The ludicrously named Colorado Right to Life (CRTL) openly admits that its policies would endanger the lives of women. It demands that Republican candidates work to outlaw abortion even in cases of rape. And it declares its commitment to faith-based politics, noting that Amendment 48, the “personhood” initiative that seeks to define a fertilized egg as a person, would allegedly “uphold God’s enduring command.”
Today I also discussed the politics of the situation; here I address the ideology, as detailed in the “CRTL 2008 Candidate Questionnaire.”
Following are several of the group’s questions:
Do you advocate that the government uphold the God-given, inalienable Right to Life for the unborn?
Do you agree that abortion is always wrong, even when the baby’s father is a criminal (a rapist)? [See life-of-the mother note below.]
Do you support the 2008 Colorado Personhood amendment effort to define “person” to include any human being from the moment of fertilization?
Will you oppose any research or practice that would intentionally destroy the tiniest living humans (embryonic stem cell research)?
The group declares that, in the name of God, it desires to force women to have the babies of rapists, grant equal rights to fertilized eggs, and prohibit potentially life-saving medical research.
What about the mother’s life?
When the mother’s life is seriously threatened by a pregnancy, of course it is morally justified to deliver the baby but not if the intention is to kill the baby. When the life of the mother is at serious risk by her pregnancy, the goal must be to save the life of the mother and the baby if at all possible. It is just as wrong to kill the mother to save the baby, as it is to kill the baby to save the mother. “Legalizing” abortion, defined as the intentional killing of the unborn child, for the life of the mother leads to repugnant acts like emergency removal of late-term babies from the womb stopping midway in the procedure to kill the baby. If the baby dies, it is a tragedy; if the baby is intentionally killed, it is murder. If necessary to save the mom’s life, the unborn baby could be delivered with the determination to care for both, and if possible, to save both the baby and mother!
Obviously, the best scenario is to save the mother and baby. However, when there is a conflict, CRTL is perfectly willing to sacrifice the mother, an actual human being, to an embryo, only a potential. Here is the key line: ” It is… wrong… to kill the baby to save the mother.”
Colorado Right to Life in fact endorses policies that would kill actual human beings. The group’s alleged “right to life” means for some an obligation to die.
The organization makes clear that it does not merely wish to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the decision to the states, as so many Republicans declare:
Antonin Scalia has publicly stated that he would strike down any law that prohibited abortion in all fifty states, and Clarence Thomas has ruled that the public has the right to decide to legalize the killing of unborn children. Sadly, not even one of the seven current U.S. Supreme Court Justices nominated by Republican presidents support the right to life of the unborn.
Further, our pro-life presidents have nominated sixty percent of the U.S. federal judiciary, and yet the judiciary utterly rejects the right to life of the unborn. Also we should remember that the pro-abortion Roe v. Wade decision was written by a Republican Justice and passed by the Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, and abortion was legalized in Colorado by Republican governor John Love in 1967.
Most Americans don’t buy into CRTL’s absurd, pro-death, faith-based agenda. The problem is that Americans are used to viewing everything through pragmatist eyes, so many can’t understand that CRTL means it. They actually want to ban birth control that prevents a fertilized egg from growing. They actually want to force 13-year-old girls to bear the children of rapists. They actually want doctors to let women die if necessary to save the fetus. They are deadly serious. It is time for sensible Coloradans to take them at their word and reject their dogmatic agenda resoundingly.
Ari, you’re mis-reading CRTL’s position. They say you don’t kill a baby to save the mother because it’s a truism. It’s never medically necessary to take active measures to kill the baby in order to preserve the mother’s life. That’s an abortionist’s lie, and a popularly believed myth.
A Caesarian section is one of the safest and quickest medical procedures that exists. It takes 5 minutes, and if the baby is capable of living outside the womb, then she will live.
A late-term abortion, on the other hand, takes many hours, at the very least, and often takes days. If a woman’s life is in danger, a doctor would be criminally incompetent to take the time to kill the baby before removing her, rather than simply delivering the baby alive.
A doctor should always try to save the life of the baby and the mother — to do anything else is negligent.
On the subject of rape babies, surveys show that most victims of rape or incest want to keep their babies. The ones who don’t keep their baby often regret it for the rest of their lives. An abortion simply re-victimizes the young girl.
Abortion for rape and incest also hides the crime from authorities (abortionists NEVER report underage pregnancies, even when they suspect rape — this is WELL documented). The rapist is free to rape the same girl again, and again, without his wife (the girl’s mother) or whoever else knowing about it.
Is there ever a case where slavery should be allowed? Ever a case when a Jew should be allowed to be killed? Never.
And there should never be a reason to take the life of an innocent human being, even if she happened to be the result of rape or incest.
That’s because People have rights, including the Right to Life.
My best friend in high school had an abortion, and she never regretted it. And I know other women with the same experience.
There are several dishonest tactics that the poster above and CRTL use to elicit irrational emotion:
1. Refer to the fetus as a “she,” and refer to the woman and the fetus as “mother and baby.”
2. Never describe the fetus as a snake-like clump (which, in early terms, it looks like); always describe abortion as killing a pretty, pink, plump, cute baby. (In fact, only 2% of all abortions occur after 21 months — see links below).
3. Always project the capacity of adult feelings and thoughts onto fetuses to stir others’ emotions (very much like animal-rights activists’ projection of the capacity of human feelings onto animals).
4. Always emphasize the idea that “most” women regret having abortions without giving any substantiation. (I saw a bumper sticker yesterday claiming that 93% [!] of women regret having an abortion.)
5. Use over-generalizations; never identify context. “Never medically necessary.”
6. Always evade explaining what it means to save both the “mother and baby’s” life. Never talk in terms of killing the woman for the sake of the fetus. Try to slide by on emotional arguments.
7. Assert that religious people have the moral authority to impose the “right” actions onto women, even if it means forcing them.
8. Never speak of individual rights – only rights in collective terms (all babies, or lives) and the status quo (most women).
9. Always project evil intentions on women; never refer to women as having a rational faculty or having good reasons for getting an abortion. Never talk about the circumstances of the woman’s life at the time of the abortion.
So here is a modest list of reasons for getting an abortion:
http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/facts/women_who.html
And some women’s stories:
http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/stories/index.html
I am not a doctor, but considering the spurious and emotional nature of Bob’s information, his medical claims are suspect.
Thanks for your post and bringing these awful people and ideas out into the light, Ari!
Allow me to praise and echo Amy’s excellent response! (well, except for her typo … obviously, only 2% of all abortions occur after 21 _weeks_, not months!)
— Robert
Amy,
Does it upset you that you are “forced” not to own a slave?
There are certain moral imperatives in society where society “forces” people to abide by a certain code — not to murder, not to enslave people, not to kill their unborn child. These are necessary “measures of force” meant specifically to PROTECT individual rights, not to take them away.
You speak of a woman’s “right to choose what to do with her own body”. I’m telling you that science (God too, but definitely science) tells us that that IS an individual baby in your womb, and that baby should have individual rights to life. It’s the pro-abortion people who are imposing their will on the individual baby and destroying the rights of the individual.
In reality, it’s not about the woman’s body. It’s about the baby’s body.
I’ll explain more in an extensive response to Ari. But there is no medical question that an embryo/zygote /”fertilized egg” is an individual, distinct from the mother. Science proves it, and you won’t be able to find a single credible science book that says life doesn’t begin at conception.
A crucial principle concerning individual rights is missed by the “pro-life” side of the debate. Rights, properly understood, are inalienable. This means that they are possessed equally, by all people, at all times. In other words, the rights of one person do not and can not override or negate the rights of another. Therefore, in the early stages of a pregnancy, there are no rights that ascribe to the fetus, if one takes the natural, inalienable rights of the individual as truth.
I take this stand as a father of two, grandfather of six, and as a person who takes the abortion issue very seriously. I recently had an online debate on abortion in response to a post on my blog with my beloved daughter Christine, a wife, mother of four, and a Christian. Here, in part, is what I said:
“Abortion is a very difficult subject, morally…at least for me. But the crucial point to understand here is that a right is a concept that applies to, and only to, actual living human beings, not potential human beings. This is not a callous statement, but a recognition of the facts of reality. A right is an attribute that is possessed by every human equally, and that places no unchosen positive obligation on another. Further, a right is something that a person possesses throughout his life. The idea that a person has a right (the rights of the unborn) that is automatically lost at birth is a contradiction, both of logic and of the facts of reality. Again, abortion is a very morally difficult issue, especially with regard to the latter stages of a pregnancy, and is a procedure that I abhor if approached under any but the most thoughtful circumstances. But the principle of inalienable individual rights is absolute. The rights of the mother reign supreme, and one who denies those rights cannot claim to be a defender of the “rights of the unborn.” The concept of “the rights of the unborn” implies an impossible conflict…that the rights of some supercede and negate the rights of others…an idea that in fact negates the very concept of inalienable rights.”
I agree with Bob Kyffin that the issue of late-term abortion is mostly a red herring, for the reasons he describes. I say mostly, because even here, there is reason for keeping abortion legal in some circumstances. I have two real life, very personal experiences to demonstrate my point. Christine was pregnant with my second grandchild when, at 25 weeks, serious complications set in that required the immediate termination of the pregnancy, as both the lives of mother and especially baby were endangered. An emergency c-section was performed, both were saved, and my Madalyn is now a thriving five year old with two younger siblings (in addition to a big brother). This seems to validate his contention that killing the (late-term) unborn child is never necessary. BUT, some years ago, my sister-in-law Janet was faced with a terrible choice. Pregnant with her third child, her doctors discovered, well into the third trimester, that the child suffered from a very serious defect that would have resulted in massive pain for the child, major and continous medical intervention, and death by age three. Janet chose to abort, a crushing decision for her, but the only rational and compassionate one, as it saved the newborn baby a short but agonizing life of suffering, and her, her husband, and her two daughters three years of devastating emotional and financial pain. As Ari says, under normal conditions, the proper course in regard to late term pregnancies is to save both mother and baby. But I can’t fathom anyone imposing on Janet and her family the kind of burden they would have had to endure, all in the name of the “rights of the unborn” or the “will of God.”
To return to my original point, the principle of inalienable individual rights negates the argument that “In reality, it’s not about the woman’s body. It’s about the baby’s body.” A contradiction of this magnitude cannot stand. The argument for individual rights, especially of the right to life, is absolutely lethal to the entire “pro-life” position. I challenge Bob Kyffin, or anyone, to reconcile “the rights of the unborn” with the principle of inalienable individual rights. It can’t be done. Either one believes in individual rights, or one doesn’t.