Arguing That Abortion is a Morally Good Choice
August 14th, 2008 at 02:13am Mark Noonan
Linda Hirshman gives is a shot - first noting that the Democrats have come out for federally funded abortion on demand:
The Democratic Party platform of 2008 finally dropped its old abortion language (”safe, legal and rare”), which had asked that women not have abortions unless they absolutely must. The 2008 platform, just announced, says instead, “The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.” Should a woman desire to bear her child, the Dems advocate prenatal care, income support, and adoption programs to help her there, too. But in the world of the new Democratic platform, it’s the woman’s decision to make.
She then winds up her argument by figuring that the reason abortion is viewed with distaste is the unwillingness of pro-abortion people to argue in favor of abortion, as an act, in relation to the conception that a woman’s happiness is dependent upon her ability to killl her unborn child at will:
In the absence of a robust description of the value of women’s lives—their ability to develop their capacities through education, to use them to achieve economic independence and political citizenship, to take on only the relationships they can manage—there is no moral argument for their “choice” to have an abortion. Set against the sound of nothing, the smallest moral claim of the potential human life looms large. Such an immoral act, moral thinkers conclude, must always be a mistake, the product of incomplete information or logic, and, in time, must produce regret, depression, and loss of self-esteem.
The wrong question will always lead to the wrong answer. Not coincidentally, the founding text of the Post-Abortion Syndrome movement is called “Making Abortion Rare.” The Democratic platform of 2008 offers an opportunity to put an end to this self-destructive cycle of Safe, Legal, and Rare, otherwise known as regret, depression, and self-denigration. In its place, it can finally argue for the value of women’s lives.
I guess as we argue for the value of women’s lives we will conveniently ignore the women we abort - their lives having no value unless, I presume, they are capable of having an abortion. There is something exceptionally nauseating in all this - the final plunge into the depths of the Culture of Death, the Orwellian transformation of a right to life into a right to kill. Hirshman, elsewhere in the article, stands aghast at the thought that a majority of people would ban abortions except in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother - and entirely fails to draw the conclusion that if a majority are so disposed, then there must be some substantial number of women (who, under Hirshman’s definition, cannot be free unless they are also free to kill their children) who believe that abortion is wrong in all or most cases (few pregnancies are the result of rape or incest, and the number of women who risk their lives by giving birth grows vanishingly small these days). There is no understanding on the pro-abortion side - just a bloody-minded determination to keep the practice legal and enshrined in law as a human right. This probably stems from a very large number of very guilty consciences on the pro-abortion side.
Hirshman, like all the secular liberals, fails in her worldview because she doesn’t understand what life is for. For people like Hirshman, life is for personal gratification. That which is irksome or difficult is to be shoved aside and the individual is to enjoy maximum resources to alllow for a maximum of self-gratification and anything which stands in the way of this is inherently a violation of the rights of the individual. But that is not what its for - our purpose here, on this world in the here and now, is to live.
Yes, I know, seems pretty simple - but living means living life as it is, not as one might wish it to be. One might wish that in life it rained beer, but the facts of life are that you’ll either have to make beer or go buy it, and the very fact that you have to do one of these two things in order to obtain your beer means that you’re life has a limitation - and this would be only one of ten thousand we each have. Some woman might not have wanted a pregnancy to result from that tawdry affair, but if one results then that is part of the life she is to live - and a wonderous, glorious thing it is, if taken with the right perspective. Once, you see, you decide to have a tawdry affair you also accept all that may result from that tawdry affair…death, jail, bankruptcy, lawsuits, venereal diseases, pregnancy, what have you. We’ve grown too fond of the notion that anything difficult is wrong - that what is right and good must be what is easiest and most pleasant…so fond of this notion have we grown that there are amongst us those like Hirshman, who advocate a permanent - dare we say, “final”? - solution to a temporary condition.
I feel sorry for Hirshman and those like her who have mired themselves in this mindset - there is not much I can do in the way of argument to reach them, all I can do is have pity and, of course, work to end abortion. This will be a great relief - not least to those who have locked themselves into advocating the practice.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats, Life Issues, Republicans
20 Comments
1. Jeremiah | August 14th, 2008 at 2:38 am
A rather simple analogy:
It would seem as if left wants to jump off a cliff and enticing us to come along with them.
Well, in reality, they, themselves, don’t actually want to jump off the cliff…but they want to fool us into thinking that they do, and then push us off the cliff.
The issue is one of mind control here, just as the Nazi’s done in the ’30s.
This agenda of the Left is being hidden from the general public because of a dis-taste for Hitler and his style of government, and it was, it was one of evil, purest form.
America needs to wake up to this reality, or God’s people will once again have demonstrated the blinding consequences of spurning truth and loving lies.
The TRUTH … will set you free! And what is the truth? Abortion is murder, and murder is the direct result of believing a lie!
2. js | August 14th, 2008 at 7:34 am
they represent a concept and then they shred it to uselessness…the value of the womans life…why would it be different that the value of her own childs life….how can they put up a charade knowing that the event that triggers its existence is a total and complete contradiction of its own claim, by devaluing the life of a living human being through the promotion of abortion?
3. congressive | August 14th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
If you all really were so passionate about this issue, you’d be advocating federally funded birth control on demand, thus preventing millions of abortions.
Problem solved.
Spin that, you hypocrites.
4. Danish Artist | August 14th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
conregressive,
obama opposed legislation in Illinois that would declare babies, who survived an induced labor abortion, “a viable human life”.
Spin that di*k-head!
5. BARRASSO | August 14th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
“For people like Hirshman, life is for personal gratification. That which is irksome or difficult is to be shoved aside and the individual is to enjoy maximum resources to alllow for a maximum of self-gratification and anything which stands in the way of this is inherently a violation of the rights of the individual.”
You know what everyone is thinking all the time, you are a magical creature who isn’t at all a presumptuous, generalizing, strawman spinning pretend christian.
6. congressive | August 14th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
The “infanticide” post-intestinal-cow-chow story has already been debunked, Danish Cartoon.
That specific legislation was a Republican talking point vehicle with multiple agendas. If you wrote legislation that outlawed liberals, and yet contained in that legislation was an obscure clause that would kill puppies, what would you do?
So, what about that contraception? Can’t spin it, can you. You seem to think “spinning” is “deflecting”. They’re not the same thing.
You hypocrits claim to want to end federally funded on demand abortion, but will be DAMNED if you’ll support federally funded on demand contraception because to you hypocrits, it’s not really about the baby, it’s about YOU.
I feel sorry for the puppies, because I know what YOU would do, Danish.
7. Jeremiah | August 14th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Congressive,
You and the Left seem awfully passionate about encouraging a woman to void her reasons for being a woman. You are passionate about voiding life’s purpose, for that matter.
What about teaching girls in high school and college about abstinence?
“Oh nooo, you can’t do that….We have “Separation of Church and State”
This day and age, if a teacher was caught teaching something from a Biblical standpoint…the homosexuals and left-wing of America are ready cut our head off, because their deathly afraid that the truth about their disease riddled lifestyle will get out.
Read up on the Nazi system of Education. And you’ll see that it is very similar to our public education system here in America…they are both more inclined to teach about death as “insignificant” and in order to achieve their perfect state, they must take control of the youth, which was their motto … ‘You control the future with the youth on your side’ and that’s what the Left has done, they have taken control of the youth, and are raising young radicals to believe in certain types of people that are deemed “unfit” for society, such as Christians, so school is made a breeding ground for the eventual destruction of America.
Other socialist organizations are formed to help in this efffort of destruction, such as the ACLU, who support the NEA - which is controlled by liberals.
So how can any message of truth get to children in school? It can’t, so that’s why it is imperative for people to grow a spine, and push the ACLU out of the way so that we may get something accomplished for good. The ACLU is a work of Satan, and so is the GLBT, GLSEN, American Atheists, Planned Parenthood and so forth right on down the list of evilness.
8. Some Assembly Required | August 14th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
“What about teaching girls in high school and college about abstinence?”
Jeremiah, for years they did. They still do, I think it goes something like ‘Remember kids, no sex is the safest sex”/ Do you know what they found? IT DOESN’T WORK. Plain and simple. All teenagers go throw rebellious phases were telling them NOT to do something makes them that much more interested in doing it. They are and will to continue to have sex and theres not a damn thing aside from bringing back chastity belts that is going to stop that. Then again, maybe thats what you want as long as you can have the key right….
9. Some Assembly Required | August 14th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
“What about teaching girls in high school and college about abstinence?”
Jeremiah, for years they did. They still do, I think it goes something like ‘Remember kids, no sex is the safest sex”/ Do you know what they found? IT DOESN’T WORK. Plain and simple. All teenagers go throw rebellious phases were telling them NOT to do something makes them that much more interested in doing it. They are having sex and theres not a damn thing aside from bringing back chastity belts that is going to stop that. Then again, maybe thats what you want as long as you can have the key right….
10. js | August 14th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
the part about teaching abstinance isnt an issue
its the part about irresponsible behavior that is
otherwise….they never would be getting pregnant in the first place….
11. 42 | August 14th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
7. Jeremiah | August 14th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
“You are passionate about voiding life’s purpose, for that matter.”
and what exactly would that be?
12. Danish Artist | August 14th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
conregressive,
Debunked? Eh d*ck-head?
Wrong. He voted “PRESENT” on one vote. Then he voted NO. Then he LIED as to why he voted NO.
But don’t take my word for it, let the record speak for itself. We deal in FACTS and not liberal fantasy concerning their messiah. Pay attention, your “messiah’s” radical record is making the light of day and Obama campaign based on image is slowly imploding.
Keep deflecting d*ckhead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPZCXcTwZPY
13. yekepyt | August 14th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Abortion rates are lowest where abortion is safe and legal, and women have access to health care and maternity leave.
Put these three things together (access to safe legal abortion, universal health care, and generous maternity leave) and you have the recipe for minimizing abortion rates.
14. yekepyt | August 14th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Access to contraceptives is part of the universal health care that I mentioned in my previous post.
15. js | August 14th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
actually, contraceptives does not teach young women responsibility…it does, however…give them the bulletproof vest that they forget to put on….but its ok society teaches them…because when you forget…just kill the innocent life you created and get the abortion…because its legal…and you can evade having to be responsible in matters pertaining to your reproductive behavior….reducing the most precious gift we can ever be given…or that a woman can ever give…to a mere inconvenience for the sake of having as much sex as a young girl wants….
grow up you mental midgets…these are the kind of things that killed america’s image….we brought abortion full circle….to some imagined moral state….giving irresponsible women the “right” to kill thier children….
16. Mark Noonan | August 15th, 2008 at 12:55 am
yek,
Uh, no - abortion rates are lowest where abortion isn’t allowed.
If you’re going to debate this issue at least try to grasp a little reality.
17. Mark Noonan | August 15th, 2008 at 12:57 am
congressive,
Birth control is what started this mess to begin with - by de-coupling sex from childbirth, we opened up the prospect that people would start to advocate that the unborn child is disposable at will.
Much better it would be if we’d all start to accept that we’re human and, as such, have consequences for our actions and, furthermore, that far more important is what is chosen than the act of choosing.
18. Mark Noonan | August 15th, 2008 at 12:59 am
Barrasso,
I can only go by what I read in the papers, and Hirshman’s article lays out her fundamental worldview quite nicely. I defy anyone to find anything in Hirshman’s article with controverts my commentary upon it.
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