Abortion « Obtuse Observer

April 5, 2013

Abortion Facts

Filed under: Abortion — Obtuse Observer @ 5:44 pm

A newscaster today curiously said, “Pro-life advocates believe life begins at conception.”

It is an odd thing to say because it implies, and may do so accurately, that pro-choice advocates do not believe life begins at conception.

This interesting language is part of the problem with the entire right to life debate. To that end here are some facts that are not disputable.

Life, as a matter of biology and scientific fact, comes into existence when the embryo is created; at conception.
Abortion kills that innocent, unborn, human life.

That’s pretty much it.

The remainder of the debate is disputable and subject to widely varying opinion.

The disputes of opinion center on two key points

To what degree does society value that unborn life
At what point may the state intervene to prevent the mother from having her unborn baby aborted.

That’s pretty much it. All the other topics can be located within that pretty simple and straight forward framework.

When some one argues, “it’s a fetus” or “it’s not a baby” they are trying to argue dehumanize the unborn baby the because let’s face it, killing an unborn baby is a pretty ugly act. It is a method of self-delusion that they would have you share. It denies the facts.

When some one argues, “it’s her body it’s her choice” they are arguing that the unborn life is of no value (never mind the tragic irony of denying the unborn baby any choice in the matter).

When some one argues, “if you don’t like abortion don’t have one” they are again arguing that the unborn has no value. It is an attempt to end the argument without engaging facts or opinions.

When some one argues, “you’re a man this doesn’t directly effect you” … the unborn has no value (as well as ignoring the fact that babies cannot exist without a man involved at some point and engaging in the fallacy that if I am not directly impacted I cannot have an opinion. OJ killing his wife didn’t directly effect me but I doubt anyone would dispute that it is reasonable for me to hold the opinion that it was wrong). It is an attempt to preclude debate.

What legal abortion advocates must accept is that abortion kills a living, innocent unborn human life. People can have widely varying opinions on how much they value that life and when or whether the state may or must intervene but they cannot dispute the facts.

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February 14, 2013

Abortion and ObamaCare Update

Filed under: Abortion,Affordable Care Act,Obamacare — Tags: Abortion, Affordable Care Hunt, Obamacare — Obtuse Observer @ 11:48 am

According to a recent article at least 21 states are using health insurance exchange authority granted under the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) to restrict abortion services by preventing insurance companies from paying for those services.

Remember:

“If you like your healthcare plan, you’ll be able to keep your healthcare plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”

“Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.”

“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future.”

“Obamacare will “cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year.”

“The new healthcare law will improve, not hurt, the quality of American healthcare.”

“It’s not a government takeover: “I don’t believe that government can or should run healthcare.”

“The state health insurance exchanges will open on time.”

Take from The 7 Biggest ObamaCare Lies

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March 6, 2012

After Birth Abortion?

Filed under: Abortion,After Birth Abortion,Right to Life — Obtuse Observer @ 10:19 am

You just can’t make this stuff up. Some of the best and brightest have recently been published in the Journal of Medical Ethics asserting that recently born babies may be “aborted” after being born with no whiff of moral impropriety. The short version of the argument is that because newborns are not “actual persons” they have “no moral right to life”. I’m sure they have a very intelligent, cogent and otherwise brilliant proposal. It must be. How could anything so completely stupid be offered up to sane people as reasonable if it isn’t brilliant?

From the article After-birth abortion; why should the baby live?:

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

That such a notion should be regarded as worthy of publishing is frightening. When we disregard as newborn as “morally irrelevant” we’ve stepped into an inhuman, immoral twilight-zone.

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January 19, 2012

Judge Orders Abortion and Sterlization

Filed under: Abortion — Obtuse Observer @ 8:16 am

Way back in 1926 there was a famous Supreme Court case called Buck v Bell. In it Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes penned the immortal and shameful words eugenicists longed to hear, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough”. See, Carrie Bell was too stupid to be allowed to breed, so she was forcefully sterilized.

The case was rightfully shocking to our collective consciousness and conscience. The practice one presumed had died out. But sadly not true. Christina Harms (aptly named huh?) recently retired and was recently reversed by a sane judge. Article on the appalling event here.

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November 6, 2011

Dumb Things Abortion Defenders Say

Filed under: Abortion,Conception,Life Begins At — Obtuse Observer @ 1:26 am

Democratic National Committee chair, Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz has asserted that recent and pending legislation which recognizes that life begins at conception is, “extreme” as well as a, “divisive, dangerous, and destructive” attack on women.

Life does begin at conception. This is a simple biological fact. How one values or devalues this unborn life is a matter of opinion and may be regarded as extreme or not extreme.

What seems to be the basic upshot of Ms. Wasserman Schultz’s comments is that if abortion defenders are forced to concede this biological fact then their entire house of cards will collapse and abortion will become illegal.

I would offer that she is wrong at every turn on the issue. As a society it is important to analyze the issue with facts. Life begins at conception. Privacy rights exist. Abortion captures the interests of three lives in principle; father, mother and the unborn. Leaving the father aside, as society improperly does, let us look at the competing interests between mother and unborn baby.

Mother has privacy rights at stake. The unborn baby has his life at stake. When mom wishes to abort baby we can presume baby, could it communicate would object. As such, the rights conflict. How to decide? We must weigh the right of privacy, which is not absolute, against the right to life and decide at what point the right to life trumps the right to privacy. How do we do that? This depends on what value we as a society place on those rights. Denying that an embryo is even alive is a denial of value. Denying that privacy rights matter is a denial of value. These positions seek to avoid entering the debate by refusing to accept one of the basic facts in play. It is my belief that both rely on a refusal to look the facts squarely in the face. It is not an easy thing to do.

Life begins at conception and people in the position of DNC Chair, as Rep. Wasserman-Schultz is doing great disservice to the debate by denying this basic biological fact.

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June 28, 2011

Life Begins at Conception

Filed under: Abortion,Life — Obtuse Observer @ 6:13 am

It is quite disturbing that it took a court order to observe and acknowledge a scientific fact. It is a product of inverted logic when the opponents of that order and acknowledgement accuse those pointing out the scientific reality of relying on religion for that definition.

In fact, pro-choice advocates rely on a kind of secular faith in the courts to deny what they find troublesome to acknowledge. Life begins at conception. Abortions kill living humans. Those are facts regardless of the herculean efforts they make to deny them. A fetus, a zygote or an embryo is alive by definition. A human fetus, zygote or embryo is human by definition. Having not been born nor yet accused of crime it comes with a presumption of innocence as well.

The pro-life camp IS often motivated by their religious convictions. However, this goes to the value they place on the life many pro-choice advocates refuse to acknowledge.

Today a Federal court in Indianapolis acknowledged the facts by court order. Clearly this will create a stir amongst the faithful who’ve will be exposed to this new light of science but we cannot expect that they’d be protected from this forever. Surely many will rebel and accuse the priests…. errr… judges of blasphemy but you can’t really get the cat back into the back now can you.

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June 8, 2011

Abortion: It isn’t a Baby its Fetus

Filed under: Abortion,Embryonic Stem Cells,Fetus,Pro-Choice,Pro-Life,Right to Life,Stem Cells — Tags: Abortion, Pro-Choice, Pro-Life — Obtuse Observer @ 4:23 am

I am updating my list of “facts” and “arguments” offered by self-identified Pro-Choice advocates why an unborn baby is not living or human.

There are three additions today. First, the clump of undifferteniated cells could become anything. Second, the fetus feels no pain. Lastly, the fetus at this stage is indistinguishable from a fetal dog or any number of other mammals. Keep in mind, I am not making any arguments about the legality of abortion. I have one goal with posts related to abortion and that is to clarify facts. Life begins at conception, this is a biological fact. Abortion will destroy that life, also a biological fact. The value that one places on that life is subject to opinion but that makes it no less a life.

Undifferentiated cells: This is a non sequitur to my point. It matters not whether the cells have differentiated or not. The cells are alive and they are human. There is little chance they will develop into frogs or Buicks.

Fetal Pain: This is another non sequitur to my point. Not only do any number of people with neuropathic diseases not feel pain but pain is culturally relative so feeling or not feeling pain cannot make one human or not human. The larger problem with this argument is that it assumes that there is something that doesn’t feel pain in the mother’s womb. There can be little argument about it being alive as they recognize that the clump of cells will eventually feel pain, that is the cells are alive. That they are human cells is not a matter of rational debate.

Stage of Development: Because a fetus doesn’t develop voluntary brain activity until roughly the 24th week it is not human (until that point). However, this fact didn’t change their opinion that abortion at this stage should be legal. Nor was he moved by the fact that adults without voluntary brain activity are still human and alive. In fact, some have even delivered healthy human babies from this state.

In all three cases the person argues that the possession of certain qualities is required in order to be considered human. This position ignores the first point at hand; there needs to be something to possess the qualities they argue it currently lacks. Second, that something has to grown in order to possess them.

What they were actually arguing is not whether the clump of cells was alive or human but what value they place on it. People use such arguments to avoid confronting the reality at hand: Life begins at conception. That life passes through many phases but it is no less alive nor human.

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May 6, 2011

Movoeon.org’s Misleading Petition

Filed under: Abortion,Hyde Amendment,moveon.org — Tags: Abortion, Hyde Amendment, Moveon — Obtuse Observer @ 5:00 am

Link

IRS Audits of Rape Survivors?!

Should rape and incest survivors be forced to prove that they were assaulted to the IRS?

What kind of question is that?

But a bill that just passed the House could force many sexual assault survivors to do just that.

The bill would impose tax penalties on small businesses and individuals who buy abortion coverage with their own money—with exceptions only for cases of rape, incest, or when a woman’s life is in danger.

The result? Survivors of rape and incest who seek abortion care could be forced to detail their assaults and provide proof to IRS investigators.

Tell the Senate to stand up against this terrible bill, and speak out against the Republican war on women. Sign the petition today.

A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to your Senators.

The problem is that they are referring to

H.R. 3: No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act

The bill proposes to extend the Hyde Amendment to include all federal funding not just some federal funding. Far from some nasty GOP effort to force rape victims to relive their assault it is a measure to end governmental sponsored abortion excepting cases of rape, incest or preserving the life of the mother. Far from misleading their audience to protest this measure moveon.org should be demanding its inclusion. Sounds a bit different when the pro-abortion obfuscation gets removed huh?

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April 9, 2011

The Budget, Planned Parenthood and Abortion

Filed under: Abortion,Bart Stupak,Fetus,Hyde Amendment,Planned Parenthood — Tags: 2011 Budget, Abortion, Bart Stupak, Fetus, Hyde Amendment, Life, Planned Parenthood — Obtuse Observer @ 2:57 pm

I recently exchanged a few comments with friends about the issues involved with GOP efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. (I’ll spare you the Margaret Sanger eugenics angle this time). I just wanted to describe a couple issues and provide clarification on some facts.

A few Planned Parenthood Statistics: Planned Parenthood claims abortions amounted to 3% of their services for 2008. In 2008 they gave 1.1 million pregnancy tests and performed 324,008 abortions. That’s roughly one abortion performed for every three pregnancy tests. Planned Parenthood made 2,405 adoption referrals over that same time period. Planned Parenthood offers a wide variety of services for both man and women but preventing and, of singular importance, terminating pregnancies represent the main focus of their business. 3% is a misleading figure in my opinion.

The Hyde Amendment is supposed to prevent federal funding of abortions. However, it is a rider traditionally attached to funding bills not a permanent law. Further, as the AP’s Erica Werner noted back in October of 2009: Separate laws apply the restrictions to the federal employee health plan and military and other programs. But the Democrats’ health overhaul bill would create a new stream of federal funding not covered by the restrictions.

This was the issue that got Bart Stupak, a situationally pro-life Democrat Congressman from Michigan, in a tizzy where he ultimately folded with a promise from President Obama that he would issue an executive order preventing federal funds to be used to pay for abortion. He later wrote a piece for Newsweek called Healthcare Hell describing his fight and surrender.

At the end of the day the Hyde Amendment doesn’t prevent federal funds from being used to pay for abortions it only prevents some funds from being used to prevent abortions. And, in a tragically relativist fashion, that restriction is not based on the “why” the abortion occurs but on who is asking for the procedure.

Fetus v Baby: Some advocates of legal abortion rely on terminology to justify it. The word “fetus” is the word I encounter most commonly. I am told that an abortion kills a fetus not a baby and therefore my concern for the dead fetus is exaggerated.

My friend defended legal abortion because, as she asserted, there is a difference between aborting a fetus and killing an unborn baby. Short version: No there isn’t. The term fetus describes a stage of human life not the life that is developing, that is, the term fetus addresses degree not kind. This terminology shell game can only effect one’s perception of the act not what actually happens.

Basic Facts: Obviously this is no easy issue for many people and I have to concede it took me more than twenty years to arrive at what I now regard a fairly brain-dead observation. I assert here no opinion here as to the propriety or morality of abortion in a general sense. However, there are concrete facts that this debate would be better served by acknowledging.

Life begins at conception. This is a scientific and biological determination not a religious one. If it were a religious question women would see priests, rabbi’s etc for pre-natal check-ups and pregnancy tests. They don’t; mothers see doctors because the issue is scientific, biological… medical; not religious. That more religious people acknowledge that fact is a matter for personal contemplation. When people argue that the “zygote” or “blastocyst” is not alive they are venturing down a philosophical path and asserting that the life is not entitled to legal recognition. These are two distinct issues. Our courts employ a legal fiction to deny the unborn legal recognition. The unborn life is a human life regardless of whether or not it is a person recognized in any court opinion (Justice Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v Wade said that the unborn baby was not a “person”). We know this because no mother has ever given birth to anything other than a human. An abortion kills an unborn, living human as its intended purpose. Whether this is immoral or not depends on specific facts that have nothing to do with a calendar or slippery legal terms.

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March 16, 2011

TX: No Abortion Unless Mother Views Sonogram

Filed under: Abortion,Right to Life,Sonogram,Texas Sonogram Bill — Tags: Abortion, Right to Life, Texas Sonogram Bill — Obtuse Observer @ 7:33 am

From recent article:

AUSTIN, March 9, 2011- The Texas House has joined the Senate to require women to see a sonogram image of their unborn child before undergoing an abortion, in a 107-42 vote held yesterday.

I’m going to link one article reposted at Huffingtonpost.com to give readers a flavor of the responses to the legislation. However, any articles on the legislation would illustrate the same general views.

Here’s the link. In the interest of brevity I’ll list what the chief complaints appear to be (in no order): cost, an anti-Christian motive, a definitional assertion about the status of the baby and sex of those who passed the bill. A more outrageous comment simply called the requirement cruel and unusual punishment. Please hit the link and scroll down to the comments section and read for yourself.

To respond to the complaints:

Cost: Not long ago one could get a “4D” sonogram at a mall for under $100. If that short term cost is sufficient to deter a mother from killing her baby she must not really care to kill it all that much. Though I suspect that Planned Parenthood would likely provide these sonograms and remove that awful burden.

Anti-Christian Motive: Pro-choice camps often rely on the canard that only people of faith are pro-life and that the only basis for valuing unborn babies is religious. While Christians tend to be highly represented amongst pro-lifers it certainly isn’t necessary to be Christian (or a member of any faith) to take the position that an unborn human baby is worth treating with value and respect. The view is more a swipe at people of faith and the posts frequently include biblical passages they consider violent and contemptible. Apparently abortionists are the preferred violence advocates.

Definitional: Fetus, embryo and zygote describe the phase of development of a human baby. It is a difference in degree not kind. When you hear one claiming, “it’s just a fetus” you know you’re talking with a person who doesn’t understand the issue at hand and who has bought the efforts of pro-choice advocates to dehumanize the baby by using biological terms.

Sex of Legislator: “Until the Senator gets pregnant…” This misses the point absolutely. The bill isn’t about the mother, it is about the baby. Something each legislator once was. That this argument gets made so frequently is quite sad. There are three lives immediately effected by a pregnancy. Granted the mother’s role is essential but it is no stretch to consider that at least with regard to abortion the party most effected is the one the mother would kill. The self-centered view is appalling.

And finally, does it not strike any of you as the pinnacle of horrific irony that the concern is about requiring a mother to see a fuzzy picture of her baby before killing it; not the killing?

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