Miranda Devine has a very thoughtful article about gender politics, and, in particular, the parasite that is Emily’s List (my bolding).
Labor, however, has the opposite problem [to the Coalition], and one which carries more deleterious consequences, with an aggressive affirmative-action policy enforced by Emily’s List _ the unofficial pro-abortion feminist faction of the party.
The result is a higher percentage of its MPs are women, but the majority are signed up members of Emily’s List, a self-described political support network for “progressive” women.
In other words they don’t support women, just a particular type of woman, who agrees with the group’s chief preoccupation: abortion on demand, despite the fact the electorate is increasingly nuanced on the issue.
Most Australians are neither aggressively pro- or anti-abortion but judge by circumstances. In other words, they agree with Tony Abbott and Hillary Clinton that abortion should be “safe, legal, but rare”.
What that means is most Labor women subscribe to a narrow ideological view on social issues that does not represent the views of most women in the community _ an irony for a group that purports to promote “diversity“.
In effect, a single-issue lobby group has taken over the Labor party and no deviation from Emily’s List policy is tolerated.
The result is that the Labor Party further alienates itself from the electorate. This is neither good for women nor for the Labor Party.
It’s not something Labor men want to talk about publicly, but they sure are discussing it privately as being a significant part of the Labor Party’s current woes.
“It’s a parasite on the body politic,” says one retired Catholic Labor MP, who is still very influential in the party.
“It’s attached itself to the Labor party and it alienates voters, especially in marginal seats.”
When I mentioned this viewpoint to a well-connected Labor feminist last week she dismissed it out of hand, saying Julia Gillard would never have reached the top without Emily’s List.
That may be the point. Regardless of her pluckiness and personal qualities, it’s doubtful history will show the Gillard period to have been a great boon to the Labor party.
Instead, the ousting of Kevin Rudd and Gillard’s extraordinarily gaffe-prone reign will likely consign Labor to the wilderness for some time.
Gillard is entirely a creature of Emily’s List.
She was a founding member in 1996, with her mentor, the former Victorian premier Joan Kirner, and helped write its constitution.
Modelled after a similar pro-choice group in the US, it describes itself as a “financial, political and personal support network assisting in the election of progressive Labor women candidates”. EMILY stands for “Early Money Is Like Yeast”.
It boasts of its two great successes: driving abortion law reform in ACT, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia; and enshrining in Labor policy the “40/40/20 Affirmative Action Rule”, to ensure 40 per cent of women are preselected in winnable seats.
In 2008 Emily’s Listers cracked open the champagne to celebrate their greatest victory when the Victorian parliament passed the nation’s most liberal abortion laws, sanctioning abortion on demand up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
There was no compromise brooked with feminists in their own party who attempted to soften the bill with amendments to include counselling services to inform women considering abortion of alternatives, or even to lower the cut-off date for abortions to 20 weeks. Emily’s Listers had the numbers and were determined to have their way.
But the more successful they are at pushing extreme feminist policies, the less electable Labor will become.
And as Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney is showing in the US, where he has all but closed the female gender gap with President Barrack Obama among likely female voters in swing states, elections are not won on single issues.
laybore’s affirmitive action ‘women’ are absolutely frigging terrible as well – after dullard herself, wendy pong is the most obvious example.
When you see a laybore parliamentary dragon, remember this – they’re there because they have a vagina and for no other known or possible reason.
Enough.
P.S. FFS, abortion is never ‘safe’ – especially not for the fetus and invariably not for the woman.
Rabz
28 Oct 12 at 7:41 pm
Early Money Is Like Yeast?
The Thrush Club.
kae
28 Oct 12 at 7:41 pm
It begs the question…are there any labor members that actually represent their electorate or are they all beholden to faceless power brokers?
NoFixedAddress
28 Oct 12 at 7:52 pm
“She was a founding member in 1996, with her mentor, the former Victorian premier Joan Kirner,”
So the worst PM in our history learnt everything she knew from the worst Premier in history!
PS – Early Money is Like Yeast? WTF?
scotty
28 Oct 12 at 7:56 pm
But the more successful they are at pushing extreme feminist policies, the less electable Labor will become.
Good. Let’s hope they take over the party.
dover_beach
28 Oct 12 at 7:56 pm
Consider:
Carmen Lawrence, Joan Kirner, Anna Bligh, Kristina Kennealy, Julia Gillard. All worse than useless.
jupes
28 Oct 12 at 7:56 pm
Don’t think that’s right – the bill was passed by some Liberals voting for it, including current Premier Ted Baillieu.
Sinclair Davidson
28 Oct 12 at 7:59 pm
Emily’s List gives a bad name to women. It chooses the most incompetent, unrepresentative and lefties imaginable. It says that a woman cannot get ahead except by patronage. What a terrible attitude – frankly a misogynist attitude. Yes, Emily’s List is a misogynist organisation.
Samuel J
28 Oct 12 at 8:00 pm
Albrechtsen either errs egregiously or overeggs disingenuously here. Clinton is a pro-abortion extremist – one who condemned the Supreme Court for upholding the ban on late term infanticide. (As did child murder supporter, Barack Obama). Abbott, by radical and unmistakable contrast, does not support any abortions under any circumstances. Nor does he acknowledge – much less celebrate – any phony ‘right’ to abortion.
In his case, the “safe, legal, but rare” slogan – workshopped by the Clintons to dishonestly appear other than extreme – was deployed, with questionable prudence, for the opposite reason. To wit, to acknowledge that he cannot do anything to alter Australian abortion laws, cannot – ipso facto – be accused of ‘planning’ to do so, and does want there to be as few as possible (which is nothing more than a statement of what Basil Fawlty would call the bleedingly obvious).
C.L.
28 Oct 12 at 8:12 pm
Emily’s List:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VJVw32EkIM
C.L.
28 Oct 12 at 8:13 pm
I notice you used misogynist in the sense of “entrenched prejudice against women”.
Dangph
28 Oct 12 at 8:17 pm
Miranda Devine?
Septimus
28 Oct 12 at 8:21 pm
He could make Medicare funding an issue.
He doesn’t.
Yet he still gets a gold star from CL and nutty obsessive (who appears in excellent company at this blog) Grigory.
steve from brisbane
28 Oct 12 at 8:22 pm
Ahahahahaha.
Didn’t you just know pro-abortion ‘Catholic’ Steve would show up?
C.L.
28 Oct 12 at 8:24 pm
CL, that was cruel @ 8.13pm.
Septimus
28 Oct 12 at 8:25 pm
Done the washing up Stevieliar QC.?
Tiny Dancer
28 Oct 12 at 8:26 pm
EMILY’s List raises money for primary fights for pro-choice Democratic female candidates as well as general elections. The Australian version waits until they are endorsed which seems to be a bit late in the game.
Jim Rose
28 Oct 12 at 8:27 pm
Yes, he’s a nutty obsessive about all things abortion.
Gab
28 Oct 12 at 8:27 pm
Actually, watching that video again made me wonder if Emily’s List doesn’t refer to the structural fate of any stage those portly walruses appear on.
C.L.
28 Oct 12 at 8:28 pm
Samuel J, why does it upset you that Labor selects someone other than the best candidates for elected office. do you wish the labor party well?
napoleaon said never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake.
Jim Rose
28 Oct 12 at 8:31 pm
Steve, as I said before Abbott did what he could about RU486 when he was Health Minister. And took the hits for it.
One reason he is disliked by Labor women is that his anti-abortion views are well-known.
Julian O'Dea
28 Oct 12 at 8:33 pm
Jim – no it doesn’t upset me that Labor is shooting itself in the foot. Unfortunately in the meantime it is squandering taxpayers’ money – that concerns me a lot.
Samuel J
28 Oct 12 at 8:34 pm
I assumed the name EMILY’S List was founded by someone called Emily or at least was some obscure derivative from the name Emmeline as in Pankhurst.
manalive
28 Oct 12 at 8:35 pm
It’s also ensuring a dismal size and standard of Opposition when these mountebanks finally get voted out, and that isn’t necessarily a good thing either. You want your Opposition to be competent, and to be capable of forming government if the incumbent’s situation suddenly goes south for some reason.
perturbed
28 Oct 12 at 8:39 pm
Emily’s List = willingly endorsing the murder of the most vulnerable, innocent and helpless humans in existence.
Nice.
There are times one can truly understand the people who bomb abortion clinics in the USA….
Mk50 of Brisbane
28 Oct 12 at 8:42 pm
Joan Kirner – Mother Russia, who had the same effect on the Victorian economy as communism back in the homeland.
H B Bear
28 Oct 12 at 8:51 pm
Early Money Is Like Yeast
Septimus
28 Oct 12 at 9:01 pm
I’m glad CL made the above statement; let me respectfully make another point. I don’t think it makes any sense to suggest, firstly, that the “electorate is increasingly nuanced on the issue”, and secondly, that “being…pro- or anti-abortion…means [someone] subscribe[s] to a narrow ideological view”. It makes no sense on this issue or on any issue. Regarding the first, holding opinions that are on their face incoherent is not nuanced. And the assumption that given two divergent positions, the one in the middle is necessarily correct or moderate is simply not true. A mob baying for blood and an individual asking for calm are not identical, nor is the fool that believes if only we cripple the accused the moderate. This trope has been used ad nauseam by social democrats against conservatives and liberals for a century, e.g. when they argue that since their policies lie between those of communists and capitalists they must ipso facto be the moderates in all policy debates. Secondly, why is it wrong to be in favour or opposed to something as a matter of principle? And when did being principled become synonymous with being narrowly ideological? Thomas More wasn’t being an ideologue when he refused to bend to Henry VIII’s will. He was simply being a man.
dover_beach
28 Oct 12 at 9:03 pm
So? He made a stand, saying it was medical advice that he based it on (if I recall correctly?) and lost out anyway.
Why not just admit: for all practical purposes, Abbott has waved the flag on doing anything abortion, including the use of Medicare to fund it (even late term abortions).
Gillard will also (obviously) not do anything about it either.
There is therefore no different consequence for voting for either of them as far as this issue is concerend.
As I tried to show in my “priests watching Jews next door being taken away” analogy a few weeks ago – I don’t even see why I am supposed to give top marks to the priest who knows 100% that the action against the Jews is wrong, yet does nothing, compared to the one who thinks that there is some vague justification for it even though he wishes it wouldn’t happen.
I do not see how Abbott being the PM is going to encourage public attitudes towards being more pro-life: right now he is determined to not talk about it because he knows it may cost him votes; I do not envisage that changing if he were PM.
Furthermore, as in Victoria, we know there are men and women in the Coalition who are also close to the Labor pro-choice position.
It is therefore a non issue at the Federal level (sure, you can complain about State Emily Listers and their activism in changing State laws if you want – you actually do have some real difference there to point to.)
But at a Federal level – you got nothin’, so you may as well stop whining and whining about it.
steve from brisbane
28 Oct 12 at 9:07 pm
Quite so, Dover.
Albrechtsen is being either lazy or philosophically less than courageous.
C.L.
28 Oct 12 at 9:17 pm
There are many things a Prime Minister Abbott can do, Steve, even administratively, to affect the abortion question. I am sure that you would be pleased at that thought, Steve, as a good Catholic.
Julian O'Dea
28 Oct 12 at 9:18 pm
The baby is not asked about the abortion. Why?
stackja
28 Oct 12 at 9:22 pm
sfb, the problem with your analogy is that the second priest isn’t someone who “thinks that there is some vague justification for it even though he wishes it wouldn’t happen”, they in fact think that there is every justification for it and they are not morally troubled by it happening. Further, the first priest is in an invidious position precisely because there are priests like the second one, and they cultivate a public in their own image. Given these facts, you want more of the first priest and less of the second if you really do think “the action against the Jews is wrong” because it makes it more likely that any action the first priest might undertake to stop “Jews next door being taken away” more likely to be effectual.
dover_beach
28 Oct 12 at 9:22 pm
Such as?
And you think Tony Abbott has a secret plan to do these things for anti abortion reasons? For one, he’d have to walk all over his Deputy Leader in Cabinet (and others, no doubt) to do it.
I think you’re just fantasising, Julian, and desperate to come up with a pretend way in which a vote for Abbott would make a difference on the issue when it’s a plain as it can be that it won’t.
steve from brisbane
28 Oct 12 at 9:24 pm
Steve, one of the things I learned in the public service is that there always ways and means. And ministers tend to get what they want. There is a reason why feminists are currently ensconced in the Federal Health portfolio. When Abbott is PM, things will change.
Julian O'Dea
28 Oct 12 at 9:30 pm
‘Catholic’ Steve – who has previously argued that semen has a “philosophical purpose” and that Sts Thomas Aquinas and Augustine were less insightful than him – sure is at odds with his sisters in Emily’s List. They argue with an unhinged passion that Abbott is infamous for opposing abortion. Steve claims (hilariously) that Abbott is hiding that light under a bushel.
LOL.
C.L.
28 Oct 12 at 9:30 pm
So what is steve from brisbane bleating about now? What’s his point?
Gab
28 Oct 12 at 9:31 pm
Potemkin’s Village
From the Devine to the ridiculous… here
Grigory Potemkin
28 Oct 12 at 9:32 pm
This Miranda Devine …… a mysoginist surely?
Leigh Lowe
28 Oct 12 at 9:36 pm
Some of those women pollies on Emily’s List have children.
You’d wonder what they think about full term abortion since accpetance of abortion at any time is a prequisite for membership, (last time I read the stuff on their site)
I find it difficult to understand a mother belonging to that organisation for that reason alone.
candy
28 Oct 12 at 9:38 pm
What Steve is ‘arguing,’ Gab, is that somebody (like Gillard) passionately arguing in favour of killing unborn children is exactly the same morally as someone (like Abbott) famous for opposing and arguing against killing unborn children.
Oddly, he never once called for Gillard to just change the law back to the status quo ante bellum regarding asylum seekers – even as the bodies filled Davy Jones’s Locker to overflowing.
C.L.
28 Oct 12 at 9:41 pm
Australians by and large are in favour of abortion.
I don’t think they understand what partial birth abortion, which is legal in Australia, entails. In fact, I’m sure most people don’t even know about it.
dd
28 Oct 12 at 9:41 pm
ah, thanks CL. I get it now. “Abbott is always wrong”.
Gab
28 Oct 12 at 9:45 pm
Quite, Gab. It’s not as if he’s a conservative catholic, after all.
squawkbox
28 Oct 12 at 9:48 pm
I think I can paraphrase Steve’s point ….. when Tony Abbot displaces the Altona Droner in the lodge he will immediately pass laws by decree in every Australian state to enforce his pet causes ….. in defiance of the Constitution ….. and the High Court ….. no wait …..
It amazes me how the Emily’s List dog-whistle works on blokes. I mean I can understand it working on Gen Y sheilas can express every deep thought they have ever had in one Twitter entry and still not consume the allotted 140 characters.
Leigh Lowe
28 Oct 12 at 9:51 pm
Candy, they would tell you that what they fear is what the WSJ’s James Taranto dismissively calls the “bad old days of back hangers and coat alleys.” Which is absurd and irrelevant for a number of reasons. For example, unlike yesteryear…
1). There is zero social opprobrium against single mothers today.
2). There is a cornucopia of welfare and socially funded assistance for pregnant mothers.
3). The likelihood of illegal abortionists remaining sub rosa – and out of jail – in this social media-saturated age is close to zero.
4). There is nothing morally praiseworthy or preferable about saving women from death or infection when the cost of that phony charity is the death – often horrific – of an exactly equal human being. Ergo, if a modern woman were to come to grief in the world of back hangers and coat alleys, she would only have herself to blame.
In cases of exquisite, troubling complexity, the Christian response – the humane response, if you’re not a Christian – is non-judgemental medical, financial and personal succour, all of which is available from a host of public and private agencies and personnel.
C.L.
28 Oct 12 at 9:53 pm
d-b: the truth is probably (as CL has indicated before – he’s dishonest and dishonourable in debate, such as in his last comment, but sometimes right) that attitudes to abortion have been influenced towards the “pro-life” side by modern medical imaging technology; not by politicians making speeches about it.
I think it is fanciful to suggest that by his example, or public utterances on the issue (even if he was willing to make them more often) that Abbott would be influential.
As to actual steps he could take in government to influence it – he is specifically denying that he has any such plans.
So, he is not seeking to be influential by way of talk (which, as I said, probably won’t work anyway) nor by promise of intended action.
Arguing that it is important to vote for him on the basis of this issue can only be on the assumption that he is lying about his intentions, or on the vaguest of vague hopes that Federal Parliament will suddenly have enough pro-lifers in it to have a serious debate on (say) Medicare funding. That seems so unlikely as to be safely dismissed as a practical possibility, given that there are quite a few pro-choicers on the Liberal side.
steve from brisbane
28 Oct 12 at 9:54 pm
I confess I had a fairly “liberal” attitude to abortion on demand – until I found out about Whoopi Goldberg’s SIX!
glendaH
28 Oct 12 at 9:58 pm
Statements like this illustrate perfectly why absolutist Catholic pro-lifers are their own worst enemy in terms of influence in public debate.
steve from brisbane
28 Oct 12 at 10:04 pm
Anything run by Princess Polka-Dot from Williamstown is bound to be a fuck-up.
I mean, she retires with a shit-load of taxpayer largesse and a mere 15 years later that other über-frump Christine Nixon is pleading that Princess Polka-Dot is broke and beeches one-term-Ted to ante up with an ex-gratia.
Fuck me!
The fact that Princess Polka-Dot has managed to eat her way through a million dollars worth of fried dimmies before the overdue heart attack kicked in is not a taxpayer problem.
Leigh Lowe
28 Oct 12 at 10:05 pm
Steve from Brisbane, since you’re so excited that this topic has come up, please answer a question. What’s your position on so-called partial birth abortions. Should they be legal?
(forewarning: please don’t answer with the sophistry that “partial birth” isn’t a medical term. The procedure is real, it exists, and you can call it whatever you like).
dd
28 Oct 12 at 10:09 pm
The reason I ask is that everyone has figured out that the edge case for pro-lifers are the questions of rape and incest. The corresponding edge questions for pro-choicers are
1. partial birth abortion
2. life birth policy (ie what happens to fetuses that happen to survive the abortion procedure and are alive on their own).
Incidentally, the question of ‘life birth’ has never been addressed in Australia. In America Barack Obama voted that in the event of an unexpected and inconvenient ‘live birth’ at the abortion clinic such babies should be killed. I’m curious where, say, Steve from Brisbane or any ardently pro-choice person would stand on that issue.
dd
28 Oct 12 at 10:14 pm
“The reason I ask is that everyone has figured out that the edge case for pro-lifers are the questions of rape and incest”
That is so true. You’d feel like you had a demon seed in you about to grow into a demon baby or something. Intellectually stupid but emotionally that’s how you’d feel.
The worst thing you could do tho would be to ring up Emily’s List for counselling!
candy
28 Oct 12 at 10:19 pm
Actually the question is more generally around very late term abortion. When the fetus is basically indistinguishable from a newborn. I actually would love to know what people’s position on this is, but because this is a taboo subject in Australia you never get to find out.
dd
28 Oct 12 at 10:24 pm
Emilys List, is extremely evil, with a socialist agenda. Generations have been brainwashed into thinking abortion is some kind of female right over her own body, when it is really about the killing of innocent children.
The distortion in female view points at the highest level of politics, by a small yet wealthy group of lobbyists, should be well publicized to the Australian people. So that they can make up their own mind at the next election regarding anyone with an EL affiliation.
Grumbles
28 Oct 12 at 10:33 pm
sfb, firstly, I don’t expect Abbott to achieve anything by his example alone. Secondly, I’m certain that anyone opposed to abortion has every reason to support people like Abbott as opposed to people, like Gillard, who are part of a group that is supporting the election of candidates that are pro-abortion. Thirdly, people opposed to abortion who did not support similarly-minded candidates, like Abbott, could and should not expect the success, currently, or in future, of any intended action to defund, qualify, or prohibit abortion, because they would be actively cultivating conditions that would make such an eventuality more and more difficult. Given this, their decision to not support similarly-minded candidates on an issue of such moral import for the reasons you’ve provided appears, to put it mildly, morally dishonest.
dover_beach
28 Oct 12 at 10:34 pm
DD, any moderate, non-crank position on abortion must rule out both teenage rape victims being forced to bear the child of a rapist, and scissors being rammed in the back of a late-term foetus’s skull. Supporting a policy that allows either of these scenarios should automatically disqualify a candidate for political office.
Fisky
28 Oct 12 at 10:35 pm
I am against any abortion, with the exception of a threat to the mother’s life. There are so many more options. What about fetus transplants to women who would not otherwise be able to bear children? What about adoption?
Thumbnail
28 Oct 12 at 10:38 pm
I’m not at all “excited” that the topic has come up – I think it’s idiotic the amount of time that is devoted to it at this blog for the reasons I have made clear.
I don’t think that partial birth abortions should be legal – but I say that with the following qualifications:
* it is clear that the procedure is already unpopular with doctors and hospitals, with that abortionist saying that it is proving hard to train anyone to replace him to do it. Even without making it illegal, its use may be diminishing anyway;
* The pro-choice response is, as I understand it, to say that it should be a medical decision as to the best method to be used in the interests of minimising harm to the woman; however, it is pretty clear that abortion providers can rationalise nearly anything (just as a philosopher like Singer can rationalise that a new borne baby is not so different to one still in utero such that it might be appropriate to let parents decide whether it be let die.)
* There are no doubt cases where it is used for a non viable baby (one that would die a short time after birth anyway), and while I would still say that it should not be legal, the situation some women and doctors find themselves in is sometimes much more morally complex than absolutist pro-lifers like to acknowledge.
* banning it still leaves any late term abortion a gruesome procedure.
It is good that (as far as I can tell) the substantial majority of doctors do not want to be involved in late term abortions for trivial reasons.
steve from brisbane
28 Oct 12 at 10:46 pm
Thanks Steve. I was worried that you harbored extremist views on the topic, and I’m relieved that you don’t. Seriously.
I agree.
dd
28 Oct 12 at 10:52 pm
A few days ago I posted a link to the hansard of the debate in the Victorian Parliament when they created their abortion regime. Even the MP’s debating and voting on it didn’t know about partial birth abortion until the law was brought up for debate.
When they found out most were horrified, they didn’t even want to hear it discussed in parliament.
The Victorian ALP led by female Emily’s List MP’s then studiously voted down the amendment to ban it.
Several Emily’s Listers argued against the amendment. Their argument was basically “the parliament doesn’t have to power or the right to ban or regulate medical procedures”.
Breathtaking duplicity. Sickening brutality.
twostix
28 Oct 12 at 11:00 pm
Statements like this illustrate perfectly why absolutist Catholic pro-lifers
No, unless you can point to the moral problem with CL’s position, you ought to remain silent. The right of the innocent unborn child to life is absolute, just as his mother’s right to life is, as well as every other innocent member of the human race. The fact that the mother may not have intended the child does not qualify this right, nor is this right qualified by the lengths she may go to in order to destroy her child, that may, as a consequence, endanger her own health. And the provision of the means to destroy her child in a manner that protects her own safety but not the safety of the child is to use CL’s phrase a ‘phoney charity’.
As an aside, it is incredible that people are not troubled by the idea of the mother destroying her own child, or of the father’s complicity, where it is involved. In the recent apology in the Victorian Parliament regarding the forced adoptions, a phrase used to describe these separations was “contrary to the order of nature”; well what could be more contrary to the order of nature than deliberately destroying your child?
dover_beach
28 Oct 12 at 11:01 pm
Hi Dover, I was wondering what your position would be on a 12 year old rape victim. Should she be allowed to abort say in the first 6 weeks, or should she have her life destroyed by being forced to bear the rapist’s kid against her will?
Fisky
28 Oct 12 at 11:14 pm
Every word absolutely true. And far from losing or imperilling the debate, the ‘Catholic’ view is increasingly prevailing. Abortion is on the way out of mainstream respectability and has been for years. We’re winning – with help from science, against which the obscurantist left is now at full-fledged war.
C.L.
28 Oct 12 at 11:14 pm
I’m not surprised, and think most people would have the same reaction. I certainly did and it had a big impact on my views.
But as for the parliamentarians, they can’t just avoid the topic. They’re lawmakers. That’s like making laws about air travel without discussing planes.
dd
28 Oct 12 at 11:15 pm
CL, that paragraph of yours that StevefB quoted changes meaning quite abruptly when taken out of context.
dd
28 Oct 12 at 11:18 pm
coat hangers and back alleys it was bugging me, sorry.
Gab
28 Oct 12 at 11:19 pm
I hear, through back channels, that hospitals in some areas refuse to reveal the sex of the baby precisely because they do not like late term abortions, and that they especially do not like them for reasons as trivial as sex-selection.
There are reasons for opposing abortion absolutely, but one would have to be clinically psychopathic to kill a baby late-term in anything other than the most extreme of circumstances – for example where the available choices are the death of the baby on one hand or the death of the mother (or both) on the the other hand.
Does anyone else find it absurd that smashing a baby’s head in is legal but smoking a joint isn’t?
wreckage
28 Oct 12 at 11:21 pm
Ah, the 12 year-old rape victim.
The left’s favourite straw
manchild.Ever heard the saying that hard cases make bad law, Fisk?
The overwhelming majority of Western abortions are lifestyle abortions. They kill a disproportionate number of the disabled, the female and the non-white. They also kill hundreds of women over the course of decades – abortions gone wrong.
So I’m sorry, but lefties when wheel out 12 year-old rape victims – as if they give a shit – doesn’t offset the holocaust of death, maiming and mental scars we’re talking about.
C.L.
28 Oct 12 at 11:31 pm
He’s lying dd.
His real position is:
Which is exactly the same bullshit mealy mouthed talking point that Emilys Listers who unapologetically do “support” partial birth abortion give when challenged: “leave it up to the “doctors” (aka abortionists) hint hint” they say knowing what that means.
SfB also spent much of the thread telling everyone that Emilys Listers just aren’t that bad.
Until I posted this:
Then he silently changed tack from abusing people for disliking Emilys List to saying it was all Abbotts fault anyway and “shut up” (literally).
twostix
28 Oct 12 at 11:34 pm
Thank you CL. Your position is manifestly that rape victims, including teenage rape victims, should be forced to carry the child to term. This is a fascinating theoretical discussion, and we know that it will remain purely theoretical, because there is no prospect of the absolutist antiabortion view becoming law. None. Equally of comfort is the possibility that the extreme proabortion view will be wound back considerably, and we will be able to leave the extremists of all sides to their debating societies, safely out of the way of policy.
Fisky
28 Oct 12 at 11:40 pm
While I lean more towards your perspective in toto, Fisky, I do also see Cl’s argument regardign the 12 YO rape victim.
You are asking for a law that CL seeks to apply in the vast majority of cases to be tailored specifically to suit an outlier, a possibility that would only come up very, very rarely.
On the other hand, I believe a sub section of the legislation could deal with the possibility of pregnant rape victims while the major section places limits on the circumstances. You and CL can both be happy.
And on the gripping hand, why in the hell would the parents of a pregnant 12 yo rape victim wait to have a late term abortion????
entropy
29 Oct 12 at 12:03 am
According to Gallup, American views on abortion have been remarkably stable over time. A fifth advocated compulsory rape birth and incest facilitation in 1975, the same proportion as now. And a fifth called for late term brain hoovering in 1975, and this has only risen a few opinion points to date. The really good news is that a majority have always supported abortion in only a few limited circumstances, which is also the position of the just and Christian father, grandfather, successful businessman, philanthropist and next President of the United States, Mitt Romney. This is not a good year for extremists and cranks, including the unpopular and soon to be ex-President Obama.
Fisky
29 Oct 12 at 12:08 am
Entropy, I don’t want the law “tailored” to anything except reason and common sense. And Mitt Romney’s position is by far the most sensible, particularly compared to toxic extremists like Sandra Fluke and Todd Akin.
Fisky
29 Oct 12 at 12:13 am
When does life begin?
Leigh Lowe
29 Oct 12 at 12:23 am
The substantial majority of mobsters do not want to be involved in murders for trivial reasons either.
What a bizarre argument.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 12:27 am
I would be hesitant to answer the question until I know what Romney thinks about that, Leigh, but my gut says life begins at conception.
Fisky
29 Oct 12 at 12:27 am
Right.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 12:28 am
So what does a group founded in 1996 have to do with the change of attitudes that led to the Menhennitt ruling in 1969?
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 12:30 am
And Fisk, your position is that slaughterng tens of thousands of handicapped, female and non-white children – and maiming hundreds of women – is totally cool because 12 year-old rape victims demand it.
Right?
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 12:30 am
If Australian Leftists have borrowed the idea of “Emily’s List” from America, why haven’t Australian Conservatives borrowed the idea of the Susan B Anthony List from America?
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 12:33 am
Australia doesn’t have primaries. You get who the back-room boys give you, and that’s that.
Can’t compare apples and oranges.
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 12:36 am
Er no. As I stated above, my position is very close to President Romney’s, not the psephologically tone deaf extremists who he crushed in the primaries.
Fisky
29 Oct 12 at 12:41 am
Yes, twostix – precisely.
Steve, a rather dim old bugger who still thinks extemist left-wing distraction tactics from the 1970s still pack oomph, imports talking points directly from Pelosi, Obama, Boxer and the (literally) Nazi-inspired Planned Parenthood.
The Orwellian/Gillardian trick is to denounce as ‘extremists’ people who lament the killing of defenceless human beings, while clothed in the blood-splattered overalls of Joseph Mengele. Steve thinks all this is very challenging for people like me, polemically, and cutting-edge as apologia. Unfortunately for Steve, the tricks don’t work as well as they used to back in the days his when heroes – Joan Kirner et alia – were triumphantly dismissing unborn children as “clumps of cells.”
Odd, you don’t hear that one anymore. They’ve now moved on to Sandra Fluke, ‘reproductive rights,’ the ‘war on women’ and the mirage of ‘personhood.’
We’ll wear all that down too. Tirelessly, ruthlessly.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 12:42 am
So Romney believes life begins at conception unless socially acceptable pragmatic reasons dictate otherwise?
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 12:44 am
Does anyone else wonder about people who will happily expunge human babies at a survivable stage of gestation but are outraged that sheep destined for slaughter may not have an entirely comfortable cruise to the Middle East?
Leigh Lowe
29 Oct 12 at 12:45 am
The prospect of 12 year old rape victims falling pregnant has diminished considerably since the passing of Jimmy Savile.
The BBC has …. ahem ….. ” serious questions to answer”
Leigh Lowe
29 Oct 12 at 12:51 am
If an Australian politician proposed that we kill convicted rapists, pedophiles and murderers with exactly the same casual attitude and in exactly the same manner as we kill innocent babies, I expect there would be outrage.
It’s a funny old world.
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 12:53 am
And in another 35 years the proportion of blanket anti-abortionists will be…20%. I hope in the meantime that pragmatic prolife reforms will not have been derailed by Akinites as they are now.
Fisky
29 Oct 12 at 12:56 am
Romney seems to flip-flop a lot on abortion:
In a debate during his 1994 race against Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, Romney said, “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country.” Referring to the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in every state, Romney added, “I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, it should be sustained and supported. And I sustain and support that law and support the right of a woman to make that choice.”
In his 2002 campaign for governor, Romney said during a debate, “I will preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose and am devoted and dedicated to honoring my word in that regard.”
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 12:59 am
When you copy and paste from other sources,
febr0scapula, and then don’t attribute the quote, it really is contemptible. In this case politifact.com is the source of the words you are trying to pass off as your own.Gab
29 Oct 12 at 1:05 am
Crapula, you are not telling us anything new or interesting. Romney once believed in easy abortion but has since changed his mind based on the growing weight of scientific evidence. Now he wants to restrict abortion to rape victims and life endangered mothers. He’s great like that – a flexible, scientific, realistic, evidence-based and compassionate chief executive with oodles of life and professional experience that have equipped him to be the greatest President since Reagan.
Fisky
29 Oct 12 at 1:13 am
FTFY.
What’s 35 years?
The Planned Parenthood view of life is on the way to extinction and people like me with preside over its gradual ruination. Nothing can stop that.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 1:19 am
35 years ago the percentage of blanket anti-abortionists – i.e. no rape exceptions, nothing – was exactly the same as it is now – 20%.
Fisky
29 Oct 12 at 1:29 am
It was quite clearly a quotation and its quite clear that Romney changes his opinion on abortion to suit his political ambitions.
I presumed this would be the case and there are plenty of statements by Romney that are pro-choice and no one has contradicted these facts.
Science had nothing to do with his flip-flopping.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 1:31 am
I forgot to mention, CL – 35 years ago the blanket pro-abortionists were also on 20%. Sadly they are now on 25%. But in spite of these gains for the Far Left, I am confident the silent majority will prevail as will their standard-bearer, Mitt Romney.
Fisky
29 Oct 12 at 1:34 am
It was quite clearly a quotation
No it wasn’t. Not from the first sentence ending in colon to the last. Nor was the link provided.
Gab
29 Oct 12 at 1:37 am
No you are totally deluded, Crapula. A loony in urgent need of state-of-the-art medical intervention. No one in a position of authority believes your account of Romney’s evolving and broad-minded views on life. Only fellow cranks.
Fisky
29 Oct 12 at 1:39 am
Colons usually introduce quotations so what did you think came after the colon?:
Twenty years of my own in-depth examination of abortion in america with specific reference to Romney.
You used Google to find the quotation, as did I. Provide your own links.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 1:44 am
CL is a complete, smug self delusionist on many things, one of them being the coming triumph of pro life abortion views that are in complete accordance withCatholic teaching. This is, allegedly, about to happen while Catholicism is losing ground in popular acceptance, massively, on all issues relating to sexuality, reproductive technology, contraception and divorce and marriage.
It is, clearly comforting bedtime story he likes to tell himself.
steve from brisbane
29 Oct 12 at 2:00 am
Colons usually introduce quotations so what did you think came after the colon?: Words that are not yours – neither was the first line before the colon – unattributed and without quotes.
Provide your own links. I did provide a link to the words you used to pass off as your own. You are supposed to provide a link, not anyone else, as is customary and honest.
Gab
29 Oct 12 at 2:06 am
LOL.
‘Catholic’ Steve the supporter of abortion – who believes Barack Obama represents the future of Catholicism – joins 2000 years’ worth of weirdos and losers predicting the imminent collapse of the Church.
Of course the Christian, biblical, Christic view of life will prevail. The pro-child murder lobby is on the run, beaten back by science and the growing appeal of axiomatic morality in a world tired of evil subjectivism.
—————————————-
Other predictions of wrongologist Steve discussed here recently include his triumphant dismissal of talk that Malcolm Turnbull might be thrown out of the Opposition Leader’s office.
Good call, Steve.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 2:08 am
Romney must win for the sake of the economy and foreign policy. On abortion and related issues he is – and always has been – a coward. A heathen cult member too (not unlike, say, Tom Cruise, in that respect). He is preferred re abortion etc only because the GOP platform to which he pretends to adhere – and its party guardians, not least his deputy – will ensure he doesn’t wander off.
There has been a huge decline in support for abortion across the board in the United States, recorded by all pollsters. It is highly likely the Democrat Party’s continued links to extremist groups like Planned Parenthood will eventually drag that party into oblivion. It is the extremism of the Obama campaign’s behaviour – and the borishness of he and his Vice-President in the debates – that has closed the gender gap. Nothing to do with Mitt’s bogus conversion to ‘moderation.’
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 2:20 am
Romney must win for the sake of the economy and foreign policy. On abortion and related issues he is – and always has been – a coward. A heathen cult member too (not unlike, say, Tom Cruise, in that respect). He is preferred re abortion etc only because the GOP platform to which he pretends to adhere – and its party guardians, not least his deputy – will ensure he doesn’t wander off.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 2:22 am
There has been a huge decline in support for abortion across the board in the United States, recorded by all pollsters. It is highly likely the Democrat Party’s continued links to extremist groups like Planned Parenthood will eventually drag that party into oblivion. It is the extremism of the Obama campaign’s behaviour – and the boorishness of he and his Vice-President in the debates – that has closed the gender gap. Nothing to do with Mitt’s bogus conversion to ‘moderation.’
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 2:23 am
CL – the Gallup numbers for 1975 are virtually the same as now – abortion did become more popular in the 90s but that has since subsided and we are back to where we started. Romney has an excellent opportunity to wedge the Democrats on their extreme platform while maintaining vital safeguards for vulnerable women. He should put a referendum on late term and partial birth abortion on the ballot of every state in 2016 (even where it is moot) to coincide with his reelection campaign and smash the Democrats on turnout.
Fisky
29 Oct 12 at 2:54 am
There are no ‘safeguards’ vis-a-vis abortion, nor does abortion do anything for ‘vulnerable’ women. In fact, it maims hundreds of vulnerable women and kills the most vulnerable people of all. Romney isn’t particularly interested either way, given he only broke free of Planned Parenthood to secure a GOP nomination. This was also important because of the growing unpopularity of abortion, as registered in all polls. There is no need for referenda on late term or so-called partial birth abortion. Both have been outlawed and the relevant laws never challenged in the Supreme Court. As I said, Romney’s only appeal over against Obama in this arena is as a man tethered to a more sane party platform, rebellion against which would destroy his presidency. He will do as he’s told and that’s something.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 4:06 am
Obviuosly not happening according to today’s Newspoll. I’ve been forecasting this strong Gillard resurgence for months. After Obama romps home in the USA, our next Newspoll will show Labor well in front and going away, 2PP.
Gareth Hamilton
29 Oct 12 at 7:49 am
I’ve been checking polling in Australia on abortion. It would appear that well under 10% take the absolutist anti abortion view of CL. A substantial majority want abortion to be legal, at least when it comes to first trimester. One survey indicates there is also nuance in views on late term abortion, when different situations are put to people.
The short story is that the great majority of people do take a nuanced position on abortion, and as even Fisk (desperate to come to a “kiss and make up” position with CL late last night, I see) would acknowledge, this is the same in the US. People in the US are more inclined to vote for procedural steps to discourage abortion, but at the end of the day, their position is still not absolutist.
steve from brisbane
29 Oct 12 at 8:00 am
In 2030 – 2040 we Westerners will be truely living in a “Children of Men” society.
When the Average age of women is 35+ the demographic death spiral will take hold and a world of barbarism awaits. Survival will require with very tight control over the few fertile women that exist, and this will probably break down along tribal / ethinic lines.
When their are few taxpayers left to fund the pensions of single childless women then the’ll change their position on Abortion.
Max
29 Oct 12 at 10:50 am
Newt skewers the rape/abortion canard well in this interivew…5 min in.
Token
29 Oct 12 at 10:57 am
Although she won pre-selection owing to the need to fill a quota of female candidates, Kristina Keneally is/was not a member of Emily’s List:
She has, however voiced disapproval on Papal Teaching on the Ordination of Women so could be described as a “Cafeteria Catholic”.
Cold-Hands
29 Oct 12 at 11:18 am
Polls also show that nobody cares much about ‘climate change’ and approximately zero percent hold Steve’s view of Gaia as a being who will soon come to life to exercise guardianship over the earth.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 11:24 am
CL, handwaving as usual, because the fantasy basis of his claimed coming victory of the Catholic view of abortion is so routinely shown up by looking at polls in detail.
steve from brisbane
29 Oct 12 at 11:28 am
Steve re:
“claimed coming victory of the Catholic view”
At the moment there is massive “white flight” towards catholic education with long waiting lists and expansion plans at primary, secondary and tertiary level.
Catholisim is becoming very popular again because people can see the negative impacts of letting their kids get educated by left wing unionists.
Max
29 Oct 12 at 11:36 am
All polls now show a majority of Americans oppose abortion. Thanks to science, the drift against the extremist left’s no holds barred views on the subject will continue apace. Nothing can stop that.
‘Catholic’ Steve’s hilarious argument that Abbott’s views on the subject have been kept secret wins this week’s Laughable Polemic of The Week Award – and it’s only Monday. According to the childless Lying Rodent and her sisters in Emily’s List, Abbott’s opinions on the subject are notorious.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 11:37 am
Max: I’m pretty sure you’ll find that “Catholic education” is very light on with regards to church teaching on reproduction.
steve from brisbane
29 Oct 12 at 11:46 am
http://www.news.com.au/top-stories/baby-killer-phillip-nathan-king-allowed-out-of-prison-on-shopping-trip/story-e6frfkp9-1225740194568
Ivan Denisovich
29 Oct 12 at 11:57 am
Ordination of women or married men is an entirely entirely separate issue to abortion or embryonic stem cell research.
The reasons for the non ordination of women or married men are weak, and do not concern the rights of the unborn.
.
29 Oct 12 at 12:09 pm
This was not an attempt to sidetrack the thread, merely an illustration that Ms Keneally picks-and-chooses which Catholic doctrines she adheres to. Nobody is trying to tie this into the Church’s teachings on the Right to Life.
Cold-Hands
29 Oct 12 at 12:28 pm
This needs saying again and again.
CL, I salute you.
Rococo Liberal
29 Oct 12 at 12:31 pm
No, the reasons for not ordaining women are very strong. Namely, that Christ didn’t choose any woman for his ministry or as Apostles. The encyclical’s teaching on this subject (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis) is infallible. So Keneally is departing from the Church in advocating women’s ‘ordination,’ excluding herself from its life.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 12:33 pm
Women cannot be priests, as stated infallibly by Blessed Pope John Paul II in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Tradition is clear.
Married priests already exist in the Eastern Catholic Church.
Julian O'Dea
29 Oct 12 at 12:34 pm
Hard cases may make bad law, but they make good philosophy.
The fact is that the 12 year-old rape victim is, generically speaking, just an horrific example of something very mundane – an unwanted pregnancy.
If you make it an exception to your pro-life stance you make your position incoherent as you’re admitting the pragmatic possibility of terminating unwanted pregnancies.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 12:40 pm
C.L. – Interesting question there – what correlation are you drawing between priests and apostles?
Driftforge
29 Oct 12 at 12:40 pm
Thanks, RL. Absolutist extremists like Steve and Fisk argue that the statistically rare ’12 year-old rape victims’ justify a holocaust of blood, horror, murder and maiming – with the targets disproportionately female, non-white and disabled.
This extreme – al Qaeda-like calculus – has been packaged and sold by the US Democrats and Emily’s List for years and is now parroted by our own local yokels with embarrassing fidelity. The historical intellectual connections between this extremism and such bastions of humanity as the Ku Klux Klan and the German Nazi Party are real and telling. It is, of course, a moral monstrosity.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 12:42 pm
So Scapula, so we get the ideological consistency, what is your view on 8th & 9th month abortions for lifestyle reasons?
Do you agree with the idea that a child that survives an abortion and is prematurely born should be allowed to be killed?
To paraphrase your little question:
If you make it an exception to your pro-
lifechoice stance you make your position incoherent as you’re admitting the pragmatic possibility of terminatingunwanted pregnanciesfully formed children who come leave the woman’t body alive.Token
29 Oct 12 at 12:53 pm
“All polls now show a majority of Americans oppose abortion.”
That’s not correct. A majority oppose/support it in certain circumstances. A minority oppose it in all circumstances, and a roughly equivalent minority support it in all circumstances.
Jarrah
29 Oct 12 at 1:02 pm
To once again make the point:
steve from brisbane
29 Oct 12 at 1:13 pm
Thanks dd, as usual you’re just about the only sane voice on the right on this blog. Your observation renders futile the rest of the thread.
m0nty
29 Oct 12 at 1:14 pm
Legal doesn’t equal support abortion, Stepford. You know there is a difference.
JC
29 Oct 12 at 1:19 pm
Are these cases any more likely than the 12 year old rape victim? Who goes through the financial cost (not to mention physical burden) of being pregnant for 9 months only to decide the colours in the nursery aren’t working and under goes major and in most places illegal surgery?
AJ
29 Oct 12 at 1:29 pm
The fact that the vast majority of Americans believe that, for instance, abortion is the “least worst” answer when the life of the mother is at stake, does not mean that the vast majority of Americans believe in free & easy killing and dismemberment of babies on demand, solely for the convenience of the mother, right up till the second of birth.
Emily’s List wants no-limits abortion, for any reason, at any stage of the child’s life, even if they have to stab holes in the skull and suck out the brain while he or she is desperately trying to come out of the birth canal.
As long as they can kill it before the child is 100% out of the womb, they’re cool with that. The vast majority of Americans – and I daresay Australians – are not.
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 1:30 pm
Monty’s contribution:
“Shut up”.
Tell us about how you’re a “moderate” ALP shill who only supports a little bit of abortion in stark conrast to the ALP m0nty.
Because god knows despite most of Australia having abortion available up until term, and partial birth abortion being legal all over Australia thanks to the ALP, nobody on the internet who supports “abortion” ever actually has the guts to support the current reality which they helped create and provide cover to continue operating.
Because despite (apparently) nobody supporting the current reality of healthy 8th along babies being dragged out of the womb then killed there’s plenty of scope to pour scorn on anybody who questions this regime. With the knee jerk hypothetical 12 year old rape victim immediately wheeled out post haste at the mere mention of rolling back the abortion industry at all.
But everybody is a moderate.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 1:34 pm
No, the framework Abbott/Hillary have is what the majority believe should be the norm – “safe, legal and rare”.
It addresses the real need in society for a legal/safe course but also notes it is important that people consider the impact on all parties – mother/father/child.
It is worth underlining that Emily’s List and a number of other groups want a standard that is beyond the norm (and only exist as most people are unaware of the standard).
Token
29 Oct 12 at 1:37 pm
You can faff on as long as you like 26, no one’s telling you to shut up. All I’m saying is that your words are futile.
m0nty
29 Oct 12 at 1:37 pm
Of course I do. It is the likes of CL who don’t understand the difference.
steve from brisbane
29 Oct 12 at 1:38 pm
Fat boy
Do you support partial birth abortion?
JC
29 Oct 12 at 1:39 pm
In Victoria from 1999-2009 210 out of 400 late term abortions were performed on healthy babies because of “psychosocial” reasons.
Psycosocial reasons being: economic, social, relational, and mental health.
Or in other words late term abortion on demand.
Just as Emilys List and most of the ALP demand it should be.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 1:42 pm
‘If you make it an exception to your pro-choice stance you make your position incoherent as you’re admitting the pragmatic possibility of terminating fully formed children who come leave the woman’t body alive.’
I can’t really understand this question …
and I don’t really follow the abortion issue that closely, but if you admit late term abortions to save the life of the mother then you are not holding a coherent pro-life position.
Late term abortions seem rare and are only interesting as an example if you assume that the only real marker of life is not conception, but the viability of the fetus outside the uterus.
Once you make that assumption you are pro-choice for about 99% of the abortions that actually take place.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 1:44 pm
Um, who says that Emily Lister’s don’t want abortion to be “rare”?
steve from brisbane
29 Oct 12 at 1:46 pm
Questioner: “Monty, what is your position on inducing 8 month along babies into labour then shoving a pair of scissors into their brain with no anesthetic then sucking their brains out with a vacuum cleaner until they die?”
Monty the childless beta ALP shill: “No comment. Though any argument against it is futile so ha!”
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 1:46 pm
Um, show me a statement where they explicitly state they want it to be rare.
Token
29 Oct 12 at 1:50 pm
Here he is again. Trying to reform Emilys List.
They do you cock. Of twenty ammendments to the Victorian Abortion bill requiring mothers to seek counselling, engage with social services and otherwise help reduce the number of lifestyle abortions Emilys List MP’s voted against every single one of them.
Then again they also voted against:
The banning of partial birth abortions (banned in the U.S);
Provision of medical care for aborted babies born alive;
Anaesthetic for babies aborted late term;
Limiting abortion availability to 20 or 24 weeks
Facts that you, a 65 year old male, studiously ignore in your attempts to “moderate” the Emilys List hard nosed feminist group’s message for them. Earning you their grateful thanks no doubt.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 1:52 pm
You cowardly fuckhead fat boy.
JC
29 Oct 12 at 1:58 pm
In other words, during that period the tiny (compared to Texas) state of Victoria (pop. 5.6m) executed almost as many healthy innocent children as Texas (pop. 25.6m) did convicted murderers.
Plenty of principled people think Texas’s capital punishment regime is worth protesting, even with such a tiny per capita number of killings – and they’re not thought “extremists”. Why the rage against those who want to see much larger (per capita) numbers of healthy, innocent children spared death at the hands of the State?
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 2:03 pm
No no. A majority of Americans have now completely rejected the left’s view of “abortion on demand” – a stunning and, for the extremists, completely surprising development. Late term abortion has been banned, despite the protests of extremists like Hillary Clinton. Child murder (born alive ‘abortion’) has also been banned – despite the best efforts of wackos like Barack Obama. Jurisdictions throughout the world are passing laws that acknowledge a child killed in the assault of the mother is a homicide victim – again, despite the protestations of extremists. There is now a movement worldwide to ban gender abortions – although Obama supported the ‘right’ to kill girls earlier this year. These campaigns are all winning and they will be extended to race-specific and disability-related agendas. Nothing can stop these trends.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 2:05 pm
That means mum wanted to fit into a bikini for summer.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 2:07 pm
He can’t answer JC. In much of the leftist IT world “men” aren’t allowed to talk about abortion at all except to fall over themselves to support it in all forms or risk being branded as a misogynist Republican / Liberal “pro lifer”. If he does come out against even just a tiny little bit of it he’s assigning himself to the Tony Abbott “hates women” bin as far as the likes of his dear leftist females on the internet are concerned and places himself in direct opposition to the ALP and US Democrats who infest the left leaning sites on the internet and refer to babies as “parasites”.
Do you think monty has that kind of wherewithal?
But you watch he’ll say something like “I’m not too keen on it but think it best left to the mother and her “doctor” (aka abortionist)” or “it’s really a womans issue” or some other gayness.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 2:08 pm
Because babies in the womb are not human and thus have no right to life if the “mother” so chooses, according to the likes of Emily’s Listers.
Gab
29 Oct 12 at 2:09 pm
Let’s be fair. M0nty like most people does not understand that abortion is state sanctioned murder of the vulnerable.
I agree with CL, the game changer will be when an ultrasound is leaked where people can actually see a doctor killing a foetus.
When that image gets out/goes viral perceptions will change.
Token
29 Oct 12 at 2:12 pm
Just because they think the method of abortion should be a matter left to doctors and women does not mean that they don’t want there to be as few as possible late term abortions.
I would have thought that this is obvious.
By all means, disagree with them on the issue of whether methods of late term abortion should be left solely to doctors if you want (I doubt that it should); but there is no corollary that their position on this means they actually want to see late term abortions happening.
I again remind you: it is the liberals on abortion who are also the most keen on the ready supply of reliable contraception to women – which helps reduce abortion rates.
It is idiots like the men (and women) here who argued that Sandra Fluke has no case because condoms are everywhere – or Catholics or wannabe Catholics who are against all forms of contraception – who are actually arguing for a situation where a higher abortion rate is more likely due to more unwanted pregnancies.
steve from brisbane
29 Oct 12 at 2:13 pm
If mum hires someone to kill her baby post 20 weeks, does he or she (the baby) get both a birth and a death certificate, and does mum still score a baby bonus?
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 2:14 pm
So is late term abortion acceptable:
if the life of the mother is threatened
if the mental health of the mother is threatened
if there is fetal malformation
not under any circumstances
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 2:15 pm
Unbelievable.
Emilys List MP’s voted against:
The banning of partial birth abortions
Provision of medical care for aborted babies born alive;
Anaesthetic for babies aborted late term;
Limiting abortion availability to 20 or 24 weeks
SfB: Look now, they’re not so bad.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 2:19 pm
So Steve, are you in favor of capital punishment as long as “professionals” get to decide who to kill and how to kill them? Are people like me just butting in when we join campaigns to stop it?
Should citizens stop protesting capital punishment because death at the hands of the State is a matter best left to the specialists in that field?
Should we all, as people not directly affected, just shut up and know our place ?
Why is it cool for Victoria, pop. 5.6m, to execute almost as many healthy innocent late-term babies as Texas, pop. 25.6m, does convicted murderers; and why is it “extreme” and “illiberal” to protest one and not the other?
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 2:20 pm
Stop lying Steve. That is not Fluke’s argument.
Token
29 Oct 12 at 2:21 pm
Statement or question from the idiot?
Has the twit solved one of the great moral issues of out time?
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 2:22 pm
Stop being dodgy Scapula and answer the question I posed:
If you make it an exception to your pro-
lifechoice stance you make your position incoherent as you’re admitting the pragmatic possibility of terminatingunwanted pregnanciesfully formed children who come leave the woman’t body alive.Or do concede youre position is incoherent?
Token
29 Oct 12 at 2:23 pm
I agree its a question not many chose to answer clearly,
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 2:23 pm
‘Catholic’ Steve believes Stephen Conroy should control what we do on the internet but that “abortion should be a matter left to doctors.”*
* A wholly imported Democrat Party slogan.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 2:24 pm
A lying slime merchant is what liar-steve™ is and lying is what he inevitably does.
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 2:24 pm
The question is badly posed and biased in its phrasing.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 2:24 pm
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_only_moral_man_is_one_who_backs_leslie/
Ivan Denisovich
29 Oct 12 at 2:25 pm
Steve, do you agree that a woman has the right to terminate her girl baby?
If not, why not?
GO!
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 2:26 pm
See how it goes? Fisky and the “moderates” lay the ground work for this. The “moderates” only want a little bit of abortion and bring out the 12 year old rape victim.
Within hours we’re been asked to “convince” people why full term babies shouldn’t be killed because the mother has changed her mind a day before she gives birth.
And where are the “moderates” now?
At the moment the status quo is that under all those circumstances and more a near term baby can be aborted. A the feminist left including Julia Gillard demand nothing less, and in fact demand more – that abortion be legal on demand up until birth.
Anything less is “misogynist”, “reactionary” and a “war on womens reproductive rights”.
So do you support any restriction at all on abortion?
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 2:27 pm
It was a small variation on the one you posed to people who are pro-life????
I am willing to let this go as my point is that your question set an unrealistic black & white standard on one of the deepest and most difficult moral challenges our modern society has presented us.
If, yes. Who checks to see if all tests are vigirously made? It is not hard for a sympathetic doctor to tweak the truth & say all are fulfilled.
Token
29 Oct 12 at 2:32 pm
Yes that is how it works.
The feminist left say that men aren’t allowed to talk about abortion. Then they say that only the “medical field” is allowed to talk about abortion.
Then the ALP left and Emilys Listers tell us all how it’s going to be.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 2:32 pm
Conroy doing an appeal to authority? Who would’ve thought he’d try that?
Token
29 Oct 12 at 2:33 pm
The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people of almost all political persuasions have a pragmatic view on abortion.
I can see why those who have a consistent pro-life position find this frustrating, but these people are in the minority even here.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 2:34 pm
Do you support any restriction at all on abortion?
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 2:37 pm
If you call the overwhelming majorites view on abortion “pragmatic” what then do you call Julia Gillard and Joan Kirners view of no questions asked on demand abortion up until birth?
I, who fall into the “pragmatic” camp would call it extreme and sick, what about you?
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 2:40 pm
Utter bollox.
Most voters don’t want to know and politicians who would want to place rest)rictions (the t a majority would support on polling) will be targeted by the feminazis and thug leftists.
Its leftist intimidation pure and simple.
We are seeing it here and to a much greater extent in the US.
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 2:40 pm
Gab
29 Oct 12 at 2:40 pm
What I don’t understand is how a fetus one hour before birth is not human, but a baby one hour after birth is.
The death of one is of no moral consequence, whereas causing the death of the other will land you in prison for a long time.
This seems to ascribe magical properties to the birth event. I don’t see any other way around that, except that it’s based on some kind of mystical superstitious belief about births endowing the soul, or something. A baby that’s ready to come out is, biologically, pretty much fully formed.
dd
29 Oct 12 at 2:42 pm
Biologically life is quite different from moral-legal personhood.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 2:44 pm
I don’t believe any one should trust anything published by the Guttmacher Institute.
Every press release and ‘study’ from the Guttmacher Institute is agenda driven and that agenda is always evil
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 2:45 pm
You are a true genius Scrofula
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 2:46 pm
So, we can define personhood away in a “moral-legal” sense, even if biologically it exists?
dd
29 Oct 12 at 2:49 pm
Surely our moral position should be informed by biology, rather than set arbitrarily according to ancient beliefs about souls arriving at the moment of birth.
dd
29 Oct 12 at 2:50 pm
I agree that there is no need for ‘souls’ or ‘God’ to enter the debate.
The question is when if ever is it ‘okay’ to kill a human life gestating in a mother’s womb?
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 2:53 pm
Good work DD it is important to get people to think about what they are saying when addressing this issue.
I’m sure that if Scapula saw the baby in utero he is talking about we’d see some movement on the topic – especially if it was his child/grandchild.
Token
29 Oct 12 at 2:54 pm
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/1687/the_beginning_of_the_end_of_the_abortion_industry.aspx
Ivan Denisovich
29 Oct 12 at 2:54 pm
It seems to me that people distinguish between:
- biological life
- biological life that is capable of existing as a moral-legal person
- the moral-legal person at birth
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 2:57 pm
People distinguish between 10:15am and 11am as well.
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 2:58 pm
Scapula, do you agree with Barack Obama that a baby born alive after a botched abortion may licitly be left to die in a rubbish bin?
Yes or no?
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 3:03 pm
Okay, I’ll resist calling you out on the “people think it so it’s true” line of reasoning. The thrust of what you’re saying is that the legal, biological, and moral issues are separate.
And sure, to an extent that’s true, but I don’t see how they can be completely separate. And anyway, it doesn’t answer my question of why are they separate in this particular case? Is it founded on superstition about Birth, or is it something else?
dd
29 Oct 12 at 3:05 pm
I’m sorry kid, but until you fill out these forms in triplicate and provide us with 3 character witnesses and a police clearance, we consider you to be a clump of cells.
Infidel Tiger
29 Oct 12 at 3:08 pm
It seems to me that like all duplicitous leftists you cherry pick what to answer and what to say.
If the overwhelming majority’s view on abortion is “pragmatic” what then is Julia Gillard and Joan Kirners Emily Lists view of no questions asked on demand abortion up until birth?
I would call it extreme and sick, what would you call it?
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 3:12 pm
So if someone is pro-life, are they wrong?
Token
29 Oct 12 at 3:16 pm
People’s moral intuitions differ from people who take an interest in matters, so they matter at some level, but yes there is also a set of distinctions that can be made independent of that fact.
I note however that all of the heat in this discussion tends to be about late term abortions, so some are making the distinction between life and life capable of being born.
Birth is where society magically bestows on you personhood.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 3:17 pm
I wish you dragged out of the canal and smoked , bob, the country wouldn’t have to have tolerated you, you fat useless shit.
That’s one late term abortion I would have supported with my ears pinned back.
JC
29 Oct 12 at 3:18 pm
Het Scrofula how about this koan for your ‘moral intuitions’:
“If a babe is killed in-utero where the lungs are filled with amniotic fluid, does any one hear it scream?”
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 3:19 pm
Big mistake when that test is applied to you bob.
JC
29 Oct 12 at 3:19 pm
Notice how the extremists skulk away when you turn tables on their hard cases trick? They’re very easy to demolish, contrary to their own carefully cultivated, media-enforced image of being the unconquerable hard men of ‘pragmatism.’
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 3:20 pm
People who are pro-life are wrong in so far as they fail to admit fully that their definition of biological life is not entirely biological.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 3:22 pm
Another piss weak excuse to destroy a human being.
Is it right to kill a baby? Is it right to not protect the innocent and helpless?
Gab
29 Oct 12 at 3:23 pm
What are you smoking?
Gab
29 Oct 12 at 3:24 pm
It’s never right to kill a baby.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 3:24 pm
Scrof – you know you are talking shite, right?
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 3:24 pm
It’s obviously high-flying shite.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 3:26 pm
It’s obviously
high-flyingshite.TFTFY
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 3:26 pm
Running commentary on what other people think isn’t useful. You’re hinting at reasonable arguments without actually making them.
Okay, now here’s some meat.
So the point is that birth is the legal ground zero for personhood. That’s true. it is. You are registered, you get a birth certificate, your age is counted from that day, etc.
Okay, fine, but you’re falling into the naturalistic fallacy. “What is” doesn’t necessarily equal “what should be.”
So we agree that you don’t have a legal identity before birth. But why? Why are we denied personhood even an hour before birth? Is this tradition, and if so, is it justified? I’m just asking questions here.
dd
29 Oct 12 at 3:28 pm
CL on his re-write the dictionary bash.
“Extremist” – anyone who disagrees with CL in any respect at all on abortion.
steve from brisbane
29 Oct 12 at 3:30 pm
Really? That’s the trend in jurisprudence, you think?
Alabama: Legislation taking effect July 1, 2006 (HB 19) amended Section 13A-6-1 of the Code of Alabama to include “an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability” as a “person” and “human being” for purposes of the state laws dealing with murder, manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and assault.
Alaska: Alaska Statutes 11.41 (as amended by Senate Bill 20, enacted June 16, 2006) establishes the crimes of “murder of an unborn child,” “manslaughter of an unborn child,” “criminally negligent homicide of an unborn child,” and “assault of an unborn child.” Alaska Statutes 11.81.900(b) defines “unborn child” as “a member of species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”
Arizona: The “unborn child in the womb at any stage of its development” is fully covered by the state’s murder and manslaughter statutes. For purposes of establishing the level of punishment, a victim who is “an unborn child shall be treated like a minor who is under twelve years of age.” Senate Bill 1052, signed into law on April 25, 2005, amending the following sections of the Arizona Revised Statutes: 13-604, 13-604.01, 13-703, 13-1102, 13-1103, 13-1104, 13-1105, 13-4062, 31-412, 41-1604.11 and 41-1604.13.
Georgia: Legislation taking effect July 1, 2006 (SB 77) recognizes an “unborn child” (defined as “a member of the species homo sapiens at any stage of development who is carried in the womb”) as a victim of the offenses of feticide, voluntary manslaughter of an unborn child, assault of an unborn child, and battery of an unborn child. (Official Code of Georgia Annotated, Sections 16-5-20, 16-5-28, 16-5-29, 16-5-80)
Legislation (SB 529) taking effect July 1, 2008 recognizes the crimes of “feticide by vehicle” in the first and second degree. (Section 40-6-393.1)
Idaho: Murder is defined as the killing of a “human embryo or fetus” under certain conditions. The law provides that manslaughter includes the unlawful killing of a human embryo or fetus without malice. The law provides that a person commits aggravated battery when, in committing battery upon the person of a pregnant female, that person causes great bodily harm, permanent disability or permanent disfigurement to an embryo or fetus. Idaho Sess. Law Chap. 330 (SB1344)(2002).
Illinois: The killing of an “unborn child” at any stage of pre-natal development is intentional homicide, voluntary manslaughter, or involuntary manslaughter or reckless homicide. Ill. Comp. Stat. ch. 720, §§5/9-1.2, 5/9-2.1, 5/9-3.2 (1993). Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 720 § 5/12-3.1. A person commits battery of an unborn child if he intentionally or knowingly without legal justification and by any means causes bodily harm to an unborn child. Read with Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 720 § 5/12-4.4.
Kansas: Under “Alexa’s Law,” signed into law on May 9, 2007, as part of HB 2062, effective July 1, 2007, an “unborn child,” meaning “a living individual organism of the species homo sapiens, in utero, at any stage of gestation from fertilization to birth,” is defined as a “person” and a “human being” for the purposes of the Kansas statutes against first degree murder, second degree murder, capital murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, vehicular homicide, and numerous battery offenses.
Kentucky: Since February, 2004, Kentucky law establishes a crime of “fetal homicide” in the first, second, third, and fourth degrees. The law covers an “unborn child,” defined as “a member of the species homo sapiens in utero from conception onward, without regard to age, health, or condition of dependency.”
Louisiana: The killing of an “unborn child” is first degree feticide, second degree feticide, or third degree feticide. La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§14:32.5 – 14.32.8, read with §§14:2(1), (7), (11) (West 1997).
Michigan: The killing of an “unborn quick child” is manslaughter under Mich. Stat. Ann. § 28.555. The Supreme Court of Michigan interpreted this statute to apply to only those unborn children who are viable. Larkin v. Cahalan, 208 N.W.2d 176 (Mich. 1973). However, a separate Michigan law, effective Jan. 1, 1999, provides felony penalties for actions that intentionally, or in wanton or willful disregard for consequences, cause a “miscarriage or stillbirth,” or cause “aggravated physical injury to an embryo or fetus.”(M.C.L. 750.90a through 750.90f)
Minnesota: Since 1986 the killing of an “unborn child” at any stage of pre-natal development is murder (first, second, or third degree) or manslaughter, (first or second degree). It is also a felony to cause the death of an “unborn child” during the commission of a felony. Minn. Stat. Ann. §§609.266, 609.2661- 609.2665, 609.268(1) (West 1987). The death of an “unborn child” through operation of a motor vehicle is criminal vehicular operation. Minn. Stat. Ann. §609.21 (West 1999).
Mississippi: Under a law enacted May 6, 2004, and effective July 1, 2004, for purposes of enumerated state laws dealing with various types of homicide and certain other violent crimes, “the term ‘human being’ includes an unborn child at every stage of gestation from conception until live birth and the term ‘unborn child’ means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.” (SB 2869) In 2011, the legislature revised the law to clarify that certain conduct resulting in “serious physical injury to the embryo or fetus” is a felony punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment. (SB No. 2615, signed February 24, 2011, effective July 1, 2011.)
Missouri: The killing of an “unborn child” at any stage of pre-natal development is involuntary manslaughter or first degree murder. Mo. Ann. Stat. §§1.205, 565.024, 565.020 (Vernon Supp. 1999), State v. Knapp, 843 S.W.2d 345 (Mo. 1992), State v. Holcomb, 956 S.W.2d 286 (Mo. App. W.D. 1997).
Nebraska: The killing of an “unborn child” at any stage of pre-natal development is murder in the first degree, second degree, or manslaughter. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-391 to § 28-394. (2002) In addition, “The Assault of an Unborn Child Act,” effective April 13, 2006, provides that a criminal attacker who causes “serious bodily injury” to an unborn child commits the offense of “assault on an unborn child” in the first, second, or third degree. “Unborn child” is defined as “an individual member of the species Homo sapiens at any stage of development in utero.” (LB 57, 2006)
North Carolina: House Bill 215, titled the Unborn Victims of Violence Act / Ethen’s Law, signed April 29, 2011 and effective December 1, 2011, recognizes an “unborn child” (defined as “a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb”) as a victim for the crimes of “murder of an unborn child,” “voluntary manslaughter of an unborn child,” “involuntary manslaughter of an unborn child,” “assault inflicting serious bodily injury on an unborn child,” and “battery of an unborn child.” (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-23.1-14-23.8).
North Dakota: Since 1987 the killing of an “unborn child” at any stage of pre-natal development is murder, felony murder, manslaughter, or negligent homicide. N.D. Cent. Code §§12.1-17.1-01 to 12.1-17.1-04 (1997).
Ohio: At any stage of pre-natal development, if an “unborn member of the species homo sapiens, who is or was carried in the womb of another” is killed, it is aggravated murder, murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, negligent homicide, aggravated vehicular homicide, and vehicular homicide. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§ 2903.01 to 2903.07, 2903.09 (Anderson 1996 & Supp. 1998).
Oklahoma: House Bill 1686, signed into law on May 20, 2005, recognizes “an unborn child” as a victim under state laws against murder, manslaughter, and certain other acts of violence. The law defines “unborn child” as “the unborn offspring of human beings from the moment of conception, through pregnancy, and until live birth including the human conceptus, zygote, morula, blastocyst, embryo and fetus.” Following upon the law enacted in 2005, Senate Bill 1742, signed into law May 23, 2006, ensures that Oklahoma’s recognition of the unborn child as a separate victim applies uniformly across all of Oklahoma’s homicide statutes.
Pennsylvania: An individual commits criminal homicide in the first, second, or third-degree, or voluntary manslaughter of an “unborn child” if the individual intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or negligently causes the death of an unborn child. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. §§ 2601 to 2609 (1997) “Unborn child” and “fetus.” Each term shall mean an individual organism of the species Homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth.” On December 27, 2006, in the case of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Bullock (J-43-2006), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously rejected an array of constitutional challenges to the law, including claims based on Roe v. Wade and equal protection doctrine.
South Carolina: S. 1084, signed into law and effective on June 2, 2006, recognizes a “child in utero” who is enjured or killed during an act of criminal violence as a separate victim of a separate offense. The term “child in utero” is defined as “a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”
South Dakota: The killing of an “unborn child” at any stage of pre-natal development is fetal homicide, manslaughter, or vehicular homicide. S.D. Codified Laws Ann. §22-16-1, 22-16-1.1, 22-16-15(5), 22-16-20, and 22-16-41, read with §§ 22-1-2(31), 22-1-2(50A) (Supp. 1997).
Tennessee: Effective July 1, 2012 (HB 3517, enacted as Pub. Ch. 1006), Tennessee law includes “a human embryo or fetus at any stage of gestation in utero” as a victim of such offenses as murder, voluntary manslaughter, vehicular homicide, and reckless homicide. See Tennessee Code Annotated, Sections 39-13-107 and 39-13-214. This law replaces a law that took effect in 2011, which had applied the same principle to “a fetus of a human being.” The new language is intended to ensure that the protection extends throughout the period of pre-natal development, along with other technical changes. Prior to 2011, Tennessee law recognized an unborn child as a crime victim only after “viability.”
Texas: Under a law signed June 20, 2003, and effective September 1, 2003, the protections of the entire criminal code extend to “an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.” The law does not apply to “conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child” or to “a lawful medical procedure performed by a physican or other licensed health care provider with the requisite consent.” (SB 319, Prenatal Protection Act)
Utah: The killing of an “unborn child” at any stage of pre-natal development is treated as any other homicide. Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-201 et seq. (Supp. 1998)and UT SB 178 (2002). See Utah Supreme Court decision in State of Utah v. MacGuire (January 23, 2004).
Virginia: Effective July 1, 2004, Code of Virginia Section 18.2-32.2 provides: “Any person who unlawfully, willfully, deliberately, maliciously and with premeditation kills the fetus of another” may be imprisoned from 20 years to life; and any person who does so without premeditation may be imprisoned for not less than five nor more than 40 years.
West Virginia: 2005 Senate Bill 146, signed into law on May 20, 2005, provided that “a pregnant woman and the embryo or fetus she is carrying in the womb constitute separate and distinct victims” for purposes of the state laws governing murder, manslaughter, and certain other crimes of violence. Code of West Virginia Section 61-2-30.
Wisconsin: Since 1998 the killing of an “unborn child” at any stage of pre-natal development is first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, second-degree intentional homicide, second-degree reckless homicide, homicide by negligent handling of dangerous weapon, explosives or fire, homicide by intoxicated use of vehicle or firearm, or homicide by negligent operation of vehicle. Wis. Stat. Ann. §§939.75, 939.24, 939.25, 940.01, 940.02, 940.05, 940.06, 940.08, 940.09, 940.10 (West 1998).
—————————————————————–
Try again.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 3:31 pm
So in some third world countries where this “personhood” administrative process does not occur, does that mean babies are not persons?
Gab
29 Oct 12 at 3:33 pm
I don’t understand how your answer explains why a person who is pro-life is wrong.
Token
29 Oct 12 at 3:35 pm
If I happened to beat my 8 months pregnant partner to a pulp, and in so doing cause the foetus to expire and then be stillborn, would I be charged with manslaughter or some similar charge?
I suspect that the answer would be yes (and rightly so I might add), so that being the case, how is state sanctioned late term abortion any different?
BTW, this is a genuine question. It is not a wind up to get a reaction, so I would appreciate some opinion from those that have some expertise on the matter ie: SfB, please don’t respond because you have no expertise and no-one gives a fuck what you say anyway.
Huckleberry Chunkwot
29 Oct 12 at 3:37 pm
CL, I have just seen your post.
So, clearly the answer to my question in a large number of states in America is yes.
How does the law apply in Oz?
Huckleberry Chunkwot
29 Oct 12 at 3:40 pm
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/10/25/nation/19269368
Ivan Denisovich
29 Oct 12 at 3:44 pm
But as to “still-birth”, doesn’t any baby which dies in the womb at 20 weeks or later get issued a death certificate? He or she hasn’t been “born,” in the sense that they are not alive when they exit/are removed from the mother’s body, but isn’t that some sort of recognition of “legal identity” in the eyes of the State?
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 3:45 pm
it boils down to: a woman’s “right” because it’s her body. That takes precedence over the right of the unborn. Apparently the unborn at any stage of the pregnancy no longer has a right to life when the “mother” decides to end that life. However, an external party inflicting violence on that mother and thus harming the unborn is different because it is against the will of the mother, in that case, for the unborn to die. Essentially you, the hypothetical wife beater, are taking away the mother’s “right” to choose life or death over that unborn.
Gab
29 Oct 12 at 3:45 pm
C.L. thanks for your contributions. Amazing that we have nothing equivalent in Australian law protecting the unborn child. Particularly when the Declaration on the Rights of the Child Adopted by the UN in 1959 says:
It also says mankind (and so as not to appear misogynist I mean that to include womankind) owes to the child the best it has to give — how quaint.
Tintarella di Luna
29 Oct 12 at 3:51 pm
It’s bullshit.
.
29 Oct 12 at 3:51 pm
Dot, you just need to put on your paternalism goggles.
Abu Chowdah
29 Oct 12 at 3:53 pm
If a couple create a baby together and the mother wants to kill it but the father wants it to live, the mother gets to kill it regardless. But if the mother wants to keep it and the father doesn’t, and he slips her an RU486 in her milkshake, he could be charged with murder in many US states if the baby dies.
So it’s the same baby, and in each case one of its parents desperately wants it to live, but whether or not the person who kills it (against the wishes of the other parent) is charged with murder depends on their gender.
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 3:53 pm
That is an interesting viewpoint, and I think exposes the selfishness and Godlessness (if that is a even a word) of the proponents of abortion.
I still have memories of being a year 7 student and having one of the brothers explain why the church was anti abortion. All of the usual questions were thrown at him, including “What if by giving birth, the mother will die?” I will always remember his response, “The mother has lived a life and has had her chance to live it according to God’s way. The baby has not had the chance to make that choice.”
This conversation was then followed by the topic, “Why is masturbation a sin?”
Didn’t that go down a treat at an all boys Year 7 class!
Huckleberry Chunkwot
29 Oct 12 at 3:56 pm
I know this is taking away from the main argument but I cannot reconcile veneration of Mary and male only ordination. If women aren’t good enough jesus christ would have been born ala Monkey.
This argument drags on simply because the pro Emily listers pretend they are moderate or pragmatic.
I hold a pragmatic view and personally it has become more conservative lately. However politically what I think about abortion is very liberal yet a million miles from the Emily’s list fetish for abortion.
.
29 Oct 12 at 3:57 pm
That’s still a shit reason, moreso, it is unconvincing to the non-religious. It might be noble but how can you justify having that as law – why not have any theocentric reasoning as the basis of law?
.
29 Oct 12 at 3:59 pm
Huck, there have been numerous exceedingly tragic cases of foetal homicide in Australia. Despite the heartbreak and the pleas from the grief-stricken mothers, Emily’s Listers and the pro-abortion lobby (BIRM) oppose laws to punish those who kill unborn children in the commission of other crimes. Their war on women knows absolutely no boundaries of indecency. WA has introduced a law which is opposed by the creepy-sounding ‘Reproductive Choice Australia.’
The ‘doctor’ means that recognising science as the undergirding superstructure for law and justice in this area – demanded by women victims – must be banned so as to maintain a fiction. This protects woman bashers, rapists and psychopaths.
For example, had Jill Meagher been pregnant, Emily’s List and the abortion lobby would strongly oppose the culprit being charged with foetal homicide.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 4:00 pm
Dot, you are welcome to disagree, but that is the Catholic position. When John Paul II wrote Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, he used the language of an infallible statement. It was terse, but covered the points that it was written in conformity with the example of Christ and consistent with Holy Tradition.
Afterwards, the then Cardinal Ratzinger answered a “dubium” as to the status of the document by affirming that it was indeed a definitive and infallible statement.
There will never be women priests in the Catholic Church.
Julian O'Dea
29 Oct 12 at 4:01 pm
I hate to think of a woman being raped and becoming pregnant and what psychological pain she would suffer-so i kind of understand her wanting to terminate as soon as she finds out-ditto where her life could be risked by pregnancy but surely that is rare.
I cannot agree with late term abortion under any circumstances, when the world of medicine has so much skill these days it expends to keep alive premature babies.I ask myself is there a difference with a baby born premature and one aborted late as regard being alive, human and able to be saved?
I think I’m leaning to NO so I shudder at late term abortion–and there are so many people who cannot gain a child through adoption within our own country when they pine for a family to love!
I’m female but sometimes I’m ashamed of where my own sex has taken or influenced males to take social issues in the western world.
Jazza
29 Oct 12 at 4:04 pm
Dot
Try to imagine any emily’s lister becoming a woman of the cloth. They’ve destroyed one political party. They would end up destroying the Catholic church.
It’s not worth the risk.
JC
29 Oct 12 at 4:05 pm
Nothing untrue about that statement. But the law is based on : a women’s body, a women’s right.
The unborn baby has no rights.
Gab
29 Oct 12 at 4:06 pm
Mary wasn’t a priest or an Apostle.
She is sui generis: Mater Dei.
Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is infallible.
Women will never be priests in the Catholic Church.
Ever.
If Mrs Keneally doesn’t like that, she’s free to join the Anglican Church.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 4:06 pm
struth! “woman’s body, woman’s right”
Gab
29 Oct 12 at 4:06 pm
Rabz
29 Oct 12 at 4:11 pm
There are many flourishing new orders of nuns and women religious, however, and it’s to be hoped that young women fulfil their genius for courageous service and leadership in those communities.
The Sisters of Life, for example – pictured here with Cardinal Pell – have a special vocation to serve girls and women in the most dire need, in circumstances wherein they might choose abortion.
They have grown to several convents in New York alone.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 4:14 pm
Dot, I am anti abortion. I was raised a Catholic and this upbringing has shaped who I am and what I believe.
My story about the Brother is I suppose, the foundation stone of my belief.
I just can’t put pragmatism in front of the idea that abortion is state sanctioned murder.
I also find that politically it tends to get up my goat. The question that I posed earlier shows the hypocrisy of the situation which Sdog so neatly sums up.
Sdog,
You have encapsulated exactly how the proponents have made the issue one of politics and not morals.
Morally, this can never be an argument.
Huckleberry Chunkwot
29 Oct 12 at 4:15 pm
Both are human. Assuming that a human is bearing them, I don’t see any other option.
Human fetus. Human baby. Human child. And thereon until they become a human corpse.
Driftforge
29 Oct 12 at 4:17 pm
Right. But the abortion lobby maintains that the foetus could be an aardvark.
We just don’t know for sure, they say.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 4:21 pm
Thou shalt not kill
Thou shall not steal
Thou shall not bear false witness
Looks like some theocentric reasoning may have already found its way into our law.
Rococo Liberal
29 Oct 12 at 4:27 pm
Whatever about the theology of a male only priesthood, know that active homosexual or women priests would complete the theological and moral decline of the Church to mere inane international socialist Anglicanism.
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 4:27 pm
If the foetus were an aardvark, PETA & the Greens would march in the streets and generally raise holy hell to save & defend it.
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 4:36 pm
“Looks like some theocentric reasoning may have already found its way into our law.”
Those aren’t theocentric. There’s no mention of gods.
“Both are human. Assuming that a human is bearing them, I don’t see any other option.”
No-one says any different.
Jarrah
29 Oct 12 at 4:45 pm
LOL.
It’s funny because it’s true.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 4:48 pm
I think you’d be surprised, Jarrah.
Personally, I’m willing to credit your view – which is one of emergent personhood across the pregnancy – as being a lot more coherent than the absolutist position. The absolute pro-choice position right up to the moment of birth seems to stem from a belief that the soul enters the fetus as it slides down the birth canal.
dd
29 Oct 12 at 4:48 pm
dd, you seem to think some people’s preference for making birth the point at which moral rights accrue to the baby is dependent on a transition from non-human to human. AFAIK, no-one thinks human fetuses aren’t human.
Jarrah
29 Oct 12 at 4:59 pm
dd quite clearly did not imply any such thing.
Jarrah demonstrates his remarkable stupidity yet again.
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 5:13 pm
Well honestly I’ve sought the rationale but to no avail. All the pro-choice arguments you find online focus on early-term fetuses, emphasizing their lack of development of brain, organs, and so on.
The pro-choice slogan ‘my body my choice’ seems to imply that the fetus is merely a part of the woman’s body until the moment of birth. Maybe that’s the thinking. But I’m filling in the gaps here and would love a good debate, or discussion, on the topic with a strong pro-lifer. Unfortunately they all seem to have cleared out.
dd
29 Oct 12 at 5:19 pm
correction: ‘a strong pro-choicer’, not pro-lifer.
dd
29 Oct 12 at 5:21 pm
Apologies. Posted this on OT instead of here. BTW, this is not fiction. It happened last night.
DATELINE: MON 29 OCT 12 ——- —— AFGHANISTAN
KILLERS, MURDERERS AND GILLARD
It’s not easy to sicken an experienced Afghan Commando team leader like X.
He knows death. Brutal death. He has seen it and in defence of his country, has visited it onto his enemies.
More than most could bear.
It’s not easy to sicken him but the Australian Prime Minister has done it.
It was a quiet night. The operations room was close to empty with the occasional radio transmission interrupting the silence. A dozen or so Special Forces soldiers from three nations sat waiting for the briefing to begin. We were to conduct a combined operation in a nearby village.
I had met X a few times before but not had the opportunity to get to know him. Through the interpreter I learned that like me he has a son and daughter and they are the same ages. We both smiled at the coincidence.
X asked about my home country and the conversation turned to things Australian; excellent beef, an average cricket team.
The interpreter, a savvy ———- of Afghan parentage, volunteered the fact that he knew our Prime Minister was a woman called Julia Gillard. I volunteered the fact that she and her ruling Labor Party supported full term abortion.
The interpreter’s face was a tragic picture; wide eyed and slack jawed shock, attempting to comprehend the idea of killing a baby just before birth. He translated.
X’s face was stone. Men who live daily with death, value life.
After a moment, the contempt crept out of X’s face. It crept out from his eyes and the corners of his mouth. He didn’t say it and neither did I but it was understood. Australians kill their unborn. Worse than the Taliban.
So, in a distant valley in a distant country conquered by Alexander the Great in 326BC and again by Genghis Khan in 1226AD, Julia Gillard will also be remembered, by one man at least, as worse than a murderer.
Grigory Potemkin
29 Oct 12 at 5:39 pm
“The pro-choice slogan ‘my body my choice’ seems to imply that the fetus is merely a part of the woman’s body until the moment of birth.”
Yes, and I’ve always thought it was a silly slogan. It does have a kernel of truth, though – the fetus isn’t an independent entity in the normal sense.
I’m trying to locate an interesting article I read in a journal that looked quite closely at the birth-as-threshold concept, but it is eluding me.
“dd quite clearly did not imply any such thing.”
Try reading:
JamesK demonstrates his remarkable stupidity yet again.
Jarrah
29 Oct 12 at 6:56 pm
I had commented on Jarrah’s latest stupidity:
The preceding comment from dd in the conversation with Jarrah was:
That comment from dd was in response to this from Jarrah-the-dipshit:
So imagine my astonishment when now apparently Jarrah sez he was referring magically not to the proximate conversation but to a post from dd 3 hours earlier.
So let’s look at that post:
Now dd was very clearly if inelegantly referring to the issue of personhood and legal rights as such.
Only an empty headed inane smart arse would make this anachronistic comment in response (delayed):
My response was:
I was correct but underdone the first time not realising Jarrah’s disjointed associations.
dd clearly “thinks” or thought nothing like that Jarrah has chosen to ascribe to him.
So in reality not only was Jarrah being stupid but he was also being an arsewipe.
What.a.surprise!
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 7:54 pm
I must say that seems a rather odd thing to be discussing.
Infidel Tiger
29 Oct 12 at 8:02 pm
The fact that some American states use man-made law to bestow personhood on life before birth is a fact that merely confirms my view that society and not biology is determinant.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 8:02 pm
Scapula, I note that you didn’t answer my question.
Do agree with Barack Obama that a baby born alive after a botched abortion may licitly be left to die in a rubbish bin?
Yes or no?
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 8:26 pm
Scrof that is a meaningless and remarkably stupid argument.
Albert Schweitzer said: “Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life”
Knowing what you have a right to do or not do is not at all the same as knowing what is right to do and not do.
An abstract Law is not the arbiter of moral right and wrong although it should follow such ethical and moral consideration.
Moral action is often quite different from behaviour that comports with the Law.
So the fact that abortion is legal does not make it ‘right’.
Try and desist from behaving like Jarrah who is a tiresome idiot.
JamesK
29 Oct 12 at 8:34 pm
Man-made law was also used by US Emancipationists and proponents of the Australian referendum of 1967 – over against an earlier generation of ‘personhood’ denialists. It really is quite remarkable how often one runs into antecedents for the pro-abortion ensemble of ‘arguments’ in extreme right-wing ideas, chapters and events in history. Margaret Sanger addressing the Ku Klux Klan, Marie Stopes writing love poetry to Hitler, that sort of thing.
C.L.
29 Oct 12 at 8:34 pm
DD I’d honestly never given much thought to abortion until the last few years, and the more I learn the more appalled and angry I am about it.
I suspect most people would be the same.
nilk
29 Oct 12 at 8:45 pm
Anyway, apparenly the only person that matters is the medical professional. So according to the most eminent abortionist and late term abortion advocate in Australia Dr David Grundmann:
So there you go. The most eminent medical professional in the abortion industry in Australia says that a baby isn’t a baby until it’s born.
Oh, but whats this? On the other hand the AMA gave him quite the stern rebuking:
Oops. So the highest medical institution in the land rejects the view that late term abortion is acceptable for anything but the most extreme circumstances.
Yet Julia Gillard, Emilys List, and their fellow travelers here continue to advance their extremist, non-medically endorsed cause of on demand abortion up until term.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 8:49 pm
No matter, the baby, who is now a bouncing two year old toddler, wasn’t actually a baby, killing it would have been of no consequence.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-02-16/major-hospital-makes-late-term-abortion-error/333758
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 8:54 pm
And here’s the video to that story, twostix.
Gab
29 Oct 12 at 8:58 pm
Oh, a retreat into moral relativism. In that case, why not go the Peter Singer path and advocate infanticide? Or why not go the Logan’s Run version where everyone over 30 gets executed? If, after all, it’s all relative.
Honest questions. Is morality simply decided by what society says is okay? If so, surely in your worldview immoral yet widespread practices are logical impossibilities? For example, 20th century South Africa; society said apartheid was okay. At other times, the death penalty for petty theft has been widely accepted as normal. Therefore, … what?
dd
29 Oct 12 at 9:03 pm
Rabz
29 Oct 12 at 9:03 pm
Victorian ALP MP’s argued against then voted against against amendments to require medical care be given to babies who survive abortion.
They also argued with similar vigour against then voted against requiring the baby in a late term abortion be given anesthetic.
It’s all about nuance though. Is that baby shaped creature writhing in agony, occasionally crying, on the operating table as it dies at the hands of a man a lump of cells or a human? Is it a person by law?
How very intellectual it all is.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 9:05 pm
Speaking from recent experience, I can tell you that at some churches attendance is definitely on the rise, and we’re getting conversions. I come under the classification of hardcore popery these days, so we’re not talking about happy clappy church, either.
With the Ordinariate kicking into gear there are Anglicans making their way home across the Tiber, and there are also quite a few christians from other denominations becoming catholic specifically because of the Church’s stance on abortion.
However, because it’s teh eeeevil Cathlik Church, that sort of thing doesn’t make the news.
nilk
29 Oct 12 at 9:09 pm
Hi Dover, I was wondering what your position would be on a 12 year old rape victim. Should she be allowed to abort say in the first 6 weeks, or should she have her life destroyed by being forced to bear the rapist’s kid against her will?
Fisky, I’ve made my position clear on such situations in another thread. Whatever the circumstances, the unborn child doesn’t bear the guilt of her father’s actions, and the child is as much the mother’s child as the father’s. Now, in such situations, although I believe she ought to go through with the pregnancy, if she could not put the circumstances behind her and love the child as her own, which it is, she should be assisted with placing the child up for adoption. Also, in such circumstances, the father should have to pay for the mother’s expenses, as well as suffering a term of imprisonment for his crime, where he is in custody. But, to repeat, the child does not bear the guilt of the father. These are terrible circumstances, but I don’t see any other way out of it if the unborn child is recognised as a human being.
dover_beach
29 Oct 12 at 9:10 pm
It’s full of communists anyway. Why was I taught about the phoney ideology of “social justice” at High School? Because the citadel has been overran. The institution has outlived its usefulness. Vale.
.
29 Oct 12 at 9:11 pm
Ban it and throw its few practitioners in gaol.
Oh that’s right any talk of any regulation of abortion has the Emilys Listers howling about ovaries and reproductive rights.
So, what is a “nuanced” gray area? Three inches being flouted as the difference between murder and abortion – that’s apparently a gray area.
What isn’t a gray area? Cigarette companies putting 1 mm high letters on their cigarette butts in violation of the “spirit” of nanny roxons plain packaging law. That’s a clear cut and they will be punished.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 9:19 pm
twostix, am I interpreting your earlier figures correctly: 54 babies survived the abortion procedure in Victoria annually, but were then killed by the doctor who had performed the abortion? or don’t we know how they died?
Sounds like Victoria needs ‘born alive’ legislation, although with the Greens in power there, such a move is highly unlikely.
dd
29 Oct 12 at 9:24 pm
Gotta agree on the Catholic schooling. Took the eldest to an orientation and staggered out of the joint after nearly suffocating in the stench of not just “social justice” but “restorative justice” and a few other leftist causes.
Whenever I hear the term X Justice I reach for my revolver.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 9:27 pm
Yes that is correct.
No we don’t know how they died, from what I understand they’re generally left to die of “natural causes”. Legislation requiring the abortion survivors be given medical care was shot down by the Victorian ALP with Emilys List MPs leading the charge.
Right there you can see the lie and fantasy that the average leftist has constructed regarding abortion.
Those were the same people who voted against an ammendment requiring survivors of late term abortion be given medical treatment.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 9:43 pm
In WA which actually does have basic requirements that infants born alive after botched abortions be given treatment:
Abortionists: Above the law.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 9:48 pm
Not that anyone needs to know my position, but I’ve got to say my views on abortion hardened considerably after my wife got pregnant. I reckon any abortion after 12 weeks would need to be on strong medical grounds. As Jarrah suggests there is a sliding scale of humanity coming into play – I have no problem with contraception, and in the first few weeks you have nothing but a potential human life. But by the end of the 1st trimester I’m pretty convinced you’ve got a real live baby.
A pregnancy is pretty tough. It’s a big ask to make women go through with it when they don’t want the baby. But I suggest they need to be quick to get rid of it if they are going to. After 12 weeks we’re talking homocide.
Tim
29 Oct 12 at 9:49 pm
sfb, there is your answer. Why would an organisation that you believe wants abortion to be ‘rare’ oppose an amendment that would render assistance to a child now out of the womb who the doctor failed to kill? Although, the whole idea is diabolical, and the doctors that perform it really are the heirs of Mengele.
dover_beach
29 Oct 12 at 9:52 pm
“Honest questions. Is morality simply decided by what society says is okay?”
Morals can only be judged by reference to other morals.
I judge apartheid to be wrong, but an adherent of apartheid would say racial equality or mixing is wrong. There are no absolutes against which to measure these opposing viewpoints. Anything we pick – human rights, the greatest good for the greatest number, meritocracy, a holy book, biological reality, whatever – is just another moral judgement. There are no objective morals, no matter what Ayn Rand said.
I’m not saying that all moral positions are equally valid (to do so would be to abandon any moral outlook whatsoever), just that none can claim objectivity.
To actually answer your question, on the whole morals are inevitably socially constructed. Parents spend a great deal of time explicitly teaching kids “the difference between right and wrong”. Directly and indirectly, the rest of society also plays a big role in this socialisation process. As people reach maturity, they may or may not critically examine the moral system they grew up in, but such critical faculties do not develop before years of indoctrination have had an effect. Those who do so, and then go on to reject a portion, are always a minority. They might be influential in bringing change, but they always have an entire culture to compete against.
Jarrah
29 Oct 12 at 9:54 pm
What on earth does this mean?
” They claimed that these babies were “wanted” babies and that the parents had chosen to have the pregnancies terminated by early induction rather than a chemical abortion so that they could cuddle their babies before they died. “
Julian O'Dea
29 Oct 12 at 10:06 pm
in the first few weeks you have nothing but a potential human life
Tim, no, there is nothing ‘potential’ about it. It is biologically (incl. genetically) distinct from the mother on the first day; it is in every way a distinct human life. Here is a very good lecture by George on the moral status of the embryo that covers some of these matters.
dover_beach
29 Oct 12 at 10:08 pm
Except when idiots in the Government decide that they know best, and protect and privilege the minority.
Way to screw up society for generations, that.
Driftforge
29 Oct 12 at 10:14 pm
That’s my experience and belief too Tim.
I suppose we’re “conservative” pragmatists.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 10:14 pm
At best it means “we’re going to lie to ourselves and everyone else about the brutal and ugly outcome of our political beliefs so that we can carry on and sleep at night”.
At worst it means “we’re going to lie to everyone and prevent this inquiry into 50 babies left to die in hospitals so that the public doesn’t hear about it and upset our great abortion ‘win’ and our wonderful partial birth abortion regime – the envy of the western world”
Having read some of the “arguments” put forth by these people and knowing that they specifically voted against legislation to protect those babies I’m leaning towards it being the latter.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 10:21 pm
I’m not saying that all moral positions are equally valid (to do so would be to abandon any moral outlook whatsoever)
Yes, that is indeed what you are saying. If you deny the objective validity of all moral outlooks, which you are, you are in fact required to conclude that, objectively speaking, neither of the various moral outlooks, including your own, is objectively valid because whatever could be used to measure the validity of these outlooks is tied to your own subjective moral outlook, whose objective validity is zero as well. It’s zeros all round.
dover_beach
29 Oct 12 at 10:33 pm
One of my sisters is a nurse with specialties in midwifery, neonatal intensive care and paedriatic intensive care. Her present working life is in a major neonatal intensive care unit, where she cares for babies born as early as 24 weeks of gestation. She tells me the level of neonatal intensive care is so high for these early babies that many now survive without hugely damaging health problems, and that healthy survival for babies born after 28 weeks is pretty much taken for granted.
I’m a mother, and I find it hard to believe any woman with a heart and soul would kill her baby close to the point of birth, or that medical staff would stand by and allow such a child to die.
But that’s just me.
mareeS
29 Oct 12 at 10:33 pm
paediatric…
mareeS
29 Oct 12 at 10:37 pm
No mareeS, not just you, plenty of parents feel that way.
Carpe Jugulum
29 Oct 12 at 10:40 pm
Because it’s the mother’s choice and you have no right to judge her.
/channeling rabid leftard.
nilk
29 Oct 12 at 10:53 pm
The issue of provision of medical care to a still living aborted baby/fetus is surely complicated by the fact that any premature baby less than 23- 24 weeks has an extremely slim chance of any survival at all, and if they do survive, there is a very high chance that it will be with severe disability. (Victorian figures seem to count any termination after 20 weeks as a late term abortion.)
There was quite a heart wrenching BBC doco on the ABC last year about this. Some figures from the summary of the show: at 23 weeks, only 1 in a 100 will grow up to be fully abled. Only 9 out of 100 will survive at all. The disabilities suffered can, of course, be severe.
Given that the mother has already chosen to abort the child, and therefore is hardly likely to be up to the provision of life long care to a probably disabled child, you would have to say that the morality of heroic attempts to keep the child alive are, at best, murky.
It is, clearly, a deeply unpleasant business especially when it is a healthy child being aborted for “psychosocial reasons” and one would hope that the medical reluctance to go there for all but the most extreme cases continues.
That said, for the reason I have indicated, the question of medical care to be supplied to the still living baby is not so simple as it may first appear.
steve from brisbane
29 Oct 12 at 10:57 pm
…and it’s murder (in the US) if the father kills it, but a cherished and celebrated “basic human right” for the mother to do so.
Is there any other class of murder victim where the very definition of whether it is even a murder victim or not depends solely on which parent kills it?
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 10:58 pm
“Deeply unpleasant”? And what was the Holocaust, “a bit icky”? And slavery, “somewhat unsettling”?
Steve, you are sick-making.
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 11:04 pm
Steve, do you agree that it’s murder if a father kills an unborn child he doesn’t want, but a cherished and celebrated “basic human right” if a mother kills a child she doesn’t want?
How can the same act, on the same victim, be considered both murder and a basic human right?
sdog
29 Oct 12 at 11:07 pm
Singer has too maximalist a view of what constitutes a person.
There’s a register of births, deaths and marriage for a reason.
There is no register of rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness for the very good reason that these are higher capacities of personhood and not personhood as such.
Scapula
29 Oct 12 at 11:08 pm
sfb, your argument then only applies to a single month*; for all abortions post-24 weeks, you’re going to have to come up with some other reason why a doctor or nurse is not obliged to render assistance to the delivered child.
*But even here shouldn’t we either defend the child in utero given the chance of failure and thus prevent abortion post-16/20 weeks, or at the very least, if we allow the procedure, nevertheless provide the necessary assistance as we would in any other case that involved premature birth?
dover_beach
29 Oct 12 at 11:11 pm
Or else you’ll end up like Lockhart Flawse.
(yes, I know it’s not a serious comment, but that just popped into my head. Need to go dig up the book now, and leave you all to the regular program.)
nilk
29 Oct 12 at 11:11 pm
SfB the “moderate” now outlines his support for late term abortion and argues in his mealy mouthed way against medical care for the 50 babies a year who live through an abortion.
For the trifecta he now simply needs to argue against the need to anesthetist the baby before it’s killed and he’ll be perfectly in lock step with the official Emily’s List position.
I told you he was lying DD.
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 11:35 pm
*anesthetise
twostix
29 Oct 12 at 11:37 pm
nilk
29 Oct 12 at 11:39 pm
“a probably disabled child, you would have to say that the morality of heroic attempts to keep the child alive are, at best, murky. ”
obviously the bub wouldn’t end up disabled if someone wasn’t trying so hard to kill it in the first place
emily’s list should encourage adoption as a solution at least the mother should be encouraged to contemplate it
candy
29 Oct 12 at 11:50 pm
twostix: you’re not very bright. I am not arguing for late term abortion; I am showing that if it is to be legal for some circumstances, the pro-life suggested amendments are not always realistic in response.
The argument that it should not be needed at all and be effectively banned is fair enough; I am rather sympathetic to it; although even then, there may still (I guess) be some rare cases where it is warranted for the safety of the mother, and if people are willing to allow for early abortion to save the mother (and many are), the logic of the argument may be that late term abortion for the same reason is legitimate.
So if there is no blanket ban on it, because a politician is reluctant to say that a mother has to die to bear her child, then the question is how do “pro lifers” make it “better”. That is where the complexities come in.
An examination of the complexities can put a different light on why pro-choicers may not want to follow pro-life legal amendments. I know you like to think that Emily’s List are blood soaked harridans who all but walk down the street waving placards “have an abortion now, it’ll cheer you up”, but you don’t do complexity well.
Oh wait a minute, yes you do – you indicated that early abortion does not worry you that much. Now that’s nuance, and as you know, CL and d-b and others think you have no legitimate way to argue that case.
So, you do nuance, just when it suits you.
steve from brisbane
29 Oct 12 at 11:57 pm
Except that doesn’t happen if the crime is reported. The victim is taken straight to ER and administered a curette.
JC
30 Oct 12 at 12:01 am
http://www.news.com.au/national-old/i-was-bullied-into-aborting-my-baby/story-e6frfkvr-1226213567894
Ivan Denisovich
30 Oct 12 at 12:16 am
One of the NYT’s resident nutter ‘award-winning’ columnists Tom Friedman comes outa da closet as a pro-lifer: Why I Am Pro-Life
One of the supercreeps of the world.
I’m guessin’ ‘Pro-choice’ is just dandy as he doesn’t address it.
JamesK
30 Oct 12 at 12:17 am
No. I don’t do “nuance” I do reality.
You’re just a liar who always, under every circumstance argues on behalf of the most radical left positions you can while pretending to be moderate.
Look at your language, you can’t even pretend to be moderate properly “the pro-life suggested amendments”, no they were simply ammendments supported by people on both sides to one of the most radical abortion regimes in the western world, suggested by people who wanted to ban term babies being physically murdered by “doctors” who flout the law regarding murder by killing the baby in the birth canal with scissors and a vacuum cleaner.
Through the haze of your smoke you again and again support this by running to “complexity”.
At last count more than 50% of late term abortions in Victoria were healthy babies aborted because their mothers changed their minds. Rendering your pathetic and bankrupt “complexity” bullshit babble an irrelevant sick joke.
However. You do give one insight. That is this: It is impossible to be a “moderate” on the issue of abortion. Because as soon as one gives an inch, as I did, pro abortion extremists like you take it a mile “if you support a little bit then of course you must support a lot or you’re a hypocrite!”.
That is the story of abortion.
twostix
30 Oct 12 at 12:17 am
I’m not sure that this is true everywhere. I haven’t heard of it being done in Victoria and I’ve worked at both RWH and the Mercy Hospital.
Cold-Hands
30 Oct 12 at 12:22 am
Complexity.
twostix
30 Oct 12 at 12:22 am
Having abortion legal as a procedure is not the same thing as having it legal as a form of “family planning”.
It is legal under some circumstances to stop a patient’s heart, open her body from neck to solar plexus and splay her ribcage apart with a large vice.
However, if a doctor does this for reasons other than saving her life, it is very… very illegal.
There seems to be a debate here that amounts to “if it’s ever OK to abort a baby, on a lesser-of-two-evils basis, then abortions for any reason and at any time should be unrestricted by any or all means up to and including being done gratis, and funded by the taxpayer, for no reason at all”
Now, my statement earlier that late-term abortion could only be performed by a psychopath was simply on the basis that a late-term baby is clearly, to even the most unsophisticated eye, a human, and normal, fully functioning humans are strongly averse to killing something that is clearly “one of us”. No moral reasoning is necessary or entailed, the intuition, and the resulting aversion to killing, are present in all normal humans regardless of their philosophy or social background.
wreckage
30 Oct 12 at 12:23 am
One of NYT’s two non-leftist-nutters (both also not really conservative (the other is David Brooks), Ross Douthat dares to pen a column suggesting Obumma paternalism isn’t exactly consonant with paternalism: President in Shining Armor
The article is good as usual and very very moderate but just read some of the insane leftists comments that follow!
JamesK
30 Oct 12 at 12:29 am
“Yes, that is indeed what you are saying.”
Of course it’s not. To be able to say that would be to eschew any moral system at all, because every moral system justifies itself and no others.
“It’s zeros all round.”
This is inescapable. Luckily, moral systems are self-justifying.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 12:30 am
I think you’re quite wrong on that count. Many moral systems can account for righteousness in those outside that system. The traditional Jewish notion of “the righteous among the nations” for example.
wreckage
30 Oct 12 at 12:35 am
“Many moral systems can account for righteousness in those outside that system.”
Only same/similar precepts. Moral systems can have substantial overlaps. For example, in this very thread there is grudging recognition of the Taliban’s pro-fetus stance.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 12:39 am
This.
One of the arguments used against the death penality is who will do the “killing” won’t it attract a killer?
There’s some pretty sick stories of abortionists coming out of the US who are clearly in it for the joy of it.
For example, from the horses mouth:
twostix
30 Oct 12 at 12:41 am
Hitler liked chocolate cake. Jarrah likes chocolate cake. Jarrah is a Nazi.
sdog
30 Oct 12 at 12:44 am
I’m pretty over that neat trick whereby Leftards try to conflate anyone who doesn’t like the idea of killing babies with the Taliban.
sdog
30 Oct 12 at 12:46 am
This is inescapable. Luckily, moral systems are self-justifying.
Moral systems can be tautological and always carry a subjective element but that doesn’t mean we cannot strive towards creating better moral systems. You don’t need absolutism or objectivity for moral systems, even science struggles to meet those criteria.
Science has already markedly altered our moral structures. Mental illness is a good example, we now know so much about mental illness that clearly it is not just “psychological” but has neurological correlates. Science is also teaching us a great deal about child rearing and many of those lessons are implicit in our educational systems. Science can inform our moral landscape but it cannot determine that landscape. So what? If you want absolutism go join a religion. There is even clear research indicating that altruism is not some counterpoint to selfishness but is embedded in evolutionary dynamics. There’s a lesson for Social Darwinists. Game theory is providing some interesting insights.
The problem with the way many people discuss moral systems is that they presume morals can only be discussed with certain frames of reference and cannot be informed by what happens in the world. Such people to catch up the 21st century.
There you go, see what happens when you expand your reading. In the last week I have read Society Without God, which reveals how societies do not become cesspits when God is abandoned, and I’m still finishing The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris and the work by Frans De Waal, the Age of Empathy is a brilliant exploration into morality in animals. But the gem of the last month was Beyond Human Nature by Jesse Prinz. All from different realms: a sociologist, a journalist, a biologist, and a philosopher; with some valuable additions from some online discussion regarding evolutionary dynamics.
Hard work for me, not stuff I’m good at but at least I’m prepared to seek out multiple inputs to guide my thinking. So get off your lazy asses and start reading more widely that way you can be better informed about how to think about behaviors and the creation of moral systems.
Dead Soul
30 Oct 12 at 12:52 am
Does it make you feel detached from the reality of the conversation by referring to a baby as a “fetus” like some faux doctor?
twostix
30 Oct 12 at 12:55 am
CL – “Absolutist extremists like Fisk…argue” nothing that follows the beginning of your sentence. But you are on record as advocating that rape victims should be forced to carry a rapist’s foetus to term. Luckily, we will never have to countenance any such policies because they are never going to be implemented in any advanced country, even in a fairly religious place like the US. So women can rest easy.
Fisky
30 Oct 12 at 1:01 am
“I’m pretty over that neat trick whereby Leftards try to conflate anyone who doesn’t like the idea of killing babies with the Taliban.”
Is that even a thing? Especially one so frequently used that you’re ‘over it’?
Regardless, that wasn’t what I was trying to do. Not that you were accusing me, I know, you were talking about ‘leftards’, whoever they are. It was Grigory who pointed out that Islamic fundamentalists are against abortion.
“You don’t need absolutism or objectivity for moral systems”
Exactly. Anyone who strives to reach that impossible standard is inherently doomed to fail.
“Does it make you feel detached from the reality of the conversation by referring to a baby as a “fetus” like some faux doctor?”
I think of a baby as different from a fetus. Which is different from a blastocyst, which is different from a zygote… To call them all ‘babies’ is to conflate and mislead.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 1:05 am
Women overwhelmingly support abortion but refuse to actually be the ones to do them.
How convenient.
twostix
30 Oct 12 at 1:06 am
When a baby (cough”fetus”cough) dies in utero at 20 weeks or later, it is issued a death certificate. That kinda makes it sound like the State recognises it as a real live human being, not just a clump of cells like a wart or a hangnail or something.
Also, most miscarriage/stillbirth support organisations refer to miscarried/stillborn babies as, well, babies:
http://www.stillbirthfoundation.org.au/
http://www.sands.org.au/
You should probably demand that they stop that shit RIGHT NOW!
I’d love to see you march up to a woman grieving the loss of her baby…er…fetus and demand that she stop referring to it as a “baby,” because it was no such thing, it was just a clump of cells.
sdog
30 Oct 12 at 1:16 am
No it’s not.
It’s reality. At 12 weeks a baby looks like a baby, the doctor calls it a baby, the mum and dad call it a baby, it looks like a baby it moves like a baby. Hiding behind pathetic “medical terms” in a casual conversation is just cowardly hiding behind euphemisms.
The only place you ever see the word “fetus” is in medical journals and out of pro abortionists mouths who are cowardly trying to dehumanize the subject.
twostix
30 Oct 12 at 1:16 am
“At 12 weeks”
Right. And before 12 weeks?
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 1:18 am
“You should probably demand that they stop that shit RIGHT NOW!”
I demand nothing. I have my beliefs, I don’t force them on anyone else.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 1:19 am
For some reason my comment will not post. Trying once more; if that doesn’t work I’ll do it in bits.
—————————–
Yes.
sdog
30 Oct 12 at 1:27 am
For some reason my comment will not post. Trying once more; if that doesn’t work I’ll do it in bits.
—————————–
Disappointed that every other Leftard and their dog beat you to the vile – and dishonest – smear?
Wait, don’t tell me you thought you were being original?
sdog
30 Oct 12 at 1:29 am
“Yes.”
One person says it once, and you’re over it? Whatever. It doesn’t change the fact I did no such thing.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 1:30 am
“Disappointed that every other Leftard and their dog beat you to the vile – and dishonest – smear?”
You total moron, I DIDN’T DO IT. GRIGORY DID.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 1:31 am
Oh, bullshit, you dishonest creep. This blog isn’t accepting my other link, but just google “GOP OR Republican Pro Life Taliban”.
You’re hardly Robinson Crusoe in your create conflation.
sdog
30 Oct 12 at 1:32 am
Actually I think “tissue” is the preferred term for many in the industry. “Procedure” or maybe “termination” rather than “abortion”. Orwellian:
http://www2.canada.com/ottawacitizen/columnists/story.html?id=4d82e55e-0eb0-4e07-8a0f-ccb39de44035
Ivan Denisovich
30 Oct 12 at 1:34 am
You’re against abortion after 12 weeks?
twostix
30 Oct 12 at 1:35 am
“This blog isn’t accepting my other link”
Your other comment hadn’t come through before I made mine. So stop it with the dishonest creep crap, you dishonest creep.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 1:35 am
Jarrah wrote:
IOW: If you don’t support a woman’s “right” to hire someone to stick scissors in her baby’s skull, vaccuum out his brains, dismember him and pull him limb by limb from her birth canal, TALIBAN!!!1111!!!
And like I said mate, that one’s old and tired and everyone’s over it.
sdog
30 Oct 12 at 1:36 am
“You’re against abortion after 12 weeks?”
You always change the subject when you talk yourself into a corner?
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 1:37 am
“IOW: If you don’t support a woman’s “right” to hire someone to stick scissors in her baby’s skull, vaccuum out his brains, dismember him and pull him limb by limb from her birth canal, TALIBAN!!!1111!!!”
Wow, you’re really making yourself look stupid now. I was talking about moral system overlap. Grigory is the one saying that the Taliban are better than the ALP when it comes to abortion. I just pointed out that he’d made that comment, FFS.
Get a grip.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 1:39 am
Right. So since Hitler cared about dogs, anyone else who cares about dogs is a Nazi. Because, “moral system overlap”.
sdog
30 Oct 12 at 1:41 am
“So since Hitler cared about dogs, anyone else who cares about dogs is a Nazi.”
NO. That’s the opposite of my position, you retarded seppo.
The point that sailed over your head is that people only approve of the bits of other people’s moral systems that mirror bits of their own. Therefore Grigory, who presumably doesn’t have a whole lot in common with the Taliban, was able to speak approvingly of their support of the rights of the unborn because that gels nicely with his own moral system.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 1:46 am
And as in my comments above, I’d love to know why when I’m speaking out against the State executing convicted murderers, that’s A Good Thing in the eyes of the Left; but when I speak out against the State executing healthy, innocent babies, I’m a despised Taliban-level extremist.
Prayer vigil in front of the State prison as a convicted murderer is being put to death? NOBLE!
Prayer vigil in front of an abortion clinic as innocent children are being put to death? HATER!!
Why is it more noble in y’alls eyes to want to save the life of a convicted murderer than the life of an innocent child?
sdog
30 Oct 12 at 1:48 am
Because the left are evil.
Gab
30 Oct 12 at 1:51 am
Hey Scapula, don’t run and hide.
I note that you didn’t answer my question.
Do you agree with Barack Obama (and ‘Catholic’ Steve) that a baby born alive after a botched abortion may licitly be left to die in a rubbish bin?
Yes or no?
C.L.
30 Oct 12 at 1:51 am
Right.
But Fisk, don’t forget that your rape victim is “12 years old.”
Always add that when you’re doing your Barbara Boxer thing.
——————————————————————
I think Steve ran away from my question too.
Here it is again:
Steve, do you agree that a woman has the right to terminate her girl baby?
If not, why not?
GO!
C.L.
30 Oct 12 at 1:55 am
“when I speak out against the State executing healthy, innocent babies, I’m a despised Taliban-level extremist.”
Not my position, but I could try to explain their reasoning for you. But I suspect you don’t care.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 1:55 am
It’s all just a preposterous boys club. Still, not as bad as some others, in recent times.
John, I agree. Am reading Sam Harris at present.
Abu Chowdah
30 Oct 12 at 2:25 am
By the way, this partial birth stuff is freaking me out. It disgusts me that any person could think it wasn’t murder. Medical staff who carry it out should be hung.
Never knew that happened and can’t get it out of my mind. Nightmare stuff.
Abu Chowdah
30 Oct 12 at 2:28 am
By the way, this partial birth stuff is freaking me out. It disgusts me that any person could think it wasn’t murder. Medical staff who carry it out should be hung.
It’s terrible and one has to wonder about the psychological consequences (desensitization) that may occur in some individuals as a result of society tolerating this practice.
Abu, I hope to finish Sam Harris by early morning. What I appreciate about his approach is the courage, the willingness to spread his intellectual wings far and wide. He suggests reading a famous paper by Jon Haidt, The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail, page 85. You can have it downloaded at this site. It highlights a fundamental logical error people often make in these debates, that being that they presuppose morality is a rational function of behavior. We are not Spocks.
Dead Soul
30 Oct 12 at 2:49 am
Great site – thanks!
My current bedside table queue is the Harris, Bertrand Russell’s history of western philosophy, the new Jonah Goldberg and Matthew Parrish’s second. Collection of FCO diplomatic cables….
Abu Chowdah
30 Oct 12 at 3:02 am
Abu,
If you get the chance and time try to read Beyond Human Nature by Jesse Prinz. He still works within the nature-nurture dichotomy which some regard as wrong but I don’t buy that. It is easy to say that it is wrong but it is wrong to presume that it is always wrong. Genes are still important! Prinz tries too hard to ignore that fact but the book is a very powerful argument against the idea of a universal human nature and that we have an inbuilt moral code. The text is a wealth of anthropological data, worth a more deep read than I gave it.
We are witnessing a new synthesis in our understanding of ourselves which is why I am not inclined to bother with what people hundreds of years ago were thinking about being human. Or even decades ago for that matter! Good times.
Dead Soul
30 Oct 12 at 3:43 am
And this highlights the problem with absolutes in this matter. Sam Harris mentions this
Fetus in fetu is a rare abnormality secondary to the abnormal embryogenesis in a diamniotic, monochorionic pregnancy. It is a rare pathological condition and fewer than 100 cases have been reported in the literature.
Most cases of fetus in fetu are caught when the host twin is an infant, though there have been cases of people in their 30s and 40s carrying their own twin.
Dead Soul
30 Oct 12 at 5:16 am
Here’s a recent SuperPAC ad from the US presidential election that targets Obama for his voting record on the issue of ‘born alive’.
dd
30 Oct 12 at 8:36 am
WTF Jarrah?
.
30 Oct 12 at 9:12 am
Abu, a very good book stylistically, but Russell is completely inadequate on Nietzsche.
Julian O'Dea
30 Oct 12 at 9:39 am
“so that the public doesn’t hear about it”
I suspect a lot of things only go on because the public doesn’t know about it.
To take another example, the problems with the live animal trade have been an open secret for a long time, but only reached the public consciousness recently.
The public can be a bit slow. But I expect they will eventually notice that the stories about new imaging of babies in utero and prenatal surgery don’t, somehow, fit well with the reality of partial birth abortion. “Heightening the contradictions”, is that the phrase?
Julian O'Dea
30 Oct 12 at 9:50 am
“WTF Jarrah?”
Something you don’t understand?
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 10:26 am
Of course it’s not. To be able to say that would be to eschew any moral system at all, because every moral system justifies itself and no others.
No, it wouldn’t. To say that would be simply to admit what you yourself did, that there are no “objective morals”. If there are “no absolutes against which to measure these opposing viewpoints”, then, indeed, subjectively speaking, “all moral positions are equally valid.” This is just the inescapable logic of your position.
dover_beach
30 Oct 12 at 10:43 am
“If there are “no absolutes against which to measure these opposing viewpoints”, then, indeed, subjectively speaking, “all moral positions are equally valid.””
To say they are equally valid is to repeat the mistake of thinking there is an absolute against which to measure them, in this case their validity instead of their worth/utility.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 10:56 am
And this highlights the problem with absolutes in this matter. Sam Harris mentions…fetus in fetu…
I’ve never understood what people think this example achieves.
dover_beach
30 Oct 12 at 10:58 am
“I’ve never understood what people think this example achieves.”
Humanity without personhood, in terms even a committed anti-abortionist should recognise.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 11:05 am
Tony Abbott is a big government phony, a largely anti-business, pro-welfare social democrat. We all know he’s never liked capitalism or the idea of small government, given his mentor was B.A Santamaria. But what shocks me the most is that even given he is a Catholic, he’s willing to abandon his moral philosophy which should plant him firmly against abortion just to win a few more votes.
I suppose he’s better than Malcolm Turnbull who would do better in the Socialist Party than the Liberal Party, but he’s certainly one of the worst people the Liberal Party could have as leader.
James Bauer
30 Oct 12 at 11:08 am
To say they are equally valid is to repeat the mistake of thinking there is an absolute against which to measure them, in this case their validity instead of their worth/utility.
No, it is to admit, according to your own position, that there is nothing to measure them by, objectively speaking, which would make them equally valid. Their validity is, equally, precisely zero.
dover_beach
30 Oct 12 at 11:18 am
“Their validity is, equally, precisely zero.”
Not according to themselves. This is the point.
Jarrah
30 Oct 12 at 11:24 am
Humanity without personhood, in terms even a committed anti-abortionist should recognise.
No. I think atheists here a reading something into this example that simply isn’t there for Catholics and Orthodox Christians. Harris makes this same or similar mistake when he suggests that every time you scratch your nose a holocaust of potential human beings ensues (which isn’t surprising since it is Harris).
dover_beach
30 Oct 12 at 11:46 am
Not according to themselves. This is the point.
No, that isn’t the point since the question you answered was in regards to their validity. If there emerged in our society two moral views, one which regarded the destruction of disabled children as moral for X, Y, and Z reasons, and another that regarded their destruction as immoral for A, B and C reasons, the validity of each of their views would be objectively speaking, equal, given your view of the matter. All you could hope for was that the side you opposed did not garner the requisite majority to change, or avoid a change, to the laws.
dover_beach
30 Oct 12 at 12:08 pm
Jarrah
Just admit that you’re a bad salesman. You are trying to argue against relativism but then put forward two contradicting statements about the issue.
.
30 Oct 12 at 2:37 pm
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