En Tequila Es Verdad/progressive conservatism/post/2009/02/17/1953
February 17, 2009 7:53 PM - Mike
Mike at The Big Stick said...
Since you've changed the subject, I'm assuming you've abandoned the claim that "Abortion clinic violence is almost non-existent these days."
I wasn’t trying to change the subject. To repeat my original statement, abortion violence IS almost non-existent when we look at it as a ratio to the number of abortion seekers, as a ratio to the size of our overall population, as a ratio to crime in general or types of crimes specifically. Having reviewed the statistics for this discussion I actually see it as even less of an issue than I did before, and given that abortion rates dropped as violence also declined, it’s hard to really even draw any kind of corollaries between the two numbers.
Given the view that many pro-lifers hold, which is that abortion = murder, I’d say we’re doing pretty good."
So... the end justifies the means, and they started it, and it's okay to commit violence on people because you believe it's the right thing to do, even if society doesn't agree with you?
I apologize if you mistook my comment as saying I’m okay with violence. I was trying to say that as a society we are doing pretty good giving the fact that abortion violence is so low.
"I still find it extremely hard to swallow the notion that teens will attend the class and only take away half the message (contraception is wrong) while ignoring the other half (premarital sex is wrong)."
I'm not predicting that it will happen, I'm saying that this is what the data show does happen.
Really? You admitted this (albeit, with caveats): I don't have any numbers which directly show an increase, but neither are there any numbers showing no increase (or a decrease). I know you think your math implies, but again, I consider that a have-your-cake-and-eat-it scenario you are trying to create. Given the thoroughness of abortion rights advocates I think the lack of polling data is likely because the results weren’t favorable, not because they forgot to ask.
(I really hate to keep revisiting the abstinence classes because we agree they aren’t effective. Arguing about them doing harm verses no classes is really just quibbling over minor details.)
"The legal logic in your argument is sound, but under that same logic the Holocaust wasn’t murder."
Rubbish. It was murder by international law and the laws of every civilized nation.
Killing Jews was legal in Axis countries, so that meets your definition of murder, unless you want to admit that legal killing can indeed be mirder (what’s your opinion on capital punishment?) And various motivations for abortion (ex. socio-economics) are outlawed in a majority of other countries. If we’re now giving weight to majority international opinion, we’ve got a whole new ballgame.
"I think murder tends to transcend contemporary legal constructs as it is perhaps the oldest moral offense we have."
That strikes me as a rather alarming statement. What do you mean by it?
I mean that what’s illegal today can very easily be legal tomorrow, and vice versa. Murder as an illegality has evolved over time. 100 years ago the murder of blacks in the South was never prosecuted. Now it is. Abortion went the other direction. So I think it shows our views of ‘crime’ are certainly fluid. That’s why your narrow definition of murder as an illegal killing only is so dangerous in my opinion.
I do not think the primary reason women get abortions can be adequately summarized as "personal convenience" (which is what I take it you mean by "ease").
A huge majority of abortions are done for ‘social reasons’ (the Gutmacher data confirms that) which I define as ‘personal convenience’. You and I obviously differ on that.
I think one underlying point on which we disagree is this: I maintain that sometimes it's better not to be born. You seem to believe the opposite, that being born is always preferable.
I’ll say the obvious which is that it’s much easier to make that judgment when you actually were allowed to be born. I’ve yet to meet anyone who is mentally stable who wishes they haven’t been born.
We have too many people on the planet already; anything we can do to non-violently reduce the reproduction rate strikes me as a good thing.
Really? Please cite the data which confirms the world is over-populated. We could argue that there are countries that are over-populated, but that is more a product of failures in resources, not over-reproduction.
I will clarify a bit: When you say "abortion is being used as birth control", it sounds like what you mean is "Women aren't bothering to use proper birth control; they're going and having sex, then routinely having abortions if they happen to get pregnant."
47% are repeat offenders. An additional % of the ones that are getting their first abortions chose to use no birth control and of those I’m quite sure a significant amount knew they were taking a risk. So I would be willing to bet that puts us at over 50% of abortion seekers who basically know that sex can = pregnancy and didn’t take suitable precautions.