In contrast to most criminal abortion deaths, where I was lucky if I could find a name and an approximate date of death, I found an embarrassment of riches when researching Alice's death, including pictures of Alice, the abortionist, and the discovery of her body. Evidently Alice was the Natalee Holloway of her day -- the pretty, young, white, blonde, blue-eyed crime victim whose story was the relentless lead in every media outlet. Her death roused such outrage that abortion laws were toughened all over the country -- including, ironically, a change in New York law that the abortionist's attorney cleverly used to get his conviction overturned on a technicality, freeing him one year into his seven-year sentence. With our propensity for naming legislation after the victim whose tragic tale prompted their passage, most of the abortion laws that were struck down by Roe vs. Wade could be called "Alice's Law". And by striking them down, the Supreme Court abolished not only Alice's Laws, but any public outrage over abortion butchery. Only prolifers are outraged anymore. The Guardians of Women's Lives no longer jeer at the abortionist who kills his patient. They no longer demand his head on a pike and cry out in solidarity with his victim. They ignore the dead woman and rally to the defense of the man who killed her.
How times have changed!
47 comments:
The reason there's so little public outrage over patients dying from abortions is: it almost never happens. Less than one per hundred thousand procedures. It's safer to have an abortion in USA than it is to drive to work.
The outrage should be based on how egregious the behavior was, not on how often it happens.
Though I do have to wonder -- if the "bad old pre-legalization days" were as corpse-ridden as y'all like to claim, wouldn't abortion deaths be so common that they'd be as taken for granted as traffic deaths are now? Wouldn't the public reaction be to turn the page and read the Sports section?
If, as abortion supporters claim, women were dying in droves from criminal abortions, wouldn't we have noticed a huge drop in female mortality when abortion was legalized? Ya know, all those deaths attributed to innocent causes when they were really abortion deaths? During that period, there were about 50,000 deaths a year in the US among women of childbearing age. If we're to believe that 5,000 - 10,000 of those deaths were clandestine abortion deaths, that means that 10% - 20% of ALL deaths among women of childbearing age were abortion deaths. Why was there not a 10% - 20% drop in total mortality among women of childbearing age with the legalization of abortion?
Its a good question Christina, I don't know maybe they decided that its pointless making something illegal that is obviously happening. It just creates a dark underworld. Like drugs - which I am sure will at some time in the future become legal. That would free up resources to tackle real crime like murder, rape, assault, theft etc
Lil, why of all ruthless killing is abortion supposed to be a PERMISSIBLE -- nay, even NOBLE, ruthless killing?
Why are the same people who are appalled at killing a violent multiple murderer by lethal injection okay with ripping the limbs off a baby whose only crime is that its mother dislikes it?
I guess your logic is that although death by dismemberment is certainly CRUEL punishment, abortion is hardly UNUSUAL, so it's okay to do it. With no trial, no chance to face your accuser, no right of appeal. Just "Well, your mom doesn't want you. Sucks to be you, doesn't it?"
RE: "Why are the same people who are appalled at killing a violent multiple murderer by lethal injection okay with ripping the limbs off a baby whose only crime is that its mother dislikes it?"
Because the baby is located inside the mother's body. That's why.
If something is located inside your body, then you're entitled to have it killed, no matter what it is. If ALL the people in the whole world were assembled inside your body, then you'd be entitled to holocaust them if you wanted to.
That's part of what we mean by the word "your" in the phrase "your body". The word "your" means that you get to decide who else gets to live in it, and when, and how long.
The baby didn't go there of his own volition. His PARENTS PUT HIM THERE, then kill him for being where they put him. Which is akin to a kidnapper claiming he has a right to kill his hostage because she's in the trunk of HIS car.
And yes, OC, I already know how you'll counter this -- your argument that the fetus should be grateful that mom and dad created him with the intention of ripping him limb from limb later.
Is there NO place for responsibility in what passes for morality in your world view? It's nothing but the powerful lording it over those they have power over, creating and destroying them purely because they can. It's Satanic. And I'm pretty sure you're well aware of that.
Yes, of course there is a place for responsibility. But not all responsibilities should be enforced by government.
For instance, all parents have a responsibility to donate transplantable organs to their children when needed. Any parent who would refuse to donate a kidney to save his child's life is a bad parent. Nonetheless, we do not, and should not, have government enforce this responsibility on parents, because the parent's body-ownership takes precidence over his responsibility to his children.
Same deal with abortion. Yes, the mother may have a responsibility to grow her baby. But enforcing such a responsibility is beyond the proper sphere of government, because it involves the inside of the mother's body.
I get what you are saying that abortion is like murder so why should we allow it but I'm into damage control and I think that there is not much worse a thing that can happen to a person then not being wanted by their mother. It leads to neglect which leads to abuse which can lead to murder or suicide (at worst) and a lifetime of misery at best.
I'm all about quality of life and bringing a child into this world that you don't want to look after and care for - that to me is a greater sin then abortion. Furthermore having a child to give away as a christmas present for childless couples is even more repulsive to me.
It is always better never to have been!
OC, murder is murder, and to argue that the PLACE the murder is committed excuses it is pretty lame. One has a right to privacy within one's own bounds -- until one ABUSES that privacy by violating another. The crime of abortion is, after all, a crime against the child's body. If the mother minds her own business and allows the child to mind his or her own business, all very well and good. But it's no more just to say, "Well he's in my body so I can kill him" than to say "He's in my bedroom so I can kill him."
If it's wrong to kill a helpless, defenseless person who has done you no harm, then WHERE the crime takes place is irrelevant. And this is especially true of abortion, since the one doing the killing put the victim there in the first place.
Lil, your argument is bad on many levels:
1. Up until abortion advocates effectively buried the knowledge, it was well known that ambivalence is normal in early pregnancy, and passes once the mother has a chance to bond with the baby. This used to happen at "quickening", when she felt the baby move. Now it can be facilitated with ultrasound or allowing the mother to hear the baby's heart. So this idea that abortion ideation in early pregnancy equals permanent inability to bond with the child is a fiction created by abortion advocates.
2. Once the child is born, he or she can be removed to a place of safety if the mother turns out to be unable or unwilling to love him. Pre-emptive killing to prevent suffering is an appalling idea. And you don't espouse this in other situations. If you did, you'd be calling for us to just nuke Darfur and put the people there out of their misery.
3. What kind of twisted mind holds that it's better to kill a child than to allow that child to be loved by, and a joy to, another family? What kind of dog in the manger attitude is that? This is the mindset that leads men to kill women who leave them. Why is it appalling if a man does it to a woman, but okay for a woman to do it to her child?
Christina, bonding isn't something that happens instantaneously over a scan - its something that takes time and maybe its a surprise to you but it may also never happen - even once the child is born. The bond that is created in an ultrasound is with a fantasy - the fantasy baby and life as a mother. The shit starts when reality hits - which is why women who already have children opt for abortion.
If you look at the outcomes of children looked after by the state you can see that they mostly end up in prison or with mental health or addiction issues - and we as a society have to continue their care.
Lastly, I am not against adoption when children have no parents or family to look after them. But what is happenimg now is that childless couples want babies and it creates a disgusting market eg magdalene laundries and baby snatching in the third world.
To me aborting an unwanted baby is the least harmful to the baby and society.
Have you ever met someone whose mother didn't want or love them and they had no other loving adult around?
Lilliput, maybe if all the Western women weren't aborting their babies, there wouldn't be baby-snatching in the third world! Which is it -- too many babies, or not enough to go around?
GG, you wrote: "But it's no more just to say, "Well he's in my body so I can kill him" than to say "He's in my bedroom so I can kill him.""
You are wrong. IF something is inside your body, then you're entitled to have it killed, and doing so is not murder but JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE.
You wrote: "If it's wrong to kill a helpless, defenseless person who has done you no harm,...."
What about a person who is GETTING READY to do you harm? Labor and delivery is harm to the mother. She is entitled to prevent it, even by using deadly force against the person who is getting ready to inflict it on her.
Lil, again, the whole "killing to prevent misery" is clearly a smokescreen, since you don't endorse it elsewhere. When you start calling for nuclear strikes on Darfur to spare the suffering innocents, I'll buy into the idea that you really believe the "Better killed for sure than maybe miserable later".
And OC, it's still a location, it's still WHERE THE MOTHER PUT THE KID IN THE FIRST PLACE. If the woman doesn't want her uterus to be inhabited she can have it removed. She's got no goddam business going around with a functioning reproductive system, using it to create new human beings, then snuffing them because their presence offends her. It's pure, unadulterated evil.
It may be pure, unadulterated evil, but government banning it would be a worse evil.
Americans will never tolerate the idea that an ordinary woman, someone one knows, might be forced by government to grow a pregnancy she would prefer to abort.
Abortion is not a crime. Legal fact. When women unintentionally 'put it there', they have the right to remove it.
'She's got no goddam business going around with a functioning reproductive system, using it to create new human beings, then snuffing them because their presence offends her. It's pure, unadulterated evil.' - what a subjective diatribe! Women have the right to have sex without having to reproduce, they are not animals.
For your analogy in point 3 above to be correct GG, it would have to be the fetus killing the woman.
Kathy, I bet there are more then enough children needing homes in the US but childless couples want babies. They are not interested in creating homes for children that actually need them.
Christina, u can't compare abortion with darfur - I don't see the similarity?
Lilliput,
You say that people are stealing children/babies from other countries to supply the market which is demanding babies. Yet you promote abortion, which prevents babies from being born to live a life of misery -- yet these babies could be adopted out, not raised in a life of misery.
As for the similarity of Darfur -- people are suffering and dying in Darfur, at least as much as if not more than your hypothetical "unwanted baby that is going to have a miserable childhood and grow up to become a psychopath, so better to kill them all now, lest we risk some of them being miserable and becoming bad." If you're against people suffering, and think the solution is to kill them prior to suffering, why don't you support the killing of people who are already suffering?
Rupert -- just because something is legal, it doesn't make it right. It was legal in Saudi Arabia for the religious police not to allow girls to escape from their burning school because they had left their coverings in the vestibule. They burned to death when they could have been saved. But it was legal, so it was not a crime. I guess that makes everything okay.
Lil, you justify abortion on the grounds that the child is better off killed than facing the possible misery of being ill-treated by its mother.
But if killing people is an acceptable way to prevent suffering, why aren't you agitating for using death to prevent other suffering? The people in Darfur aren't LIKELY to suffer -- they are most decidedly living in misery and horror all the time. Why don't we retroactively abort them, since we know that their lives are lives of great suffering?
There's a difference Kathy. The change in legal status of abortion from being a crime to not being a crime was an advancement, the same as the change in miscegenation laws was and the inclusion of gay marriage will be.
There is no comparison with what happened in Saudi Arabia. Once things like that change, advancement will have occurred there.
As Ogden Nash said, "There has been a lot of progress during my lifetime, but I'm afraid it's heading in the wrong direction."
Moving away from protecting helpless, defenseless people is "advancement" toward evil.
Bullshit, Rupert. It's an advancement in YOUR mind, because you don't have a problem with killing unborn babies. Likewise, fundamentalist Muslims view laws like the one Kathy mentioned as an ADVANCEMENT because it's in line with their concept of what the world should look like. Just because YOU think it's an advancement, doesn't make it so. I can't think of anything more backwards and barbaric than abortion.
Really Katie, do you kiss your children with that mouth?
Hm, let's take a look at the countries which have legal abortion and those which don't. Now let's look at the social conditions in general, living standards, social welfare, law and order, education etc. etc.
Looks like the least barbaric and backward states which have legal abortion.
Personally I can't think of anything more backward and barbaric than living and defining your life by the alleged words of an imaginary deity. Just like those dopes in Saudi Arabia and the misogynistic, patriarchal homophobes of other religions.
Rupert you have a point, countries with legalised abortions look after the babies that run the gauntlet of fetushood much better. I wonder why that is?
As for Darfur - besides nuking it - what would be your solution? Either way - in order to get the middle east, africa and parts of asia into the first world we have to introduce women's rights as that seems to be the most important factor for development - and these include abortion and contraception.
What would you rather have - A nuked Darfur or a Darfur with free and legal abortion?
Rupert said,Hm, let's take a look at the countries which have legal abortion and those which don't. Now let's look at the social conditions in general, living standards, social welfare, law and order, education etc. etc.
Liliput said, Rupert you have a point, countries with legalised abortions look after the babies that run the gauntlet of fetushood much better.
Yes, let's look at those, shall we? I wrote this post some time ago, which looked at different countries' abortion laws and maternal mortality rates; but we can guess at the countries' "social conditions, living standards," etc. I'd draw your attention to countries like China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, Cambodia and Senegal which all have abortion legal for any reason and at any time during pregnancy, but aren't exactly wonderful countries in which to live. While countries like Ireland, Jamaica, Luxembourg and South Korea have what I would consider to be fairly decent living standards, yet restrictive laws on abortion.
Correlation, not causation! In fact, there may be sound medical reasons for abortion being illegal in many of these countries in which it is profoundly and demonstrably unsafe to go sticking things inside a woman's uterus, or otherwise induce an abortion without access to life-saving blood transfusions and/or antibiotics. Chile, in fact, has a Maternal Mortality Rate similar to the United States, even though they have the strictest laws against abortion. I believe I've read that they restricted abortion law *because of* the dangers associated with abortion.
Lil, are you saying that the genocide in Darfur is taking place because they lack "safe and legal abortion?" WTF?
No Christina, I don't know where you get that from. Darfur is probably caused by many factors including colonialism, slavery, racism, greed etc etc etc
All I'm saying is that the provision of legal abortion seems to go hand in hand with better conditions for women.
Kathy, women in Ireland and luxumbourg travel to neighbourimg countries to jave abortions. South korea has an aggressive birth control program and if Jamaica has high standards of living - I don't know what planet u r on!
China is a different case as they have a population explosion problem - which is why they are currently buying up africa - which is further colonialism - which will be what kills of Darfur and other such troubled places.
Lil, I think you're confusing correlation with causality. When women are more prosperous, they also become more materialistic, and thus more likely to pursue abortion. Abortion is a result of women gaining economic freedom, not a cause thereof.
If they do not have unplanned children they can study, pursue their career or start a business. If a woman has an unplanned child and still works there are greater financial impositions - therefore economic freedom is as a result of choice, contraception and abortion.
1. Men aren't asked to choose between their children and their educations, careers, and businesses. Why is putting women in the "Pick. You can only have one." category considered empowering?
2. Women CAN have children and careers. (The fact that Sarah Palin did this is a lot of why abortion supporters hate her so much.)
3. It's still materialism that enables women to push for abortion. They value other things more than they value their children's lives.
Christina,didn't birthcontrol come about before woman's lib? First comes the ability to control fertility then comes the time in which to dedicate to a career which leads to economic emancipation. I think that's a bit obvious to me. As it is obvious that women always have more of a choice to make as they carry more of the childrearing burden eg pregnancy, breastfeeding and looking after etc. They can outsource that - if they make enough money eg Sarah Palin - I wonder who she has looking after her children - is it her husband? And did she come from money?
I'm sure that if u look at the majority of abortions - they are not done by the rich career woman who doesn't want a child to drain her resources but rather the young and poor who already have children they can't afford or those who know they cannot look after a baby yet as they are not financially self sufficient ie at college.
1. only by misogynists and patriarchies - you know, organizations with 'family' in their title. More and more men are doing the 'mr. mom' thing, I did it for two years myself in 2004-05.
2. Yes but there are additional financial costs. Sarah Palin, no, we dislike her because she is a moron and a hypocrite.
3. what Lilliput said.
Why should WOMEN have to choose?
Granted, some women WANT to choose. They have no particular fondness for babies -- not even their own. They can coldly choose between their child's life and their own material goals. They're selfish and materialistic and willing to kill to get what they want. Watch your back around them.
But how many women climbing on the abortion table are feeling particularly liberated? I'd say they're feeling trapped.
How is that "progress" or "advancement" or "liberation"?
Women have to choose because we haven't yet discovered a way to be at two places at once!
I have not met any cold hearted selfish and materialistic women so I can't comment on that except to ask, why did they become that way? And to think that as sad as it is - at least they are not inflicting their misery on their children.
I think its progress that I as a woman have the right to vote, the right to do the work I want, to be able to choose my own mate - or not to have one if I want.
What do u want to do - to go back to the fifties where women were housewives?
As for women feeling trapped on abortion tables I agree - they are caught between a rock and a hard place - neither choice is what they want!
Lil, you must have led a sheltered life if you've never met a cold hearted, materialistic woman. Women are human and are thus just as capable of being evil as men are.
And if a woman aborts her baby, she IS inflicting her misery on that child. How much more powerfully can you damage somebody than by KILLING them?
I have no objection to women choosing to be homemakers or to work outside the home. It's the KILLING THE BABY that I object to. And it is a constant source of bewilderment to me that prochoicers literally can't get why somebody would be upset that somebody else kills a baby -- or that a woman could feel so despairing that she feels trapped into killing her own baby. Can't prochoicers even begin to envision better solutions?
Christina, that's where I think u and me come unstuck. I think bringing a child into this world which u don't want to look after is a lifetime of misery from feeling unwanted, unloved, worthless, mental illness, addiction and possibly suicide. Its a case of being cruel to be kind.
I don't understand the welfare system in the US - here in the UK - if u are penniless and pregnant u will get a flat, money and all the support u need so no woman has to choose abortion.
However, the consequence of this is that we have a culture of entitlement where women think its ok to have babies the rest of society has to pay for. What to do?
Lil, again with the "cruel to be kind"? Why not be kind to the hopeless masses in Darfur? Why don't we be merciful and just drop a few Daisy Cutters or MOABs on them, or nuke the place into a sheet of green glass? That certainly would free them from a lifetime of suffering.
Seriously Christina, let go of Darfur- I can promise u that even without nuking them - they will all be gone in a decade or two to aids,famine,murder, some natural desaster or war.
Concentrate on making things better, on ensuring that ever child who is born alive has the minimum "good enough" parenting that will make it into a productive member or society. First we need to do that - then abortion will drop off naturally.
Lil, you are the one that keeps justifying abortion on the grounds that it's better to kill somebody than take a chance that they might be miserable. I'm just pointing out that you are mighty selective in how you apply it.
If it's good for little babies that MIGHT suffer, isn't it even BETTER for people that you know for sure are suffering?
Christina, I think we are on opposite sides of the same coin.
People that are suffering either end their own suffering through self harm and suicide - or spread their suffering by hurting and killing other people - and the YOU are quite happy to kill them with a death sentence.
I'm saying - don't let them be born under circumstances most likely to result in mental illness and criminality otherwise the rest of society will have to pay the burden. You are saying, let them be born and unless they are the minority which don't turn out productive members of society - we will just kill them off then.
If a baby has not been treated in a way that they can develop empathy - then how can we judge and kill them for their unempathic actions?
Sigh. I nuked the whole conversation where I took the bait. There's no point. Once somebody has reached the point where they really think social ills can be cured with preemptive prenatal strikes, only the Holy Spirit can change them. And I need to stop trying to do His job.
My job is done. I'v created awareness.
The only thing you're missing is the fact that that He alone can do His job as He alone knows everything and we see only fragments of a much bigger picture. And it starts by realising that He is not a He (But both a He and a She and Good and Bad and everything else)
This is why what looks like kindness turns out to be evil - as in "killing with kindness" and what looks like evil - can actually have some good in it.
Oh, you've created awareness all right, Lil. Your problem is a spiritual one, not an informational one. Which I suspected but have now had confirmed.
Now I gotta go pray on it.
Thanks Christina, I need all the prayers I can get. I will put in a good word for you in synagogue today.
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