due respect, here’s what I hear you saying. Unless I agree with you, you will not tolerate my view. Privately, you'll let me think whatever I want, but you don't want me to act as if my view is true. It seems you think tolerance is a virtue if and only if people agree with you.

Put succinctly, her argument for tolerance was in fact a patronizing form of intolerance. She spoke of moral neutrality, but tried to force her own views on me.

I once read an editorial in the Toronto Star that was similarly intolerant of pro-life advocates. While decrying the "single-minded moral supremacism" of those who call abortion killing, journalist Michele Landsberg writes:

Will no priest or minister publicly resolve to stop the indoctrination of youth to view abortion as murder? Is none ashamed of the blood-drenched holocaust vocabulary used so cynically (and anti-semitically) to whip up fervor for the crusade? Where are the outspoken cries of conscience by bishops and cardinals who should be appalled by the evidence of links between anti-abortion fanatics and far-right militias, neo Nazis, and white supremacists? Is there no religious leader who regrets his church's role in feeding this blind frenzy? Will none of them repent of their excesses, will none call a halt to their sickeningly manipulative campaigns of "precious little feet," their fake "documentaries" about screaming fetuses? You'd think that the world had enough lessons in the dangers of hate speech.

Like hers? It doesn't seem to trouble Ms. Landsberg that her own vitriolic rhetoric could incite abortion advocates to commit acts of violence against pro-lifers. She continues:

It was the unbridled hate speech of fundamentalist fanatics in Israel who spurred on the "devout" murder of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin....We've seen how homophobic rantings from right-wing American leaders, notably the Senate republican leader, led to escalating gay bashings, culminating in the heart- wrenching death of Matthew Shepherd in Wyoming....Denominational schools [should] begin to teach respect for the laws of our pluralistic society, rather than preaching single-minded moral supremacism.10

Again, like her own?

Notice what is going on here. She decries "moral supremacism," but says that anyone who disagrees with her view on abortion is an indoctrinator of youth, a fanatic, an anti-Semite, a neo-Nazi, a white supremacist, a manipulator of facts, a purveyor of hate speech, homophobic, a gay-basher, a religious bully, responsible for the death of Matthew Shepherd, and finally, a fundamentalist fanatic like those who murdered Yitzhak Rabin.

One can hardly imagine a finer piece of self-refuting rhetoric—all, of course, in the name of tolerance.

Sometimes the demand for tolerance is laughable. While driving my sons to a baseball game at Dodger Stadium, a young woman in a white pickup truck began tailgating me. Visibly angered by a pro-life sticker on my rear window, she stayed on my bumper for a mile or so. Finally, she pulled beside me and extended a certain part of her anatomy skyward as she passed. She then cut in front of me. At that moment, I noticed a bumper sticker on her truck. It said, "Celebrate Diversity." The message was clear: In a pluralistic society, we should tolerate other views. Ironically, the driver saw no contradiction between her unwillingness to tolerate (or celebrate) my point of view and her bumper sticker that said we should tolerate all points of view. That is what I mean when I say that relativism is self-refuting.

Are pro-choice claims for moral neutrality self-refuting?

On a more sophisticated level, we often hear that society should confer a large degree of liberty by not legislating on controversial moral issues for which there is no consensus, especially if those issues incite deep division. Abortion, the argument goes, is a divisive and controversial issue. Therefore, it should be left to personal choice. But this view is itself controversial. Do we have a consensus that we should not legislate on controversial matters? Moreover, slavery and racism were controversial and divisive issues. Are we to conclude that it was wrong to legislate against them? The fact that people disagree is no reason to suppose that nobody is correct.

Paul D. Simmons, meanwhile, writes that pro-lifers are guilty of “speculative metaphysics” whenever they claim that the unborn are persons from conception. (Metaphysics has to do with the ultimate grounding or reality of things such as, What makes humans valuable in the first place? And where do rights come from?) For Simmons, metaphysical claims for the pro-life view are ultimately “religious” in nature and for that reason, they have no place in public policy. If you think the early fetus is a subject of rights, you are entitled to your own religious view, but you can’t force that speculative opinion on others who disagree. When it comes to religion and metaphysics, the state should remain neutral and allow abortion until the fetus acquires viability (i.e., the ability to live independent of the mother).

Simmons’s view, however, is self-refuting. As Beckwith points out, the nature of the abortion debate is such that all positions on abortion presuppose a metaphysical view of human value, and for this reason, the pro-choice position Simmons defends is not entitled to a privileged philosophical standing in our legal framework.11 At issue is not which view of abortion has metaphysical underpinnings and which does not, but which metaphysical view of human value is correct, pro-life or abortion-choice?

The pro-life view is that humans are intrinsically valuable in virtue of the kind of thing they are. True, they differ immensely with respect to talents, accomplishments, and degrees of development, but they are nonetheless equal because they all have the same human nature. Their right to life comes to be when they come to be (conception). Simmons’s own abortion-choice view is that humans have value (and hence, rights) not in virtue of the kind of thing they are, but only because of an acquired property such as self-awareness or viability.12 Because the early fetus lacks the immediate capacity for these things, it is not a person with rights. Notice that Simmons is doing the abstract work of metaphysics. That is, he is using philosophical reflection to defend a disputed view of human persons.13 Hence, Simmons’s attempt to disqualify the pro-life view from public policy based on its alleged metaphysical underpinnings works equally well to disqualify his own view.

2) It is impossible for a moral relativist to say that anything is wrong, including intolerance. If morals are relative, then who are you to say that I should be tolerant? Perhaps my individual morality says intolerance is just fine. Why, then, should I allow anyone to force tolerance on me as a virtue if my preference is intolerance?

The truth is, a moral relativist cannot legitimately say that anything is wrong or truly evil. My colleague Greg Koukl once challenged a relativist with this question. "Do you think it is wrong to torture babies for fun?" She paused, then replied, "Well, I wouldn't want to do that to my baby." Greg responded, “That's not what I asked you. I didn't ask if you liked torturing babies for fun, I asked if it was wrong to torture babies for fun." The relativist was caught and she knew it. She chuckled and went on to another subject.

If it is up to us to decide right and wrong, then there is no difference between Mother Theresa and Adolph Hitler. They just had different preferences. Mother Theresa liked to help people and Hitler liked to kill them. Who are we to judge?

3) It is impossible to live as a moral relativist. As C.S. Lewis points out, a person who claims there is no objective morality will complain if you break a promise or cut in line.14 And if you steal his stereo, he will protest loudly. If I were a crook, I would reply to the relativist, “Do you think stealing stereos is wrong? Well, that's just your view. My morality says it's perfectly acceptable. Who are you to force your views on me?” Simply put, moral relativists inevitably make moral judgements. They espouse a view they cannot live with.

I think you are starting to get the picture. Relativism is not tolerant of other views. In fact, it tries to suppress them. To cite one more example, during the 2001 winter semester, pro-life students at the University of North Carolina displayed 20 large panels (each 6 feet by 13 feet) depicting the grisly reality of abortion. Known as the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP—see www.abortionno.org), these pictures have been displayed at over 100 universities nationwide. Though invited to do so, pro-abortion students at UNC refused to participate in a structured public debate, but demanded instead that campus police forcibly remove the display. One pro-abortion student, Marcus Harvey, insisted the display was intolerant, ignorant, and must be removed.

I wrote a reply to Mr. Harvey that was posted (in part) on The Daily Tar Heel website:15

Marcus Harvey's comments about the Genocide Awareness Project are typical of today's so-called pro-choicers. Instead of refuting the pro-life argument that it’s wrong to kill members of the human family simply because they are in the way and cannot defend themselves, he chastises the campus police for not suppressing ideas that he personally disagrees with. This is very intolerant of him. His message couldn't be clearer: Agree with me or else. Unfortunately, Mr. Harvey has no clue about the true meaning of tolerance. Classical tolerance means that I defend your right to speak even if I disagree with your argument. In fact, the very concept of tolerance presupposes that I think you are wrong. Otherwise, I am not tolerating you; I am agreeing with you! For Mr. Harvey, tolerance means something very different. It means this: Agree with me or I will call upon the police power of the state to suppress your ideas. There is a name this and it’s not tolerance: It's called fascism. Thankfully, the university knew better and the pro-life display went forward despite attempts to censor it. Hey, Mr. Harvey: Please don’t force your morality on the rest of us.

Moral relativism is expressed one other way: “I'm personally opposed to abortion, but I still think it should be legal.” When people say this, I ask a simple question to clarify things. I ask why they personally oppose abortion.16 Invariably they reply: “We oppose it because it kills a human baby.” At that point, I merely repeat back their words. “Let me see if I got this straight. You oppose abortion because it kills babies, but you think it should be legal to kill babies?" Would these same people argue that while they personally opposed slavery, they would not protest if a neighbor wanted to own one? This was precisely what Stephen Douglas did during his debates with Abraham Lincoln.17 That argument did not work with slavery and it will not work with abortion.

Greg Koukl suggests this tactic: The next time somebody says that “you shouldn’t force your morality on me,” respond with only two words: “Why not?” Any answer given will be an example of that person forcing his morality on you!18
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 10 May 2013 14:52:20 -0500 Arkansas Times
Scott Klusendorf responded to this kind of thinking by stating:


As a guest on the television show Politically Incorrect, former super-model Kathy Ireland gave a carefully reasoned scientific and philosophic defense of the pro-life position. The show's host, Bill Maher, ignored her evidence completely and shot back with (paraphrase) "Kathy, that's just your view."


What's wrong with this response? Maher was confusing a moral claim with a preference claim. But there is a difference between disliking something (say, for example, a particular flavor of ice cream) and thinking it is morally wrong. Put simply, when pro-life advocates say that abortion is morally wrong, they are not saying they personally dislike abortion or would prefer that people not have one. Rather, they are saying that elective abortion is objectively wrong for everyone, regardless of how one feels about it. This is why the popular bumper sticker "Don't like abortion? Don't have one!" misses the point entirely. It confuses the two types of claims. (Try this: "Don't like slavery? Don't own a slave!")


Now it may be the case that pro-life advocates like Kathy Ireland are mistaken about their claim. Perhaps their evidence that abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless child is weak and inconclusive. But instead of proving this with facts and arguments, abortion advocates like Bill Maher ignore the evidence altogether. "Well, that's just your view." This not only relativizes the pro-lifers claim, it is intellectually lazy. It attempts to dismiss evidence rather than refute it.


Imagine if I were to say, "There is a pink elephant in the corner of the room just beneath the window."7 How should you respond to my claim? Perhaps I'm mistaken (and chances are I would be), but it would do no good to say, "That's just your view." The problem is I was not offering an opinion, I was claiming to be right. To refute me, you must show that my claim is false. The correct response is to say, "Your evidence is lousy. We looked in the corner and there is no elephant."


But again, Maher did not do that. At no point did he challenge her facts and arguments. What he said in effect was "Go away Kathy. You have your views and I have mine." This was very condescending because he did not even entertain the possibility that she had good evidence for her claim. Nor did he acknowledge the type of claim she was making.


To sum up, Maher was confusing a preference claim with a distinctly moral one. Preference claims cannot be evaluated as true or false because they are matters of personal taste. You cannot reasonably argue that vanilla ice cream is objectively better than chocolate. But moral claims are different. They can be evaluated as true or false based on the evidence. They do not say, “This is better tasting,” they say, “This is right”. Kathy Ireland's claim was, Abortion is wrong because it takes the life of a defenseless child, and I think I'm right. Maher's glib response did nothing to refute this. In fact, one could stop Maher dead in his tracks by saying, “Bill, it's just your view that it's just my view.”
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 10 May 2013 14:26:35 -0500 Arkansas Times
Men are told, "You can't get pregnant, so leave the abortion issue to women." Besides its obvious sexism, the statement is seriously flawed for several reasons. First, arguments do not have genders, people do.30 Since many pro-life women use the same arguments offered by pro-life men, it behooves the abortion advocate to answer these arguments without fallaciously attacking a person's gender.

Second, to be consistent with their own reasoning, abortion advocates would have to concede that Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case legalizing abortion, was bad law. After all, nine men decided it. They must also call for the dismissal of all male lawyers working for Planned Parenthood and the ACLU on abortion related issues. Since abortion advocates are unwilling to do this, we can restate their argument as follows: “No man can speak on abortion—unless he agrees with us.” Once again, this is a classic case of intolerance.

Third, lesbians and post-menopausal women cannot naturally get pregnant; must they be silent on the issue? Think of the bizarre rules we could derive from this argument: "Since only generals understand battle, only they should discuss the morality of war." Or, "Because female sportscasters have never experienced a groin injury, they have no right to broadcast football games on national television."

Again, abortion advocates must offer arguments to support their position. Attacking people personally, even if those attacks are true, will not make their case or refute ours.
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 10 May 2013 09:36:15 -0500 Arkansas Times

How can those who do not believe in God have any moral foundation (besides relativism) to condemn a madman like Hitler?

Woody Allen has pointed this out so well in his 1989 movie "Crimes and Misdemeanors." Below I describe some key points from that movie.

Could Outlier or anyone else answer this one question. HOW COULD JUDAH HAVE REMOVED HIS TROUBLESOME MISTRESS FROM HIS LIFE WITHOUT KILLING HER? Woody Allen knew what he was doing in this film and he was showing that without God and an afterlife then there is no reason not to murder!!!!

Woody Allen's 1989 movie, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS , is concerning the need of God while making decisions in the area of personal morality. In this film, Allen attacks his own atheistic view of morality. Martin Landau plays a Jewish eye doctor named Judah Rosenthal raised by a religious father who always told him, "The eyes of God are always upon you." However, Judah later concludes that God doesn't exist. He has his mistress (played in the film by Anjelica Huston) murdered because she continually threatened to blow the whistle on his past questionable, probably illegal, business activities. She also attempted to break up Judah 's respectable marriage by going public with their two-year affair. Judah struggles with his conscience throughout the remainder of the movie. He continues to be haunted by his father's words: "The eyes of God are always upon you." This is a very scary phrase to a young boy, Judah observes. He often wondered how penetrating God's eyes are.

Later in the film, Judah reflects on the conversation his religious father had with Judah 's unbelieving Aunt May at the dinner table many years ago:

"Come on Sol, open your eyes. Six million Jews burned to death by the Nazis, and they got away with it because might makes right,” says aunt May

Sol replies, "May, how did they get away with it?"

Judah asks, "If a man kills, then what?"

Sol responds to his son, "Then in one way or another he will be punished."

Aunt May comments, "I say if he can do it and get away with it and he chooses not to be bothered by the ethics, then he is home free."

Judah 's final conclusion was that might did make right. He observed that one day, because of this conclusion, he woke up and the cloud of guilt was gone. He was, as his aunt said, “home free.”

Woody Allen has exposed a weakness in his own humanistic view that God is not necessary as a basis for good ethics. There must be an enforcement factor in order to convince Judah not to resort to murder. Otherwise, it is fully to Judah 's advantage to remove this troublesome woman from his life.
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 22:38:27 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Vanessa]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:27:34 -0600 Arkansas Times
http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx…

From the web site linked above:

"If the fetus is affected, the family may elect to have a therapeutic abortion. In this way, even at-risk couples can be helped to have children, as many as they wish, who are free of Tay-Sachs disease."

For the record, my oldest brother's second child, a son, was born with cystic fibrosis. He died at age 29. They chose not to have more children after he was diagnosed. My sister-in-law said if she had become pregnant before my brother had a vasectomy and CF was diagnosed in utero, she would not have hesitated to have an abortion rather than put another child through that suffering and struggle. They moved heaven and earth to keep their son alive.

Treatment is better these days with better and longer outcomes for many. They knew a Catholic couple who had 7 out of their 10 children with CF. They did not judge as that was the Catholic couple's choice. They chose otherwise and it would have included abortion if need be. My brother and sister-in-law were Southern Baptists at the time. They switched to a different denomination after their Baptist preacher called on them unannounced and reamed my sister-in-law out for wearing shorts in her own home.

Try to walk a mile in other shoes, Saline. It requires imagination and empathy. You seem in short supply for both of those.
Posted by the outlier]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 05:50:21 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by the outlier]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 05:19:46 -0600 Arkansas Times
Why should a girl/woman be expected to do it for a fetus?
Posted by rablib]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 02:24:07 -0600 Arkansas Times
Today the same treatment is being given to the unborn children who are considered subhuman.
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Sat, 09 Feb 2013 00:18:18 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 22:47:50 -0600 Arkansas Times
If there is no capability of brain function then that could be a special case.

If you are talking about a physical handicap that people live with now then why would you abort. Do we go around killing handicapped adults now? Dr C Everett Koop interview some patients of his who endured severe handicaps and their testimonies were very moving.

Let me study up on this and add later.
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 22:25:34 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Vanessa]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 21:52:12 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by the outlier]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 21:34:43 -0600 Arkansas Times
If the salines of the world were truly concerned about all those unborn babies they would accept the reality that abortion is legal and spend their time making it easy for women to make the same choice I made. And instead of fighting birth control at every turn they would accept that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Until they do that their war on women is just that, and it's all about penis supremacy.
Posted by Vanessa]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:46:47 -0600 Arkansas Times
"We have a lot more problems in our state than the tiny percentage of women who terminate unwanted pregnancies. Up to and including the problems that lead to a lot of those pregnancies. I wish our legislature were as interested in those issues."

Comment?
Posted by Bluesyoucanuse]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:05:04 -0600 Arkansas Times
"The Pew studies suggest that fundamentalists are on the wrong side of history on homosexuality, women's issues, creationism, war, and the treatment of the poor. Two thirds of the unchurched say religion is too involved in politics and too greedy."

Unfortunately, while the rest of the country is recovering from the fundamentalism issue, we here in the unnatural state are just going into it. A day late and a dollar short, as usual here.
Posted by couldn't be better]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:03:42 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by the outlier]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:17:24 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:14:55 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by the outlier]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:10:08 -0600 Arkansas Times Therefore, when you choose abortion then you are killing your child which by the way you say you were glad that you had. Isn't it great that your child has brought you so much joy in your life and how could imagine life without him or her?
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:06:47 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by ozarkrazo]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:55:00 -0600 Arkansas Times
Most everyone disagrees with you on that. Can you imagine a doctor trying to abort a baby just minutes before it is going to be born?


In the first episode of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE. Dr. C. Everett Koop put forth the question:

My question to the pro-abortionist who would not directly kill a newborn baby the minute it is born is this, “Would you have killed it a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that?” You can see what I am getting at. At what minute does an unborn baby cease to be worthless and become a person entitled to the right to life and legal protection?
http://thedailyhatch.org/2013/01/17/the-qu…
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:50:16 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by the outlier]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:39:06 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Polecat]]> Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:34:14 -0600 Arkansas Times