South Dakota’s 2011 law forcing women to sit through anti-abortion propaganda before aborting a pregnancy just took another scientific hit. A new study in JAMA Psychiatry finds that abortion has no short- or long-term effects on mothers’ mental health:
According to Biggs’s team’s research, women who have abortions are at no risk of developing depression, anxiety, or low self-esteem related to it. However, those who were denied the procedure experienced increased anxiety and lower self-esteem immediately after being turned away [Brandy Zadrozny, “Study: Abortion Doesn’t Harm Women’s Mental Health, But Denying One Does,” The Daily Beast, 2016.12.14].
If you want to harm women, do what South Dakota does: make it harder to get an abortion.
Fortunately, women are tougher than our patronizing Legislature thinks they are:
But by six months to a year, both groups’ mental health and well-being reports had converged—meaning there seems to be no long-term psychological effects of abortion or abortion denial on women.
“Which was a surprise,” [lead author Dr. M. Antonia] Biggs said. “We might have expected more long-term effects, and I think this speaks to how resilient women are and how they manage to cope with their circumstances” [Zadrozny, 2016.12.14].
Our Legislature has ordered doctors to tell women seeking abortions that going through with the procedure may make them depressed and suicidal, in contradiction to the above research and solid past science. Since the Legislature thinks it knows better than women and doctors, the Legislature should amend our misinformed-consent law to include this new research in the doctors’ required spiel: “Ma’am, you won’t suffer psychological harm if you abort this pregnancy, but you may suffer short-term psychological harm if I deny you this abortion.”
South Dakota Republicans have written all sorts of pseudoscience into our state laws. Last year they codified bogus research on fetal pain to justify our new 20-week abortion ban. South Dakota Republicans ignore science and lie to women to subjugate them to state control… the perfect breeding ground for a President like Donald Trump.
Cue Stace Nelson in 3, 2, 1 …….
Facts are stubborn things. When you refuse to listen to scientists, doctors, and actual people that go through this —– I don’t know what to say.
The small gov’t people sure want alot of big gov’t in their lives and bodies when it goes against their personal beliefs. Personal beliefs are fine. Ignoring facts? DANGEROUS
Science isn’t on the side of the abortion industry, on any issue related to it– including fetal pain. The abortion industry fights every exposure of modern science to pregnant women and the flourish when women are told no more than we knew medically and scientifically in 1973.
And to say abortion doesn’t hurt women is callous to the many women who say abortion did hurt them, badly. A friend told me it wasn’t until she was teaching kindergarten five years later that she had the thought that her child would have been five by that time. It uncorked a long season of grief and remorse and her take is that many women simply live a long time in denial. She told me she once woke up panicked and frantically looking all over her bed for her baby and in her words… then remembered she had killed it.
This isn’t about personal beliefs. It’s about people, human beings– woman and the biological human being within them. And to reduce a woman only to the biological… “abortion doesn’t physically hurt them” (though that too is disputable) is an offensive minimisation of the whole person; she is also a spiritual being with deep innate psychological and emotional ties to her baby, and not just a physical being.
You all are very right to chide the pro-life camp with their inconsistent life ethic as it relates to the death penalty. But you need to rethink your own inconsistency and start championing the value of human life in all it’s diversity.
Meanwhile, the witch hunt for Red ‘Planned Parenthood’ October is on again. Dumb cluck Chuck is making a case for racist Jeff Sessions to investigate PP selling baby parts-the videos that have been debunked over and over again. Apparently investigating treason by these same wingnuts isn’t enough of a crime to look into. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/15/gop-on-planned-parenthood-shut-em-down.html
Drumpf sez his scotus nominee will be ready on coronation day. The one wingnuts whined about not needing when the Black guy fulfilled his constitutional obligation by nominating an over qualified judge that Orin Hatch just loved to death and suggested Obama pick this guy.
Hickey, for the upteen millionth time a woman’s choice to have or not have an abortion is none of your business, nor the business of any wingnut nut jobs. It is just none of your business.
The results of this study do not surprise me. The effort to see unborn babies as simply “tissue” and not as persons has been in effect for quite a while. It is a natural consequence that a person will feel bad if they kill (or want to kill) another person. In fact, we should be concerned if a person has no qualms about killing other people. Solution? Convince them that who they are killing is not a person. This has worked with abortion and with warfare.
Dehumanizing the other side numbs the proper responses we should have, and we continue on with the destructive behavior (whether it be road rage, internet rage, or treating service workers like crap).
I am glad that studies like this are being done though, I do not like bad science out there, and our legislature should not be basing law off of bad science.
Ah, someone else said it better than I could. Our anti-choice legislators are actually “Sinners judging sinners for sinning differently.” What we need instead is major plank removal legislation. Matthew 7:5.
at a democrat meeting where the three speakers were young women who were totally pro choice and advocating women’s rights, the person next to me who knew I was pro life asked me what I thought about abortion. I said that the only problem with abortion is that it kills the kids. An older very liberal woman who had seen abortion become legal and knew many women, told the three young women to not think about it as killing babies or kids because ‘those are the ones that commit suicide.’ That was a voice of experience, she maybe had not counted but she had met them. So this type of research in this article is not going for truth but to try to stop women from committing suicide.
NO BABIES HAVE BEEN KILLED. Saying they have is “manipulative propaganda”. JAMA PSYCHIATRY is true and verified science. A preacher with “control over women issues” is just making things up. What happened in his past to conceive Hickey’s character fault is not worth exploring. It’s not a baby until it’s born and God blesses him or her with a soul. Until birth the mother’s rights, choices and desires are paramount. PS … as many lies as you’ve told publicly Hickey, your anecdotes are unbelievable hearsay, invalid in scope and just plain exaggeration.
I’ll not overwhelm your argument again with facts and common sense, as I have so many times before. LWIY (last word is yours) Joe Nelson: there’s no such thing as an “unborn baby”. It’s not a life until it’s born. Human cells reproduce before you’re a life and human cells reproduce after you’re a corpse. Pro-Life is merely a fraudulent attempt to control strong women.
I have known many women that have had abortions and did not experience any grief or PTSD whatsoever.
Saying that all women are going to be traumatized over having an abortion is simply not true. Yes, some will be, but let’s not oversimplify women and put them all into the same pile. I know men want to control this issue, but there are many women that for whatever reason, do not feel any attachment to a fetus she’s carrying.
Really, all one needs to do is take a look around and see all the children that are being raised by grandparents, in the foster system, and by abusive parents should be enough to tell you the answer that there are a heckuva lot of people that have children and could care less about them.
Jenny you are correct not all women will be traumatized. Not all murderers feel any remorse. That still doesn’t make abortion or murder right.
Saying that all women are going to be traumatized over having an abortion is simply not true.
It will be if wingnuts are allowed to verbally assault women 24/7 with wingnut propaganda and lies about a fetus can feel this or a fetus can do that at this age.
If only someone removed a plank or two from the arc. there wouldn’t be any dinosaurs today for jeebus to ride on.
Joe Nelson, I noticed how fast wingnuts went from calling abortion murder to calling thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths “collateral damage”.
bcb, no bunny explains stuff as patiently and as calmly as you do.
I’d be willing to support making abortion illegal if there were guarantees that no child in the richest country in the world would be without healthcare and would get the nutritious food they need to thrive at an affordable price.
It’s very hypocritical for the SD GOP to be against Medicaid expansion. Isn’t that called anti-life, Porter and MFI? It would be so very pro-life, like the democrats, to support it and it would be taking care of SDs most innocent – it’s poor children.
It’s all about control, control, control. They get upset when Dems try to get some reasonable gun control on the table and are deadest against even talking about it, but when it comes to pregnant women, they need to control them and their medical decision.
This country doesn’t even take decent care of the millions of poor children it has now.
Well, your current president, Barry Bamz Barack, who will be president for just a little bit longer, is doing what he can to keep Planned Parenthood up and running, by issuing a new rule that says states cannot deny federal family planning moneys to the organization, simply because they feel like it. The LOL part is that the new rule takes effect on January 18, two whole days before Pussgrab McSpraytan takes office.
Read more at http://wonkette.com/609428/obama-saves-planned-parenthood-from-trumps-grabby-hands-at-least-for-a-minute#ZdG1xAKuPE8byWDI.99
Science now asserts that women who’ve heeded the harmful advice of SoDak law and had a baby when they’d previously chosen to abort have been psychologically harmed. Brings to mind three little words. CLASS ACTION SUIT
Murder is unlawful and is not a constitutional right, while a woman does have a longstanding constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy that has gone wrong or is unwanted.
How does a woman’s constitutional right to privacy on the issue, which has been the law of our land since 1973 due to a 7-2 SCOTUS ruling by a strong majority Republican court, affect MC’s analysis? Does the commission of a lawful act require remorse to make it right?
And how does passing laws that require providers to make false statements to women when they seek to obey the law and exercise their constitutional right to decide whether to carry a pregnancy to term fit into the analysis about making it right?
Yeah, it’s not like they are babies or anything.
They are just fetuses. They do nothing, just sit there, growing, are rather ugly and stupid as heck.
They threaten the woman’s health with their constant growing and moving around.
Can’t do anything for anyone, are just a drag on the woman’s system.
Let’s kill them by cutting them up into pieces and flushing the pieces down the drain.
Wait, why waste all that great material?
Let’s sell it and use it for helping some real human beings who can be useful and productive members of society.
Ol’ Heidelberger could use a few injections of fetal tissue to make those bothersome crow’s feet disappear and give him a little more pep in his step.
Those who don’t like the constitution can always make a sack out of it and put it over their heads so they won’t have to look at legal stuff.
tim, your sarcasm is clear, but raises important questions. Do you feel your description describes all abortion situations? Even including late term abortions in which the fetus cannot survive birth or has already died in utero? How about ectopic pregnancies? How about pregnant women who are diagnosed with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, HIV or AIDS?
It seems one can believe he has chosen the only strong and moral position when he argues that we need to protect innocent babies from being slaughtered, only if he closes his mind to the context or the actual circumstances a woman faces that affect her most personal and difficult decision.
Can you acknowledge that every single pregnant woman in the country (or world for that matter) is a unique individual with her own unique set of challenges to deal with?
I miss Stace. Not!
I am not just pro-life or pro-birth, I am pro-family. That means every child has a mother AND a father, who work together as a team, and taking some responsibility for raising a family
That means working with other community families to provide education, by serving on the school board, city council, or county commission.
That means working to help pay for medical care or working for a company that has family health insurance. It means paying your bills when they are due.
Gentlemen need to step up to the plate as well. It is not just to the ladies to raise your kids. If you produce offspring, you are responsible for that off spring, until your dying breath. Don’t think you can just pay a few dollars and you’re off the hook, no! you have to give up your time. You have to sit through 13 years of concerts at the school. You have go to school board meetings. You have to get up at 2AM and change the diaper. Unless you’re ready to get married and raise a family, do not try to get her pregnant.
Ladies, stop acting like the victim. You know who got you pregnant. Name him! Hold him to his responsibility. It not your job to raise kids all by yourself. Don’t let the government raise your kids. Just look at the Indian reservation and what a great job they did there. Unless you are willing to accept the responsibility of being a parent, don’t get pregnant. That is the best way to prevent abortions.
My apologies to Mr. Heidelberger for going off topic with my rant.
Every day 106,646 South Dakotan’s face hunger. 1 in 5 children actually go hungry in South Dakota. I care more about the living than the non living. Sorry about that dudes and dudettes, but that is how I roll. Last I looked, there was this piece of paper called the Constitution that is the law of the land. Under the Fourteenth Amendment (Civil Rights) Roe v Wade falls under that protection. It is kind of ironic that it falls just after the Thirteenth Amendment, the Abolition of slavery. I would argue that by not allowing women the civil rights of due process under the 14th, you put them directly into what the 13th was to prevent, enslavement.
“Just look at the Indian reservation and what a great job they did there”. MC
I personally resent that comment, my parents, both Indian, worked all their lives to raise a family of 6 children and worked even harder to provide a true family unit. Most of the kids I was raised with came from basically the same kind of family I did.
The government does not raise Indian children, their parents do.
Parents that need help get it from difference forms of social services, the same services provided to whites in the same situation off the reservation.
This week is the Lakota Nation Invitational basketball tournament in Rapid City. There are 1,000’s of Indian and white kids competing in basketball, volleyball, Indian powwows and cultural games. These Indian kids are accomplished in sports and academic achievement and surely weren’t raised by the government. Many come from families that teach at the school or whose Mom or Dad are school administrators. Once again, these parents are accomplished and involved in their children’s lives.
MC, before you present another stupid stereotype do some research, or better yet, talk to an Indian that has knowledge of the truth.
Cory, I’m sorry for going off topic, but I can not allow MC to disrespect the Lakota people.
Oh, heck, MC just had to say murder. Bearcreekbat neatly disposed of that fallacy; I’ll simply add the question I’m sure you all can see coming: MC, if abortion is murder, then why aren’t you advocating life sentences or the death penalty for women who have abortions?
MC does work really hard to distract us from the full import of this study, a direct refutation of one of the pseudoscientific claims his party has used to foist demeaning restrictions on South Dakota women who are trying to exercise the constitutional rights. Women aren’t murderers. They aren’t criminals deserving punishment. They aren’t weak-willed simpletons requiring the SDGOP’s patronizing guidance and control. And they aren’t putting their mental health at risk by exercising their constitutional right to make their own decisions about their pregnancies.
MC, you have to be careful going off topic. You’ll end up saying things that will get you thumped by Roger. I don’t need to add anything to Roger’s correction; MC, you might want to add your apology and retraction.
bearcreekbat:
I appreciate the nuanced approach you take, and all the context, so we don’t get stuck on some “need to protect innocent babies from being slaughtered”
so, OK. Let’s just abort the ones that aren’t innocent, aren’t babies,and let’s not slaughter them, for gad’s sake…. let’s just abort ’em.
There, now we all feel better.
excuuuuse me.
Just make sure you get all the fingers and toes, cause those little bastards can really make a mess.
and recycle, for sure.
Cory writes:
Cory and I discussed this several months ago:
https://dakotafreepress.com/2016/06/27/supreme-court-throws-out-texas-abortion-clinic-restrictions/
He abandoned that discussion here:
https://dakotafreepress.com/2016/06/27/supreme-court-throws-out-texas-abortion-clinic-restrictions/#comment-50789
He brought up the same argument a little over a month later:
https://dakotafreepress.com/2016/08/07/why-im-pro-life-and-pro-choice-in-fifty-words/#comment-54689
I replied here:
https://dakotafreepress.com/2016/08/07/why-im-pro-life-and-pro-choice-in-fifty-words/#comment-54724
My reply included recommended reading:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/221742/one-untrue-thing-nro-symposium
Did you read the National Review article, Cory? If so, why do you keep bringing up the same argument as if evangelical Christians have never addressed it?
Porter,
Sorry for such a late response.
The term “unborn baby” is frequently used. “Unborn” is listed in the Merriam-Webster Medical dictionary, and if you do a search of the cdc.gov website for “unborn baby”, you will get many hits.
But you bring up a theological point, and assert “It’s not a baby until it’s born and God blesses him or her with a soul.” I am curious if this is just a belief that you hold, or if there is a Church or worship community you belong to that makes this assertion.
Mr. Nelson … Thank you for our curiosity about womens rights however I doubt your dedication to the discovery. My beliefs come from my Protestant background which precedes any born-again, evangelical SoDak group by at least a hunded years. We are also the first if not only church to recognize gay marriage in the state of South Dakota. United Church of Christ aka The Congregational Church aka The Pilgrim’s Church. But pro womens rights needs no group. Human rights are defined in the USA Constitution. Surprised you overlook them on this issue, pilgrim.
Kurt, I bring the argument up to MC because I want to see if the Rep-Elect has dealt with it coherently.
In response to Kurt’s required reading (good grief: seventeen authors?)—and let’s remember, the point of contention here is MC’s analogy of abortion and murder:
Arkes’s response is again patronizing and undermines the idea that women act with moral agency equivalent to a man’s. When Arkes says the point of an abortion ban is to teach a moral lesson, Arkes admits my point, that anti-abortionists are not placing the life of a fetus on the same level as the life of a human being for the killing of which the law exacts a life sentence or the death penalty. While Arkes says the law “makes a prudent and tempered choice when it makes the abortionist the target of its censure and brings solely upon him [!!!] the weight of the punishment,” Arkes commits the same avoidance as MC and others, since the law does not put the abortionist in prison for life or in the death chamber.
Bordlee claims “How much jail time?” is a desperate question. Bordlee is projecting: the question makes her feel desperate, because she has no good answer. How much jail time is, from a lawmaking question, an essential question. We don’t go to Pierre to bluster, “Oh, this is bad!” We go to Pierre to ask, “How bad is it?” and decide the state’s proper practical response. That’s why we have the schedule of misdemeanors and felonies, because we say some crimes are worse than others and warrant greater fines and sentences. Bordlee then dissolves into emotion and sensationalism, conjuring gory images of partial-birth abortions and then resorting to more bogus science and patronizing.
Dannenfelser says there is no drive to punish women who have abortions for murder, but she doesn’t answer why not. She says abortion is a “tragic situation” that we must handle with “sensitivity,” a statement that we rarely if ever apply when speaking of someone who has committed murder.
De Solenni avoids the question, indulging in calling abortion murder but not explaining why.
Dellapenna accepts the patronizing attitude, saying “the attitude of the man is the most important in the women’s decision to have an abortion.” If we said the same of an actual murder—”Mrs. Smith killed her neighbor because her husband was having an affair with Mrs. Smith”—we’d still throw the murderer in prison. Dellapenna doesn’t believe abortion is murder; instead, he likens it to recreational drug use. Even in that analogy, he uses the term “criminalize” to say what we do to doctors and other evil abortion-industry profiteers, but he does not address whether “murder” is the proper term for those profiteers’ action.
Forsythe gives us a history lesson and tells us what is. He does not explain why abortion is murder.
Franck says his side has been too busy to address whether abortion is murder. He avoids the question himself, hiding only behind the idea of using punishment to reduce crime, which does not address whether abortion bans without murder-level punishments have ever reduced abortions. He leaves the door open to punishing women with “stronger laws” if mere bans don’t do the trick. But he leaves this fundamental question open: if a woman is determined to have an abortion, and if shaming her, pumping her full of lies, creating punitive delays, and running legal clinics out of business aren’t going to stop her, at what point does her action become straight murder, and at what point do we treat her in court as a murderer? Ever? No answer from Franck.
Garnett talks deterrence and moral grandstanding, but he doesn’t say abortion is murder. His advocacy for mere moral expression shows it is not.
Hansen says anti-abortion folks “don’t relish the idea of anyone being thrown in jail.” Ah, that explains the rush to decriminalize drug use and dealing in the South Dakota Legislature… not. Hansen hides behind the idea disproven by the above research that women regret their abortions, and that regret is punishment enough. Ah, such circularity: I think abortion is bad, and I’m absolutely right, so every woman who has an abortion will eventually come to agree with me. She says women who have abortions need support and resources, something we never say about murderers. Hansen doesn’t support MC’s rhetoric; instead, she explicitly dodges the question we’re asking: “It would be more productive to discuss how to reduce abortion by providing help to women in need rather than speculate about the future.”
Hendershott shouts “My side’s winning!” but doesn’t answer the question. She wants to reverse Roe v. Wade and send the discussion back to the states but says nothing to help us figure out whether it would be correct for states to treat abortion as murder.
Long patronizes women and avoids the question of punishing abortion providers for murder.
Mathewes-Green thinks ending the “abortion business” will “end abortion.” She doesn’t say what happens when women keep having abortions, or whether that’s murder worth punishing.
McClusky goes ad hominem on Anna Quindlen (“smug… socialite”), says it’s never appropriate to punish the woman, but doesn’t say what sort of punishment ought be meted out to the abortionist.
New says nothing to the question of abortion as murder.
Ponnuru says anti-abortion premises “do not require (or, for that matter, preclude) criminal penalties for these women. They do not even require (or preclude) criminal penalties for the abortionist.” That sentence informs this debate not one whit.
Snead says punish abortionists, not women, but does not explain what the punishment should be. If we’re so sure that the abortionists bear all the blame for “snuffing out a human life” (again, pretty clear language of horror), why aren’t we clear on saying, “Lock ’em up, throw away the key”?
Weber says some women abort “for truly despicable reasons.” O.K., then in those situations, does Weber call for Class A felony treatment of those women? Weber does not say.
Not one of those seventeen responders offers ground on which MC can analogize abortion to murder. Abortion is not murder; the use of the word murder to promote an abortion ban is dishonest hyperbole.
What’s the penalty for trying to penalize a constitutional right? And can that best be addressed by executing right wing nut jobs?
Tim, Let’s sell it and use it for helping some real human beings who can be useful and productive members of society.
Got proof? Why pick on Cory? He is just as unlikely as you or me to ever have an abortion. If you don’t want one, accuse HRC of being a crook.
Joe, this is essentially a tenet of Judism based on the explicit language in the Torah or old Testament:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2582082/
Since this view is based on language from the Bible other religions and people who believe in the Bible but don’t belong to any particular religious group may share this reading of the Bible.
Right on, BCB. Everytime I say this it brings out the fundamentalist extremists. The Old Testament is a historical account of why Jesus was needed to rid the world of the “eye for an eye” paradigm.
Perhaps some light can be shed on the abortion as murder argument by considering how the States in our Country classified the crime of committing an illegal abortion before the Roe v. Wade decision.
I have linked a lengthy scholarly article from Yale that analyzes the state of the law and various arguments before the Roe v. Wade decision. A search of the term “murder” found many hits, yet none I saw referenced any state law defining abortion as murder. A lot of people argued it should be considered murder, but as best I can tell it never has been classified as murder in this Country.
http://documents.law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/BeforeRoe2ndEd_1.pdf
I may have missed such a law, but this pro-life, anti-abortion opinion piece comes to the same conclusion with fairly detailed analysis and citations to sources, It states:
http://www.lifenews.com/2016/03/31/when-abortion-was-illegal-women-were-not-jailed-for-having-abortions-heres-why/
The “abortion is murder” arguments may be necessary to justify the forcible subjugation of women, but these arguments are based on an individual’s feelings and simply have no basis in historical fact in the USA. Unless Trump’s post-fact world controls, Cory wins this argument hands down.
Oh my oh my – are all/most of these comments coming from the male species – the necessary other half that produces a pregnancy? – where oh where are they in supporting their child born from probably a quick spirt of joy? Please dear God, let all of these “pro-lifers” accept a child or children from a planned abortion and nurture and raise them as their own – no government assistance allowed (e.g., food stamps, housing etc) – WOMEN AND THEIR DOCTORS, THEIR PARTNERS, THEIR GOD, ARE VERY CAPABLE OF DECIDING ISSUES CONCERNING THE WOMAN’S BODY AND HER FUTURE MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH – abortion must be an excruciating decision for all involved so let’s minimize it’s necessity – make birth control/family planning methods, scientific information, male responsibility, etc, available everywhere – reduce unwanted children before conception! – men stop whining about unplanned pregnancies and pay up!
bcb, your views are spot on. The problem is not that these men are against abortion, they simply are against women. These men are scared to death of women and their mystery’s, that is why they are so ashamed when a woman drags out a teat to feed the kid. They are also afraid of the cycle of life each month that happens, and if they could, they would call that abortion as well. The good book they rob from also tells of its support of abortion very clearly. These fellers should take gals to a dance or something, hang around them and have some coffee or a couple of beers. Get to know the ladies and you will not feel so cowardly. Hey, it’s Friday night, go out and mingle you spooky tooth’s.
I will not retract my statements.
We are all just a little different and can handle stress differently, some are better than others
Not every solider returning from combat will suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Not every arsonist will feel remorse for burning down their neighbor’s house.
Not every driver will be traumatized by snow on the roadways
Not every thief will feel guilty about taking something that doesn’t belong to them
Not every murder will remorse for killing someone
Not every gun carrying teacher will feel the need to shoot and kill students in their classroom
Not every animal abuser will feel horrible about kicking a dog, drowning a cat, or burning a rat.
Not everyone who has witness the death of a loved one will feel the need to commit suicide
Not everyone will faint at the sight of blood.
Not every woman will be traumatized by the idea of abortion.
And that is okay.
However, I have to ask why are we concerned just about the mothers? Is it possible for the father to be traumatized? The over concern about the woman’s well-being throws the fathers under the bus. Yes, women have used their pregnancies, and threaten to terminate them to control the father. For me this is not good.
The best way to avoid this is to pick your partners carefully. Instead of trying to control them or manipulate them, how about working with them as partners to raise the child.
Mc is in the nog already today.
Porter Lansing had written:
Joe Nelson writes:
“Bearcreekbat” writes:
The first chapter of Matthew says Mary was “with child” during her pregnancy. For a child in the womb, the breath of his or her mother is essential to life.
Cory writes:
I’d said recommended reading, not required, but thanks for taking the time.
Cory asks:
Your question draws me back to our unfinished discussion from July, Cory: When a scared 18-year-old deliberately kills her premature newborn by leaving him or her in a dumpster, would you say that’s murder?
MC
Read Cory’s comment again, he did not suggest you retract or apologize for your comment on abortion.
Old white guys…thinkin hard, makin godly decisions, layin down the LAW for those sinful little girls.
The first chapter of Matthew says Mary was “with child” during her pregnancy. For a child in the womb, the breath of his or her mother is essential to life.
~ If Jesus didn’t say it, it’s not gospel. It’s hearsay translated from Greek in order to make an emotional impact and help garner donations to the church. Yes, Curt. I’m saying everything in the Bible isn’t true. That fundamentalists, like yourself, NEED for it to be is your personal cross to bear. (pun intended)
Exodus 21:22-25 describes a case where a pregnant woman jumps into a fight between her husband and another man and suffers injuries that cause her to miscarry. Injuries to the woman prompt the normal penalties for harming another human being: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Killing the woman is murder, a capital crime.
The miscarriage is treated differently, however — as property loss, not murder. The assailant must pay a fine to the husband. The law of a life for a life does not apply. The fetus is important, but it’s not human life in the same way the pregnant woman is.
Holy cow! MC not only dodges the question behind his irresponsible likening of abortion to murder, but now he throws in the male-victim card? Good grief—I guess Trumpism makes Republican men think they can say anything.
There is no over-concern about pregnant women’s well-being that is putting their impregnators at some horrible moral or political disadvantage. And it is either hilarious or outrageous that a male Republican legislator who makes excuses for Legislative attempts to control women, based on debunked scientific claims, complains about women trying to control men.
Not murder. The girl’s mental state is exculpatory evidence. One could argue a case for suing right wing scare mongers for making her feel that way.
Kurt raises an excellent point – there are many ways to interpret the myriad of verses from the Bible (as well as different versions and translations) and people can have good faith differences in what religion they practice.
Another argument supported by a Biblical verse is that life begins before pregnancy! “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 NIV. No wonder Onan got in so much trouble for spilling his seed. Genesis 38:8-10.
BCB … That biblical quote is referring to Jeremiah’s spirit. It has nothing to do with when a life begins.
Porter, just to be clear I don’t believe in spirits or souls. But even assuming for the sake of argument that a “spirit” exists can we distinguish “life” from “spirit?” Doesn’t the whole concept of a “spirit” imply some sort of living entity, whether disembodied or residing in an actual body? If not, how would one define “spirit” outside the concept of “life?”
In this instance, God is talking about what his/her plans for Jeremiah are. I used spirit not as a living entity but as an concept or a central paradigm in God’s plan. Spirits as ghosts? Not so much for me either. You have a spirit, also. It may be a spirit of love or a spirit of giving or a spirit of hope.
COURSE CORRECTION!!! Controversial subjects like abortion often stray from the original subject.
It’s a very important subject. South Dakota law is harming women and it could lead to a huge lawsuit against the seven states that discriminate in this way.
~ South Dakota’s 2011 law forcing women to sit through anti-abortion propaganda before aborting a pregnancy just took another scientific hit. A new study in JAMA Psychiatry finds that abortion has no short- or long-term effects on mothers’ mental health:
Thanks, that definition of “spirit” helps to clarify your comment, yet raises more theological dilemmas for those who attempt to correctly interpret the Bible.
Did God’s “plan” already include this particular individual human Jeremiah, or was it a flexible plan that would accept any human, who God intended to name Jeremiah once conceived and born? And this raises further complications – did God know who Jeremiah’s parents and grandparents were before they were conceived? If so, then on the abortion issue can it be argued that God already knows who will be aborted and has actually required this act based on his prior omniscient knowledge of his plan?
And finally and most profoundly, if we are known by the omniscient as “life” before conception and necessarily remembered by the omniscient as “life” after our bodies stop breathing, aren’t we living eternally after all? If so, then under that Biblical analysis abortion cannot terminate a life, and no one should be punished for doing something they have no control over due to God’s plan.
Porter, you are right. I didn’t see your last comment before posting my theological post. I doubt it, but perhaps some anti-choice folks might reconsider these crazy fake restrictions if they understood they were interfering with God’s plan.
Kurt, killing a newborn is generally recognized as murder. Mitigating circumstances may lead the state’s attorney not to prosecute or the jury not to convict or the judge not to sentence to the maximum penalty.
But as Porter reminds us, no Bible verses or other text reverses the conclusion we may draw from the new JAMA study and lots of other science: South Dakota abortion restrictions are based on falsehoods.
Cory had asked:
I’d asked:
Cory replies:
Yes it is. Would you personally say it’s murder?
Kurt, your question to Cory shows confusion experienced by many folks who want to argue that abortion is murder. A personal definition of any crime, including murder, is not possible because such crimes are defined by our governing laws not our personal opinions. Statutes that we enact define crimes and juries of our peers decide whether the behavior in question is covered by the relevant statute.
I’d asked Cory:
“Bearcreekbat” writes:
Is “bearcreekbat” accurately expressing your opinion, Cory? Would you agree with his argument that deliberately killing another person is never murder unless the government says it is? And since the government says deliberately killing a premature newborn is murder, would you also say it’s murder?
Kurt Evans, how many times you been pregnant?
Kurt Evans, why are you so against the 14th Amendment to the Constitution? Are you against all of the laws? What about the 13th Amendment? Feelings towards that?
Kurt Evans … can we assume that you’re either writing a book about Cory or you have some revelatory “gotcha moment” planned with this line of questioning? Get to it, pilgrim. Until then, address the fact that nowhere in the bible is a fetus equal to a life. Start with explaining Exodus 21:22-25 where a fetus is explicitly described as not a life. Don’t assert the instances where the Greek for fetus was wrongly translated as a “child” in an attempt to bolster your false assertion. Here’s another one to explain. http://www.libchrist.com/other/abortion/exodus.html
Unfortunately, I think a lot of this boils down to a disagreement over person hood.
If a unborn baby is a person, then ending its life is murder, albeit state-sanctioned murder (akin to capital punishment or assisted suicide)
If an unborn baby is just a collection of tissue, than discarding the tissue is nothing more than discarding a Kleenex tissue.
What makes a person a person? Should this hinge on the birth process? On mere location? Do some recognizable cognitive abilities need to be present? Does the fetus need sense organs and a brain to be considered a person?
Dehumanizing and devaluing others has always led to horrible atrocities against humans, whether the person be of a different race, gender, creed, et cetrera….to include whether one has been born.
All persons have the basic right of bodily integrity, in so far that they do not impede on the basic right of bodily integrity of other persons. Unfortunately, abortion affects the body and bodily integrity of the baby (certain death) far more than it does the woman.
Bonus related fun fact about bodily integrity; necrophilia is completely legal in South Dakota.
Mr. Nelson. You’re again trying to misdirect the thread for the purpose of misleading the readers. Your non-response is in line with the other five times the assertion that “babies are being killed” has been fully refuted on the blog. First was Schoenbeck (three years ago), then Hickey, then Deutsch, then Stace Nelson, then Evans and now you. Let it be known to women in South Dakota. It’s not a life until it’s born and God blesses him or her with a soul. Human cells reproduce before you’re a life and human cells reproduce after you’re a corpse.
What’s paramount in the discussion is that South Dakota law, along with seven other states, is directly responsible for harm to women. Especially women who’ve been fraudulently persuaded by false lecturing to change their mind and have a child they’ve already decided they’re not in a position to take care of.
Mr. Lansing, if I were a fellow who didn’t believe that God already drown in a bowl of cereal, to your last comment I’d say “Amen.”
Mr. Nelson, I would ask do you believe in the 14 Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, yes or no.
Mr. Lansing,
Misdirect? non-response? This comments thread has taken many turns, and I simply adding to the conversation by introducing the concept if person hood. I suggest possible philosophical/ethical questions to be pondered.
You believe that life does not begin until God blesses the tissue with a soul. You give no rational arguments for this; it is just something that you believe. Since there is no scientific evidence of a soul, nor does SD law address the human soul, I do not think that discussing ensoulment has much bearing on this conversation, not on whether an unborn baby has a right to life or a woman has the right to an abortion.
I do not think women should be harmed, and as I said in my first comment, I am glad that bad science is being debunked. I truly think that our laws should be based on fact and on sound reasoning.
Jerry, yes I do believe in the 14th Amendment.
Well stated Porter. I will just add that the phrase “state-sanctioned murder” is a meaningless (but potential harmful) oxymoron. A common definition of murder is:
“the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.”
The addition of the term “unlawful” necessarily means the killing is not state sanction. Once the state sanctions the killing it is no longer “murder.” Most states call sanctioned killings “justifiable homicide.”
Words matter. That is the whole point Cory has made in this thread. Lies are lies no matter how pure the intent. Lies that hurt women are wrong and should be avoided. Lies that claim a lawful abortion is “murder” are lies that lead some people to feel justified in bombing clinics or murdering doctors and nurses.
Personally defining “murder” contrary to the legal definition confuses some of the violently inclined among to the point where they think they should take the law as personally defined into their own hands. Words matter.
If you believe in the 14th Amendment, then why are you trying to dilute it with arguments that have long been settled decades ago? You may not agree with the 14th Amendment but it is the law. There are many people who do not believe in the 2nd Amendment either and there are certainly more mental health problems associated with that than the questions of the 14th.
Me, I believe in them both. I strongly support all Amendments in the Constitution, all of them.
bcb, quire right! Linguistics and defining are of paramount importance! Here is our SD definition of homicide.
And here is the bit about fetal homicide.
And more!
In fact, “unborn child” is included in almost all of the definitions of the various homicides.
So is abortion murder? According to the law, it is if the pregnant woman does not consent. If she does, than it is not. Hmm, so if it is legal, does it make it moral? And here we reach another sticking point. Is it possible that our laws are bad? We all know of examples in recent history of laws passed that are flat out bad (interracial marriage, for example).
Mr. Lansing and jerry, it would seem our SD laws recognize unborn children as alive and human beings, and even outlines how such human beings can be murdered.
I am not diluting this conversation by asking about personhood. Rather, may I suggest that 14th amendment rights should be extended to unborn children? Our laws grant protection to non-citizens, such as illegal immigrants, so an unborn child being or not being a citizen should hopefully not matter. But what f we suggested that an unborn child of American citizens, or any unborn child on US soil is considered a citizen until such time as they are not (such as being born somewhere else), and are therefore extended all the right so fa citizen, including the right to life?
To clarify my statement “We all know of examples in recent history of laws passed that are flat out bad (interracial marriage, for example).”, I am of course referring to the fact that it was very bad that interracial marriage was illegal, and a very good thing when those bad laws were overturned.
Joe, thanks for the statutory cites. Although the frequent mention of an “unborn child” in the homicide statutes can be confusing, I think the key language is “without authority of law” just as I suggested above. Abortions performed according to law cannot be “without authority of law” so they simply are not within the statutory definition of murder.
Our Country has had, currently has, and will have in the future, some bad or immoral laws and Constitutional provisions. To our great credit we have frequently made changes for the better and hopefully will do so in the future. What language might you propose to alter a woman’s fundamental right to determine whether to carry a dangerous or unwanted pregnancy to term?
As for laws that protect classes of people, they only go so far. They don’t invade the bodily integrity of anyone, nor allow any single member of the protected class to invade or use the bodily integrity of another person. Making the fetus a citizen and a protected class does not solve your problem, as it still has no legal right to invade or use an unwilling person’s body. My “right to life” does not extend to the right to invade or use another person’s body against his or her will even if I can show I need it to survive. A fetus “right to life” is no different, A fetus would need a “right to subjugate” another human to stop a woman from removing it from her body, which raises 13th Amendment problems for the fetus.
Or more recently, Mr. Nelson, that IM #22 thing. It is a very very bad law, sloppily written and with no regard for South Dakotans who were hoodwinked by big money from out-of-state who just wanted to experiment on our low-information voters.
It is a very good thing it will likely soon be smitten down by the judges and the legislatures or the public who voted for it will be taxed.
Well stated gents. I do really think that the 13th Amendment could be argued with success regarding status. You know, those barristers that put all of the details into these amendments, articles and just general law, were and are quite special. In North Carolina as we write and read these posts, there is a complete breakdown of what happens when one party chooses to ignore the reality of law by forcibly disregarding the rule of law of election results.
Citing the harm to the mother induced by South Dakota’s onerous law, a court could easily rule that the state must pay the entire cost of raising the child and at least $20 million in punitive damages to the mother.
~ The pertinent question is now, Should SoDak law be changed immediately or should women continue to be harmed by the law negligently?
bcb,
What language might you propose to alter a woman’s fundamental right to determine whether to carry a dangerous or unwanted pregnancy to term?
Excellent question! I would probably start by asserting that a unborn baby’s right to life and bodily integrity trumps a woman’s right to bodily integrity, based on the fact that pregnancy is not a disease, like cancer or a parasitic organism, not is is a hijacking of the body. Pregnancy is the one and only way that every human being enters into this world, where a woman is no longer just a single organism, but engendering another human life.
As far as the nitty gritty of legislative language, sweet Christmas, I’d want to talk to more lawyers and congress persons to develop that.
You raise many good points here, that my above discussion on the uniqueness of pregnancy hopefully addresses. An unborn baby does not invade a woman, nor does he or she make undue demands upon the woman. This is perhaps where we need to bring up the duty of a pregnant woman to protect the unborn child. For example, your right to life only extends as far as the law instills in me and all others the duty to not kill you.
There’s no such thing as an unborn baby and just because a state says there is means nothing. It’s just a case waiting to be struck down by Roe vs Wade. If an abortion is killing a baby then why isn’t murder charged to the mother or the abortion doctor? Because there’s no such thing as an unborn baby. It’s not a life until it’s born, legally. If however an arrogant accuser continues with the harmful assertion that unborn babies are being murdered then what would be the penalty for such an action, Mr. Nelson? Hmmmmm? How much prison time should the accused murderer be given? Or should it be a death for a death?
Joe, I don’t think this is quite correct, at least in a Constitutional sense – “your right to life only extends as far as the law instills in me and all others the duty to not kill you.” The Constitutional right to life is a limitation on the power of the government to kill me, but it doesn’t limit private actors. I have no Constitutional right to not be killed by you. Your freedom to kill me is restricted by state and/or federal statutes, not the Constitution.
And that is what I was trying to get at – my right to life does not authorize me to take or use another person’s body parts. If you unlawfully shoot me and damage my kidney, I cannot use the law to force you to give me a kidney transplant.
Your proposals are intriguing. I cannot think of another law, however, that identifies one class of citizens and allows that class to trump another classes right to bodily integrity. That could arguably violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
I think you would need a Constitutional Amendment declaring that neither the 13th nor the 14th Amendment apply to pregnant women. This still would allow her many privileges while giving local, state and federal governments full authority to monitor her progress and even take temporary custody, if necessary, of her for the purposes of protecting the unborn and making whatever health care decisions for the woman that are believed to be in the public interest.
Would you support such a Constitutional Amendment?
COURSE CORRECTION!!! Controversial subjects like abortion often stray from the original subject and those against women’s rights are mostly the cause, using distraction to move away from the facts .
It’s a very important subject. South Dakota law is harming women and it could lead to a huge lawsuit against the seven states that discriminate in this way.
~ South Dakota’s 2011 law forcing women to sit through anti-abortion propaganda before aborting a pregnancy just took another scientific hit. A new study in Journal of the American Medical Association ~ Psychiatry finds that abortion has no short- or long-term effects on mothers’ mental health:
Mr. Lansing,
You are confusing me. You say “There’s no such thing as an unborn baby and just because a state says there is means nothing.”, but then say ” It’s not a life until it’s born, legally.”
You both disregard, and appeal, to the law. How does one proceed in a conversation with you, if you cherry pick which laws you deem worthy of recognition? Legally, in South Dakota, an unborn baby is alive. No need to call me arrogant. I am simply laying down what the SD law says, which in the case of abortion, is a lawful homicide of an unborn child as long as the mother assents.
As far as a penalty, one could simply proscribe the penalties that are already on the books for the various homicides. Or perhaps there does not need to be a penalty for the mother, simply being found guilty of fetal homicide and the natural consequence of no longer having a child be the limit of the penalties. As for a death penalty, I am firmly against the death penalty, and advocate states abolish it.
The Supreme Court certainly did decide that woman have a fundamental right to get an abortion, which I think is wrong. Just as it was wrong that US citizens at one time had a right to own slaves. Heck, we went to war over that one, people felt so strongly that they should get to keep that right. I hope that the next Supreme Court reverses the decision of the previous court, and the lives of all human being, born or unborn, are treated with dignity and respect. I also wish that state legislature would stop using bad science to limit abortion.
bcb,
Don’t state and federal statues derive their power and authority from the Constitution? Hmm, interesting thoughts on this. As for the amendments:
If an unborn person were to be federally recognized as a person, than this section of the 14th amendment would apply to unborn persons, perhaps making it illegal to kill unborn persons? Again, this would depend on Constitutional interpretation. Thankfully no one has ever disagreed on that!
As for a new amendment, or declaring that the 13th and 14th do not apply to women? No, that sounds like a bad idea, and would undermine the 14th amendment. Let’s just extend 14th amendment protections to unborn persons.
Joe, but how does extending 14th Amendment rights to the unborn limit the right of the woman to take steps to remove it from the inside of her body? To date the 14th Amendment has never, to my knowledge, been construed to allow any favored group to use (invade was not the best choice of words – sorry) the body or body parts of person against his or her will.
I thought I had demonstrated that extension of a right to life to a fetus is not enough – was I incorrect, what did I miss? Why wouldn’t you have to use the government to restrict a woman from taking steps to remove an unwanted occupant of her body?
You’re just choosing to be confused because like those before you from SoDak, you’ve lost the argument. One more time. Keep Up. Just because South Dakota makes a law that is blatantly unconstitutional federally that doesn’t mean it’s a valid law. Citing that invalid law is just an attempt to misdirect from the tone of Cory’s assertion. South Dakota’s law requiring lecturing to a woman choosing to end the term of her pregnancy is harmful according to science. The law must be changed or the state faces grave consequences. Furthermore (legally in USA) there’s no such thing as an “unborn baby”. It’s not a baby (legally in USA) until it’s been born. Until that time (legally in USA) the woman’s wants, desires and choices completely and wholly are paramount. It’s in the USA constitution. Has been ruled on as such ad nauseam by the Supreme Court and it’s also in the Bible. Do you, Mr. Nelson, think the state should consider JAMA’s findings or continue to harm women?
and the lives of all human being, born or unborn, are treated with dignity and respect.
Not gonna happen, Mr. Nelson. One political party that occupies the flat edge of the earth will not allow women or babies to be treated with respect and/or dignity. They will force women to carry to term every fetus and when that fetus is born they will cut welfare to its poor parents so that baby doesn’t get fed, have health insurance or even gets educated. Howz that for respect and dignity?
bcb, you are right. There would need to be follow on legislation, as well as declaration from the Supreme Court seeming the right to life as fundamental which trumps all other rights. I think the laws on the books in SD would then automatically apply (although I have also heard of certain trigger laws that will go into affect of Row v. Wade is overturned. I do not know what those are though.
Mr. Lansing,
The CDC recognizes unborn babies, is that not good enough for you?
As for the JAMA findings, of course they should be taken into consideration. Perhaps counseling for anxiety and depression for all parties concerned? But accordIng to the study, there were little to no long term affects, only short term, right? However, correlation does not prove causation. I think it is possible that these woman who were seeking abortion were likely already experiencing depression and anxiety. Unfortunately, the study did not seem to address that.
Mike from Iowa,
I know, right? The Republican Party hangs people out to dry like this in SD (have you guessed I’m not a republican?) I do wish that the parties could work together to fully support people, but haters are gonna hate, and remnants of rascism and elitism persist.
(Bleck, typing this all on an iPhone sucks)
The Olympics aren’t for years and you’re backstroking like Missy Franklin, Nelson. No, you can’t insert the CDC as a legal definition.
This blog is supposed to be “unboring” for readers and right now, it’s not. LWIY (last word is yours) until next time. Merry Christmas ?
Good talk!
Merry Christmas! ?
Also, a much better source than that silly CDC (what do they know about medical definitions?): US Code ?
18 USCS § 1841:
Au contraire Porter, this is not boring at all. I think it is very enlightening and a very good read. The civil rights of all concerned is always good to heed. If I may though, my question is one that should be considered as well, most are from poor families, but certainly, not all, will they be forced birth into the “involuntary servitude” as noted in the 13th? What then will the state do to make sure that they do not fall into involuntary servitude to the state. How will their lives be protected? Will the state guarantee food, clothing, housing and education meant to protect them while they reach emancipation?
jerry, good question. Should we define pregnancy as involuntary servitude? Even if so, could we point to Butler v. Perry (1916), and include pregnancy as a duty, along with services in the army, militia, on the jury, et cetera? And if so, should a basic pregnancy income be instituted to cover the costs? Maybe expand WIC to all pregnant women, regardless of income and assets? Extend free health care via Medicaid to all pregnant women? Yes, yes, and yes, I say. Although, I am exploring what I think about a basic universal income for all citizens…(can o’ worms, that is)
Perhaps in all fairness, there may be an economic answer. The United States has a pipeline from birth to prison that needs to be changed. Economic abortion plays a huge part in this. In short, expanded WIC should be until emancipation, universal healthcare until 26, universal healthcare for women in general and especially expectant mothers. Women will be covered until death. Universal child care through school with an adequate safe environment. Guarantees of adequate housings that are not segregated. http://www.epi.org/publication/mass-incarceration-and-childrens-outcomes/?utm_content=bufferaf5c0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
I continue to like the idea of a basic universal income guarantee for all citizens. I think that coupled with an end to the war on drugs so we can focus on the mental health issues for treatment of this horrendous addition to opioids or prescription heroin that is addicting mainly rural areas.
Universal child care through school with an adequate safe environment
Pavlov’s NRA dogs are salivating at the thought of arming pre-schoolers to keep them safe in school. Now listen, kiddies, the first time the teacher corrects your grammar you have a 2nd amendment right to stop that threat in its tracks. Aim low so you can shoot it some mo’ until you get the hang of it you know.
Rumour has it the NRA is buying female cadavers in an effort to understand how to implant guns with each fetus in utero. dead Breitbart is salivating at the chance to video naked women and edit the tapes to make it appear Obama killed the women. This might be all over the internet.
I did not mean Fort Apache for safe environment, I meant child care that was regulated by the state. A place that the parent would not worry about having the child there for care while they are working. http://articles.extension.org/pages/25699/creating-a-child-care-environment-that-supports-childrens-exploration
I’d asked:
Porter Lansing writes:
No, any “gotcha moment” is going to depend on how Cory answers. (I’m planning to address several arguments Porter and others have made here when I find the time.)
Kurt Evans, the “gotcha moment” just happened today. Go get’um tiger.
Kurt,
There is a distinction between murder and homicide.
Is abortion murder in the eyes of the law? No, if the woman consents. So I imagine Cory would ascribe to the view that abortion is not murder, it is legal homicide.
Is abortion murder in the eyes of God? Yes. But, Cory is an atheist, so I doubt very much whether something is anything in the eyes of God.
Although, I do not think Cory has weighed in on the whole “unborn baby/personhood” discussion. Does Cory thing of and deem the collection of tissue inside a pregnant woman as a living, unborn child? Or is it just a clump of tissue? Or is it a clump of tissue, with the potential to be a human person, so should be thought of and treated differently than other tissue. So the questions Cory could answer could be:
When does human life begin?
When does a person attain personhood?
What are your thoughts on the term “unborn child”?
To what extent should homicide laws that punish the death of unborn children be amended/ stricken for the law?
To what extent do fetuses/unborn children have rights, and if they have rights, what are they?
To what extent should abortion be legal, especially in regards to third trimester abortions (to include an abortion performed within days of a due date) or botched abortions where a child is born alive? I realize that most abortions happen in the first trimester, but or purpose of legislation, parameters need to be established.
Joe,
I’m not asking Cory about abortion. I’m asking him about deliberately killing a premature newborn. Would you mind not jumping in with a dozen distractions? Maybe spend a little more time reading and a little less time writing.
Kurt
Kurt Evans, why don’t you simply email and ask? If it were me, that is what I would do, spend less time writing. Your welcome.
Kurt Evans what business is it of yours or any man’s to what a woman can do with her own body? Who made you the king of her domain? Why do you fear women to the point of not trusting their decisions?
Kurt,
If you want to ask Cory a question, and receive an answer from him, without others putting their two cents in……maybe send him an e-mail, instead of using this public forum. I have always had success with getting e-mails back from Cory, either in the form of a e-mail back or a new blog post.
How will you respond to Cory if and when he does answer?
If he says “Yes, when a scared 18-year-old deliberately kills her premature newborn by leaving him or her in a dumpster, I personally believe it is murder.”, what will you follow-up with?
If he says “No, when a scared 18-year-old deliberately kills her premature newborn by leaving him or her in a dumpster, I personally do not believe it is murder.”, what will you follow-up with?
Joe, just to clarify, “an abortion performed within days of a due date” is another fiction aimed at our emotional center. Doctors have explained reality in response to President-elect Trump’s similar false assertion in the debates.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/health/donald-trump-debate-late-abortion-remarks.html?_r=0
Joe Nelson asks me:
I’m not sure, Joe, but I might follow up by asking, “Do you support a mandatory life sentence for that 18-year-old?”
Again, I’m not sure, but I might follow up by asking, “Would that include a child born one day before his or her due date?”
[Sorry—sixth graders intervened. All survived.]
Kurt asks about the killing of a premature newborn. He does not ask what the law says; he asks what I think… which I will translate as meaning what I think the law ought to say.
Killing a newborn is murder. Killing a premature but viable newborn is murder.
Now I wade into my very thin Wikipedia knowledge on fetal viability.
It appears that neonatalogists generally do not provide intensive care to premies born at 23 weeks. They generally do at 26 weeks. 24–25 weeks is a gray area. Do doctors or parents declining to give the 24-week premie intensive care commit murder?
Suppose a woman delivers prematurely at 23 weeks. The outcomes of (a) rushing the premature newborn to the hospital seeking care, (b) smothering the newborn, and (c) taking no action are likely the same. Is (b) murder? Is (c)?
Now, let’s see how Kurt and others tie those answers and questions to the wrong-headedness of the state claiming it is protecting women by denying them their constitutional right to make their own reproductive choices.
Cory asks:
In general I’d say no.
In general I’d say yes to (b) and no to (c).
Thanks for the response, Cory. When a scared 18-year-old deliberately kills her premature but viable newborn by leaving him or her in a dumpster, do you support a mandatory life sentence for that 18-year-old?
Under statute, first-degree murder is a Class A felony, life sentence or death. (SDCL 22-6-1). I’m uneasy with the state’s attorney bringing a lesser charge: among other reasons, could we count on a state’s attorney to apply such lenience fairly to rich and poor, black white and red?
I can see the argument for some form of mercy on the scared young mother. But remember, the point of this sub-argument is my attack on the political slogan, “Abortion is murder!” I’m not banging the drum to unravel a constitutional right by shouting that the action you’re discussing in your hypothetical is murder; thus, my hesitance to throw the young woman in the pen for life is not a problem. Furthermore, even though I’m not shouting, “Murder!” I’m also not advocating for a law that gives the young woman complete amnesty for an act that I will acknowledge as horrible. I won’t take a firm position on what the consequences should be—I’m willing to entertain circumstances—but I will not rule out imposing consequences.
Yes on (b), No on (c)? That’s an interesting moral division. More moral to allow a non-viable newborn to linger and asphyxiate than end its suffering swiftly?
Cory & Kurt, you might find that this recent murder case from North Dakota will help inform your analysis. Although the 8th Circuit affirmed the conviction and sentence, Senior Judge Myron Bright issued a 60 page dissent arguing for lenity for the mother/defendant relying on a careful and thoughtful examination of neonaticide, after describing a heartbreaking set of circumstances for the mother.
http://www.grandforksherald.com/content/longtime-fargo-fed-judge-sentence-unjust-mom-who-left-infant-die
Interesting, Bear, that that story touches on the concern I raised about disparate sentencing. The gal on the reservation got ten years in prison; an NDSU student in far less dire circumstances got three months on probation.
I notice the dissenting opinion (which calls the crime “neonaticide,” distinct from “homocide”) makes leniency dependent on the perpetrator’s mental state being so degraded that she can’t recognize wrongful conduct. The dissenting judge said such a state is very rare but still justifies deviating from sentencing guidelines.
Cory wrote:
Cory, if a scared 18-year-old deliberately killing her premature but viable newborn by leaving him or her in a dumpster is murder, then why aren’t you advocating a life sentence or the death penalty for that 18-year-old?
The problem isn’t your hesitance to throw the mother in the pen for life. The problem is your insistence that evangelical Christians are lying when we say we believe abortion is murder. The argument you’d been trying to make at least since June was that anyone who didn’t advocate a life sentence or the death penalty for an act didn’t really believe that act was murder (https://dakotafreepress.com/2016/06/27/supreme-court-throws-out-texas-abortion-clinic-restrictions/#comment-50214).
There’s no inherent contradiction in favoring amnesty for an act one regards as murder, so moving the goalposts to a discussion of complete amnesty doesn’t help your cause.
Yes, I believe this is the traditional evangelical Christian view.
Kurt Evans, there is no such thing as traditional evangelical Christian views. There are only Christian views and hateful rhetoric that comes from those who steal the views from a Book that was written by scribes long after the facts. Morally, your views are as backward as those of the radicals in the deserts of Syria, your ideals are the same as theirs. I can tell you one thing though that is gonna be a shocker for you, Roe v Wade will not be overturned.
One of your most onerous has been the denial of sex education for young people. They know they have some things going on but they do not know how to deal with the pressures. Your kind should be ashamed but you are too ignorant to even get what you have done. The real guilt and abuse lies with you and yours for what your history of voodoo has done to a secular society.
Kurt, I’m not using “murder” as a political slogan. I am admitting that the crime you describe generally meets the definition of murder and generally should be punished as such. I am not advocating that we write statutes giving the perpetrators of such crime blanket immunity. My position recognizes the possibility of mitigating circumstances but maintains a general consistency that the sensationalistic language of anti-abortion campaigners does not. In not one case are they willing to treat the woman who commits an abortion as a murderer; it is thus dishonest for them to shout that abortion is murder.
I’ll even step back: show me a case with mitigating circumstances, like mental illness, and I won’t call it murder—second-degree homicide, aggravated assault, neonaticide—whatever proper word should be used to make clear that the killing was not murder in intent, action, or warranted response. I recognize that if we’re not going to punish an act as murder, then it’s not really murder.
(b) and (c)—actively terminating a life versus standing by passively while a life ends… does the distinction remain if, instead of remaining in the room with the dying premature newborn, the mother flees, or the mother lays the swaddled, still-breathing premature newborn in a basket in the woods?
Cory had written:
I’d written:
Cory writes:
Are you admitting that the murder I describe generally should be punished with a life sentence or the death penalty? The argument you’d been trying to make at least since June was that evangelical Christians were lying when we said we believed abortion was murder because we didn’t advocate punishing it with a life sentence or the death penalty.
It seems to me that you had a valid point above when you suggested MC was dodging the question and changing the subject, but it also seems to me that you sometimes employ similar tactics.
Does this mean you agree with the argument “bearcreekbat” made above that deliberately killing another person is never murder unless the government says it is? Would you also argue that if we’re not going to punish an act as drug abuse, then it’s not really drug abuse? There’s no inherent contradiction in opposing a criminal penalty under certain circumstances one regards as murder, so moving the goalposts to a discussion of “blanket immunity” doesn’t help your cause.
Yes, the distinction remains. In general I’d say abandoning the child in the woods is murder and merely leaving his or her room isn’t.
“Blanket immunity” isn’t shifting the goal posts. Anti-abortion crusaders have made blanket immunity a core part of their political strategy. Calling for blanket immunity while shouting “Murder!” is inconsistent. Anti-abortion crusaders do both; I do neither.
I feel comfortable saying that the murder of a newborn should generally be punished as a Class A felony, in accordance with South Dakota law. The use of the term “generally” in that sentence allows for case-by-ase exceptions for mitigating circumstances.
I also feel comfortable inviting a debate about what constitutes the proper punishment for murder in general. Obviously I oppose the death penalty, even though it is in state law. Is a life sentence the most just and effective response to murder? Are there circumstances in which paroling a convicted murderer might better serve justice and other social goals?
But I am not open to declaring millions of murderers immune from any punishment. Either I don’t call what they are doing murder, or I don’t call for blanket immunity. I don’t get to stigmatize a group as criminals but then not practically treat them as if they have committed no crime.
Cory had written:
I’d written:
Cory writes:
The argument you’d been trying to make at least since June was that evangelical Christians were lying when we said we believed abortion was murder because we didn’t advocate punishing it with a life sentence or the death penalty. My goal was to find out whether you generally advocate punishing the scared 18-year-old I’ve described with a life sentence or the death penalty. Dodging that question and suggesting my defense somehow depends on whether you favor “blanket immunity” is a textbook example of moving the goalposts.
Do you generally advocate punishing the scared 18-year-old I’ve described with a life sentence?
I’d say that depends on the circumstances.
I’d say there are.
Cory had written:
I’d asked:
You haven’t answered those questions either, Cory.
I choose not to engage Bear’s argument. I don’t think it helps us understand the issue, and it does bear on the consistency of my argument. (I could be wrong about that, and I welcome correction.)
I support life sentences for murder. You kill a fellow human being, you’re done with liberty. The consequences should be that severe. That’s my starting point. I work my way down in punishment once we start looking at specifics, rather than starting with a 10- or 20-year sentence for murder and working my way up in severity based on circumstances.
So when people come screaming about murder, as abortion banners do, I expect they’re raising the alarm about people committing the worst criminal act possible, warranting the most severe legal penalties possible. But they’re not. They’re not saying, “Abortion is murder(!), deserving the most severe penalty possible, with some exceptions depending on circumstances.” They’re not saying, “Abortion is usually a lower degree of murder, deserving some mid-level sentence, but with the possibility of stiffer penalties based on circumstances.” They’re saying, “Abortion is murder(!), but it deserves no penalty for the person most responsible for committing it.” Those two absolutes just don’t go together. If abortion is murder, it deserves the severest punishment, with occasional exceptions. If the default response to abortion is no penalty, then abortion is not murder.
Cory had written:
I’d asked:
Cory writes:
I’m not asking you to engage his argument. I’m only asking whether you agree with it. Would you also argue that if we’re not going to punish an act as drug abuse, then it’s not really drug abuse?
Cory had written:
I’d written:
Cory writes:
Do you generally support a life sentence for the scared 18-year-old I’ve described?
Do you mean to suggest I’m saying that?
If a scared 18-year-old deliberately killing her premature but viable newborn by leaving him or her in a dumpster is murder, would you say that deserves the severest punishment, with occasional exceptions?
Bearcreekbat’s argument has no bearing on my response: If we aren’t going to punish an act as murder, then we cannot honestly campaign to outlaw that act by screaming that it is murder. I maintain that the only people who can honestly campaign for laws and elected office on the claim, “Abortion Is Murder!” are those who advocate the severest penalty, the penalty for murder, for women who abort their pregnancies.
I advocate the severest punishment for murder. You ask me to consider the hypothetical case of a “scared 18-year-old” committing murder. Yes, I advocate the severest penalty for that murder as my initial, pre-crime response, to say, morally, “No matter how scared you are, murder is not the proper response.” But turn that hypothetical into a reality, and we investigate the crime to see if it is an occasion for an exception.
Cory had written:
I’d asked:
Cory writes:
I’m not saying it has any bearing on your response. I’m just asking whether you agree with it. Would you also argue that if we’re not going to punish an act as drug abuse, then it’s not really drug abuse?
Cory had written:
I’d asked:
Cory writes:
When a scared 18-year-old deliberately kills her premature but viable newborn by leaving him or her in a dumpster, do you generally advocate the severest penalty for that murder as your final, post-crime response?
Cory had written:
Do you mean to suggest I’m saying that?
Kurt Evans … I have a hunch about you. What’s your I.Q.?
Bear’s line—I don’t know if I agree with it. I haven’t explored it. (Sorry, Bear!)
Drug abuse: yes, if as a general position we decline to punish an act as drug abuse, that signals pretty clearly it’s not really drug abuse… or that, at the very least, I’d better not go campaigning with loud slogans decrying the action as drug abuse.,
Our hypothetical 18-year-old: we don’t get to my final, post-crime response until the hypothetical becomes real, until we have an actual case to examine on a case-by-case basis for circumstances that might justify moving away from my initial, pre-crime position that we treat the crime as a murder.
I am saying that MC’s use of language likening abortion to murder, and more direct language used by typical anti-abortion crusaders, is morally and legally inconsistent. I haven’t reviewed the record to see if you’ve used such language, and I apologize if, as the thread rolls on, I conflate the prior statements I’m challenging with you as the main person continuing to investigate my statements.
Porter Lansing writes:
It’s probably lower now, but the last time I remember taking a standardized intelligence or aptitude test—in my late 20s—my percentile scores were still indicating an IQ around 142 on the old Stanford-Binet scale, which I believe translates to somewhere between 139 and 140 on the Wechsler scale.
I’d asked Cory:
Cory writes:
Thanks for the direct answer. I believe it’s true that you don’t know.
I’d asked:
Cory writes (option A):
Cory continues (option B):
Those are two different arguments, Cory. Which one are you trying to make?
I’d asked:
Cory writes:
If we examine an actual case and find no circumstances besides those I’ve described that might justify moving away from your initial, pre-crime position that we treat the crime as a murder, do you then advocate the severest penalty for that murder as your final, post-crime response?
Cory had written:
I’m pretty sure advocates of the right to life would generally say that the mother deserves some penalty (and that in most cases the father does too). We just don’t all share your apparent belief that government has an absolute obligation to threaten the mother with that penalty even if doing so would result in more long-term harm than good.
I’ll make both Arguments A and B. A is primary; B is fall-back position.
Examine an actual case: show me an actual case. It will take more than a paragraph. It will involve interviews with the accused, family members, arresting officers, witnesses, medical personnel… in other words, an investigation suited strictly to an actual criminal investigation, not this hypothetical discussion.
Penalty? No, actually, I can’t recall an anti-abortion activist telling me straight up that he/she seeks some sort of penalty on the mother. They certainly advocate policies that penalize women seeking abortions, although they won’t admit “waiting periods” and “counseling” and outright bans have a punitive intent. Some of the sources reviewed above explicitly ruled out punishing others. I still have a hard time ruling out punishment for people who commit a crime that some people are most vigorously calling murder.
Cory had written:
If as a general position we decline to punish an act as a little boy pulling his big sister’s hair, would you say that signals pretty clearly that it’s not really a little boy pulling his big sister’s hair?
I’d asked:
Cory writes:
I’m explicitly proposing a case in which those interviews don’t reveal any circumstances that might justify moving away from your initial, pre-crime position that we treat the crime as a murder. You haven’t given any legitimate rationale for dodging the question.
I’d written:
Cory writes:
I’ve never said one had.
I’m pretty sure many advocates of the right to life would admit anti-abortion legislation sometimes has a punitive intent. I’ll admit it right now.
Your first question doesn’t make sense, in part because now you are talking about a relatively trivial affair with no generally agreed up degree of punishment, as well as no realm for state action.
I can’t give you a post-crime answer if the crime doesn’t exist, if you are only proposing a case. That’s by definition hypothetical. But I can say this: if I propose a general , default response to a general hypothetical, and if you say, “Suppose there’s a specific case in which there are no other details than what is supposed in the hypothetical,” then you haven’t asked me a new question, and my original response is sufficient. I didn’t dodge your question; I already answered it.
I appreciate your willingness to admit the punitive intent. The original point of the article was to challenge the smokescreen of compassion and caring offered by anti-abortion crusaders who pretend they have no punitive intent.
Cory had written:
I’d asked:
Cory writes:
The fact that it’s no realm for state action is the point. Compared to murder, marijuana abuse is also a relatively trivial affair with no generally agreed upon degree of punishment. That didn’t stop you from trying to argue that if we’re not going to punish an act as drug abuse, then it’s not really drug abuse. The hair-pulling example demonstrates that merely opposing government punishment for a wrongful act doesn’t inherently signal that it’s not really that wrongful act.
I’d asked:
Cory had written:
I’d asked:
Cory writes:
What I’d meant by “post-crime response” was your response to the murder, not your response to my question.
In other words, yes. Barring other extenuating circumstances, you advocate punishing a scared 18-year-old who leaves her premature but viable newborn in a dumpster with the “severest penalty” of life in prison. You’d actually been dodging the question for days, but thanks for answering it now.
Well, I’m glad the answer is finally clear.
The marijuana and hair-pulling examples don’t change the dishonesty of screaming that abortion is murder in the context of political campaigns, whose purpose to decide laws and lawmakers, but to advocate no legal punishment for those murders.
When I tell a student not to pull another student’s hair, I speak with every intent of punishing that action if it happens. I won’t pass a law that treats hair-pullers as victims and fines their teachers or parents for allowing such action to happen. I will myself scold the child, ground the child, and if necessary physically restrain the child from pulling the hair. I go after hair-pullers more avidly than anti-abortion activists are willing to go after aborters, even though they shout a lot more about abortion than I do about hair-pulling.
My sense of morals and consequences is pretty clear and undodgy. Anti-abortion activists have a problem meaning what they say.
They also have a problem with science, which, as the original post notes, does not support the claims they make to infringe on women’s constitutional rights.
I’d written to Cory:
Cory writes:
I’m glad too.
Cory continues:
That’s technically true, Cory, because there’s no inherent “dishonesty” to change. There’s no contradiction in opposing government punishment for a wrongful act.
That seems unlikely to me, especially considering that some anti-abortion activists kill abortionists.
Fair point: I will not use deadly force on a hair-puller. But in terms of publicly advocated action, my response to hair-pullers takes more direct action against the perpetrator than MC writes into law against aborters.
Cory writes:
I’m assuming MC advocates a substantial legal penalty for the abortionist. Are you suggesting the mother is an “aborter” and the abortionist isn’t?
There’s another problem with the anti-abortion perspective: denying the woman moral agency. Anti-abortion crusaders keep ignoring the overriding fact that it’s her body.
We have fetal homicide penalties for evildoers who kill fetuses against the pregnant mother’s will. We’re talking here about a woman who chooses to have an abortion. Her choice, her moral and legal responsibility.
Then there is this. http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/01/reproductive-rights-abortion-access-in-america.html
Cory had written:
I’d written:
Cory writes:
Opposing government punishment for the mother doesn’t deny her moral agency.
My question isn’t about moral and legal responsibility, Cory. I’m just asking whether you’re suggesting the mother is an “aborter” and the abortionist isn’t.
Those who want to ban abortion but not punish the women regularly deny women moral agency for the abortion, as do many of the restrictions they try to impose on abortion. The woman was coerced, she was under stress, she was emotional, she wasn’t capable of making a rational decision—that’s all in the rhetoric used to deny punishment for the person most responsible for the abortion, more responsible than the doctor who carries out the procedure.
Actually, the doctor’s role and responsibility is to assure the most safe medical care for the woman who chooses to terminate a pregnancy. After all, abortion didn’t just begin after Roe v. Wade, rather, women stopped suffering harm or even dying from unsafe and botched abortions after Roe v. Wade.
Cory writes:
I’m not defending the restrictions you mention, but we disagree over whether they deny anyone moral agency, as well as over who’s most responsible for the abortion.
“Bearcreekbat” writes:
This has never been central to my pro-life arguments, but many women have continued to suffer harm and even die from unsafe and botched abortions since Roe v. Wade.
But that last line perpetuates the myth debunked by the original post, the myth of harm that anti-abortion activists use to cloak their punitive intent and intrude on women’s autonomy.
Kurt, there are always exceptions, but I would be surprised if you refuse to acknowledge that women who decide to terminate a pregnancy are much safer with qualified medical personnel assisting them then they would be without such medical help.
Bearcreekbat, you remind us of an important fork in the road we take with our policy-making. If abortion is murder, then we should punish those responsible for that murder. If abortion is a practice which some oppose but which the Constitution guarantees, then we should at least ensure that a practice we can’t stop is conducted in the safest practical conditions.
“Bearcreekbat” had written:
I’d replied:
Porter Lansing writes:
It’s literally the Gospel of Matthew.
Of course you are, but that’s not the argument I’m addressing. Regardless of whether the Bible is true, “Bearcreekbat” is misrepresenting what it says.
The Exodus passage doesn’t say that the woman jumps into the fight, or that her husband is one of the men in the fight, or that she suffers injuries that cause her to miscarry. The Hebrew verb for miscarry is shakal. The Hebrew verb here is ytsa’, which refers to live birth.
Nothing in the passage limits the eye-for-an-eye principle “to the woman” as you claim, and nothing in the passage identifies the child’s death as a “property loss” as you claim.
“Bearcreekbat” writes:
That isn’t my point at all. My point is that the “interpretations” you and Porter are offering explicitly contradict what the Bible says.
That verse doesn’t mean life begins before pregnancy. It means God knew Jeremiah before his life began.
God’s plan already included this particular Jeremiah, and God knew who Jeremiah’s ancestors would be before they were conceived. The first chapter of Ephesians says God “works all things after the counsel of His will,” so He’s obviously predetermined who’s going to be aborted in the same sense that He’s predetermined everything else, but it’s probably ambiguous and somewhat misleading to say He’s “required” it.
The fact that God remembers when the dead were alive doesn’t imply that they’re still alive, and the fact that He’s willed the existence of evil doesn’t imply that no one should be punished for it.
As I’d told you last June, the Declaration of Independence recognizes “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as the justification for our nation’s very existence, and there are crimes against moral law even where no human government exists.
https://dakotafreepress.com/2016/06/27/supreme-court-throws-out-texas-abortion-clinic-restrictions/#comment-50495
Jerry writes:
Most of the events in the Bible were recorded soon after they occurred based on firsthand accounts.
“Bearcreekbat” had written:
I’d replied:
Cory writes:
Regardless of whether I’d accept the conclusions of the original post, you were clearly talking about harm to mental health. My statement here is about harm to physical health.
“Bearcreekbat” writes:
In that case, prepare to be surprised. I’m not sure whether the mother is safer physically, and I believe most of the danger posed by abortion is spiritual. Qualified medical personnel generally do little to reduce that danger.
I am surprised Kurt. You might consider learning more about the physical safety issue:
And as Cory has clarified, for most women abortion is a positive mental heath experience:
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/media/fact-sheets/abortion-distorting-science-safety-legal-abortion.pdf
As for the spiritual aspect, what do you believe to be the danger to a woman? Being denied access to heaven? Being burned in Hell?
“Bearcreekbat” asks:
On a more immediate level, I believe the mother of an aborted child is in danger of being unable to find the sacredness in her own life because life itself is no longer regarded as sacred.
If you are correct, how does this cause any harm to a woman?
I’d written:
“Bearcreekbat” asks:
Inability to find the sacredness in life undermines a person’s sense of wonder and gradually leads him or her toward despair.
As I swim about in Kurt’s worldview (that’s my disclaimer that I’m trying to work within the value framework Kurt offers without accepting that framework as valid), I note that he is putting the cart before the horse on spiritual harm. Abortion does not cause the woman to fail to see the sacredness in life and thus face a greater risk of despair. The inability to find the sacredness in life precedes and facilitates the abortion. Whether the woman has an abortion or not, gets pregnant or not, has sex or not, she comes into the situation with values not aligned with Kurt’s. She thus already has that tendency toward despair and faces the same spiritual risk regardless of the legal status of abortion. Denying her access to abortion does not extra spiritual harm and increases the risk of mental harm. Even within Kurt’s framework, denying women access to abortion does more harm than good.
I have to agree with Cory. A woman who shares Kurt’s world view that her life is less valuable than the life of an unborn entity, from fertilized egg to fetus, typically would not choose an abortion. And with such a world view, such a woman may well feel despair if she felt forced to have an abortion to save her own life, just as women feel despair when they learn late term that a wanted pregnancy has gone bad and the fetus will not survive outside the womb.
And if Cory was incorrect, why haven’t the mental health studies turned out quite differently? Recall that the American Psychological Association found that “the vast majority of women experience a mixture of emotions after an abortion, with positive feelings predominating.”
“Positive feelings predominating” does not seem to reflect “despair” nor negative feelings toward the sanctity of life.
Cory writes:
You claim to work within my worldview but explicitly contradict my own description of it.
A person doesn’t need values aligned with mine to find the sacredness in life. A typical four-year-old examining a butterfly for the first time is finding the sacredness in life regardless of whether his or her values are aligned with mine.
“Bearcreekbat” writes:
The mother’s life isn’t less valuable than her child’s in my worldview. You’ve demonstrated a recurring tendency to misrepresent my statements on multiple topics.
Many have.
You say I misrepresent your statements on multiple topics. That seems a harsh judgment. Perhaps I misunderstood what you mean and by stating what I understood I am giving you a chance to point out my error. Or perhaps I am trying to clarify the impact of your statements to advance our discussion or debate. I am not sure how you conclude that I might benefit from misrepresenting your statements, but I do appreciate it when you clarify if I have misunderstood your statements.
In this case, I still don’t understand how my statement misrepresented your world view. I thought it was your world view that a woman should not have the right to choose who can use her body and when they can use it. I thought it was your world view that an unborn entity is a “person” and because it is a “person” it should have the right to use the woman to survive until birth, even if it harms the woman, and there is nothing that a woman should be able to do that overcomes this other “person’s” right to use her body. That certainly suggested to me that in your world view a woman is less valuable than the “person” that you would permit to use her body against her will.
I’d written to “bearcreekbat”:
“Bearcreekbat” replies:
You’re doing it again. I’ve never said you might benefit from misrepresenting my statements.
So you thought things about my worldview that aren’t true, which suggested something about my worldview that isn’t true, which you then published in a public forum.
Well, Kurt, I do not know you personally nor any of your actual worldviews. All I know is what I read in your public comments and that is what I tried to respond to. I am glad that you are able to clarify what you really mean by the words you write.
I have read a lot of your comments in various threads and I thought I had a fairly clear understanding of your position on abortion. For example, you have written:
This seems to support a worldview that:
1. an unborn entity . . . should have the right to use the woman to survive until birth, even if it harms the woman, and there is nothing that a woman should be able to do that overcomes this other “person’s” right to use her body;
2. a woman should not have the right to choose who can use her body and when they can use it; and
3. a woman is less valuable than the “person” permitted to use her body against her will.
bcb- here is a real livewire in Texas that sez all abortions-no exceptions for rape or incest, mother’s health, etc- should be felonies.
http://juanitajean.com/yes-his-name-really-is-tony-tinderholt/
mfi-it looks like that Texan believes:
a mother doesn’t have rights that supersede the rights of her child; and
a newly conceived child has the right to use her mother’s womb.
And the Texan’s statement that a bill that reads:
but then asserts:
kind of reminds me of some of the anti-choice arguments I have seen repeatedly made here.
I’d written to “bearcreekbat”:
“Bearcreekbat” quotes me as follows:
Here’s my original statement in context:
https://dakotafreepress.com/2016/06/27/supreme-court-throws-out-texas-abortion-clinic-restrictions/#comment-50259
You’d obviously read my statement closely enough to decide to edit out four words. When I agreed with Cory that fetuses don’t have rights that supersede the rights of their pregnant mothers, would you say I meant that a fetus’s life is less valuable than his or her mother’s?
“Bearcreekbat” continues:
When you put scare quotes around the word person and refer to that “person” with the pronoun it, you’re expressing your own worldview, not mine.
A woman generally has the right to choose who can use her body and when they can use it, but neither fathers nor mothers have the inherent right to withhold their bodies from the care of their children. Your suggestion that this somehow implies they’re less valuable than their children is absurd.
Kurt really needs to pray more for the ability to discern between solid logic and alternative ‘facts.’ It is a crazy world out there; nowadays, a guy just can’t seem to get enough help to see through all the BS, but sometimes, a guy has gotta keep praying for it.
God prefers children to have loving real parents more than He wants them to be born in unwanted and unaffordable circumstances. When pregnancy is well-timed, God truly smiles on those people. When pregnancies are not, He frowns, and that is why responsible abortion policy and practice will NOT keep anyone out of the Kingdom of Heaven.
It’s a FACT!
except that
and
These two statements contradict each other. And if the last statement were accurate neither a mother nor father would have the right to give up a child for adoption since that would result in fathers and mothers withholding their bodies from the care of their children.
As for the “more valuable” concept, that intends to describe a worldview that would give one “person” more rights than another, such as the right to use any woman’s womb against her will.
I’d written:
“Bearcreekbat” writes:
A man generally has the right to choose who can use his driveway and when they can use it, but if the little girl from next door is toddling across, moral law requires him to apply the brakes and save her life. This doesn’t mean she has rights that supersede his. It means the general right to control his driveway doesn’t include the inherent right to ignore the little girl, much less to intentionally run her over.
It isn’t a contradiction. In some places it’s common sense.
Fathers and mothers don’t have the inherent right to withhold their bodies from the care of their children. They do have the right to withhold their bodies from the care of their children under certain circumstances. In any case your example is irrelevant. Adopted children have new fathers and mothers.
Once again, you’re expressing your own worldview, not mine. In my worldview a person’s value isn’t contingent on the number of rights he or she has.
Adam writes:
We obviously disagree.
Kurt thinks God is no more or less happy about children being born in good vs. horrible circumstances.
God does not feel exactly the same about kids being born in North Korea vs. the U.S.A. It’s a FACT!
Kurt, “We obviously disagree.” driveway = woman’s body? Really?
Adam writes:
He was apparently pretty happy about Christ being born amid livestock—days away from the home of his road-weary parents—and placed in a feedbox.
“Bearcreekbat” writes:
No, they’re not equal. A mother has a greater responsibility to care for her own child than the man in my analogy has to care for the child from next door. Her child also has the right to use her womb, while the child from next door doesn’t have the right to use the man’s driveway.
I see, a man has a right to prevent the unwanted use of his driveway, but a woman does not have the right to prevent the unwanted use of her body.
A fetus loses rights the minute it is forced to be born.
It should be mandatory that a fetus be force fed a steady diet of audio stating that wingnuts hate them the minute they are forced to be born. Your life is worthless to wingnuts until you are old enough to fight their wars or you reach the age wingnuts feel you can be morally executed, whether you are guilty or not.
ps do not feel too bad little parasites. Your host has even less rights than you and more contempt from wingnuts. Have a nice day.
“Bearcreekbat” writes:
No, a woman generally has the right to prevent the unwanted use of her body, but just as the man in my analogy doesn’t have the inherent right to ignore the little girl in his driveway, neither fathers nor mothers have the inherent right to withhold their bodies from the care of their children.
Kurt, seriously, you’re an idiot. Tell yourself how smart you are all you want but it’s handicapping your ability to understand basic facts. You are not a lawyer and you totally suck with words. You’re so unpersuasive and dim witted that someone really ought to tell you.
“In the USA, where nearly half of pregnancies are unintended and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion , there are over 3,000 abortions per day. Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies in the USA (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.”
Evans will now put his apron on and start cooking some chow for these guys. He will then go to the taxpayers and demand they pony up the health and services required to provide medical care, food, housing and clothing for the 3,000 each day. Better get to work there tiger.
Liberals and Democrats will follow the rules of the laws because they follow those things with the idea that the Constitution is a living form of government. Will the right wing abort all of this when the costs come into play? In short, are we seeing that the parties will reverse themselves like they did with the civil rights issues in the 50’s and 60’s. So Dems, be careful what you call Republicans because you may just be one as the worm turns and Republicans, you all just might be liberal as these new laws come into play. Life is funny like that.
Mr. Evans – The Bible is pro-choice. It’s not a life until it’s born and God blesses him or her with a soul. It’s not a corpse until it’s dead. Human cells reproduce before a fetus becomes a life and human cells reproduce after a human is dead. Exodus 21-22
Abortions will always always be available, just like in the old days. So now they will be illegal. What does that mean? It just means they will not be done by a doctor. It also means that abortion will not be a cause for political divides. Women will have to resort to the old ways of aborting with different home remedies but make no mistake, abortions will still be happening with the same numbers as we see today. Women’s health will suffer and it will cost taxpayers billions in healthcare costs, but it will be illegal. Evans and crew have won their crusade against women and women’s health, but they have not outlawed abortion by any means.
Jerry, I had similar thoughts. Women will always have a choice whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. The people seeking to stop abortions by making criminals out of health care providers if they assist women with a safe procedure may believe they are saving babies, but all they are really doing is outlawing medical help to women in need.
Legal or Not, Abortion Rates Compare
The wedge issues will no longer divide us, we will not be restrained by the scream of murder or whatever crackpots like Evans have used in the past. Planned Parenthood will continue to be a place for women’s health without abortion so those that yak along the way, will be talking among themselves, exactly like the old croons they are. Guns are not even gonna be discussed as we all have them. So now, the only thing to discuss will be the lack of jobs, the lack of healthcare, clean water and of course lack of energy, when the fossil fuel bubble pops. Add all that to the every widening chasm of the haves and have nots, and you have yourself a real argument on how to change things.
Porter Lansing writes:
The first chapter of Matthew says Mary was “with child” during her pregnancy.
C’mon, Mr. Evans. You’re trying to avoid my statement by reposting what Porter said when we’re discussing what scripture says. This is the fourth time we’ve gone on this exploration of the Bible and you’ve lost all before. I stated that Exodus is one of the few biblical passages that approaches the status of the fetus is Exodus 21:22-25, which reads:
“When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”
-This passage allows only for the punishment of a man who injures a woman causing her to miscarry. However, a careful scrutiny of these verses uncovers a startling revelation. A miscarriage is punishable only by a fine, yet if there is any further harm, such as the death of the woman, the penalty is life for life! The implication of this passage is clear—the life of the unborn child is not accorded anywhere near the same status as the life of the woman. To put it another way, the man who causes a woman to miscarry is guilty not of murder, but a misdemeanor.
-You can respond to this. I’ll say to your argument what I’ve said for the fourth time. Mary being with child has nothing to do with human fetuses. Jesus wasn’t a human. Jesus was the son of God within the womb. You and I and every fetus a woman carries can’t be equally compared to an unborn Jesus.
– There’s no such thing as an unborn child. It’s not a life until it’s born. Do you want me to reveal what your anti-choice position reveals about your disrespect of women, again?
Porter Lansing writes to me:
Neither of those claims is true.
As I’ve already told you above (2017-01-15 at 23:48), the Exodus passage doesn’t say the woman suffers injuries that cause her to miscarry. The Hebrew verb for miscarry is shakal. The Hebrew verb here is ytsa’, which refers to live birth:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NASB&search=Exodus+21:22-25
No, the passage allows for the fining of a man who strikes a woman causing her to give birth prematurely, and it applies the eye-for-an-eye principle to any injury that results.
No, as I’ve already told you above (2017-01-15 at 23:48), nothing in the passage limits the eye-for-an-eye principle to the woman.
Yes, Jesus was conceived as a human.
I generally support freedom of choice. Your position supports depriving a child of an entire lifetime of choices.