Regular Guy Paul: "Pro-Choice or Pro-Abortion?"
Regular Guy Paul minces no words in concluding that the answer is "pro-abortion":
... They tell us that they believe that abortion cannot be ended by outlawing it. That instead, they believe that we must win "hearts and minds," that abortion must be fought by keeping it legal and dissuading those in the position of seeking abortions.
If this describes you, I've good news for you: I understand your position.
You're lying.
***
You would never consider being "pro-choice" on torture. You would not tolerate someone who was "pro-choice" on racial discrimination. You do not honor those (like Stephen Douglas) who were "pro-choice" on slavery. You do not repect those who are "pro-choice" about unjsut war. You don't believe in allowing states to be "pro-choice" on capital punishment.
You're certainly not "pro-choice" regarding rape, murder, kidnapping, wife-beating, carjacking, lynching of blacks or gays, political graft, corporate corruption, or bank robbery.
None of those things are tolerable in a free society, and you support and agree with the laws that forbid them. If I were to advocate the legalization of any of those things, you would rightly think me a supporter of them.
But abortion? You're comfortable with abortion. You're quite content that abortion is championed by your political heroes. It gives you not even the slightest pause. You've spent the last six months arguing whether Hillary Clinton was better than Barack Obama or vice versa, without the slightest consideration that they are the two most prominent and ardent supporters of the killing of innocents in the world today. You don't give a shit about that.
***
You pretend to care about something called "reducing the number of abortions", but you intentionally pretend that abortion is caused by poverty (as though rich people don't seek abortions), or a lack of sex education (as though contraceptive use prevents abortion). And you ignore the fact that the unborn human life is a human, with human dignity, with human rights, and that to be content to only "reduce the number" of instances in which their lives are cruelly snuffed out is to ignore and even deny their personhood...
[Read the whole thing]
Labels: Culture of Death, Pro-Life, Voting Your Values
posted by Pro Ecclesia 12:41 AM
13 comments
13 Comments:
"You're lying."
That says it all. What other manifest social ill are they content to have protected as a constitutional right?
There were many people who believed contemporaneously that the Civil War shouldn't have been fought to end slavery. It takes no moral courage today to stand up on a soapbox and claim slavery should have been ended. The present narrative simply ignores over 20 years of prebellum history. There were many founders of our nation like John Adams that found slavery repugnant, but still elected to have a nation where slavery was present. Add in things like the Missouri Compromise, and you can see that the those opposed to slavery were willing to make all sorts of accomodations.
I'm willing to make SOME accomodations in the short term in order to outlaw many or perhaps most abortions (of course, with the ultimate goal of protecting ALL unborn life at some point in the future).
The problem is that as long as Roe is the law of the land, such compromises are impossible. And that's what made Dred Scott so untenable: it was a judicial overreach that not only denigrated legal personhood for those of African descent, but struck down the Missouri Compromise and eliminated any opportunity for future legislative compromises. That decision left the Nation no other choice but war in order to solve the issue of slavery.
Roe is the Dred Scott of the 20th (and now 21st) Century.
Besides,
a. The Civil War was not entered into by the north initially to end slavery, but to prevent secession. Although secession was instigated in order to prevent slavery.
b. Opponents of slavery who were not abolitionists (Abraham Lincoln is a convenient example) worked and argued for limiting slavery legally and ensuring that it was on the path to eventual extension. Where are the "pro-choicers" today with analogous positions?
Discalcedyooper is just one more liar claiming that abortion is OK because Republicans haven't abolished it yet, and he also presents himself as to believe, with shocking clarity, of the opinion that slavery was OK because it wasn't abolished by 1860!
OK, so he's a pro-abort. Why deny it?
With all due respect, Paul, I don't believe that is an accurate depiction of M.Z.'s (DiscalcedYooper's) position. He is one of the few people who have made a good-faith case for why he is supporting Obama. I disagree with him as to how strong the case is, but I think he's come closer to anyone in explaining why he beleives "truly grave moral reasons" exist justifying his vote for Obama.
The one thing he HAS NOT done is to make apologies for Obama's abortion record or for the so-called "pro-choice" position. In fact, M.Z. has taken Gerald Campbell to task on many occasions at Vox Nova for Campbell's unquestioning commitment to Obama, which includes, among other things, adopting the "pro-choice" rhetoric. M.Z. may vote for Obama in November, but he's not for one moment fooled into thinking his views on abortion are a point in Obama's favor.
Again, I think that as a matter of policy M.Z. is mistaken in his reasons for supporting Obama, but I don't buy that he's "lying".
Kmiec, on the other hand, is clearly being disingenuous.
Paul,
You missed the point in your rush to condemn me. Your analogical construction is false. There were plenty of men who didn't support slavery yet tolerated its existance in the South. That non-support manifested itself in myriad of ways while maintaining legalization in the South and its expansion to Missouri.
You can pick any number of issues and you will find people willing to compromise at various points. In particular you will find people who do not support choosing short term statements and gains that couldn't be sustained. The black civil rights movement provides plenty of examples. Am I to believe that you maintain likewise the black leaders who opposed various civil demonstrations like boycotts really hated blacks?
Are there people who feign opposition to abortion but can't find one they really oppose? Certainly. Many of them are federalists like Fred Thompson who don't want to "throw little girls in jail," the candidate by the way that you were fawning over.
Paul, Jay, & MZ,
With alld due respect, I would have to agree with Paul on this one. MZ's use of disingenuous and ad hominam rant towards Paul was unwarranted and false, ergo, a lie.
Secondly, to say that MZ's position on abortion is:
". . . one of the few people who have made a GOOD-FAITH CASE for why he is supporting Obama."
...is nothing short of incredulous.
It's like saying that a German Jew made a GOOD-FAITH CASE for why he is supporting Hitler in the upcoming elections.
Sounds scandalous right?
Remember that the Pro-Life cause is the greatest human rights movement in history. Protecting the lives of the unborn!
Just because MZ's arguments come closer to Catholic Social Teaching than Gerald Campbells is like saying that Rudolph Hess had a more humane approach towards the 'Jewish' problem than Joseph Goebbels.
Again, sounds ridiculous doesn't it?
Call me any name in the book, but I'm just stating facts.
Tito
First, I never fawned over Fred Thompson. If you check my blog, you will find articles approving and articles criticizing Thompson. I was a Duncan Hunter supporter through most of the primary, Thompson dropped out only three days after Hunter did.
But I find it hard to imagine how you can fault Thompson for his position on abortion, and then turn around and support Obama.
We are faced with a situation that is explicitly described in the various recent documents from the Vatican and the USCCB: we have a candidate who's positions on abortion are the worst possible: if he keeps his promises, as seems likely, he will sign the FOCA, repeal the DOMA, repeal the Hyde Amendment, end the Mexico City policy, fund abortions at the federal level through Medicare, on military bases, through the UN, and there will be abortion and gay marriage without let or hindrance throughout the nation, and the will of the people be damned.
He is opposed by a candidate who, if he keeps his promises, will appoint the final justice needed to overturn Roe, and at long last empower the people, through both their state and federal legislatures, to begin regulating, restricting and even banning abortion. In that environment, we can fight for its abolition to much greater effect than under a President Obama.
Your vote is indivisible. Your vote for Obama is not only for the policies you like, but for those you choose to ignore, rationalize, or pass over. If you are voting for Obama, you are also voting for his abortion policies.
You'd like to make this complicated, thinking that, like Thomas Moore, you can "hide in the thickets of the law", but there is nothing like abortion in the world, nor ever was. Nothing that takes 1.5 million innocent lives per year. There is no proportional reason to support Obama in spite of his abortion record.
You may say "I'm pro-life," but if you vote for Obama, your vote will speak much more loudly than your words. The best you can hope for is that someone might hear "I hope to be pro-life at some future point after we've cured poverty, or ended war," or whatever other liberal pie-in-the-sky goal you've set as being more important than the willful killing of millions of innocents. Because that's what your position will really be:
"I'll be pro-life later."
When will "later" come?
Tito,
Perhaps you can point out the ad hominem. Then prehaps you can point out particular points where the argument was disingenuous. Given my argument was primarily a critique of the soundness of Paul's argument and not explicating my own views on abortion, I have to assume you are prehaps referencing prior statements I have made.
Paul,
I'll take you at your word on Duncan Hunter and concede I was mistaken on your endorsement of Thompson.
I can fault Thompson for his position on abortion and support Obama despite his abortion position, because my rejection of Thompson is deeper than his weak stance on abortion and my support of Obama is despite his stance.
As for the difference between a vote between Obama and McCain I will be formally explicating on it in a post that should be coming out next week. As a preview, I do not particularly care for proposals to fund abortion directly or indirectly or to increase the geographic footprint of where they are offered. My goal however is the legal end to abortion. Regretably it takes more than a sentence or two to establish that these measures while bad are not sufficient to establish abortion advocacy in the context of electing a Presidential candidate. For example, the error in medicaid funding of abortion is not providing medical services to the poor but in classifying abortion as a medical service. As to the more applicable point in regards to legalization - the legal scope of abortion is my focus, I have little interest in incidence as a political matter - is a putative appointment by McCain. The final end of such an appointment is to limit abortion to being a statutory right rather than enjoying its presently interpreted protection under the Constitution. While that action is indeed necessary to end abortion, it will not end abortion and should be evaluated in its own right rather than being conflated with the larger fight over statutory prohibiting abortion.
As for my pro-life bona fides, my tendency has been to tell people to append an off to an appropriate expletive. Since you have gone to the trouble of making a sincere argument, I won't do so. I don't use my two votes for George Bush to establish my pro-life bona fides, so I'm not going to treat a vote for McCain as doing so. If ending abortion is dependent on voting for McCain then God help the victims of abortion, seriously. I don't think you or any other Republicans a year ago would have seriously maintained that elected McCain was essential to advancing the pro-life cause. Most Republican pro-lifers in fact had horses other than McCain. As for Obama, my only recourse is that millions of Iranians will be spared what the Iraqis have had under the Bush Administration.
MZ,
"It takes no moral courage today to stand up on a soapbox and claim slavery should have been ended."
Impugning Paul's character is not a charitable way to behave as a Christian.
Well, M.Z., thanks for not stooping to profanity, but the fact remains: a vote for Obama is a vote to sideline the pro-life movement for four years.
You may feel better by telling yourself that that's not why you voted for Obama, but that will still be the effect. This is an easy foreseeable outcome of Obama's election.
The fact remains that with McCain, we might be able to make progress, but with Obama, we will be fighting a tooth-and-nail rearguard action.
You say you're pro-life. All I can see of your pro-life advocacy is your advocacy of Barack Obama. Anything else you may do or say will not have an offsetting effect of that advocacy, if it is successful.
(You also haven't mentioned another issue in this forum that compares to the deaths of 1.5 million innocents per year. Where's your proportional reason?)
I return to my initial point: you're lying to yourself.
Impugning Paul's character is not a charitable way to behave as a Christian.
Tito, I very much appreciate you taking up for me, but I didn't see a personal attack on me in M.Z.'s comments.
Paul,
Point taken.
Nice to see MZ refrain from profanity. His arguments are much more pleasant to read without them.
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