From the racist and poorly written AmericanThinker comes this Kyle-Anne Shiver piece. Just awesome.
28 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Great find, Marshall. It was worth the read just for this quote:
"I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. - Camille Paglia"
Those comments are scary in the sense that she remains pro-abortion despite knowing it is murder, but admirable in the sense that at least she is expressing her views honestly. It is a refreshing contrast to the ignorance or disingenuouness of the "gee, we just don't know when life begins" crowd. Hey, if you really don't know when it begins then (1)stop abortions until you are sure you aren't killing an innocent human being and (2) consult any embryology textbook to find the scientific answer (hint: abortion kills an innocent human being).
This one was good, too:
"The fact that we remain a religious people in a Nation that has systematically murdered 49 million of its own offspring through abortion over 36 years, absolutely requires that we be in complete denial and continue to debate its merits in bastardized language."
I agree with that. For pro-abortion Christians (must . . . resist . . . urge . . . to use . . . scare quotes) to switch to the Biblical pro-life view they'll have to concede that they supported this murderous process for so long. Pride and defense mechanisms have a nasty way of preventing that.
And yes, I am now using "pro-abortion" to describe anyone who supports Obama. By taking our tax dollars to fund abortions overseas he has eliminated any pretense of us having a choice in the matter.
All right. Fine. We condone mass murder. Mass infanticide of the weakest among us. Genocide.
Are you going to limit yourselves to calling us names? Are you going to pray for us, even as we continue to butcher the innocent?
Or, are you going to do what is necessary to stop the slaughter? Operation Rescue had the right idea; parade around women's clinics, calling the women who are trying to enter "whore" and "murderer"; publicize the photographs, home addresses and phone numbers of ob-gyns who perform abortions so that they can be harassed at home.
When all else fails, as our politics certainly has; with our government now exporting abortions overseas - isn't force of arms required? It seems to me the only logical conclusion. I mean, since all us fakes and frauds would be quite willing to defend our rights to abortion by force of arms if need be, the least all you who see this as murder on a scale to make Mao blush and Hitler look like a pansy, it seems to me that you should be doing something more than just whining about it, and calling us pro-choice folks nasty names.
Or do you not have the courage of your convictions to do what is necessary to stop the slaughter?
"it seems to me that you should be doing something more than just whining about it, and calling us pro-choice folks nasty names."
What whining? What nasty names? Pro-abortion? That is factually correct, unless you are going to tell me that you are objecting to Obama's pledges to fund overseas abortions and to overturn the Hyde Amendment.
Or do you mean "ignorance or disingenuousness?" If you don't know the science that proves that the unborn are human beings then you are indeed ignorant, and if you know it and pretend not to then you are disingenuous. And if you know and and are pro-abortion then you are a ghoul (now there's a name for you!).
What do I do? I donate my time and money to CareNet Pregnancy Center, where we save lives now and for eternity. We share the Gospel with everyone who is interested in hearing it. We concede that there is a legal choice women can make and we try to persuade them to choose life.
We offer post-abortion trauma counseling so women can learn of the hope, healing and forgiveness available in Jesus.
We offer life skills classes, pregnancy / childbirth / breastfeeding / etc. classes, automotive care, and more.
We offer free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, so the women can have a fully informed choice about what is inside them. Information is good, right?
Everything is free. People who take classes earn credits for free car seats, cribs, food, clothes, etc.
I teach pro-life reasoning classes. I blog about pro-life to persuade people to consider the truth (that which they will not get from the 90%+ pro-abortion media).
I buy pro-life reasoning books to give away at church.
I know it will be a long battle, just as the fight to end the evil of slavery was. But in the mean time we try to save as many lives as possible. There are many human beings running around today that would have been crushed and dismembered if not for organizations like CareNet.
Seems to me that even theological liberals would rally around pregnancy centers. After all, we are non-political. We are just trying to help women and families in need with our own time and money (go figure!). We share the Gospel. How could a Christian not get excited about that?
"Are you going to pray for us, even as we continue to butcher the innocent?'
Yes, I pray that your dreams will be haunted with the carnage of the slaughter you support.
-----
Now, what is it that you do for the cause of life again? Oh, right, you vote for pro-abortion Obama and try to convince people that abortion can be harmonized with a Christian worldview. And you dodge the issue by creating straw men arguments about how if we really cared we'd be more violent about it. Sure.
My point is simple. As soon as pro-life folks begin to act on their belief that abortion is far more than a medical procedure, but in fact a transcendent evil, in which the United States government is complicit, I simply refuse to take any of the talk about "murder" of "babies" seriously.
C'mon. If I thought the United States government was planning to murder my daughters, you bet I would defend them with every fiber of my being. If I further believed the United States government was not only planning on killing my children, but children all over the place - a kind of modern-day slaughter of the innocents - or, at the very least, would tolerate vigilante action that accomplished the same goal, I would rally others together to defend them.
This isn't about science or religion or even politics. It's about following through on your beliefs. It's really that simple. Do you believe that abortion is murder? That tens of millions of babies have been murdered in the past three decades as the state looked on in silent complicity? Do you believe that Pres. Obama is exporting said murderous tactics overseas? If you really, really believe this, it seems to me you would, or even should, act on it.
Otherwise, it's all a lot of meaningless talk. At least those who have bombed abortion clinics, murdered doctors who perform abortions, and stopped women from entering women's clinics through threats of violence and intimidation are far more morally honest.
I am not condoning their violence. I am only saying that it has the odd virtue of consistency. One does not debate genocide. One stops it, especially if one lives in the United States. One does not sit idly by while murder is going on; one intercedes, defends the defenseless, killing in defense of those who cannot defend themselves. We have certainly heard enough of this rhetoric.
The hyperbole I am offering is half in jest (to make a serious point) and half serious. We have put up with quite enough from pro-lifers. For years. I was slightly injured working as a volunteer escort at a women's clinic when in seminary; a group of "pro-life Christians" began screaming "whore" and "murderer" at a young woman, pelting her with little plastic fetuses, and some hit me, scratching up my face. The sheer hate and barely-contained violence on the faces of the crowd around me deterred me from ever doing that again.
This is my point. To be clear. If you believe abortion is mass murder; if you further believe our political apparatus is incapable of stopping it, defending those most vulnerable in society; it seems to me you have a certain moral duty to prevent abortion that does not recognize the niceties of law. Either act on your convictions, or count me as less than impressed with your moral fervor. On this, as on so much else . . .
"If I further believed the United States government was not only planning on killing my children, but children all over the place - a kind of modern-day slaughter of the innocents - or, at the very least, would tolerate vigilante action that accomplished the same goal, I would rally others together to defend them."
Right. You are just as the lady in the article described. You are in denial. You deliberately ignore the scientific evidence and you tie yourself in knots rationalizing it away with philosophical arguments.
But the dead human beings are still there.
"Do you believe that abortion is murder? That tens of millions of babies have been murdered in the past three decades as the state looked on in silent complicity? Do you believe that Pres. Obama is exporting said murderous tactics overseas? If you really, really believe this, it seems to me you would, or even should, act on it."
Yes, it is murder. I think I've been pretty clear on that: The unborn are human beings. Abortion kills them. Sounds like murder to me.
And I just told you how I act on it. You are just playing a fallacious little game where you try to dictate how I must react to it.
I vote pro-life as well. Hey, if it weren't for the ignorant and fake Christians we'd almost be there. McCain would have put real judges on the SC whereas Obama will stack it with pro-aborts like you.
"I was slightly injured working as a volunteer escort at a women's clinic when in seminary"
A seminary student volunteering as a "deathscort" should be an oxymoron, but with liberal theologians it is to be expected.
In your bigotry you assume that all pro-lifers are like the ones you encountered.
"Either act on your convictions, or count me as less than impressed with your moral fervor. On this, as on so much else . . ."
Nice dodge from a guy who lost all credibility last week. Be careful or you'll slip up again.
I showed you how I acted on my convictions. You want to say that I must get violent to prove them. But if I do that then you'll say I'm like the bad pro-lifers who scared little Geoffrey when he was escorting the unborn to be crushed and dismembered.
You really are the poster boy for denial.
" . . . pelting her with little plastic fetuses, and some hit me, scratching up my face"
Boo-frickin'-hoo!!!! You were taking unborn human beings to be burned or hacked to death, and you are whining about scratches on your face? Where is the courage of your convictions, eh? You say women must have the "right" to abortions but get scared of people yelling at you? Sheesh.
Too bad you didn't help the women in their time of need. They are probably regretting to this day what they did. Their boyfriends and/or parents pushed many of them into having abortions. You could have directed them to a crisis pregnancy center so they could see what their options were and know there was a better way.
Geoffrey, your argument cuts both ways. You seem to think that the Bush Administration was populated by war criminals, so I wonder what acts of violence you perpetrated to overthrow the government they ran, or what acts of violence you plan if the current administration doesn't investigate or prosecute Bush officials to the degree that you think necessary.
And if you really thought that those who oppose gross injustice must engage in violence to display "the odd virtue of consistency," you would denigrate Martin Luther King as a coward rather than lionize him and very nearly idolize him. Your only heroes in the civil rights movement would, instead, be radicals like Malcolm X.
And you're a self-described Christian who went to seminary. You should know, at least as well as other Christians, that non-believers make the same arguments against the Christian faith and that the arguments are, ultimately, lame and irrelevant to the point at hand.
True enough, far too many Christians are far too lax in our commitment to our stated beliefs, in our efforts to conform to Christian ethics and in our efforts to evangelize -- the latter being particularly egregious, analogous to (and worse than) having a cure for leprosy and not sharing it with anyone in the leper colony around us.
But that only calls into question the conviction of the individual Christian. It does not call into question the validity of the central claims of Christianity.
You're playing games, Geoffrey.
I can only conclude that you're harping on this issue -- here, at Eric's blog, and at your own blog -- to duck the more important issue of whether abortion is immoral.
(I hope that you don't actually think this stunt is clever, much less germane to the question of the morality of abortion.)
I will ask you, for at least the third time, for your argument that abortion is morally neutral.
It is, of course, far better to be fully committed to a righteous cause than to be lukewarm, but the important question is about the cause, not the foot soldier.
You don't believe abortion is immoral. Why not? It transparently has nothing to do with our perceived hypocrisy, and it certainly shouldn't have to do with something so tangential to the central issue.
What's your argument for the moral neutrality of abortion? Let's see it.
I duck nothing. No, I do not believe for one moment that abortion is immoral. I do not believe a fetus is a human being. I do not believe that the United States government condones, permit, or sanctions mass murder.
Everyone here is ducking my question. If you believe what you say you believe, are you going to act on it or not? If so, just warn me before hand so I can put on a bullet-proof vest and duck. If not, I think you need to double-check your moral stance.
Moral neutrality? Simple. I had my gall bladder removed, because if I hadn't I might have died. Not that day, not that month, but eventually not doing so would have killed me.
Do I believe that there are those so emotionally effected by a pregnancy that they could not contemplate an abortion? Sure! Do I believe there is some transcendent moral issue involved in a surgical procedure? No.
"If you believe what you say you believe, are you going to act on it or not?"
It has been answered. I do lots for the pro-life movement.
And I've spotlighted your fallacious little game twice now. You cry like a baby when someone calls you names when you were playing "deathscort" and in the next paragraph then you challenge us to react violently to "prove" we believe what we say we do.
And as Bubba noted, you certainly don't behave consistently with your views on the topics you rail against. So once again you contradict yourself. Are you even trying?
Neil didn't duck your question: he gave quite a detailed explanation of what he does in opposition to abortion. You find the work he does insufficient, but since I believe you do so hypocritically and irrationally, I don't put much stock in your objection.
I didn't duck your question either. The first time you raised this issue, I answered you twice in the twice in the same comment:
"Geoffrey, I will readily admit that I do not do enough to protect the rights of the unborn. I will also say, for the record, that there are some actions that are out-of-bounds. Some are simply immoral, such as acts of terrorism; and some are out-of-bounds politically -- namely, passing any laws that prohibit abortion. Roe and its companion case, Doe, ruled out the latter, and even a constitutional amendment is a problematic solution because it doesn't address the central problem of the judicial activism that led to Roe.
"Again, I don't do enough, but thankfully, the righteousness of a cause is not determined by the faithfulness of one of its foot soldiers."
You assert, "Everyone here is ducking my question."
You right, except for Neil and me. Since Neil and I are the only ones adding any comments to this thread so far, you're completely wrong.
Even if abortion is a holocaust, a state-permitted -- and, far too often, state-funded -- murder of tens of millions of human lives, it is still not the case that terrorism is the only appropriate response. It's not remotely clear that it would be effective, and I believe that it's morally prohibited even if it were.
As horrible as abortion is, the goal of removing or reducing its legal sanction should be weighed against competing goods, the chief being an otherwise free and civil society. As Russel Kirk explained in his ten conservative principles, conservatives believe in continuity. As Burke put it, we "must bear with infirmities until they fester into crimes." Even with crimes, bloody revolution should be avoided if at all possible; all other options should be exhausted.
The now deceased John Neuhaus questioned "whether an American political regime that tolerated mass abortions was a legitimate one." If it's not, if abortion is such a horror that this nation no longer has the right to exist, conservatives generally believe that ending the regime still should be the option of last resort, not the first.
You clearly disagree, but -- just as clearly -- you're doing nothing more than playing games.
I appreciate your acknowledging my request for an argument for the moral neutrality of abortion, and I appreciate that there was a response, but frankly the response was pathetic.
Moral neutrality? Simple. I had my gall bladder removed, because if I hadn't I might have died. Not that day, not that month, but eventually not doing so would have killed me.
Do I believe that there are those so emotionally effected by a pregnancy that they could not contemplate an abortion? Sure! Do I believe there is some transcendent moral issue involved in a surgical procedure? No.
The gall bladder comparison is a non sequitur for two reasons. One, most who oppose abortion on-demand do make an exception for the life of the mother -- that is, if the mother's life is genuinely at risk.
It should be said here that abortion itself is risky, and it's extremely rare that there are situations where abortion is the safest option than the mother, safer than both induced labor and a c-section.
It should also be noted that the purpose of abortion isn't merely the removal of the fetus: it's the destruction of the fetus. An abortion where the fetus leaves the womb and survives is consider a failed abortion.
If you'll pardon my coining a word or two, abortion isn't a fetalectomy. It's feticide.
But second, and most important, a fetus isn't a human organ. It's a human organism.
It doesn't belong in this list...
gall bladder, appendix, heart, liver
...it belongs in this list:
infant, toddler, adolescent, adult
A fetus doesn't refer to an organ, it refers to a stage in human development. The fetus develops organs as he matures.
You dismiss abortion as a "surgical procedure", which punts the issue. It's true that abortion is a surgical procedure, but that doesn't explain why God's moral law never precludes a particular procedure at least in certain circumstances.
You could just as easily argue that lying isn't immoral because there is no transcendent moral issue involved in linguistics.
Or, you could say that adultery -- or pissing in someone else's corn flakes -- isn't a sin because there is no transcendent moral issue involved in a biological function.
But these assertions aren't self-evident, and they are so contentious that they ABSOLUTELY need to be argued.
If there's a pair of conjoined twins, and one wants to undergo surgery to separate, killing her sister who did not consent to it, then I would say that there is an obvious moral issue about whether the surgical procedure should be performed.
It's not remotely obvious why the magic words "surgical procedure" remove an issue from any moral questions.
Your answer for why abortion is morally neutral is vapid. I ask you to try again.
The Crisis Pregnancy Center, now named Community Pregnancy Center used to be down the street from the church where I work. The church let them use their Fellowship Hall each week for Bible Study and the Point to Success program. I kept the kids in the nursery while the parents attended the Bible Study.
The Center has moved on to another part of town to a bigger and nicer place.
You don't have to get violent to prevent abortion.
"Unless I were willing to become a murderer myself, intent on bombing abortion mills and killing those inside them, I can do nothing else to stop it."
It's the only part of the article with which I have any disagreement. To take up arms against murderers is not to become one by doing so. This would make murderers of every cop, soldier or citizen who defended their lives, or the lives of others, from being murdered by actual murderers.
For my part, I'm sorry that some abortion doctors lost their lives at the hands of anti-abortion activists. It could have been prevented had they not chosen to earn their living by killing the unborn. Pretty simple and effective defense, actually. But kill enough people and someone's likely to get pissed.
But one needn't go that far, at least initially, and sacrifice their own freedom or life upon sentencing when arrested in a society that has allowed the heinous practice to go on, as noble as such sacrifice would be. Constant preaching against the practice, as well as preaching against sex for pleasure above all else, which is the true cause of this tragedy, can be done by anyone. Digging in as seriously as does Neil is even better. Picketing is good if done properly and constant non-life-threatening vandalism of abortion mills is good as well. You know, stink bombs through the windows in the dead of night. That sort of thing. Never giving them a chance to continue easily their dastardly deeds. Of course, constant calls to local, state and national representatives to end the practice is a given. Voting pro-life always. Demanding pro-life always. Insisting on the constant teaching of our youth values that by their nature prevent the need for crisis pregnancy centers and abortion mills in the first place. Refusal to abdicate our parental and adult responsibilities in elevating our expectations for our own kids and living by those expectations ourselves.
Much of the above I do, others I've never done, all I've at least considered. Because it is murder to abort. No two ways about it.
Bubba acknowledges Geoffrey answered his question. But I don't see and answer at all. So the question stands as far as I'm concerned:
WHY don't you believe a fetus is a human being, equal to any other? You've never made any solid arguments whatsoever, and I for one, have given you plenty of opportunity. The fact is that you have no argument, you have simply decided for convenience, in case you one day want to utitlize it yourself. This is my charge. You insist on extreme acts from us in order to satisfy you that we aren't blowing smoke, yet all you've ever presented to justify your position is smoke. No substance whatsoever.
OK, Marty doesn't seem to understand that I am using hyperbole - exaggeration, sarcasm, choose a word - to make a general point about the rhetoric of pro-lifers. It seems to me if pro-choice folks are actually pro-abortion Nazis, so morally bent and broken that we are numb to the Holocaust of millions of slaughtered children; if pro-choice politics is actually the sanctioning of mass murder, and pro-life politics has, as seems clear, failed in its mission in a democratic society; there needs to be some consistency here. It's that simple.
Either we are truly evil mass murders who need to be stopped at any cost, or . . .
Maybe the entire rhetorical stance of the pro-life movement, from mass murder and infanticide and the morally transcendent evil of abortion, need to be reconsidered in light of a refusal to act on what seem to me to be the pretty clear moral ramifications of their position.
That is my point. Calling people names, whether it's liberal or baby killer, doesn't stop mass murder. Mass murderers are psychopathic thugs who need to be removed from society. Are pro-choice supporters active supporters of mass murder? That makes us sound like Manson cheerleaders, little swastikas carved in to our foreheads.
I am looking for moral consistency. I am wondering if these folks really believe what they claim to believe. I, for one, have acted on my belief, although the hatred and violence I encountered made me back away at one point.
I actually applaud efforts by any individual or group, sacred or secular, who is willing to do the hard work of working with anyone thinking about abortion and in a non-coercive manner, helps them think through their options. That, too, is consistent with a certain set of moral principles. My problem is certainly not with these folks, or this position, or this practice. It is, rather, with the constant hyperventilation about murdered babies and all that.
I am not "pro-abortion". I am pro-choice. Period. I am not some kind of silent supporter of mass murder. I am a very vocal supporter of a woman's freedom to live her life as a fully realized human being, including making moral and medical choices for herself, even some I might or might not agree with. You frame the issue your way, I'll frame it mine.
I am only taking issue with the way conservatives currently go way over the top on abortion. That's all.
"I am a very vocal supporter of a woman's freedom to live her life as a fully realized human being, including making moral and medical choices for herself, even some I might or might not agree with. You frame the issue your way, I'll frame it mine."
You are framing it in direct opposition to several facts:
1. Hard science: The unborn are living human beings.
2. "Freedom to live your life" does not permit killing innocent human beings.
3. Killing others has nothing to do with being "fully realized."
4. Abortion makes a "moral and medical choice" for another human being as well, the one that gets crushed and dismembered.
It is rather ironic that you accuse us of misusing rhetoric and rather nauseating that you pass yourself off as some kind of feminist for being pro-abortion. Gender selection abortions, anyone?
Marty, I'm very glad to see that we don't disagree on everything.
Geoffrey:
I am a very vocal supporter of a woman's freedom to live her life as a fully realized human being, including making moral and medical choices for herself, even some I might or might not agree with.
This isn't an argument for the moral neutrality of abortion. It's sloganeering and a poor substitute for an argument.
It presumes that the mother is the only human involved in the case of abortion, or that she is the only human being with rights: this assumption is precisely the thing that you should argue for rather than paper over.
I assume that you don't think a human being should be free to do literally whatever she wants in terms of moral decisions -- I assume that you agree with the criminalization of theft, fraud, assault, and rape -- so your suggesting that people should be free to make their own moral decisions is so simplistic that it's transparently false. You almost certainly believe that some decisions are immoral, and you almost certainly believe that a subset of these immoral behaviors should be criminalized.
The legality of abortion is a separate but related issue, but I want to focus on the morality.
You seem to believe that abortion is a morally neutral act.
"Are pro-choice supporters active supporters of mass murder?"
Yes. That's the point of Shiver's piece (or at least one point). You are guilty of the same misuse of words to lessen the impact of what is really happening---to say "pro-choice", when the issue is really "pro-abortion". There are certainly other options besides abortion that are superior morally to it. But "pro-choice" is never supported more strongly and stringently but in the area of abortion. Why bother with it if you indeed believe a human fetus is not a person?
As to violent defense of the unborn, our goal is not to kill anyone ("pro-life", remember?), but to put the focus back where it belongs, which is the lives of the unborn and their sanctity. The rhetoric and tactics of the pro-abortion faction ignores and denies the facts.
"OK, Marty doesn't seem to understand that I am using hyperbole - exaggeration, sarcasm, choose a word - to make a general point about the rhetoric of pro-lifers."
Yeah I understood it and I do see the points you've made. While I would consider myself "pro-life" (which includes being against war and the death penalty), I am supportive of unfettered access to birth control. I would not be opposed to high schools or middle schools passing out condoms or birth control pills to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
"I would not be opposed to high schools or middle schools passing out condoms or birth control pills to prevent unwanted pregnancies."
Another reason to home school.
Passing out condoms implicitly and explicitly tells kids to have sex and to use condoms.
Guess which part they are likely to obey and which part they are likely to ignore or misuse?
Be sure to give them guns with safety switches as well.
Or if you really cared about them, you'd let them know that finishing high school and not having sex outside of marriage virtually guarantees that they won't live in poverty and they'll avoid the trauma of pregnancy , abortion and dieases.
"Passing out condoms implicitly and explicitly tells kids to have sex and to use condoms."
Bull.
Kids who want to have sex are going to have it, I don't care how much you homeschool or educate. Better to have birth control available rather than an unwanted pregnancy which can lead to abortion.
Some kids will have sex no matter what, but one has to be completely and utterly clueless (not to mention un-Biblical) to think that having adults pass out condoms and birth control pill to middle schoolers won't encourage more of the behavior.
"Kids who want to have sex are going to have it, I don't care how much you homeschool or educate."
This is the real BS. I would accept that most kids will want to have sex---at least the boys will---but whether or not they are going to have it is more a factor of upbringing and their resistance to peer pressure. I think we each have slightly different tales of personal experience, but when I was a teen, sex was more a matter of tall tales than actual occurance, even though it was indeed more prevalent than even ten years before. But this was when the idea of moral virtue was really under stress in the "Free Love" 60s. When I was a kid, Rob and Laura Petrie slept in separate beds. Nowadays, we've got "Family Guy". Kids are basically told to have sex by how lax the attitudes of adults has become. Kids are behaving according to the level of expectation placed upon them, or the lack thereof.
This "throw in the towel" attitude of "Kids who want to have sex are going to have it" is far and away more of a reason for the trouble than the kids' own desires and urges which have not changed in the history of mankind.
Well, guys, my idea may be a bit off the charts for you, but so far education and upbringing hasn't done much good to reduce unwanted pregnancies. I've seen enough unmarried teenage girls have baby after baby that I gotta tell ya, I'll gladly pass out the condoms and pills!
"...so far education and upbringing hasn't done much good to reduce unwanted pregnancies."
BINGO! Or, more accurately, modern education and upbringing hasn't done much good. How are things different now than in the past? I implied at least the overall loosening of morals over the last 40-50 years. The decision of Roe v Wade has allowed an easy out for those who would have resisted their urges minus this avenue being so available. The culture itself, led by liberal attitudes of sexual expression and modesty (that is, less modesty), have been key in the disintegration of expectations. And the answer you choose---to provide even more enabling devices---only exacerbates the problem.
This answer is this issue's bailout strategy. Rather than demanding kids face the consequences of their actions, you prefer helping them ignore their responsibilities to themselves, their partners, and the children they bear. Condoms may reduce pregnancies, but they don't reduce the cause of them, which is a lack of character and the notion that one can do what one chooses, consequences be damned. Not good for youth, not good for our culture.
28 comments:
Great find, Marshall. It was worth the read just for this quote:
"I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue.
- Camille Paglia"
Those comments are scary in the sense that she remains pro-abortion despite knowing it is murder, but admirable in the sense that at least she is expressing her views honestly. It is a refreshing contrast to the ignorance or disingenuouness of the "gee, we just don't know when life begins" crowd. Hey, if you really don't know when it begins then (1)stop abortions until you are sure you aren't killing an innocent human being and (2) consult any embryology textbook to find the scientific answer (hint: abortion kills an innocent human being).
This one was good, too:
"The fact that we remain a religious people in a Nation that has systematically murdered 49 million of its own offspring through abortion over 36 years, absolutely requires that we be in complete denial and continue to debate its merits in bastardized language."
I agree with that. For pro-abortion Christians (must . . . resist . . . urge . . . to use . . . scare quotes) to switch to the Biblical pro-life view they'll have to concede that they supported this murderous process for so long. Pride and defense mechanisms have a nasty way of preventing that.
And yes, I am now using "pro-abortion" to describe anyone who supports Obama. By taking our tax dollars to fund abortions overseas he has eliminated any pretense of us having a choice in the matter.
Her comments about genocide were correct as well.
All right. Fine. We condone mass murder. Mass infanticide of the weakest among us. Genocide.
Are you going to limit yourselves to calling us names? Are you going to pray for us, even as we continue to butcher the innocent?
Or, are you going to do what is necessary to stop the slaughter? Operation Rescue had the right idea; parade around women's clinics, calling the women who are trying to enter "whore" and "murderer"; publicize the photographs, home addresses and phone numbers of ob-gyns who perform abortions so that they can be harassed at home.
When all else fails, as our politics certainly has; with our government now exporting abortions overseas - isn't force of arms required? It seems to me the only logical conclusion. I mean, since all us fakes and frauds would be quite willing to defend our rights to abortion by force of arms if need be, the least all you who see this as murder on a scale to make Mao blush and Hitler look like a pansy, it seems to me that you should be doing something more than just whining about it, and calling us pro-choice folks nasty names.
Or do you not have the courage of your convictions to do what is necessary to stop the slaughter?
"it seems to me that you should be doing something more than just whining about it, and calling us pro-choice folks nasty names."
What whining? What nasty names? Pro-abortion? That is factually correct, unless you are going to tell me that you are objecting to Obama's pledges to fund overseas abortions and to overturn the Hyde Amendment.
Or do you mean "ignorance or disingenuousness?" If you don't know the science that proves that the unborn are human beings then you are indeed ignorant, and if you know it and pretend not to then you are disingenuous. And if you know and and are pro-abortion then you are a ghoul (now there's a name for you!).
What do I do? I donate my time and money to CareNet Pregnancy Center, where we save lives now and for eternity. We share the Gospel with everyone who is interested in hearing it. We concede that there is a legal choice women can make and we try to persuade them to choose life.
We offer post-abortion trauma counseling so women can learn of the hope, healing and forgiveness available in Jesus.
We offer life skills classes, pregnancy / childbirth / breastfeeding / etc. classes, automotive care, and more.
We offer free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, so the women can have a fully informed choice about what is inside them. Information is good, right?
Everything is free. People who take classes earn credits for free car seats, cribs, food, clothes, etc.
I teach pro-life reasoning classes. I blog about pro-life to persuade people to consider the truth (that which they will not get from the 90%+ pro-abortion media).
I buy pro-life reasoning books to give away at church.
I know it will be a long battle, just as the fight to end the evil of slavery was. But in the mean time we try to save as many lives as possible. There are many human beings running around today that would have been crushed and dismembered if not for organizations like CareNet.
Seems to me that even theological liberals would rally around pregnancy centers. After all, we are non-political. We are just trying to help women and families in need with our own time and money (go figure!). We share the Gospel. How could a Christian not get excited about that?
"Are you going to pray for us, even as we continue to butcher the innocent?'
Yes, I pray that your dreams will be haunted with the carnage of the slaughter you support.
-----
Now, what is it that you do for the cause of life again? Oh, right, you vote for pro-abortion Obama and try to convince people that abortion can be harmonized with a Christian worldview. And you dodge the issue by creating straw men arguments about how if we really cared we'd be more violent about it. Sure.
My point is simple. As soon as pro-life folks begin to act on their belief that abortion is far more than a medical procedure, but in fact a transcendent evil, in which the United States government is complicit, I simply refuse to take any of the talk about "murder" of "babies" seriously.
C'mon. If I thought the United States government was planning to murder my daughters, you bet I would defend them with every fiber of my being. If I further believed the United States government was not only planning on killing my children, but children all over the place - a kind of modern-day slaughter of the innocents - or, at the very least, would tolerate vigilante action that accomplished the same goal, I would rally others together to defend them.
This isn't about science or religion or even politics. It's about following through on your beliefs. It's really that simple. Do you believe that abortion is murder? That tens of millions of babies have been murdered in the past three decades as the state looked on in silent complicity? Do you believe that Pres. Obama is exporting said murderous tactics overseas? If you really, really believe this, it seems to me you would, or even should, act on it.
Otherwise, it's all a lot of meaningless talk. At least those who have bombed abortion clinics, murdered doctors who perform abortions, and stopped women from entering women's clinics through threats of violence and intimidation are far more morally honest.
I am not condoning their violence. I am only saying that it has the odd virtue of consistency. One does not debate genocide. One stops it, especially if one lives in the United States. One does not sit idly by while murder is going on; one intercedes, defends the defenseless, killing in defense of those who cannot defend themselves. We have certainly heard enough of this rhetoric.
The hyperbole I am offering is half in jest (to make a serious point) and half serious. We have put up with quite enough from pro-lifers. For years. I was slightly injured working as a volunteer escort at a women's clinic when in seminary; a group of "pro-life Christians" began screaming "whore" and "murderer" at a young woman, pelting her with little plastic fetuses, and some hit me, scratching up my face. The sheer hate and barely-contained violence on the faces of the crowd around me deterred me from ever doing that again.
This is my point. To be clear. If you believe abortion is mass murder; if you further believe our political apparatus is incapable of stopping it, defending those most vulnerable in society; it seems to me you have a certain moral duty to prevent abortion that does not recognize the niceties of law. Either act on your convictions, or count me as less than impressed with your moral fervor. On this, as on so much else . . .
"If I further believed the United States government was not only planning on killing my children, but children all over the place - a kind of modern-day slaughter of the innocents - or, at the very least, would tolerate vigilante action that accomplished the same goal, I would rally others together to defend them."
Right. You are just as the lady in the article described. You are in denial. You deliberately ignore the scientific evidence and you tie yourself in knots rationalizing it away with philosophical arguments.
But the dead human beings are still there.
"Do you believe that abortion is murder? That tens of millions of babies have been murdered in the past three decades as the state looked on in silent complicity? Do you believe that Pres. Obama is exporting said murderous tactics overseas? If you really, really believe this, it seems to me you would, or even should, act on it."
Yes, it is murder. I think I've been pretty clear on that: The unborn are human beings. Abortion kills them. Sounds like murder to me.
And I just told you how I act on it. You are just playing a fallacious little game where you try to dictate how I must react to it.
I vote pro-life as well. Hey, if it weren't for the ignorant and fake Christians we'd almost be there. McCain would have put real judges on the SC whereas Obama will stack it with pro-aborts like you.
"I was slightly injured working as a volunteer escort at a women's clinic when in seminary"
A seminary student volunteering as a "deathscort" should be an oxymoron, but with liberal theologians it is to be expected.
In your bigotry you assume that all pro-lifers are like the ones you encountered.
"Either act on your convictions, or count me as less than impressed with your moral fervor. On this, as on so much else . . ."
Nice dodge from a guy who lost all credibility last week. Be careful or you'll slip up again.
I showed you how I acted on my convictions. You want to say that I must get violent to prove them. But if I do that then you'll say I'm like the bad pro-lifers who scared little Geoffrey when he was escorting the unborn to be crushed and dismembered.
You really are the poster boy for denial.
" . . . pelting her with little plastic fetuses, and some hit me, scratching up my face"
Boo-frickin'-hoo!!!! You were taking unborn human beings to be burned or hacked to death, and you are whining about scratches on your face? Where is the courage of your convictions, eh? You say women must have the "right" to abortions but get scared of people yelling at you? Sheesh.
Too bad you didn't help the women in their time of need. They are probably regretting to this day what they did. Their boyfriends and/or parents pushed many of them into having abortions. You could have directed them to a crisis pregnancy center so they could see what their options were and know there was a better way.
Sad.
Geoffrey, your argument cuts both ways. You seem to think that the Bush Administration was populated by war criminals, so I wonder what acts of violence you perpetrated to overthrow the government they ran, or what acts of violence you plan if the current administration doesn't investigate or prosecute Bush officials to the degree that you think necessary.
And if you really thought that those who oppose gross injustice must engage in violence to display "the odd virtue of consistency," you would denigrate Martin Luther King as a coward rather than lionize him and very nearly idolize him. Your only heroes in the civil rights movement would, instead, be radicals like Malcolm X.
And you're a self-described Christian who went to seminary. You should know, at least as well as other Christians, that non-believers make the same arguments against the Christian faith and that the arguments are, ultimately, lame and irrelevant to the point at hand.
True enough, far too many Christians are far too lax in our commitment to our stated beliefs, in our efforts to conform to Christian ethics and in our efforts to evangelize -- the latter being particularly egregious, analogous to (and worse than) having a cure for leprosy and not sharing it with anyone in the leper colony around us.
But that only calls into question the conviction of the individual Christian. It does not call into question the validity of the central claims of Christianity.
You're playing games, Geoffrey.
I can only conclude that you're harping on this issue -- here, at Eric's blog, and at your own blog -- to duck the more important issue of whether abortion is immoral.
(I hope that you don't actually think this stunt is clever, much less germane to the question of the morality of abortion.)
I will ask you, for at least the third time, for your argument that abortion is morally neutral.
It is, of course, far better to be fully committed to a righteous cause than to be lukewarm, but the important question is about the cause, not the foot soldier.
You don't believe abortion is immoral. Why not? It transparently has nothing to do with our perceived hypocrisy, and it certainly shouldn't have to do with something so tangential to the central issue.
What's your argument for the moral neutrality of abortion? Let's see it.
I duck nothing. No, I do not believe for one moment that abortion is immoral. I do not believe a fetus is a human being. I do not believe that the United States government condones, permit, or sanctions mass murder.
Everyone here is ducking my question. If you believe what you say you believe, are you going to act on it or not? If so, just warn me before hand so I can put on a bullet-proof vest and duck. If not, I think you need to double-check your moral stance.
Moral neutrality? Simple. I had my gall bladder removed, because if I hadn't I might have died. Not that day, not that month, but eventually not doing so would have killed me.
Do I believe that there are those so emotionally effected by a pregnancy that they could not contemplate an abortion? Sure! Do I believe there is some transcendent moral issue involved in a surgical procedure? No.
"I do not believe a fetus is a human being."
Then you are very ignorant on the simplest fact regarding the greatest moral issue of our time.
It is a human fetus. Do some reading -- http://abort73.com/index.php?/abortion/medical_testimony
"If you believe what you say you believe, are you going to act on it or not?"
It has been answered. I do lots for the pro-life movement.
And I've spotlighted your fallacious little game twice now. You cry like a baby when someone calls you names when you were playing "deathscort" and in the next paragraph then you challenge us to react violently to "prove" we believe what we say we do.
And as Bubba noted, you certainly don't behave consistently with your views on the topics you rail against. So once again you contradict yourself. Are you even trying?
Geoffrey:
Neil didn't duck your question: he gave quite a detailed explanation of what he does in opposition to abortion. You find the work he does insufficient, but since I believe you do so hypocritically and irrationally, I don't put much stock in your objection.
I didn't duck your question either. The first time you raised this issue, I answered you twice in the twice in the same comment:
"Geoffrey, I will readily admit that I do not do enough to protect the rights of the unborn. I will also say, for the record, that there are some actions that are out-of-bounds. Some are simply immoral, such as acts of terrorism; and some are out-of-bounds politically -- namely, passing any laws that prohibit abortion. Roe and its companion case, Doe, ruled out the latter, and even a constitutional amendment is a problematic solution because it doesn't address the central problem of the judicial activism that led to Roe.
"Again, I don't do enough, but thankfully, the righteousness of a cause is not determined by the faithfulness of one of its foot soldiers."
You assert, "Everyone here is ducking my question."
You right, except for Neil and me. Since Neil and I are the only ones adding any comments to this thread so far, you're completely wrong.
Even if abortion is a holocaust, a state-permitted -- and, far too often, state-funded -- murder of tens of millions of human lives, it is still not the case that terrorism is the only appropriate response. It's not remotely clear that it would be effective, and I believe that it's morally prohibited even if it were.
As horrible as abortion is, the goal of removing or reducing its legal sanction should be weighed against competing goods, the chief being an otherwise free and civil society. As Russel Kirk explained in his ten conservative principles, conservatives believe in continuity. As Burke put it, we "must bear with infirmities until they fester into crimes." Even with crimes, bloody revolution should be avoided if at all possible; all other options should be exhausted.
The now deceased John Neuhaus questioned "whether an American political regime that tolerated mass abortions was a legitimate one." If it's not, if abortion is such a horror that this nation no longer has the right to exist, conservatives generally believe that ending the regime still should be the option of last resort, not the first.
You clearly disagree, but -- just as clearly -- you're doing nothing more than playing games.
I appreciate your acknowledging my request for an argument for the moral neutrality of abortion, and I appreciate that there was a response, but frankly the response was pathetic.
Moral neutrality? Simple. I had my gall bladder removed, because if I hadn't I might have died. Not that day, not that month, but eventually not doing so would have killed me.
Do I believe that there are those so emotionally effected by a pregnancy that they could not contemplate an abortion? Sure! Do I believe there is some transcendent moral issue involved in a surgical procedure? No.
The gall bladder comparison is a non sequitur for two reasons. One, most who oppose abortion on-demand do make an exception for the life of the mother -- that is, if the mother's life is genuinely at risk.
It should be said here that abortion itself is risky, and it's extremely rare that there are situations where abortion is the safest option than the mother, safer than both induced labor and a c-section.
It should also be noted that the purpose of abortion isn't merely the removal of the fetus: it's the destruction of the fetus. An abortion where the fetus leaves the womb and survives is consider a failed abortion.
If you'll pardon my coining a word or two, abortion isn't a fetalectomy. It's feticide.
But second, and most important, a fetus isn't a human organ. It's a human organism.
It doesn't belong in this list...
gall bladder, appendix, heart, liver
...it belongs in this list:
infant, toddler, adolescent, adult
A fetus doesn't refer to an organ, it refers to a stage in human development. The fetus develops organs as he matures.
You dismiss abortion as a "surgical procedure", which punts the issue. It's true that abortion is a surgical procedure, but that doesn't explain why God's moral law never precludes a particular procedure at least in certain circumstances.
You could just as easily argue that lying isn't immoral because there is no transcendent moral issue involved in linguistics.
Or, you could say that adultery -- or pissing in someone else's corn flakes -- isn't a sin because there is no transcendent moral issue involved in a biological function.
But these assertions aren't self-evident, and they are so contentious that they ABSOLUTELY need to be argued.
If there's a pair of conjoined twins, and one wants to undergo surgery to separate, killing her sister who did not consent to it, then I would say that there is an obvious moral issue about whether the surgical procedure should be performed.
It's not remotely obvious why the magic words "surgical procedure" remove an issue from any moral questions.
Your answer for why abortion is morally neutral is vapid. I ask you to try again.
OMG!!!
I agree with Bubba and 4simpsons.
The Crisis Pregnancy Center, now named Community Pregnancy Center used to be down the street from the church where I work. The church let them use their Fellowship Hall each week for Bible Study and the Point to Success program. I kept the kids in the nursery while the parents attended the Bible Study.
The Center has moved on to another part of town to a bigger and nicer place.
You don't have to get violent to prevent abortion.
Violence begats violence and makes matters worse.
The same goes for war and peacemaking.
It's OK Marty. You're allowed to agree with those to whom you're normally opposed. After all, it's only one issue.
From Shiver's piece:
"Unless I were willing to become a murderer myself, intent on bombing abortion mills and killing those inside them, I can do nothing else to stop it."
It's the only part of the article with which I have any disagreement. To take up arms against murderers is not to become one by doing so. This would make murderers of every cop, soldier or citizen who defended their lives, or the lives of others, from being murdered by actual murderers.
For my part, I'm sorry that some abortion doctors lost their lives at the hands of anti-abortion activists. It could have been prevented had they not chosen to earn their living by killing the unborn. Pretty simple and effective defense, actually. But kill enough people and someone's likely to get pissed.
But one needn't go that far, at least initially, and sacrifice their own freedom or life upon sentencing when arrested in a society that has allowed the heinous practice to go on, as noble as such sacrifice would be. Constant preaching against the practice, as well as preaching against sex for pleasure above all else, which is the true cause of this tragedy, can be done by anyone. Digging in as seriously as does Neil is even better. Picketing is good if done properly and constant non-life-threatening vandalism of abortion mills is good as well. You know, stink bombs through the windows in the dead of night. That sort of thing. Never giving them a chance to continue easily their dastardly deeds. Of course, constant calls to local, state and national representatives to end the practice is a given. Voting pro-life always. Demanding pro-life always. Insisting on the constant teaching of our youth values that by their nature prevent the need for crisis pregnancy centers and abortion mills in the first place. Refusal to abdicate our parental and adult responsibilities in elevating our expectations for our own kids and living by those expectations ourselves.
Much of the above I do, others I've never done, all I've at least considered. Because it is murder to abort. No two ways about it.
Bubba acknowledges Geoffrey answered his question. But I don't see and answer at all. So the question stands as far as I'm concerned:
WHY don't you believe a fetus is a human being, equal to any other? You've never made any solid arguments whatsoever, and I for one, have given you plenty of opportunity. The fact is that you have no argument, you have simply decided for convenience, in case you one day want to utitlize it yourself. This is my charge. You insist on extreme acts from us in order to satisfy you that we aren't blowing smoke, yet all you've ever presented to justify your position is smoke. No substance whatsoever.
OK, Marty doesn't seem to understand that I am using hyperbole - exaggeration, sarcasm, choose a word - to make a general point about the rhetoric of pro-lifers. It seems to me if pro-choice folks are actually pro-abortion Nazis, so morally bent and broken that we are numb to the Holocaust of millions of slaughtered children; if pro-choice politics is actually the sanctioning of mass murder, and pro-life politics has, as seems clear, failed in its mission in a democratic society; there needs to be some consistency here. It's that simple.
Either we are truly evil mass murders who need to be stopped at any cost, or . . .
Maybe the entire rhetorical stance of the pro-life movement, from mass murder and infanticide and the morally transcendent evil of abortion, need to be reconsidered in light of a refusal to act on what seem to me to be the pretty clear moral ramifications of their position.
That is my point. Calling people names, whether it's liberal or baby killer, doesn't stop mass murder. Mass murderers are psychopathic thugs who need to be removed from society. Are pro-choice supporters active supporters of mass murder? That makes us sound like Manson cheerleaders, little swastikas carved in to our foreheads.
I am looking for moral consistency. I am wondering if these folks really believe what they claim to believe. I, for one, have acted on my belief, although the hatred and violence I encountered made me back away at one point.
I actually applaud efforts by any individual or group, sacred or secular, who is willing to do the hard work of working with anyone thinking about abortion and in a non-coercive manner, helps them think through their options. That, too, is consistent with a certain set of moral principles. My problem is certainly not with these folks, or this position, or this practice. It is, rather, with the constant hyperventilation about murdered babies and all that.
I am not "pro-abortion". I am pro-choice. Period. I am not some kind of silent supporter of mass murder. I am a very vocal supporter of a woman's freedom to live her life as a fully realized human being, including making moral and medical choices for herself, even some I might or might not agree with. You frame the issue your way, I'll frame it mine.
I am only taking issue with the way conservatives currently go way over the top on abortion. That's all.
"OMG!!!
I agree with Bubba and 4simpsons.
. . .
I kept the kids in the nursery while the parents attended the Bible Study."
Cool!
"I am a very vocal supporter of a woman's freedom to live her life as a fully realized human being, including making moral and medical choices for herself, even some I might or might not agree with. You frame the issue your way, I'll frame it mine."
You are framing it in direct opposition to several facts:
1. Hard science: The unborn are living human beings.
2. "Freedom to live your life" does not permit killing innocent human beings.
3. Killing others has nothing to do with being "fully realized."
4. Abortion makes a "moral and medical choice" for another human being as well, the one that gets crushed and dismembered.
It is rather ironic that you accuse us of misusing rhetoric and rather nauseating that you pass yourself off as some kind of feminist for being pro-abortion. Gender selection abortions, anyone?
Marty, I'm very glad to see that we don't disagree on everything.
Geoffrey:
I am a very vocal supporter of a woman's freedom to live her life as a fully realized human being, including making moral and medical choices for herself, even some I might or might not agree with.
This isn't an argument for the moral neutrality of abortion. It's sloganeering and a poor substitute for an argument.
It presumes that the mother is the only human involved in the case of abortion, or that she is the only human being with rights: this assumption is precisely the thing that you should argue for rather than paper over.
I assume that you don't think a human being should be free to do literally whatever she wants in terms of moral decisions -- I assume that you agree with the criminalization of theft, fraud, assault, and rape -- so your suggesting that people should be free to make their own moral decisions is so simplistic that it's transparently false. You almost certainly believe that some decisions are immoral, and you almost certainly believe that a subset of these immoral behaviors should be criminalized.
The legality of abortion is a separate but related issue, but I want to focus on the morality.
You seem to believe that abortion is a morally neutral act.
Why? What's your argument?
"Are pro-choice supporters active supporters of mass murder?"
Yes. That's the point of Shiver's piece (or at least one point). You are guilty of the same misuse of words to lessen the impact of what is really happening---to say "pro-choice", when the issue is really "pro-abortion". There are certainly other options besides abortion that are superior morally to it. But "pro-choice" is never supported more strongly and stringently but in the area of abortion. Why bother with it if you indeed believe a human fetus is not a person?
As to violent defense of the unborn, our goal is not to kill anyone ("pro-life", remember?), but to put the focus back where it belongs, which is the lives of the unborn and their sanctity. The rhetoric and tactics of the pro-abortion faction ignores and denies the facts.
"OK, Marty doesn't seem to understand that I am using hyperbole - exaggeration, sarcasm, choose a word - to make a general point about the rhetoric of pro-lifers."
Yeah I understood it and I do see the points you've made. While I would consider myself "pro-life" (which includes being against war and the death penalty), I am supportive of unfettered access to birth control. I would not be opposed to high schools or middle schools passing out condoms or birth control pills to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
"I would not be opposed to high schools or middle schools passing out condoms or birth control pills to prevent unwanted pregnancies."
Another reason to home school.
Passing out condoms implicitly and explicitly tells kids to have sex and to use condoms.
Guess which part they are likely to obey and which part they are likely to ignore or misuse?
Be sure to give them guns with safety switches as well.
Or if you really cared about them, you'd let them know that finishing high school and not having sex outside of marriage virtually guarantees that they won't live in poverty and they'll avoid the trauma of pregnancy , abortion and dieases.
"Passing out condoms implicitly and explicitly tells kids to have sex and to use condoms."
Bull.
Kids who want to have sex are going to have it, I don't care how much you homeschool or educate. Better to have birth control available rather than an unwanted pregnancy which can lead to abortion.
Some kids will have sex no matter what, but one has to be completely and utterly clueless (not to mention un-Biblical) to think that having adults pass out condoms and birth control pill to middle schoolers won't encourage more of the behavior.
"Kids who want to have sex are going to have it, I don't care how much you homeschool or educate."
This is the real BS. I would accept that most kids will want to have sex---at least the boys will---but whether or not they are going to have it is more a factor of upbringing and their resistance to peer pressure. I think we each have slightly different tales of personal experience, but when I was a teen, sex was more a matter of tall tales than actual occurance, even though it was indeed more prevalent than even ten years before. But this was when the idea of moral virtue was really under stress in the "Free Love" 60s. When I was a kid, Rob and Laura Petrie slept in separate beds. Nowadays, we've got "Family Guy". Kids are basically told to have sex by how lax the attitudes of adults has become. Kids are behaving according to the level of expectation placed upon them, or the lack thereof.
This "throw in the towel" attitude of "Kids who want to have sex are going to have it" is far and away more of a reason for the trouble than the kids' own desires and urges which have not changed in the history of mankind.
Well, guys, my idea may be a bit off the charts for you, but so far education and upbringing hasn't done much good to reduce unwanted pregnancies. I've seen enough unmarried teenage girls have baby after baby that I gotta tell ya, I'll gladly pass out the condoms and pills!
Marty,
"...so far education and upbringing hasn't done much good to reduce unwanted pregnancies."
BINGO! Or, more accurately, modern education and upbringing hasn't done much good. How are things different now than in the past? I implied at least the overall loosening of morals over the last 40-50 years. The decision of Roe v Wade has allowed an easy out for those who would have resisted their urges minus this avenue being so available. The culture itself, led by liberal attitudes of sexual expression and modesty (that is, less modesty), have been key in the disintegration of expectations. And the answer you choose---to provide even more enabling devices---only exacerbates the problem.
This answer is this issue's bailout strategy. Rather than demanding kids face the consequences of their actions, you prefer helping them ignore their responsibilities to themselves, their partners, and the children they bear. Condoms may reduce pregnancies, but they don't reduce the cause of them, which is a lack of character and the notion that one can do what one chooses, consequences be damned. Not good for youth, not good for our culture.
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