Is the pro-life movement a dysfunctional movement? What can be done about it?

[SUNRISEDAWN]

I don’t know if you read my post in the other thread about what I went through. I want to help. I have been there and I know what it’s all about. Let me know if my story can be told to big or small ears to help reverse Roe vs. Wade.

Dawn

 

[BrianBoru]

Trelow:

Socialism isn’t the answer to the abortion problem.

I never said it was.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

BrianBoru:

Are pro-abortion social forces just to strong for us, or have we failed to understand the best way to deal with them?

Thank you for bringing this up, and for articulating your view so well. This is very difficult ground to break against a group who have often acted as an angry mob, though well intentioned.

Anger, outrage, indinancy, demands of and threats to politicians, excommunications, none of these sound like how Christ handled sinners.

Except for the thing in the temple where He lost His temper. Whoops! OK, so He acted that way for maybe two minutes.

The angrier we get, the more control we give satan over us. We are falling right into his trap. Abortion by itself never sent a baby to hell, but it has caused many angry Christians to lose the peace Christ came to give them and commit unspeakable acts of hostility (even if only in their hearts) against other human beings. :banghead:

Alan

 

[timmyo]

Are we dysfunctional, yes and no. I think the movement took a while to get off the ground in the 70’s and was totally blind sided and in retreat until the Moral Majority (our protestant brothers mostly) helped get Ronald Reagan elected. Although some of his supreme court appointments turned out to be pro abortion, his overall effect was good. He spoke against abortion many times in States of the Union addresses, etc. The movement in the 1980’s successfully thwarted the liberal legislatures of the time which surely would have passed legislation that would have further entrenched abortion and taken us to a situation much like Europe where there isn’t much of a pro life movement and people don’t seem to give a darn about anything except globall warming. In the 1990’s and 2000’s we have even seen pro-life offensives that have won in the states and in the US congress. The problem lies with the very concept of the supreme court and its power. They are the problem, regardless of their abortion stance. They have too much power and they rarely get decisions right. Look how long it took for them to get slavery issues right. THEY NEVER DID. IT TOOK THE CIVIL WAR TO END IT. THEN IT TOOK ANOTHER CENTURY FOR THEM TO END SEGGREGATION. HOW PATHETIC!!! WHAT A TRACK RECORD.

Institutionally, the major problem of the pro life movement has been it’s ties to religion, although all great moral social movements have been tied to religion, ie slavey and civil rights. The reson for this is that religous people are motivated because they are generally steeped in the truth and this truth sets them on fire in the face of injustice. I only know of one agnostic/ atheist who is a pro lifer. I’m sure there are more, but they are the exceptionl. They have simply not been motivated, although many simply have their ears and minds closed. Everyone else I know in the pro life movement is religious to some degree. The problem is that we have to translate our God centered understanding of abortion to a secular world, whose eyes glaze over at the mention of God. Abortion can be understood as wrong on a purely rational level. It does not take a deep theologan or a rocket scientist to use his logic to determine that there can be no other rights in one’s life if you don’t have the most fundamental right, that is to life.

In closing, I see great promise in the movement, especially with the ties to the chastity movement, however, I’m not so sure about the politicians and the judges. We have got to keep fighting on, every life is worth it. God have mercy on our country for being so evil and stupid.

 

[BrianBoru]

timmyo:

Are we dysfunctional, yes and no. I think the movement took a while to get off the ground in the 70’s and was totally blind sided and in retreat until the Moral Majority (our protestant brothers mostly) helped get Ronald Reagan elected. Although some of his supreme court appointments turned out to be pro abortion, his overall effect was good.

I must disagree about Reagans overall effect being good. Other than his poor judgement about Reagan one line in this post particularly caught my attention:

timmyo:

The problem lies with the very concept of the supreme court and its power. They are the problem, regardless of their abortion stance. They have too much power and they rarely get decisions right. Look how long it took for them to get slavery issues right. THEY NEVER DID. IT TOOK THE CIVIL WAR TO END IT. THEN IT TOOK ANOTHER CENTURY FOR THEM TO END SEGGREGATION. HOW PATHETIC!!! WHAT A TRACK RECORD.

.

Bravo! Bravo, TimmyO on the Supreme Court. You redeemed yourself here despite your mistaken praise of Reagan. What do you think about my court packing idea? No one seems to have picked up on it, so perhaps I haven’t described it very well. I hope to return to it later on in this thread, but instead lets discuss another matter. That is the relationship between Catholic Just Wage doctrine and the Family Allowance suggested earlier in this thread.

The modern idea of a “just wage” began with Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum published in 1891. In this encyclical Leo condemned both the idea of socialism and the idea of unrestricted, laissez faire capitalism. The condemnation of socialism was very prophetic. Read through what Leo wrote about socialism, bearing in mind that he wrote it more than 20 years before the Russian Revolution. In a lot of ways he was very prescient.

But Leo also criticized capitalism. According to Leo a just wage was not defined as being whatever wage the law of supply and demand assigned to the workingman. Rather it was a wage that allowed the workman to live and support a family in “frugal comfort” with enough left over to begin saving and accumulating property on his own, and provide for his own education so that he had the opportunity to better his position in the world.

Just wage doctrine has been further developed by many popes, including John Paul II. In his third encyclical Laborem Exercens John Paul stated that the just wage doctrine was the most crucial means of evaluating the justice of any economic system. So what is the just wage according to John Paul?

"Just remunaration for the work of an adult who is responsible for a family means remunaration which will suffice for establishing and properly maintaining a family and for providing security for its future. Such remunaration can be given either through what is called a family wage – that is a single salary given to the head of the family for his work, sufficient for the needs of the family without the spouse having to take up gainful employment outside the home – or through other social measures such as family allowances or grants to mothers devoting themselves exclusively to their families. These grants should correspond to the actual needs, that is to the number of dependents for as long as they are not in a position to assume proper responsibility for their own lives. -John Paul II in Laborem Excercens.

Wow! The wage should be large enough so that the mother is not forced to work outside the home! How far away we are from that!

Also, according to Catholic doctrine a just wage should be proportionate to the number of children. That is a family with more kids should get a higher wage. Of course it is impossible in our society for any firm to pay its workers based on the number of kids they have to feed. This is where John Paul develops the concept of the “indirect employer” as he terms it, who should step in and make sure the wage is provided. The indirect employer includes the state, but also other institutions. Nevertheless John Paul is saying here that the state should pay these grants!

Is it possible that abortion is not our real problem, but only a symptom of a deeper malaise? I suspect the real reason abortion is legal, and widely resorted to, ultimately has to do with our failure to provide a just wage as defined by Catholic Doctrine over the last century. That is why I suggested the family allowance as a solution in one of my above posts.

 

[BrianBoru]

In his book Theology and Sanity Frank Sheed argued that although humans are rational animals (the classic definition of a human being) we don’t reason as the angels do. Because of the Fall our reason has been darkened and very often our human desires warp and betray the reason.

One of the earlier posters in this thread suggested that the panic and fear that women often feel when they find out they are pregnant sometimes powerfully affects their reasoning ability. Likewise, pro-abortionists have powerful desires that impact their ability to perceive reality. The arguments for the humanity of an unborn child are clear, simple, logical, and compelling. Yet we have difficulty persuading our opponents. The fact of the matter is, they don’t really listen to our arguments because they are afraid to. Accepting the humanity of the unborn would force them accept many difficult changes in their lifestyles, so they just tune out our arguments.

During a lot of arguments that I have witnessed the pro-lifer will argue for the humanity of the unborn child, and the pro-choicer will simply ignore them. Instead the pro-choicer focuses on the needs of the mother. You wind up with two sides talking past each other, which means in practical effect that the pro-choicer wins the debate. He is confirming popular prejudices in the public mind, and his moral code is much easier to live by.

Pro-lifers tend to approach the question of the mothers problems as though she has a nine month problem. One speaker I heard at a pro-life conference a few years ago said “Our message to the women is that she will have to go through nine months of hell, and then it is all over.”

Pro-choicers message is that the woman will have to go through a minimum of eighteen years of serious problems, which will change her life drastically.

Why does the pro-choice message seem to go over better with our fellow citizens? The answer is quite simple. On this particular point the pro-choice side are right. It is an eighteen year problem. Sure we do a good job of taking care of the woman during the time she is pregnant, and very often for a year or two after that. What then?

Our usual answer is to refer the woman to a private charity, like Birthright. Birthright is an excellent charity, one of the best in the world. The problem is that any private charity can at best provide about one percent of the help that is needed. Much more needs to be done.

This is where a program like the Family Allowance comes in. By taking some of the financial pressure off of a woman, she will be better able to look at her situation objectively and without panic. This will give her at least some chance of seeing why it is wrong to kill the baby.

There are about 4 million children born in the US each year. Add to that the 1.3 million abortions. Lets say that altogether 5.3 million children will be born in each year that will need the Family Allowance. Each child needs the allowance for 18 years. That gives us a rough estimate of about 100 million kids who will need the support of the Family Allowance. If we set the Allowance at $3000 that gives a cost of $300 billion for the Allowance, each and every year. As an earlier poster pointed out, we are already providing this Allowance to some extent, which he estimated to be $1,775 per year. Going by that figure we would be talking about an extra $122.5 billion dollars each year. Yet that would not be enough for what I hope the Family Allowance could accomplish. Whoa! Talk about scary!

Is it possible that the real problem with abortion is not so much what pro-lifers and pro-choicers disagree about, as what they unconsciously really do agree about? Both sides feel the cost of taking care of unwanted children would be too high, so pro-lifers try to force the woman to shoulder most of the burden, whereas pro-choicers kill the baby to end the burden. They don’t want to face up to the humanity of the unborn child, but we don’t want to face up to the cost we are imposing.

If we really want a solution, we need to face the problem first. Even though it looks scary, once we make a serious attempt to find a solution we may discover that the problem was much easier to resolve than we had originally imagined.

 

[ames61]

BrianBoru:

Amy, a question. Suppose there had been some form of Family Allowance in place in 1979 or 1983. Do you think it would have made a difference to your personal decision? How high would the Allowance have had to be to help you see past the panic, or would a Family Allowance have been no help to you at all, regardless of the level at which it was set? Regardless of your own personal experiences do you think there are other women who might have benefited? Thank you.

Brian,
Given identical context as 1979, I’d say it would make absolutely no difference at all. I was 17, just graduated from high school, on the way to college. I was a reigning state beauty queen, on a scholarship, pride of the hometown etc. It would have been a pretty big scandal. AND I had been groomed for most of my life to go to college, have a career etc. I had no context to see my self as a mom at 17. I knew no other single moms at that age. No one who got married at that young age etc. In my mind, to have chosen life would have meant abandoning everything I thought I wanted. No amount of compensation would have induced me to risk losing it all–in my mind.

What I needed was a dramatic paradigm shift, and I’m not sure it would have been possible in the short time from when I figured out I was pregnant until the time when I took that fateful, fatal step.

So that’s where I go back to chastity, Theology of the Body, back to the root of the problem to avoid the problem, first. Huge

Then to start reinculturating both boys and girls into seeing themselves as moms and dads from an early age. Many kids have only one sibling these days, few cousins, nieces & nephews. I know high school kids who have never been around a baby. Put kids in situations where they can start to idealize “when I grow up, I’m going to have ___ kids, I’m going to be a mom” so that they would have a much tougher time chosing a career over a mom, over their own child.

Of course all this inculturation has to go on at the same time as the legal battle in the courts and legislatures. As well as the economic battle. I did books for a company that had several convenience stores for 9 years, and finally left over the just wage issue. We had so many single moms working for us at $6/hour. Oy. There are so many aspects of the culture now that serve to devalue motherhood. Just wage is one more brick in the wall.

Cause the problem is if you win the legal battle and haven’t laid the groundwork for the culture to be willing and ABLE to accept it, then you’re inviting a whole 'nother set of problems and entering back into illegal abortions (which will probably be readily available). But our culture is so used to seeing sex outside of marriage as the norm, and contraceptive unions as a RIGHT that women will continue to have unplanned pregnancies that throw them into a panic, and thus the perceived need for abortion.

Glad to see you quoting Leo XIII. He’s my second favorite pope to read, after JPII. He had amazing vision in all his encyclicals. Not to mention the Michael the Archangel prayer.

In Christ,
amy

 

[ames61]

BrianBoru:

In his book Theology and Sanity Frank Sheed argued that although humans are rational animals (the classic definition of a human being) we don’t reason as the angels do. Because of the Fall our reason has been darkened and very often our human desires warp and betray the reason.

During a lot of arguments that I have witnessed the pro-lifer will argue for the humanity of the unborn child, and the pro-choicer will simply ignore them. Instead the pro-choicer focuses on the needs of the mother. You wind up with two sides talking past each other, which means in practical effect that the pro-choicer wins the debate. He is confirming popular prejudices in the public mind, and his moral code is much easier to live by.

That’s where the voices of women who have made this choice come into play. Until recently, pro choicers have the “I’m for the mother” image locked up. As the pro life movement begins to tell the story of what happens after the abortion, they can begin to assume the position of truly caring for the mom, even after the choice. Pro choicers basically ditch the mom after the choice. For the most part they don’t even recognize the aftereffects as valid. (Although I’ve heard horrifying stories about their beginning attempts to, such as pseudo baptismal ceremonies for the babies remains, journals for moms to write in at the clinic saying bye to their baby, how its all for the best, the baby is now with God, rather than in a troubled situation here on earth, angels on the ceiling that mom can concentrate on during the procedure, for pete’s sake-demonic distortions of our faith!)

Society needs to value the role of the mother. So girls can plan their lives without the fear that they will be divorced at sometime and on their own and need a back up career. Also we need to shift the focus off materialism to dispense with the fear that without two incomes they’ll never be able to vacation in Aruba, or drive a leather seated SUV.

There are so many factors that contribute to this, its almost overwhelming. But our Church gives us the solution to all of them, so the ultimate answer, is evangelize, evangelize, evangelize.

 

[Ham1]

Law shapes people’s opinions. We need to change the law first. Laws have a tendency to shape ethics. Since the law was basically determined through the courts, it needs to be changed through the courts or through an amendment. While we would all love an amendment it probably would not pass in quick order. We have to keep voting for the people who have the greatest likelihood of appointing strong pro-life judges. As long as we continue to push that eventually someone will appoint someone good and the abortion precedent can be struck down. Once it is no longer a federal law, popular opinion with the support of science will begin to go against abortion.

As for the court packing tactic, I believe that Roosevelt tried this and failed as it was ruled unconstitutional. Also, it’s a bad idea in terms of precedent. Say we pack the court now and the in 8 years a pro-abortion president packs the court the other way. It’s a slippery slope that could destroy one branch of government.

 

[chicago]

Just to add a couple of items into the mix…

Pro-lifers have long fought internally about what the best approach is. And all of this infighting has just led to wasted effort while the pro-choice side laughs at how we have self conquered and divided ourselves. Eiether we need to find a way to agree upon how to best make progress together in a unified manner of strength or we at least need to acknowledge and support the various approaches which each sector of the pro-life movement employs rather than knocking each other off the pedestal in a game of “king of the hill”.

There has also been nary a voice of the unborn. Obviously many have tried to speak in behalf of the pre-born children. However, it has almost always been a third person reference to “the babies”. And since none of us remember being at 6 months gestation or whatever, we don’t identify. Yet we now live in a day when everybody under the age of 32 could well have been legally aborted. And many of the brothers and sisters of people in this age group have. Well, we can certainly relate to the 25 year old standing here before us. We can understand and appreciate her concerns and reach out to help. This group, then needs to speak up more vocally in defense of themselves. “Why,” they should ask, “would have it been alright with you to take my life in such a brutal way?” (Here go ahead and spell out for the listener how an abortion proceedure works). “Why is it just fine that over 1/3 of my generation has been killed off in this way?” “Why should I or someone my age who is pregnant have to go through such a terrible thing as abortion after what we have already gone through? In having to come to terms with this attack on our own lives which, though we survived, many didn’t, we are all phychological victims! And now you want me to be abondoned all over again and abandon my child to this kind of death?” Personalize the matter both for the young people, themselves, as well as for the older listeners to such rhetoric and you just might get a change in dynamic concerning how people relate to the question and what they are willing to do in order for positive steps to be taken counteracting the disasterous trends.

 

[BrianBoru]

ames61:

Brian,
Given identical context as 1979, I’d say it would make absolutely no difference at all. I was 17, just graduated from high school, on the way to college. I was a reigning state beauty queen, on a scholarship, pride of the hometown etc. It would have been a pretty big scandal. AND I had been groomed for most of my life to go to college, have a career etc. I had no context to see my self as a mom at 17. I knew no other single moms at that age. No one who got married at that young age etc. In my mind, to have chosen life would have meant abandoning everything I thought I wanted. No amount of compensation would have induced me to risk losing it all–in my mind.

Amy thank you for your reply. After I asked my question I became a bit unsure. Maybe I was asking for something too personal, and I had no desire to make you or anyone else feel uncomfortable. Yet the fact that you brought your situation up, suggested that you might want to tell us about your problems. You have handled it well. I agree that a Family Allowance will not be a cure all for every situation.

Yet I wonder if it would have made some difference. You wanted to go to college. Very difficult for a single mother. Could a Family Allowance have been one resource that helped? Probably not enough by itself, but maybe in conjunction with other types of aid.

Of course no amount of money could have overcome the embarrassment of a major public scandal. We need to really think about how to handle a situation like that, especially for someone in the public eye as you were.

This raises a question. Pro-lifers have done a lot to reduce the stigma that once attached to unwed motherhood. Yet we do a lot of stigmatizing of abortion doctors. Maybe it gives us the illusion of control, but I wonder if a lot of our stigmatization could be turning potential Bernard Nathansons away from us.

ames61:

So that’s where I go back to chastity, Theology of the Body, back to the root of the problem to avoid the problem, first. Huge

Then to start reinculturating both boys and girls into seeing themselves as moms and dads from an early age. Many kids have only one sibling these days, few cousins, nieces & nephews. I know high school kids who have never been around a baby. Put kids in situations where they can start to idealize “when I grow up, I’m going to have ___ kids, I’m going to be a mom” so that they would have a much tougher time chosing a career over a mom, over their own child.

Of course all this inculturation has to go on at the same time as the legal battle in the courts and legislatures. As well as the economic battle. I did books for a company that had several convenience stores for 9 years, and finally left over the just wage issue. We had so many single moms working for us at $6/hour. Oy. There are so many aspects of the culture now that serve to devalue motherhood. Just wage is one more brick in the wall.

In your own situation Just Wage might have been a small brick. Maybe it would have been a very big brick to some of the single moms you worked with though.

ames61:

Cause the problem is if you win the legal battle and haven’t laid the groundwork for the culture to be willing and ABLE to accept it, then you’re inviting a whole 'nother set of problems and entering back into illegal abortions (which will probably be readily available). But our culture is so used to seeing sex outside of marriage as the norm, and contraceptive unions as a RIGHT that women will continue to have unplanned pregnancies that throw them into a panic, and thus the perceived need for abortion.

Glad to see you quoting Leo XIII. He’s my second favorite pope to read, after JPII. He had amazing vision in all his encyclicals. Not to mention the Michael the Archangel prayer.

In Christ,
amy

Thank you very much for your reply.

 

[BrianBoru]

Ham1:

Law shapes people’s opinions. We need to change the law first. Laws have a tendency to shape ethics. Since the law was basically determined through the courts, it needs to be changed through the courts or through an amendment. While we would all love an amendment it probably would not pass in quick order. We have to keep voting for the people who have the greatest likelihood of appointing strong pro-life judges. As long as we continue to push that eventually someone will appoint someone good and the abortion precedent can be struck down. Once it is no longer a federal law, popular opinion with the support of science will begin to go against abortion.

This is the old strategy of voting for “pro-life presidents” in the vague hope that some day, no one knows when, something, no one knows what, will happen.

Did you ever see the Little Rascals? Sometimes they had a kind of running gag either in that show, or some similar show. There is a donkey drawing a cart. In the cart sits a man with a fishing pole hanging over the donkey. Tied on to the end of the string is a carrot, dangling just a couple of feet in front of the donkey’s head. The donkey is angry and frustrated, running hard to catch up with the carrot. What the donkey never realizes is that the faster he runs, the faster the carrot is going to move away from him. His anger is the very force that moves the carrot. The man will be careful not to let him get the carrot, because once he has eaten he’ll stop pulling the cart.

This is exactly the situation with regards to pro-lifers and alleged pro-life candidates like Reagan and the two Bush’s. Abortion is the carrot that keeps us running hard pulling their cart. They are never going to let us get that carrot. Oh, they will give us a few things, like a ban on stem cell research or partial birth abortion. They will give us just about anything as long as it doesn’t have much impact on abortion. Meanwhile we are using all of our pro-life force to provide them with tax cuts that they could never get without our help. If we want to make progress we’ve got to stop acting like a bunch of jackasses.

Some say that we need to be united so we can pull the Republican cart even faster. That is exactly the wrong thing to do. The best strategy is for the donkey to stop pulling the cart and make the man give us the carrot first. *Then *we can see about more tax cuts. If we stopped pulling unanimously that would obviously be great. Since that won’t happen for the time being, the next best thing is for at least some of us to stop pulling, even if the rest of the donkey’s won’t go along.

 

[BrianBoru]

Ham1:

As for the court packing tactic, I believe that Roosevelt tried this and failed as it was ruled unconstitutional. Also, it’s a bad idea in terms of precedent. Say we pack the court now and the in 8 years a pro-abortion president packs the court the other way. It’s a slippery slope that could destroy one branch of government.

Actually, this was not held unconstitutional. Where Roosevelt made his mistake was his failure to make it part of his platform in 1936. He made the 1936 election a referendum on his own popularity, and maximized his vote. The problem with winning an election in this manner is that it becomes more difficult to claim a mandate for doing anything in particular.

Roosevelt also made himself look dishonest by claiming that his packing scheme was meant to help the overburdened Court. Everyone knew this was false, and it gave Chief Justice Hughes a chance to deny the Court was overburdened. In essence Roosevelt raised a false issue, and wound up making himself look bad.

Even then, Roosevelt almost succeeded. But Senator Howard who had been leading the fight for the court packing scheme suddenly died of a heart attack. Howard had some political IOU"s that he hoped to cash in from other Senators, and he could have probably won the fight if he hadn’t died.

At about the same time the Court suddenly began to reverse itself, saying that the very same kinds of economic legislation that it had previously held unconstitutional, were now all of a sudden constitutional. To many in Congress it looked as if court packing was no longer needed. (In fact it wasn’t at that point). So why take the political risk?

Since Roosevelt knew he couldn’t win without Howard, he withdrew his support for the court packing legislation. At this point the Republicans jumped in, and demanded a vote for the record. Very few people were willing to vote for court packing once Roosevelt said he no longer needed it. This created a very lopsided majority against vote packing, even though it could have almost passed just a few days before. In effect Roosevelt suffered a humiliating defeat.

Nevertheless, the Court changed too. After this time it no longer held any kind of economic legislation unconstitutional, and Roosevelt went on to win two more terms.

Moral: If a court packing scheme is defeated by having the Supreme Court reverse course on Roe v Wade, I will gladly accept that humiliation.

I am sorry that this is such a disorganized post. I will try to do better tomorrow, but I wanted to get this in tonight.

 

[Christian4life]

This thread makes me very sad. I am really shocked at some of the things people have said on here.

If you want to know of some pro-life arguments that are NOT based on faith, try www.prolifeamerica.com and go to the forums. One person there is a pro-life agnostic, the rest are religious but they don’t need to bring up thier religion to prove a point.

Why is the pro-life side losing? Politics may have something to do with it, but remember that most politicians vote the way the majority wants them to vote, so the root problem is, why is the majority not pro-life?

I believe there are 2 major reasons. First, people are SELFISH. Being pro-life means that you may end up having to take responsibility for your actions. You can’t just go screw around all you want and expect to never have a kid. And if someone tells the average person, no, you must remain abstinant till marriage, and another person tells them, yes it is ok go screw all you want, if you get pregnant you can just get rid of it, who do you think thier selfish heart will listen to?

Second, the pro-abortion people have SO MUCH POWER. They have the media influence, they can advertise, they even get our tax money to fund thier so-called “women’s health” centers. We get none of that, we are “too controversial.” I didn’t even know there WAS another side of the coin when it came to abortion until just 2 years ago! So get the real information out there!

 

[chicago]

BrianBoru:

This is exactly the situation with regards to pro-lifers and alleged pro-life candidates like Reagan and the two Bush’s. Abortion is the carrot that keeps us running hard pulling their cart. They are never going to let us get that carrot. Oh, they will give us a few things, like a ban on stem cell research or partial birth abortion. They will give us just about anything as long as it doesn’t have much impact on abortion. Meanwhile we are using all of our pro-life force to provide them with tax cuts that they could never get without our help. If we want to make progress we’ve got to stop acting like a bunch of jackasses.

Some say that we need to be united so we can pull the Republican cart even faster. That is exactly the wrong thing to do. The best strategy is for the donkey to stop pulling the cart and make the man give us the carrot first. *Then *we can see about more tax cuts. If we stopped pulling unanimously that would obviously be great. Since that won’t happen for the time being, the next best thing is for at least some of us to stop pulling, even if the rest of the donkey’s won’t go along.

It’s ironic that you use the image of a donkey, seeing as how some of the people you are critical of would likely argue that it is Democratic voters who are frustrating things by continuing to pull the cart of that party.

In any case, you must remember that a lot of the dedicated pro-lifers also happen to be dedicated republicans. To them, many of the other issues that the Republican party stands for are every bit as important as abortion. So cutting bait would seem silly as they are happy to get other things which they desire to see accomplished done while waiting for something to be done on life and cheerleading with the carrot of pro-life.

 

[RCMom]

I did not read any of the replies before posting - I do plan to come back later and read them - the kids are calling…but I wanted to share one thing. I “know” (not necessarily personally) of several people who are VEHEMENTLY pro-choice because of decisions they were forced to make - most often what they call a medically necessary termination, which in most of these cases meant a late abortion. These people feel that they are being so selfless (which I find ironic, because it seems like a SELFISH decision to me) in “preventing their baby from suffering.” One woman who terminated her son’s pregnancy around 28-29 weeks because he had a condition that would cause his muscles to be malformed even went as far to say that she knew God would understand because He sacrificed His only son too. I am trying VERY hard not to be judgemental here…I have been blessed with two healthy children (we’ll ignore the four miscarriages for a minute) and have not had to make any decisions like that…but I am pretty certain I would not chose to terminate a pregnancy in any case. The thing is - these people (mostly women, but with the support of their husband/boyfriend/etc) are so outspoken. You do not hear as many stories of women who have considered abortion and do not go through with it. They are not the ones standing up in front of congress begging them to pass pro-life legislation. (Maybe they are, but we never hear about them). In fact, I just read in our Catholic newspaper a few weeks ago that the woman in Roe v. Wade never went through with her abortion, and is in fact very pro-life now. IN all the times I studied Roe v. Wade in college (medical ethics class, public health and the law) I NEVER learned of that interesting fact. And the people who do try to stand up for the unborn (or preborn) baby’s rights are deamed fanatical or insane, not respected. I wish I knew what the answer was. I will be interested to go back and read the other posts later and see what the rest of you think

J

I

 

[caroljm36]

Having recently become involved with my local GOP, I have been giving this a lot of thought. I’m in a pretty liberal college town, and it’s very obvious that many of the local Republicans do NOT want to talk about this issue because it is so “divisive” and affects the prospects of any local or national candidate who takes a position on the issue. It’s all pretty hush-hush and there are not enough fundies around to force it. They may vote with us but they don’t go out for central committee.

It seems to me that the most powerful argument we have has been denied us, that is the right to publicize what actually happens in an abortion. A picture is worth a thousand words. Not only pictures but talk is quickly shut down, in the media and in private conversation, with a quick and curt don’t go there! People get pretty angry pretty fast. (I found out last week that even our pastors catch flak for talking about abortion and have had to resort to stealth-prayers for the unborn, in the intentions, rather than explicit talk in homilies.) I realize you can get access to information with photos on the Internet but few pro-aborts are going to deliberately go there to look. These need to be out there, in full view. Or at least, more photographic or sonograms of what 2-3 month old fetus looks like to show their humanity.

But people are so friggin defensive about this. There are so many that had abortions, paid for abortions, advised abortions, drove the girl to the clinic…and very few of us are open to the idea of learning something and maybe redeeming ourselves by a change of heart. People seem to assume that once they’ve exercised their “choice” there’s no room for reconsideration, so their opinion becomes rigid.

Anyway, my latest idea has been that a candidate could take the position that abortion should be more tightly regulated, so that 2nd and 3rd trimester aborts aren’t so easy. I hear that France is actually more strict in this than we are. When Roe first was decided I don’t think people expected it to turn into abortion on demand, whenever you want. Raising the issue of regulation–without resort to religion at all–would put the thing in play and maybe make people think. Maybe it could be a foot in the door. But there are very few things that could make me go third-party or not vote. Needless to say, I will not work for a prochoice candidate.

 

[TlaIoc]

I started to post on this in another thread but I can’t remember which one now, but it applies to this topic.

Part of the reason for an inability to get traction is that by making abortion issue #1 you give politicians a huge incentive never to actually resolve the matter.

Let me explain. Right now the Pro-life movement is one big voting block that is easy to manipulate. All you have to do is portray yourself as more against abortion than the other guy. Single issue voters are a political cash crop. But all of that changes if they actually solve the issue you care about right?

They can’t manipulate you if they’ve already outlawed abortion, now can they? They can’t use abortion as a lever to get votes and money if they actually do anything about it. So they’ll continue on in the exact same way they have: Passing the occasional anti-abortion bill that they know is unconstitutional (partial birth anyone?). They get to look like they care about the issue without threatening the hold they have on you.

Look at Bush’s agenda. He’s passed a bankruptcy bill that benefits big business. He’s worked on tort reform that benefits big business. He’s pushed social security, an energy bill, and a medicaid bill that all help big business. Republicans have two power groups, big business and the religious right. Notice which one gets all the goods? Hint: it isn’t the religious right.

The irony is that so long as abortion is such a huge issue that it trumps everything else for you you’ll never actually get anywhere.

 

[BrianBoru]

Recently I read that according to the USDA it costs an average of $200,000 to raise a child from birth until eighteen years. It would be very expensive to enact a Family Allowance that would make the kind of difference that I hope it would make. We have about a $12 trillion dollar economy. $500 billion per year (per year mind you!) would be about 4% of the total. Is it worth it to us to spend that amount for a pro-life society? Paradoxically, the great expense (not to mention unpopularity) of the Family Allowance is one of the major points in its favor.

A pro-life society would accept pro-life laws. Juries would willingly convict abortionists, if the crime were proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Police would enforce the law (as they now enforce laws against murder) because everyone would see that it was the right thing to do.

If we just passed a law against abortion (which I believe we are strong enough to do if we could get past the Court) there would be widespread cheating. Police would look the other way, and there would probably be at least one woman on almost all juries who had had an abortion. Not to mention husbands and boyfriends. Lots of other practical objections that you could imagine.
How do we get from here to there? The Family Allowance would be the most important first step. One, it would reduce the demand for abortions. Two, it would reduce support for abortions. Probably you have seen polls showing that most people agree that life begins at conception. Yet the majority of people also support liberal abortion laws. My guess is that although they know abortion takes a human life they are very sympathetic to the burdens of the mother. This would be analogous to the attitude that Victorian juries often took when they acquitted mothers on infanticide charges. Victorians didn’t approve of infanticide, but they looked at the impoverished, desperate woman who killed her own child and said “There but for the grace of God, go I”.

But there is a third advantage. As the Family Allowance goes up, taxes go up. The pro-life movement could use the threat of increasing the Family Allowance to coerce society into accepting pro-life laws. For example if it looks like juries are acquitting obviously guilty abortionists and police are looking the other way when they see abortion going on, we simply say, “It appears that we haven’t yet reached the proper level for the Family Allowance. Many people still seem to believe that caring for children is too much of a burden upon women. Very well, lets add about another $100 billion to the Allowance, and see if that has the desired effect.” (Not that I want people convicting anyone of a crime, if there is a reasonable doubt as to his guilt.)
This would be the equivalent of a high school principal punishing the entire student body for the transgressions of a few bad students. I used to hate that in school, but there is a lot of wisdom in using that approach. Sometimes you can’t determine who is individually responsible for a few transgressions but you still cannot afford to allow those transgressions to pass. Maybe peer pressure will force some of the “innocent” students to take a stand.
This is true in many departments of life. Quite a lot of innocent Iraqi’s have died for things that are Saddam Husseins fault. We just have no way in a wartime situation of always seperating innocent people from villians. Or for that matter, it is hard to say why I should be punished for Adam’s sins.
Of course this means that our own taxes will have to go up too. We should be willing to pay them. After all we are the ones who think abortion is wrong. I have been extremely angry over legal abortion for years, and I am willing to pay something to get rid of it. The really nice thing about a Family Allowance is that it would force the pro-aborts to pay something too. Actually it tickles me to think how much it would irk them.
Tom Barry was an Irish rebel leader in Cork during the 1920’s. At first he and his men would eat and get their provisions at homes that were loyal to the rebel side. Sometimes a patriotic household would feed all seventy of the men under his command. He knew this was a real strain on them and feared that it might provoke resentment against the Revolution and demoralize the very populace whose independence he was trying to win.
Then it struck him: Why not make British loyalists feed his men? It would demoralize the enemy, and help preserve the loyalty of the nationalists. That way he could still count on having the support of his own people in an emergency.
It is very good of us to be so supportive of charities like Birthright. Still, our whole point is that abortion is not just a sectarian concern. It is a crime that strikes at the root of humanity itself. Pro-choicers need to pay their fair share to eradicate it.

 

[Jimmy_B]

BrianBoru:

If we just passed a law against abortion (which I believe we are strong enough to do if we could get past the Court) there would be widespread cheating. Police would look the other way, and there would probably be at least one woman on almost all juries who had had an abortion. .

Police would look the other way? How did you come to this conclusion?

**If abortion was once again criminalized, it would be murder, the unlawful killing of another. It would be a serious felony. Police would NOT look the other way! Abortion is currently “lawful killing” or a form of legalized murder. **For anyone who doesn’t agree with this statement, research “Partial Birth Abortions”.
**In most states if a pregnant woman is attacked and the baby inside of her is murdered, the person who committed the crime is charged with murder. However, abortionists can do the same harm today and it is legal. **