Pro-Abortion insanity...A Roanoke Sampling

This post consists of some online debate I had yesterday with the opinion editor and some other pro-abortion readers of the Roanoke Times (Roanoke, VA). The Roanoke Times is fiercely liberal; it’s a spawn of the same group who publishes the Washington Post, so...

The original editorial article was with respect to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia considering to produce a “vanity plate” (a licenses plate design that in part supports a particular organization) that would read at the bottom: “Trust Women – Respect Choice.” A percentage of the funds fleeced from the plates would go to support Planned Parenthood.
As of (I think) November last year, they began offering pro-life “vanity plates,” with part of those funds going to support Crisis Pregnancy Centers.

The whole question, of course, was whether the General Assembly should pass the bill. Because I try to pick my battles carefully, I wasn’t involved in the conversation until the Editor made the first remark you’ll read (# 5). Up to this point, the topic had pretty well remained on the plate issue. An issue that seems trifle in light of the hubris back of the question—abortion itself.

So, what follows is midstream. And the abrupt end was the Editor again attempting to recover the topic, steering it away from abortion itself, a rabbit trail that he himself began with the first remark.

At very least, it gives us a prime example of the morosophic reasoning of the pro-abortion position.

My comments are in italics.



5. @3 Charlie, it's no secret that we stand by the constitution, legal precedent and their guarantee that a woman has a right to choose an abortion. We also stand by the right of anti-choice people not to choose an abortion.

Comment by C. Trejbal — February 5, 2010 @ 11:57 am (This guy is an opinion editor for the Roanoke Times)


23. @20...Charlie

Thanks for your response. I appreciate the articulate manner in which you answered.
I know that abortion will never be an issue that I personally will never have to deal with (for obvious reasons...stop laughing everyone!)

I've battled back and forth on the issue internally for years but have landed on the spot that there is no real clear cut position on it. Each case has to be weighed by the conditions of the individual situation. That being said, pregnancies just for the sake of pregnancies are wrong and aborting those pregnancies is equally wrong.

Additionally though, I worry about the child after its born and what happens to it should it find itself in a home that doesn't offer it the care and nurturing that we hope that it will find. I'm thinking in particular of the recent case in Roanoke where the child was murdered.

What happened to that child was horrible...I can't decide which would have been worse; to have aborted that pregnancy very early on or to have that poor child suffer the death it did. Our protective services while they probably do a great job...simply can't do it all and this is the consequence.

I don't believe the answers are as clear cut as many would like for them to be at least they aren't for me...but then again, that's me.

Comment by Will — February 5, 2010 @ 3:46 pm


@ 5: Christian Trejbal,

Do tell, how does the Constitution guarantee the libertine, autonomous choice of one human being to destroy another. I must have missed that.

Badger_Hoo warned in #13, “Most people throw out any rational thought” when debating abortion. No doubt he had this in mind when he typed that remark:

“We also stand by the right of anti-choice people not to choose an abortion.”

Oh, you mean like...

“We stand by the right of abolitionists not to choose to own slaves.”

Or...

“We stand by the right of anti-Nazis not to choose genocide.”

You're so progressive, Christian. It is little wonder that the pro-life camp has grown so much in the last decade.

Yours in only a more sophisticated (though barely) way of expressing the tired cliché, “Don’t like abortion, don’t have one!” You’ve got to be kidding us!!

@ #23: Will,

How is it that you cannot see that your position—“that there is no real clear cut position on it”—is a clear-cut position in itself? It’s pro-abortion.

You also said, “What happened to that child was horrible...I can't decide which would have been worse; to have aborted that pregnancy very early on or to have that poor child suffer the death it did.”

If we can agree that what happened to that little boy was horrible (i.e., morally wrong), then we must also agree that abortion is horrible. Because there is no principled difference in the suffering and death that the child experienced at the hands of his wicked murderer and what he would have received from the hands of an abortionist. The difference between the two situations is merely one of location. So, surely you pro-abortionists, whose innate sense of morality cries out for justice in the case of the little boy, yet, on the other hand, want to support another’s choice to do the same thing to their child, can understand how we find your special pleading utterly repugnant. Morally speaking, you are like the Roman god Janus, who has two faces, which look opposite directions. Absolute inconsistency!

“I can’t decide...” That’s right, and that is the pro-life thesis; neither you nor anyone can decide when it’s right for another human being to die. Not complex at all, is it?


32. @31 Right, Kevin, you have that right, too. Don't like logic? Then don't think logically!
Be aware, however, that illogical decisions have natural consequences, which we will not be responsible for.

Comment by Ed H — February 6, 2010 @ 10:35 am


33. @31...Mr. Stevenson

You obfuscate your position nicely.

I'm neither pro nor anti abortion but believe that each case must be measured on the individual circumstances that surround it.

Your position seems to indicate that you prefer to decide how to prolong misery and suffering of a child...a position that I think is even more distasteful and ethically wrong. By your position, you allowed that child to be tortured. I find that criminal myself.

I, fortunately, don't have a closed mind on the matter and have come to realize over the years that things aren't nearly as black and white as we would like them to be to save our own weak consciences.

Comment by Will — February 6, 2010 @ 10:39 am


@ #32, Ed H.,

Ed, thanks so much for the concession: That the pro-abortion rhetoric has one-to-one logical correspondence to the pro-Nazi propaganda that attempted to justify genocide and that of the pro-slavery rationale. I guess we pro-lifers must bear the stigma of being civilized...what shame, huh?

As for, “Be aware, however, that illogical decisions have natural consequences, which we will not be responsible for.” Exactly!

Your illogical decision to support abortion has the natural (and necessary) consequence of your sharing in the bloodguilt, something that none of you will take responsibility for.

@ #33: Will,

“[I] believe that each case must be measured on the individual circumstances that surround it.”

Once you posit these arbitrary criteria, and the measure has been weighed, who say you has the final decision over whether the child lives or dies? The mother, right? Well, that is the crux of the pro-abortion platform! If you cannot understand this, then you are both morally and perceptually handicapped.

“By your position, you allowed that child to be tortured. I find that criminal myself.”

Care to offer the slightest bit of reason for coming to such a conclusion?!?

By the way, granting your Fletcheresque situational ethics, please tell us how anything can be judged “ethically wrong” by anyone standing without the immediate circumstances. In other words, assuming your self-styled ethics, any value judgment that you might make about anything beyond your personal, immediate experience is objectively meaningless. It commensurate to saying, “YUCK! I don’t like how that tastes.” So, while your evaluation of your own experiences may feel significant to you personally, if your ethics are correct, no one else should really care. I like vanilla, you like chocolate...it’s personal tastes you’re talking about, not morality.

For you both: Does abortion intentional destroy another innocent human being? If so (and it does), you are going to have to come up with the impossible: An argument to morally justify such an act.

@ #36: Other John,

“...rather than a bunch of stodgy old men in DC who have no vested interest in pregnancy at hand.” Oh, you mean like all those “Justices” who presided over Roe v. Wade (all men, BTW).

@ #37, Sandi,

“IMO.” Exactly...And that alone.

@ #38, Will,

Answer the question...

--(per #35) Does abortion intentionally destroy another innocent human being? If so (and it does), you are going to have to come up with the impossible: An argument to morally justify such an act.