Posted on 12/29/2003 8:33:44 AM PST by presidio9
People are always commenting how kids are growing up faster and faster these days. Last week presidential candidate Joe Lieberman let us know that this process begins before birth.
"Lieberman says it's time to rethink Roe vs. Wade," said the headline. Sounded promising, almost believable, given Lieberman's reputation for integrity and religious faith. But the letdown wasn't long in coming. Lieberman explained that advances in medical science are pushing back to earlier and earlier stages the point at which a baby in utero (fetus, to you Democrats) can be sustained outside the womb. This means, said Lieberman, that what we once thought of as "early" abortions, in the beginning of the first trimester, before viability, really aren't as early as we thought, and that it may be time to abandon Roe's trimester-based division of abortions into "early" (good) and "late" (bad).
No doubt, Lieberman thought he was practicing his vaunted Thoughtfulness and Integrity. But it's hard to think of a more chilling statement than the one he gave the papers. Chilling in several ways, in fact. For he was telling us that the point at which a baby becomes human is not determined by any law, by any human right, by any rudiment of morality: it is purely determined by what level of medical skill we have at the moment. And he was acknowledging, albeit unintentionally, that we have been killing humans all along. The nature of babies has not changed; only how well we can (or will) take care of them. And, most chilling of all, Sen. Lieberman seemed completely unaware that he was pulling aside the pretty veil of Choice, exposing the bloody mess behind. Blissfully ignorant of the heinousness of the idea, he was calmly discussing how we can select the point in time when babies begin to have human rights.
Today we laugh at the medieval theologians' debate about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. But the joke is on us moderns. The abortion lobby makes pretzels of themselves, trying to draw distinctions which cannot be made. Distinctions such as when a baby is too old to kill, and who may decide to kill it, and when to stop calling it a fetus and begin calling it a baby. Sophistries like wanting abortion to be "safe, legal, freely available, but rare." Evasions, euphemisms, circumlocutions, and half-truths like calling partial-birth abortion "very late-term abortion," or even "so-called" partial birth abortion.
When the advocates of an action won't call it by its plain name, you may be sure that it is ugly and wrong, and that they know it. Abortion is the Democrats' Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, but since they can't stop talking about it, we are left with the spectacle of Joe Lieberman debating how many fetuses can dance on the head of a laboratory pipette. Meanwhile, we can take some consolation in looking up from the paper to see our own children, and knowing that they've been human longer than Joe thought.
Ah yes, the 'useless eaters' who are now being targeted by the ghoulish 'death with dignity' crowd.
God save the inconvenient ones!
To me, this article is a prime example of some conservatives always seeing the glass as half-empty rather than half-full.
Instead of welcoming a re-opening of the debate and a chance to reduce the number of abortions (especially the really troubling late-term ones), the author takes the opportunity to bash Lieberman as immoral.
The problem is, the people who will agree with the author don't need to be convinced that abortion is wrong. The people who do need convincing will, I'm afraid, be put off by the author's critical and moralizing tone.
It looks to me as if the author is taking the opportunity to paint all abortion proponents as immoral hypocrites. I'm sure he feels that's a valid opinion; however, it will do nothing to advance the cause of reducing (and eventually eliminating) the number of abortions, whereas welcoming and following through with Lieberman's reasoning very well could.
We can't make other people become moral, but we can work through the political system to try to eliminate practices we find morally offensive. I can't see throwing away an opportunity to do that.
very powerful sentence...and an accurate indictment of Lieberman, IMHO..see, that's why the Choice group fights so hard to keep PBA's legal...once you admit that there's something, anything, wrong, with any abortion..you're forced to confront the obvious facts...those people, though evil, aren't stupid....the author pints out that Lieberman, if he isn't evil, is therefore, logically... stupid...
with regards to the issue you raise..thatis the desire to limit abortions as much as possible..I as one who is fervently pro-life...pose this question to you...assume that Bush gets to appoint a few SC justices, and Roe is overturned....as conservattives.we believe the issue is one best decided by the several states...so you'd have, maybe, 35 states impose a near total ban on abortions...yet the rest, like NY, Cal,and Mass..keeo the same laws on the books..possibly even more liberal interpetations...and you'd have millons of women travelling from, say, Texas or Miss...to Cal of NY to have an abortion...so, would the AG of Texas indict a Texas woman who went to NYC to have a second trimester abortion?...I don't think so..thus..who benefits..aside fro travel agents?...I don't really know the answer...indeed, I despair of the problem....
But isn't that exactly the principle used in the Terri Shiavo case? Fifty years ago there could have been no argument about whether her feeding tube should be removed or not. We did not have the medical skill to keep someone alive that way. Now suddenly, based entirely on the fact the medical skill makes it possible, not using it is called "murder." This is the very thing you are arguing against, that anything changes morally based on new medical skills. Either it does or it doesn't.
I am not supporting Joe Lieberman, or anything about his position, only pointing out, this particular argument does not fly.
Hank
Pics? I don't need pics. Ha ha ha.
The point is, if you could get 2nd or 3rd trimester babies declared viable and therefore "off-limits" for abortion, part of that problem would disappear. Except, of course, for illegal abortions.
The medical skills give us the power to save the life--a life which is just as human whether we can save it or not. It's these Brave-New-Worlders who want to define humanity by medical technology, not the pro-lifers. Oh, and in the case of abortion, we have always had the technology to nurture the 'fetus:' it's called the uterus.
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