The devaluing of human life (Nat Hentoff!)

The Washington Times ^ | June 12, 2006 | Nat Hentoff

[cpforlife.org]

Pro-Life PING

Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

[Jim Noble]

Anyone who thinks that what they know about the "right to choose" is correct should try explaining it to an eight-year old girl.

[AliVeritas]

True. If you haven't, you should read New York: Abortion Capital of the World. It came out months ago in NY Magazine (must've slipped through). The history is eye-opening.

Google, it's easy to find.

[rhema]

Ping

[Mrs. Don-o]

I few years ago I was substitute teaching 7th and 8th grade. One of my 8th graders --- and not a dim bulb, either --- took it into her head to argue in favor of abortion as a means of not getting pregnant. One of the other girls pointed out that if you have an abortion, you already ARE pregnant and the whole point of the abortion is to guarantee that the baby will come out dead. Diane (I'll call her) didn't believe her.

Next day Diane comes in with a picture of a 12-week abortion which she got off the Internet, and she is just storming with moral indignation. "You mean they legalized this? How could they legalize this! This is nothing but murder!"

Amazing to see the blazing eyes and hear the fresh hot anger of a reality-struck 13-year-old.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Shirker (sigh), go back and read the article, please. Hentoff doesn't say he was a dinner guest. He says the abortionist's husband --- the boy's father ---told him about this conversation.

[Kaylee Frye]

Wow, great article. Thanks for posting!

[newguy357]

I hate to say this, but if Mexican illegals could vote, they would overwhelming vote Republican. Mexicans are very conservative.

Huh? About 60% of hispanics voted for DEMOCRATS in the last election. Do you really think mexicans south of the border would vote differently from mexicans north of the border? It's all about governmental social services, and democrats offer more of them. Minorities will continue to vote democrat for that reason.

[CDHart]

"If it is all just a matter of getting a legislative majority, how can one object on principle to slavery, to euthanasia"

That's what is so dangerous about pure democracy -- it's the majority unrestrained by law, ethics, morals, or anything else.

Carolyn

[LauraleeBraswell]

There's a problem with using the term "Hispanic" as if it applies to all South Americans. IE, Puerto Ricans are known to be overwhelming liberal.

Mexicans are very very conservative. They have strong family values, they believe that the government cannot be trusted to solve social problems (perhaps from all those years of Spaniard rule) and they are observant Catholics who go to church and don't believe in abortion. And in many cases, birth control.

Even Vicente Fox is a conservative. Sure, we don't like him because his foreign policy undermines ours, but the guy is still a conservative.

[Lexinom]

. He said: "There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of a higher order than the right to life.

"That," he continued, "was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore out of your right to be concerned."

[Aquinasfan]

"But," said her son, "that means killing the baby."

From the mouths of babes.

[Aquinasfan]

Sorry, but this story is a glaring fabrication. If a leftist wrote something like this to push their agenda, everybody on FR would see the holes in it instantly. Nine years old, his mother performs abortions, and is comfortable chatting about that at the dinner table with guests, and the kid has never heard the word before, much less has any idea what it means???

I'm active in the pro-life movement and my children didn't hear about abortion until they were about 8. They simply couldn't comprehend how a mother could kill her child. Certainly they have no idea how common it is.

[Aquinasfan]

Or am I to believe that Mr. Hentoff was boorish enough to raise this obviously contentious and sensitive subject at the dinner table, in front of his hosts' 9 year old son?

Better that the murderer be on her merry way, unimpeded by boorishness. Anything but that.

[Hoodat]

Nat Hentoff wrote that? There is hope!

[Aquinasfan]

I wonder how abortionists do explain their work to their children - "I dismember embryos and fetuses for a living?" Or, "I help women facing unwanted pregnancies."

I think they say, "I cut their little arms and legs off with a knife."

[jebeier]

Gotta love this guy.

Yes, you do.

If abortion is ever eliminated in this country, it will be because the Democrats eliminated it. The Republicans seem satisfied to keep it as a campaign issue forever.

[Comstock1]

Nat Hentoff is probably the most honest man in the media business. I first became aware of him when he was a speaker on a panel at a college newspaper conference I attended in Washington, DC.

The panel was about First Amendment rights, and he wasn't as prolific a speaker as others, but he was very insightful and very memorable.

A year or two later I caught him on an ABC program that was a roundtable discussion on various important topics of the day. That is when he described his "whole cloth" view on life and death. Basically, his view is that life is life, whether it is that of an unborn child or a murderous adult. To him, we have no more right to take the felon's life than that of the child.

It was also the first time I heard the term "non-practicing Jew" which he used to describe himself.

I don't agree with his views, but I think he is sincere and honest. I also think he is a flaming liberal, but of the PollyAnna variety.

[jebeier]

Or am I to believe that Mr. Hentoff was boorish enough to raise this obviously contentious and sensitive subject at the dinner table, in front of his hosts' 9 year old son?

Actually, the Hentoff piece recounts a story told to him by somebody else about what a child said. Hentoff is not actually at the table in the story.

I have no problem believing this could have happened. I know a lot of nine-year-olds who would have had a similar reaction.