Vanity - My Abortion Debate from Tonight - Seven against One

I thought some freepers might enjoy a summary of an abortion debate I just had with about seven people. I was over at my friend’s house. It consisted of him, his wife, his mother, his sister, his mother's boyfriend, his grandparents, a few cats, and two dogs. The animals tended to stay neutral, but it was all of them against me in a rough and tumble abortion debate.

The first thing that I found funny was them asking my why I was pro-life even though I am not a Catholic or Christian (which was a funny question because they are all Christian, yet pro-choice; I am for the most part Jewish, although my mom is Christian, dad Jewish; I know it is complicated). So that was there first line of attack, asking me how I could be pro-life if I am not a Christian

My answer was a simple one. While religion no doubt plays an important part in people's decisions to become pro-life, it is far from a necessary component. I am not that religious, but nevertheless recognize the miraculous nature of life. I even made the argument that an atheist can be pro-life. Even if you don't believe in God, that fact is that there is something out there we don't understand that has created this miraculous life process and who are we to take actions to interrupt that process, whether it be God, nature, or something we just don't understand that started it.

With that, I got them to drop the so-called religious attack against abortion. Score one for the pro-life side.

They then pulled the argument that abortion should be a choice between a woman and her doctor. This came from my friend's grandmother, which somewhat surprised me because her favorite radio host is Michael Savage. But I guess she tends to be a Rockefeller Republican (she loves Giuliani for 2008).

Again, I chose to rebut this argument with a simple point. We are not dealing only with a woman and her health. We are dealing with a woman AND THE HEALTH AND LIFE OF A BABY INSIDE OF HER. Of course, this was met with "it’s not a baby; it’s a fetus, its just tissue, blah, blah, blah." Well, I came back with the fact that we do not really know when life begins. I believe it begins at conception, while some of my opposing debaters said the soul only comes in at birth (mind you this came from my friend's mother, a reformed hippy). My point to them was that if we don't really know, shouldn't we be cautious and err on the side of life beginning at conception????

Additionally, I said to them, let’s say you guys are correct and the fetus is just tissue and cells. Well, what about when it starts to look like a baby, what about when the heart starts beating; should women be able to choose abortion then? I then described for them partial birth abortion, a type of abortion used to abort fetuses after the first trimester. It wasn't before long that they conceded abortion should be limited to the first trimester.

Next, I took the constitutional argument to them. I am currently a second year law school student. I made the argument that abortion aside, Roe v. Wade is terrible law because of the means by which the judiciary went about coming to the decision. It allowed judges to act like legislatures by inventing rights that are not in the constitution. While some may have had no problem with the decision because they favored abortion, what if the next time a judge employs substantive due process reasoning they take away some right or invent some right you disagree with? Well, with that, they agreed Roe v. Wade was probably wrong.

I next made the case that whatever pro-lifers think, we don't want to throw women in jail. We simply want to make women or men that support abortion rights understand that abortion is wrong, that there is a reasonable alternative in adoption, and that we merely what to prevent them from making a choice many of them will regret. We want to help them make a better choice, not throw them away in prison for making a bad one.

Well, I could go on a lot longer, but I gave the gist of most of the argument. I nowhere came close to making them pro-life, but I did do two things. I made them agree that at a minimum, abortion should be limited to the first trimester (of course I had to give them the exception for rape, incest, and health or life of the mother for them to agree, but I'll take it for one night). Second, I got them to just about agree that Roe v. Wade was a terrible decision and for some of them, that it should be overturned and abortion sent back to the states.

I guess my point in all this is that we are not going to win over pro-choice or ignorant people on the issue in one day. However, we can bring them significantly over to our side at least in limiting abortion to the first trimester and working to return the issues to the states. I believe a significant portion of America at a minimum agrees in these limitations (especially the first trimester limitation) and not abortion on demand like the NARAL and Planned Parenthood types. Of course, none of this will make a difference if Bush does not get another appointment to the Supreme Court. But changing hearts and minds is a good first start.

And mind you, this is coming from a 25 year old, second year law student (who to my friends and his parents amazement, is not only pro-life, but Jewish and pro-life!!!). I think overall, tonight was a good night for our side, at least in the debate I had.

Good for you for trying.

"which was a funny question because they are all Christian, yet pro-choice;"

They may claim to be, but aren't. Real telling that their first assumption was that you must be a Christian to support life, as their opposition to it is the same as their fundamental opposition to Christianity.

"Of course, this was met with "it’s not a baby; it’s a fetus, its just tissue, blah, blah, blah." Well, I came back with the fact that we do not really know when life begins. I believe it begins at conception, while some of my opposing debaters said the soul only comes in at birth (mind you this came from my friend's mother, a reformed hippy)."

This one always gets me. They claim to know from a scientific point of view that the baby isn't a baby at all, but just a "lump of tissue". They ridicule Christianity for its belief in the idea of life at conception, but go on to form their own theological belief that a soul enters at an arbitrary time. There is a definitive scientific proof that the baby isn't merely a lump of tissue. Ask them whose DNA the "tissue" has and when it came about. Usually you get incredulous and ridiculous answers, or they bluster and try to change the subject to the soul.

As for the soul, that argument is merely their method of trying to shut up the argument on a technicality. Because of their belief that no proof of the soul is forthcoming and measurable, it means that they win by default.

Again, good for you for trying.

A few weeks my daughter was invited to a Young Democrats meeting at her highschool. She declined, but was nagged and finally agreed to go on the grounds that her friend needed a friend with her at her first meeting.

The topic of the day was "Gay Marriage." My daughter stayed quiet until an openly bisexual girl pointedly asked her what she thought of the issue.

My daughter looked her straight in the eye and said, "I believe that homosexuality is a mental illness."

Later a friend pointedly asked her *why* she thought gay marriage was wrong and she put it this way. Marriage is a contract. Any contract made by mentally incompetent individuals is invalid. Homosexuality is a mental illness. Thus, no marriage contract between two homosexuals can be valid.

The fight goes on, in small ways, every day.

(On a funny note: The meeting went on after my daughter's "outburst" and the members of the group created a plan to send letters to Al Gore and HC, telling them how terrible the conditions of their school was in order to solicit money. My daughter whispered to her boyfriend, "Oh! They're going to lie to get money! They *are* democrats!")

From the WSJ/Opinion Journal

Rudy and the Right
Just what Republicans don’t need: an abortion brawl.

Sunday, May 13, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

As if Republicans don’t have enough problems, their Presidential candidates and interest groups seem eager to re-stage a fight over abortion the American public doesn’t want to hear. Blame both Rudy Giuliani and his conservative critics, but if the GOP wants to lose in 2008 they should keep this up.

Mr. Giuliani has created the stir by flopping around on an issue that he should have been better prepared to handle as he seeks the GOP Presidential nomination. The former New York Mayor says he finds abortion personally abhorrent but nonetheless supports a legal right to the procedure. It isn’t news that this is a hard sell for many Republican primary voters. But for Mr. Giuliani to change his views after so many years in public life would make him look unprincipled, which is not what Americans want in a President.

Yet Mr. Giuliani has wandered all over town on the issue, saying one week that he favors federal funding for abortions, while later noting “It’d be OK” if Roe v. Wade were overturned and “OK” if it wasn’t. In a recent interview on CNN, he said he supported a “strict constructionist” reading of the Constitution while also saying he believed abortion “is a Constitutional right ultimately.” The missteps speak to a lack of discipline by Mr. Giuliani, or perhaps a lack of preparation by a first-time Presidential candidate. He would do better to be consistent and direct, which by mid-week his aides were saying he finally plans to be.

It isn’t as if Mr. Giuliani doesn’t have a case to make. Whatever his personal views, the political reality is that abortion policy is now determined largely by the courts. Legislation—such as the ban on partial birth abortion—matters only at the margin. What count are judicial nominations, and on that score Mr. Giuliani says he’d appoint Supreme Court Justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and John Roberts. If Mr. Giuliani means what he says, then in practical policy terms as President he could do as much to promote anti-abortion goals as any of the other GOP candidates. He could credibly say that, if Roe and Casey were overturned, then abortion policy could and should be settled democratically in state legislatures.

This is where some of Mr. Giuliani’s conservative critics are also politically opportunistic, not to say cynical. “Americans do not yet realize how far outside of the mainstream of conservative thought that Mayor Giuliani’s social views really are,” says Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, knowing the networks will always put him on the air when he’s trashing a Republican. Adds Tom Tancredo, the anti-immigration Congressman desperately trying to become a two-issue candidate: “If a Republican President of the United States won’t vigorously fight to protect the life of the unborn, how long before the trend toward the culture of death becomes irreversible?”

These conservatives seem oblivious to the realities of contemporary life and the complexity of social change. If Roe is overturned, abortion’s availability, and more importantly, the demand for it, will not disappear—whoever is President, whatever he (or she) believes. But these conservatives can posture with the most extreme position because abortion has been hijacked by the courts and thus denied the normal process of democratic compromise.

Say that Roe were overturned and abortion again became a matter for states to regulate. Most would probably enact measures reflecting the rough public consensus that abortion should be legal but more restricted than it now is. We doubt there would be any major or radical shifts. In 2006, voters in South Dakota—not Manhattan or Vermont—overturned a ban on most abortions that the state Legislature had passed the previous year.

As for the politics of 2008, the last thing the GOP needs is another intramural abortion brawl. As a resurgent Democratic Party advances all manner of misguided proposals for the economy, taxes, national security, health care, energy and the environment, voters need Republicans to revive their own reform agenda. An abortion fight will make the party seem irrelevant to the main voter concerns, or captive to its litmus test interests.

Mr. Giuliani has his strengths and weaknesses, but he shouldn’t be disqualified for the nomination because of his views on a single issue that a President can’t do much to change other than through the courts. The only victor in a drawn-out GOP abortion donnybrook will be the Democrat who winds up in the White House.

Mike -

Great job. Pretty wise for a 25 year old. KUDO’s!

Hey, here is an angle that no one seems to give much thought to - the aftermath of abortion. What happens to the woman who aborted. I am a Christian and at our church, there are women who come in monthly if not weekly looking for solace and especially forgiveness for what they had done even years earlier.

The Pro-abortion folks like Planned Parenthood like to take a young girl at the most confusing, vulnerable and emotionally unstable time in her life and convince her that it’s for the best. Years later she is regretting what she did and is so emotionally distraught that she needs professional if not also spiritual counselling.

This is the carnage in the wake of the abortion. The “mother’s” life has thus changed and will never be the same again. Whereas, if she had at least put the baby up for adoption, whe night have had a clearer conscience and a better self-image.

When confronting the argument that the alive 'thing' in the womb is just a blob of cells, not yet a human being, guide their reasoning to consider the following scientific information in layman's language:

--as soon as the first cell division begins, even before the new life implants in the woman's womb, the new life is expressing his or her own will to live and grow;
--cell division is the hallmark of cell differentiation, where cell lines are being made by the new life and tasked for special jobs for survival of the new life, such as accomplishing implantation, making a placental organ to accomplish nourishment and oxygenation, and building a body of other organs to survive being born into the air world in several months;
--a new life in a human womb is a human ORGANISM, not some blob of cells ... the newly conceived is a human organism, not subunit of an organ, the mother's body only give life support, the new organism makes everything including the placental encapsulation for this new life begun at conception

This refocusing of thought toward ORGANISM rather than mere blobs of tissue is vital to establishing in their mind the right for a human organism to not be killed, which is what abortion does, kill an alive human organism, a human being.

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