July 27, 2008
Frank Ruffolo, on We are not all on the same page:
I’m afraid that poor doctor that up and quit has been listening to too much propaganda over the years and just couldn’t handle the good old-fashioned honest truth that abortion terminates life of a living human being and hurts women too.
It’s a lose-lose situation if there ever was one.
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Del, on A pro-abortion leitmotif and a pro-life rant in one happy post:
Using Joe Clark’s argument, do I hence understand that he believes that if all the ‘disadvantaged’ had access to abortion, then we have less ‘disadvanted’ now, and that crime would decrease? And that the disadvantaged have no worth? And that only the well off should have babies?
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John, on If Morgentaler isn't sure, why are you?:
Unfortunately the author of the Starphoenix piece where you got this from rather irresponsibly pulled the quotation from Morgentaler in this interview WAY out of context. When Morgentaler admitted that there may have been an “inconsistency” and that he may have “deluded himself”, he wasn’t speaking about abortion at all. By that point in the interview, which comes some 15 minutes or so after Solomon asks this question about the holocaust and Morgentaler’s choice for a cause, they are talking about Morgentaler’s treatment of women. Morgentaler admits that his philandering ways may not be consistent with the love and concern he professes for the female sex on the whole. He’s not expressing doubts about abortion.
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C Jones, on A pro-abortion leitmotif and a pro-life rant in one happy post:
Tanya has a excellent point. When, many years ago, my former wife and I wanted to adopt - it was next to impossible (the lottery had better chances, not to mention simplicity of administration). Did abortion affect “supply”? Undoubtably!
In that dreary period of bleak discovery and self-reevaluation no sympathetic civil servant ever suggested foster parenting. They were too busy recommending private-sector IVF (through which I gained true insights into the female equivalent of “roid-rage”) or International Adoptions (another private sector alternative that seemed to be a kind of “reverse outsourced” immigration program - you pay foreign women to have children who will have a better life without them.)
Membership in Foster Parents Plan and Big Sister/Brother allowed me to realize that maybe I could be a parent regardless of my biological unworthiness - after all alot of others didn’t seem to have any remarkable predisposition to parenting skills.
Since that time I been very fortunate to have helped coach youth soccer and have been involved with “youth mentor” programs at my church. These have challenged and rewarded me in ways that I never expected or ever could have anticipated. And that is the miracle of having children in our lives that we can never know until it occurs, so prematurely ending that joyful experience - just because we can’t imagine it - is more due to our intellectual deficit. Here endeth the lesson.
Now, to answer “Joe Clark”.
You are right.
IT IS WRONG to oppose abortion and do nothing to help the families, women and children afterward, but as far as I’m aware this has NOT stopped the number of children in foster care - so both ways you’re snookered. Therefore, whatever you think get cracking and somehow - help raise them!
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Christina, on A pro-abortion leitmotif and a pro-life rant in one happy post:
The whole “Who would adopt all those unwanted babies” is begging the question. There is not a shred of evidence that restricting abortion leads to a glut of adoptable infants.
Women who change their minds about aborting rarely make an adoption plan. This is true even of women who underwent an abortion only to learn that the fetus had survived. Women who make adoption plans and women who give serious thoughts to abortion may be overlapping groups, but they are hardly the same group.
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Brian, on A pro-abortion leitmotif and a pro-life rant in one happy post:
I know plenty of pro-lifers who do help women get a second chance when they decide to keep their baby. I myself am part of a group, called the Knights of Columbus that raises millions of dollars in Ontario. Much of that money goes to general health care activities and much goes to helping pro-life activities. That means funding places that help the teenage girl finish high school while getting care for her baby. That means helping set up a new mother that doesn't have much with the food, clothes and equipment she needs to properly care for her baby. That means running Christmas hamper programs to make sure there is a turkey in every oven that wants one and presents under the tree. Funny, I don't see many pro-choice Catholics out helping with these activities, it is the pro-lifers.
It is becoming common for pro-choicers to claim that pro-lifers do not help after the baby is born, beyond my anecdotal evidence, I offer you this book by Syracuse University scholar Arthur Brooks. Brooks has studied who gives to charity and whil liberals pay good lip service to helping those in need it seems that when it comes time to giving, liberal wallets remain shut tight. I'd call this proof that pro-choicers don't care about the baby before or after it is born.
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Joe Clark, on If Morgentaler isn't sure, why are you?:
I’d like to know what you’ve done to actually help women? Have you adopted unwanted babies? Have you worked with women to mentor them, help them get an education, look after their children?
It seems like you folks only care about the unborn until it’s born and then you wash your hands. Once that child gets into crime because of being disadvantaged, you’ll want to abolish the laws dealing with youth and lock away the key!
Aren’t there real issues to be devoting such time to, such as taking care of the children who are already here and are in such desperate need of help, or in developing countries.
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Jeff, on Yeah, good question:
I agree with the article on LifeSiteNews. I’ve been a Catholic, and pro-life, for all of my life, and for years I have thought that my faith and my being pro-life can be separated. But I have become aware that faith in God - which in my case is Christianity, more specifically Roman Catholicism - has indeed an impact on my moral convictions. I think I can say that without my belief in God, I would be selfish, locked up in myself. And not, or at least not alone, because I am afraid of repercussions after death. I am simply aware that while I am acting, someone is saying to me, “Think of the others!” I think this is the case with most believers. And I also think that pro-life people which do not consider themselves religious have this experience of the inner vocie, the voice of their cosncience, which I cannot but see as the voice of something supernatural. (Saying this, I do not intend to turn professed atheists into religious believers.)
But I can understand that people can be turned off by many Christian pro-lifers. Very often, they seem to claim moral superiority - and indeed, their view on abortion is morally superior to pro-death, but that should not make you proud of yourself. Rather, I am aware that without a decent, loving upbringing, I would most probably not have the views I have now.
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Val T, on Fewer abortions in Saskatchewan:
“Saskatchewan was one of the earliest provinces to make emergency contraceptives, or the “morning after pill,” widely available without a prescription.”
I’m thinking of your previous posts, especially May 15th, regarding the morning after pill, which explained better than I can the dangers from lack of medical advice, poor follow-up, untested side- effects
Less abortions is good, but in this case, are we really talking about less abortions, or just pregnancies terminated at a different stage? Further, at what cost are we accomplishing the reduction?
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Frank Ruffolo, on What if Henry Morgentaler looked like this?:
I would oppose anyone that led the fight which has resulted in over one hundred thousand abortions of unborn baby children in Canada annually making it close to three million abortions over the past 25 to 30 years in Canada.
This issue is about the abortion of unborn baby children in their mother’s womb not about what the person looks like that performs the abortion or led the fight that made the taking of the life of an unborn baby child possible in Canada.
There is nothing humourous about what an aborted unborn baby child looks like.
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Elizabeth, on Moving to Nova Scotia...:
Move to PEI - where we have no abortion on demand! And our premier just declared that Morgentaler’s award will not cause him to change this - due to the fact that many Islanders are opposed to abortion. Imagine - a premier (Liberal at that) respecting the beliefs of pro-lifers!
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Amy, on What if Henry Morgentaler looked like this?:
It’s a way for pro-choicers to avoid having to address the actual moral and political issues involved with abortion. It’s the stupidest strawman I’ve ever come across, but it’s not an uncommon tactic.
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Andrew Harwood, on I'll show you radiance:
I just wanted to say thanks for bringing attention to the topic of young
women and modesty by referencing the Weekly Standard article about Wendy
Shalit's book "Girls Gone Mild".
I am disappointed when I see parents dressing their three-year-old girls in
bikinis to go swimming, and allowing their pre-teens to wear the most
questionable sexed-up but culturally acceptable outfits. My wife and I have a 3 year old and a 9
month old - both boys - and I am concerned about them growing up in this
society.
Thanks again for bringing attention to this important topic.
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Frank Ruffolo, on Driving me to despair-or China:
You mean to tell me that Canada has had democracy all along and I didn’t even realize it. Those so called human rights commissions have been very strong and heavy handed for quite some time now.
Only now are some of the mainstream media of Canada awakening to the reality of this heavy handed sleeping giant that is available to all Canadians from coast to coast to coast courtesy of the ever generous Canadian taxpayers.
Also add human rights commissions to things on that list that should fall in Canada.
Only in Canada. What a pity?
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John R. Sutherland, on Saturday morning coffee:
People do all kinds of irrational things, even when they are well aware of the potential consequences of their decisions. Why do people smoke? Drink and drive? Drop out of school? Neglect exercise and a good diet? Refuse to see a doctor when they experience odd and fearful symptoms? Have abortions?
Seldom is the answer to these questions a rational, carefully thought through, intelligent answer. That’s because there aren’t such answers to these questions. Education regarding the likely consequences of these behaviours is routine in school and workplace settings. We all know someone who has paid the price for such decisions. Fortunately, these education efforts are slowly having an effect, and society is the healthier for it.
The exception is abortion. Here education is almost completely lacking. Most women are kept in the dark about the consequences of abortion, including the guilt and so on discussed in the article. Any attempt to address the matter is emotionally and vociferously resisted by women’s groups, parliamentarians, post-secondary students’ councils, etc. Consequently, women are duped into thinking that abortion is an nice, hassle free, in-by-nine-out-by-ten-and-back-to-work procedure.
Adding to the difficulty is that we have allowed the “pro-choice” people to narrow the field of argumentation, making stereotyping that much easier. Pro-choice doesn’t mean choosing among long-term solutions to crisis pregnancies in the best interests of the woman and anyone else affected by the decision. It simply means the choice of whether or not to have an abortion, as if there were no other good solutions.
But “pro-life” has also come to mean the choice of whether or not to have an abortion. Neither side concentrates on the long-term solutions. Both sides concentrate only on the fetus–whether it lives or dies. Neither choice is rational in and of itself. Each is short-term and ignores the context within which the choice is being made and the long-term consequences of making it.
Pro-choice ideology is narrow, short-term, unimaginative, and potentially harmful to the long-run best interests of the decision-maker. I am suggesting that pro-life ideology, as it is understood in society today, is no different. If we want to do women and girls a favour, we will have to become a lot more creative, more daring, harder working, and more intelligent in our advocacy than we are now.
Now I understand that in taking a pro-life position, most of us are doing so on a moral, even theological basis–the sanctity of life. I believe in this as well. But God didn’t create us just to exist–to breathe, eat and wet our diapers. He created us to live in a certain way and for a certain purpose. People and structures that threatened that way of life and that purpose were to be opposed and destroyed. What is the pro-life movement doing to sanctify life beyond merely getting life started? That is the huge question. Its answer should be the real reason for our existence.
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John R. Sutherland, on Muted language:
What happened to “The mother has pressed charges and the nurse has been arrested?” Who says that abortion doesn’t cheapen life? A nurse incompetently kills a living being and she is cautioned. A mother who has not made a final decision about abortion but has one anyway, complains. And we give Orders of Canada for scenarios like this?
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Sam, on Not so fast, Rabbi:
Hello, I found your blog from a link to it from a pro-life online community I belong to. I’m Jewish and anti-abortion but I have to point out that I think that you have misrepresented the Orthodox halachic position on abortion.
All halachic authorities agree that if a woman’s life is endangered by a pregnancy, she is not only permitted, but is morally obligated to save her own life by terminating the pregnancy. The are differences in opinion over whether abortion is permitted in other circumstances. Some Orthodox authorities allow abortion if the pregnancy is likely result in grave injury to the mother but is not life threatening. Some Orthodox authorities allow abortions if the foetus has a medical condition which makes him/her unlikely to survive long after birth. In your post you stated that there are no “mental health” exceptions but there are some Orthodox authorities who would permit abortion if the pregnancy would cause grave mental distress to the mother and her family.
I also think that your representation of Orthodox Judaism is a bit simplistic. Any scholar worth his salt will admit that Orthodox halacha has changed over time, even over the past couple of hundred years. There are countless examples of changes in halacha which everyone recognises have been changed since the giving of the Torah: the switch from waiting 7 days to waiting 12 days after menstruation to have sex, the prohibition of polygamy, the requirement that a woman accept a get for a religious divorce to be valid etc. Halacha is a living, organic system, even within Orthodoxy.
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futureshock, on I blame rampant individualism:
That “experience required” conundrum effects everyone, even young-just-out-of-college types. It has nothing to do with being a mom for a number of years and not accumulating the required experience.
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Midas, on Yeah, good question:
If pro-life advocates, such as PWPL, project a non-sectarian image, presenting the Judeo-Christian message of life as merely coincidental and nonessential to their cause, they may be unwittingly painting themselves into a corner. This is the gist of John Jalsevac’s article. I agree with Jalsevac.
I sympathize with Brigitte Pellerin. I, too, steer clear of intrusive ad hoc evangelists. The validity of their message I do not question. It’s the time and place that always seem wrong.
But the “real off-putting” Christians are part of the spectrum. It is tempting to dismiss them because of their manner. Enemies of faith tolerate only the silent believer, and we often play into their hands, knowing that any whisper of things Christian, in particular, is enough to get oneself branded Catholic, evangelical, fanatic, or zealot.
The essence of the problem and the resulting clash of faiths (atheism is a faith) is in our inability to discern between right and wrong. Christianity teaches that man is incapable of knowing right from wrong through reason alone, and he is loath to admit such knowledge is available from one source only – divine revelation.
We know that murder is wrong, because our God tells us so. There exists no other source of this knowledge. In the absence of the “You shall not murder” injunction, human reason prevails and Hitler is entitled to his Auschwitz, Pol Pot to his killing fields, and Morgentaler to his chain of abortion clinics. Might is right.
Abortion is a “religious or faith matter” par excellence, and opposition to it is a Christian endeavor to the core (which may explain why the pro-life movement is “so Christian”). It is possible, apparently, to become Christian in deeds, if not words, before declaring it or becoming aware of it (Bernard Nathanson). Emperor Constantine Christianized the Roman Empire, no less, before accepting baptism decades later.
Those who “refrain from getting involved” do so because they find abortion profitable and convenient. They must ignore the divine imperative that alone can prove them wrong. Jalsevac reminds us of the material benefits society derived from slavery. The same motivation is at work today. Collectively and individually, we derive material benefits from declaring children a burden, contracepting them, and killing them outright.
Abolition of slavery meant, “to reorient the entire economy of the West” (Jalsevac). Abolition of abortion is a task of the same order of magnitude. As was the case with slavery, it will not be accomplished without passing laws and enforcing them at gunpoint, as the Royal Navy did for sixty years in the Battle to End Slavery.