THIS TOPIC IS ALL WITH GRATITUDE TO REBECCA KIESSLING –originally posted January 2013–
Rebecca Kiessling in a very focused way, explains how the “rape clause” is the foot in the door for abortion through all 9-months. Uploaded for the 40th of Roe v Wade. Rebecca deals with some myths as well. For instance, a higher percentage of rape victims decide to keep their baby than the general population of women having abortions.
Stories and affirmation of the preciousness of life!
What about children conceived in rape or incest? What about fetal deformity? What about threats to the life or health of the mother? These are the abortion exceptions.
I love when Mark Davis fills in for Prager. When he discusses Constitutional issue I usually tune in. This is a subject many are afraid to tackle, and that is why I grab this topic when I have the time and upload it. I will also include some videos below this audio to encourage the point (maybe even challenge a mind that has never heard this position in their life — which I find is often the case with the Left) and change minds. Much thought on this topic. I include a truncated disagreeing call near the end. I edit it a bit because the main disagreement is what Mark is good at zeroing in on. And that is the main point. The person Mark mentions, Jennifer Christie, her sites can be found here: jenniferchristie.org | lovelouder.com — Here is Jennifer’s story:
My first introduction to this was a DVD [many years ago] with 22-people speaking about either raising a child conceived in rape or being a child of rape. Those stories can be seen here: CONCEIVED IN RAPE & OTHER EXCEPTIONS
IT IS A HUMAN LIFE ~ THE ONLY QUESTION IN THIS DEBATE
➡ Again, aside from religious arguments – biology and medical expertise put the conception of human life at conception (WHEN DOES LIFE BEGIN)
NOT A RELIGIOUS CAUSE
➡ I showed some well-known atheists who get the importance of this idea as well (they are students of history… and one of these people in the video is my favorite atheist polemicist ~ Christopher Hitchens):
BIBLE
➡ The Bible clearly view the baby in the womb as human:
WOMEN’S RIGHT
➡ I posted a video of one of a few women who are survivors of abortion:
…it should be noted when Obama was Senator he voted to pass legislation that would allow doctors to take such babies and place them on a table to die from lack of care and food…
DEVALUED LIFE
➡ …In 1997, Obama voted in the Illinois Senate against SB 230, a bill designed to prevent partial-birth abortions. In the US Senate, Obama has consistently voted to expand embryonic stem cell research. He has voted against requiring minors who get out-of-state abortions to notify their parents. The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) gives Obama a 100% score on his pro-choice voting record in the Senate for 2005, 2006, and 2007. (for more info see: THIS DAY CHOOSE LIFE <<< CAUTION-GRAPHIC)
➡ A 2008 study by National Center for Health Statistics found that 33.1% of women have at some point considered adoption. Of that number 4.9% were currently seeking adoptions. That’s 901,000 women looking for babies. By most recent statistics, there are approximately 129,000 children seeking adoption. Now I’m no mathematician, but that’s 772,000 women who want to adopt a child, but will not. It seems that if we killed less of our children, this would not be a problem. Shoot, even if we take the women who were currently seeking adoptions AND had already begun taking steps – 560,000 – there aren’t enough children to go around.
(An aside: someone does not have to adopt in order to speak to all these issues)
RAPE
➡ In a very powerful DVD 22 people are interviewed that either were given birth to by a mother who was raped and chose life over the horrible crime as well as some in the presentation who are mothers talking about why they chose life (here are descriptions of a couple DVDs. I noted on my site as well Rebecca Kiessling’s story of being conceived from a rape:
PUSHING MORALITY
➡ “Do you believe the government should be able to force someone to become a parent?” Well? This is precisely what is being done by the government à as I speak! You would argue that the government should stay out of your affairs when choosing whether to become a parent (i.e., to abort or not), however, you wish the government to be involved in telling the father that he has to become a parent and supply all the necessary needs for that child. Thus, you are forcing your morality on me Susan (as a defined group) and using the power of the Federal Government to boot!!! You cannot say any differently with what I just have shown above. This belief is self-refuting and shows youto-be-the hypocrite, and not me. You see… I am for equal rights under the Constitution. A “right” has no “moderation (see below). You, on the other-hand, are for special rights inferred upon groups of people. ~ See the rest of this conversationHERE.
Discussions and Afterthoughts
I wish to start the conversation off with a quote from our Founding Documents:
The Declaration of Independence: The Declaration of Independence states that our unalienable rights are, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The U.S. Constitution, which is the supreme law of our magnificent nation, reinforces this American creed by the fourteenth amendment; “Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
The first unalienable right is life. As a result, the unborn have the right to life. To deny it to them is not only morally wrong, but also anti-American. It is anti-American in the sense that by supporting abortion, one is also going against the Declaration of Independence. Prenatal humans are still human beings since the moment of conception, and so they have the same right to life as the humans that are already born. It is hypocritical that human beings after birth deny the right to prenatal human beings, since the humans after birth get to exercise their right to life. The prenatal human beings have the same right, and so, they should be allowed to exercise their right to life.
The second unalienable right is liberty. Many people that are pro-choice states that it is the freedom of the woman that is pregnant to decide whether to abort the child or not. They arguethat since it is her body, she should have the right to choose. It is contradictory to this idea of liberty, for the unborn child does not have a say in the matter, and as a result, it is against the liberty of the unborn child. The moment a woman becomes pregnant is the moment that the body of the woman is no longer only hers, for there is life in her womb. Another aspect of abortion as a threat to liberty is that the government classifies prenatal humans as not human, just like in the case of slavery, in which slaves were not considered humans, and so the slaver masters that were considered humans were given the right by the government to treat the slaves however they wished. To permit abortion is equivalent to permit slavery, for prenatal humans are still humans. If one understands that slavery was wrong, one must also understand that abortion is wrong.
The third unalienable right is the Pursuit of Happiness. Abortion is against this right as well, for the unborn child was denied the right to pursue his or her happiness. How will he or she be able to pursue happiness if he or she was already murdered by the process of abortion? Prenatal human beings have the right to happiness, just as human beings that are already born do.Another aspect of abortion that threatens this right is that many of women that chose abortion start regretting their decision and as a result, start feeling depressed. These women thought that abortion would help them solve their problem, but instead, it hurts them internally in the long run. In short, abortion is a threat to happiness, and if Americans want to pursue happiness, they must abolish abortion.
The purpose of our government is to secure these three unalienable rights. However, when the government allows for abortion, they are not securing these rights. Roe v. Wade, which was a 1973 Supreme Decision holding that that a state ban on all abortions was unconstitutional, is a decision that is going against these three rights. If one truly understands the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of this country, one will be against abortion, for it threatens the country’s basis. Therefore, the Declaration of Independence is a pro-life document since the moment it became ratified.
This leads into a conversation with someone from Australia that apparently does not get the idea that the only reason the law need step in in this issue is to protect life… and this is the main point of the above points in the post. Our Constitution says we cannot own another person. So the topic is is the baby in the mother’s womb, human. This is what was said immediately after the post:
“is it a human life” is absolutely NOT the only question in this debate- and this is what I mean about people wanting to make this a black and white issue when it clearly isn’t.
I responded:
(Question after explaining Being)
Besides all the well argued points in the links about medical textbooks, biology, atheists, etc. ….
Another argument I personally like is the argument from “being.” This is a complex issue and is intimately tied up in some forms of the cosmological argument (example: Kalam Cosmological Argument ~ History and Argument).
Being. Traditionally the most important philosophical category, the term is derived from the Greek ontos; hence the area of philosophy that deals with it is called ontology. In ancient and medieval thought it was a fundamental category. In Hegel it is the starting point of all the categories. Recognition of the importance of the term as pivotal to all serious philosophical discussion continues today and has been developed by Heidegger and many others. ~ (Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, by Geddes MacGregor)
Being is a subject-matter of ontology. According to a long tradition, there are kinds of being and modes of being. The kinds of being may be subdivided in various ways: for instance, into universals and particulars and into concrete beings and abstract beings. Another term for “being” in this sense is “entity” or “thing.” in a second sense, being is what all real entities possess – in other words, existence. Being in this second sense has various modes. Thus the being of concrete physical objects is spatio-temporal while that of abstract mathematical entities like numbers is eternal and non-spatial. Again, the being of some entities (for instance, qualities) is logically dependent upon that of others, whereas the being of substances is logically dependent.
Connected with some of these traditional categorical distinctions are certain grammatical distinctions concerning the verb “to be.” the use of “is” as a copula may be interpreted in a variety of ways. “This ring is yellow” features the “is” of attribution, since it ascribes a quality to a substantial particular. “This ring is golden” involves the “is” of constitution, as it states what kind of material that particular is made of. “The ring is my grandmother’s wedding-ring” features the is of identity. Finally, “This object is a ring” involves the “is” of instantiation, since it states what kind of thing the object in question is an instance of. Thus, although being yellow, being golden, being my grandmother’s wedding-ring, and being a ring are all properties of this ring, they are properties of very different natures. Moreover, none of these properties constitutes the being of this ring, in the sense of constitution its existence. “This ring is (exists)” apparently involves a sense of “is” distinct from any which in which “is” functions merely as a copula.
What is it to be a being or entity? Here we must distinguish between the question what it is for an entity of any given kind to exist and the question what is the distinguishing feature of entityhood…. In a special, restricted sense the term “being” is commonly used to denote a subject of consciousness (or self), and thus a kind of entity to be contrasted with mere “objects.” Such entities are often supposed to enjoy a special mode of being inasmuch as they are conscious of their own existence and posses a capacity freely to determine its course – a vie elaborated in the existentialist doctrine that, for such entities, “existence precedes essence” (Sartre). ~ (The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich)
Three features of the argument are central. First, proponents must spell out what it is to be a dependent being; this is done by appealing to what is called the essence/existence distinction. A beings essence is its whatness or nature and its existence is its thatness (that it is). Proponents argue that one cannot move from a finite thing’s essence to its existence. By contemplating Fido’s dogness it does not follow that Fido really exists. If he does exist, being must be given to his essence. ~ (Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity, by J. P. Moreland)
Can you refer to yourself in your mother’s womb without using personal pronouns? Were you less of a person (having “being”) in the
Right out of the box I get this:
So are you also anti-war and anti-death penalty Sean?
The death penalty and war are based on persons who are not innocent. The baby in the womb has not killed anyone.
Clear enough… a thinking person would have connected the idea that the analogy breaks down, and maybe they would get into another topic? Nope.
You don’t think innocent people ever die in wars? You don’t believe innocent people have ever been put to death for crimes they didn’t commit?
I’ll take that as a “no, I am not anti those things”. Ok. So the issue is not whether or not it is a “person” then, you can NOT say that is the only issue.
There were over 20,000 innocent people that were said to die in the days and weeks of D-Day. Are these deaths due to the allies, or Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, and the like?
My point has been made.
Someone else chimes in:
No it has not
You can NOT say the issue is ONLY if they are people or not because you are ok with SOME people dying, even some innocent people. You just said it!
The person is missing the idea that the only time our founding documents would [read here, should] kill the innocent fetus is if the mother is going to die, like in a tubal pregnancy where in which the fetus develops in a fallopian tube. LIFE is the only issue in this… in this case the life of the mother is more important than the life of the baby in the womb… LIKE collateral damage in war. Wanting to pursue educational goals without the encumbrance of pregnancy is NOT a LIFE question. Continuing to comment on the previous response: “My point has been made.”
You haven’t made one… if you think you have — well — I don’t know whether to laugh or wag-my-head.
REMEMBER THIS NEXT SENTENCE!
Perhaps I should find more intelligent people to discuss this with.
I am willing to have an open discussion- you just want to declare you are always right and proselytize. Pointless.
Going to continue on the point the person thought they made and was done with…
So the allies are to blame for innocent deaths stemming from D-Day?
The person notes they are from Australia:
I don’t know. I have not studies American history, I am not American.
Dodge One
Are you claiming innocent people NEVER die in wars at the hands of the “good guys” (who ever they may be)?
Are you denying that innocent men and women have been put to death for crimes they did not commit?
Please answer these 2 questions directly.
The normal person would know that I already have, but I will try and re-word it, re-explain it for her:
Australia was an Allie. Do you think the innocent people Aussies killed in WWII were their fault or Germany’s, Italy’s, and Japan’s?
Probably Australians, if they fired the guns.
Now please answer my questions.
Sorry, The onus is on the evil guys.
By “onus” I mean the loss of innocent life in a war is the blame of the tyrants, dictators, and persons who think themselves deity.
Should we stop all court proceedings because once-in-a-while cases are decided wrong?
I am just following your logic to its conclusion.
I did not claim that did I? Why can you not answer a direct question? It’s so bloody annoying.
I have.
ALL babies are innocent,
ALL people killed in wars are not innocent [if they are they arecollateral damage, and the blame is on the tyrants, dictators, and persons who think themselves deity.],
nor are ALL the people on death row innocent.
The analogies you are attempting is a non-sequitur.
Keep in mind as the conversation progresses there are multiple points being responded to. So I talked about following ideas to their logical conclusions, which is the first response. The second was my repeating the same thing in a different way which finally clicked as a response to her question.
So we should just lock up all women who try to have abortions, I’m just following your logic to its conclusions” See how that shit gets us nowhere? Do you want a discussion or do you just want to be able to prance around in front of your son and tell him how right you always are?
No, you had not answered it, thank you for finally doing so.
I make the point that her contention about jailing mothers is not the position of ANY pro-lifer:
No, if abortion is made illegal (which will not happen), doctors would lose their license and/or be fined.
I did not deal with this myth, or, how abortion clinics are not run safely “above ground.” Women die in these clinics all the time because of lack of regulation. But the “coat hanger/back-alley” abortion thing is a myth. But here I will post a quick response:
…While preparing the League’s handbook, Sharing the Pro-Life Message, my staff and I searched high and low for evidence of an abortion ever having been performed with a coat hanger. We found none.
That isn’t to say it never happened. We know that women did attempt to do abortions on themselves, using all manner of objects. But I never found any specific evidence of a coat hanger abortion—until now.
Who Gave Her the Idea of Aborting Herself with an Coat Hanger? What’s unusual about this case of a confirmed coat hanger abortion is that it isn’t one from the archives. It happened in 2009.
I came across the story in an article in Slate on women who decide to perform their own (illegal) abortions, despite the ready availability of legal abortion.
An account of the case says a 19-year-old woman pregnant with twins attempted to abort herself with a coat hanger and ended up in the emergency room. The babies died and the woman required a hysterectomy; she will never bear children….
“If abortion is made illegal, tens of thousands of women will again die from back-alley and clothes-hanger abortions.”
For decades prior to its legalization, 90 percent of abortions were done by physicians in their offices, not in back alleys.
It is not true that tens of thousands of women were dying from illegal abortions before abortion was legalized.
The history of abortion in Poland invalidates claims that making abortion illegal would bring harm to women.
Women still die from legal abortions in America.
If abortion became illegal, abortions would be done with medical equipment, not clothes hangers.
We must not legalize procedures that kill the innocent just to make the killing process less hazardous.
The central horror of illegal abortion remains the central horror of legal abortion.
“Abortion is a safe medical procedure—safer than full-term pregnancy and childbirth.”
Abortion is not safer than full-term pregnancy and childbirth.
Though the chances of a woman’s safe abortion are now greater, the number of suffering women is also greater because of the huge increase in abortions.
Even if abortion were safer for the mother than childbirth, it would still remain fatal for the innocent child.
Abortion can produce many serious medical problems.
Abortion significantly raises the rate of breast cancer.
The statistics on abortion complications and risks are often understated due to the inadequate means of gathering data.
The true risks of abortion are rarely explained to women by those who perform abortions.
What the left here in the states want to do is not allow the states (per the Constitutional rights states have) to put limits on abortions. For instance:
Seriously, my ONLY point was that you need to stop claiming that the only issue in the debate is “are they human”, because that’s a bullshit argument and it is patently false. There are multiple other issues at hand.
No, are we taking an innocent person’s life, that is the only question.
You have — really — no idea of our political process, the Constitutional protections on life, the debate between left and right, etc… How confident are you in debating these issues?
I don’t need to know your countries specific political process to know my own opinions on the matter, How fucking arrogant are you?!
…Um, yes, our Constitution protects life…
There was some cross-talk, I again get back to the starting exchange:
Can you refer to yourself in your mothers womb without using personal pronouns?
Dodge Two
No. Because like I have already stated I accept that a fetus us a human life. Why can’t you get that?
Is the reader getting that? I am not.
(Oh boy) Can someone who doesn’t accept it as life refer to themselves in their mother’s womb without using personal pronouns?
Dodge Three
I don’t know, you’d have to ask them. Why would I care?
Perhaps I should find more intelligent people to discuss this with.
BAM!
The conversation continues. What amazes me is this statement later in the convo, in part. To my son this was said:
…if you would like to pull back the ego for just a moment and go back to re-read our conversations you would see that it not facts and references I am interested in, because I am not trying to convince you of anything…
Later she said this to me:
Once again Sean, you are arguing against a position you assume I hold rather than one I actually hold- because you have placed all atheists and skeptics in a box and can’t fathom any of them being anywhere outside of that box. Bravo. Try listening to people for a change, it could really take you places in future conversations. Not with me though, I’m done….
To which I responded:
You are arguing -as if- you hold the position you don’t hold… bravo. You brought up positions that mirror the pro-choice challenges. You brought up the death penalty, war… not me. You used bad analogies to try and make a point — I was just fleshing that out.
if you would like to pull back the ego for just a moment and go back to re-read our conversations you would see that it not facts and references I am interested in, because I am not trying to convince you of anything. I was trying to have a conversation and get YOUR opinions and see where we could (if at all) come to a mutual agreement with our beliefs.
So why discuss a topic (see the original post) you say you ALREADY hold in order to not convince someone of anything by making arguments that mirror the position you do not hold to find mutual beliefs on something you say we have mutual beliefs on? The post at the top of this strain is the issue, as your death penalty and war analogies made clear.
