Like I said, I got confused about the difference between D&X and D&E. I thought it was the same thing, I was wrong. does it bother you, though, that the legislation won’t touch D&E’s? I’m starting to think this PBA ban is mostly symbolic now. It doesn’t sound like it would actually prevent a single abortion and might make some more dangerous.
I’m just happy to see that the pro-lifers are all behind D&E, and that their problem all along was just that they wanted to end intact D&Xs.
I’ll go along with that, if there’s no medical reason for the intact D&X.
So, I take it we’re all in agreement now, and folks can go get those second trimester D&Es?
My man, equating lynching with partial birth abortions is out of line. Period. There is no way in Hades that that “analogy” could ever be justified. You should be ashamed of yourself.
If you can’t recognize why this is true, you might want to stop debating this issue.
Really? Please cite any statements here which shows that the pro-lifers support D&E. The pro-lifers are objecting to intact D&X, but this does not mean that they are supportive of dilation and extraction.
Well, if you found it that offensive, feel free to report the post to a moderator.
But you are correct. I do not see why this is so horrible.
The discussion was of a dreadfully offensive attack committed against an entity both innocent and inconvenient. The attack is motivated at least in part by the belief that the one to be destroyed is less than human.
Both were hotly defended as furthering the rights of women. Partial birth abortion is meant to express the right of women to obtain abortions. Lynching was supposedly done to defend innocent Southern women from the marauding attacks of predatory, sex-crazed blacks. Ever hear of the Scottsboro boys?
Or read Gone With the Wind or To Kill A Mockingbird for a fictional depiction of the same attitudes.
So the analogy seems to me to be at least moderately apt. And you don’t seem to give any reasons why it is not. Simply the assertion that if I don’t agree with you, I should stop debating.
Perhaps you could explain a little better why you found the analogy so objectionable. Keep in mind that you are not necessarily addressing an audience who will take it for granted that you are correct. Fight my ignorance, if you will.
Regards,
Shodan
PS - Thanks, Lissa, for your post. I stand corrected. I should have said that of the millions of blacks who lived in the South, only a few thousand were ever lynched. If your cite and abortion providers are both correct, about as many were lynched in eighty years in the US as are subjected to partial birth abortion (or intact D&X, if you prefer) every year.
What thread have you been reading then?
This thread, started by astro, was asking about the relative “rarity” of IDX/PBAs. As stated in the OP, different sources are claiming different numbers when it comes to how frequently (and for what reason) the procedures are performed.
FWIW, I’ve seen plenty of self identified pro choice folks on these boards and elsewhere who have problems with 3rd trimester (some even have trouble with 2nd trimester) abortions performed by any procedure, including IDX/PBA.
You might wish to aim your amusing analysis in that direction…I’m sure they’ll see the light from your post. Self identified pro life folks that have posted here have trouble with generally all abortions.
Shodan:
Equating abortions/abortionists with lynching/lynch mobs and the depravity of racially motivated murder serves only inflammatory purposes and is indicative of the dehumanization that allows nutcases to justify their murder of doctors that perform legal medical procedures, i.e. abortions. Whether you intended to or not, that is one of the messages your analogy did send.
Your analogy WAS offensive. If you feel that abortion is murder,
don’t beat around the bush. Come out and say it. Your remarks concerning “dreadfully offensive attacks” are almost there.
Remember that the murder of doctors has been hotly defended as furthering the rights of the unborn.
cj
I, too, think it was a faulty analogy.
Protection of white women was only the excuse for lynching. A good portion of men who were lynched were killed for being too “uppity” or objecting to mistreatment.
Black women were also lynched, such as in the horrible case of Mary Turner. She made the fatal mistake of threatening to prosecute those who had lynched her husband.
Even blacks who weren’t lynched suffered horribly under Jim Crow laws, and were denied any respect or courtesy. A white person could abuse a black person at will without any repercussions.
You can’t compare this dark, horrible part of American history with abortion. First of all, not every fetus is at risk from abortion the way all blacks were at risk of abuse and discrimination. Secondly, abortion is not done to terrify an entire people. Thirdly, fetuses are not intentionally tortured to give them as much pain as possible. Fourth, abortion is not done for the amusement of a crowd, or as an expression of hatred of an entire class of people. Fifth, doctors who preform the procedure do not proudly gather for photographs with aborted fetuses, or announce the procedure ahead of time in the newspapers to draw a crowd.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think a comparison can be made.
We feel justified in performing partial-birth abortion because we do not consider the fetus to be fully human. Lynchers felt justified in lynching because they did not consider blacks to be fully human. Dehumanization in both cases.
The dehumanization of the fetus is what leads people like the New Jersey chapter of NOW to wonder if the killer of Laci Peterson’s eight-month-old fetus should be charged with one murder, or two.
The dehumanization of the fetus is what allows girls to give birth at their high-school prom, toss the baby into the trash, and go back to the dance floor.
Whether you intended to or not, that is one of the messages partial-birth abortion does send.
And partial-birth abortion has been hotly defended as furthering the rights of women.
I will assume that we agree that murder is wrong, and should never be defended. Certainly we could not defend lynching, or the murder of abortionists. Equally certainly, we cannot defend the murder of a viable fetus.
Wouldn’t you agree?
Certainly true. Just as protection of the “health” of the mother is often only an excuse for partial-birth abortions.
In every instance of lynching, the underlying assumption is that the victim is inconvenient, and not worthy of respect as a fully human person.
The analogy does not seem to me to be faulty, but right on point.
Incorrect. Every fetus is at risk from abortion. The procedure can be performed for almost any reason. Most mothers choose not to abort. Most blacks were not lynched.
True.
Not intentionally. But anesthesia is not generally administered before the incision is made into the fetal skull, nor when suction is applied to remove the brain and collapse the head.
I suppose the analogy would be to a quick lynching, where the victim is not tortured before being hanged.
Also true. In fact, abortionists are at some pains to downplay and minimize their procedures, even to the point of lying about its frequency. And no one objects more loudly when anti-abortion groups publicize pictures of abortions.
So you are correct, in the case of lynching those who lynched seemed proud of what they did. Those who perform partial-birth abortions seem much more ashamed of what they do. I would assume that in the one case, publicity serves their purpose, whereas in the other, it would work against it. I wonder why that would be…
Really?
If you reject the analogy, it would seem that we should all be horrified by the lynching of Mary Turner.
But to smash her baby’s head under our heel is a matter of no interest.
Or is the objection that the murderer used a boot, instead of surgical scissors?
Regards,
Shodan
So it appears that dehumanization of fetuses is verboten but that the dehumanization of women who obtain abortions and the doctors that perform them is just fine. I suppose the ‘nits make lice’ argument is coming out next?
Lynching is a terroristic act. Abortion is not.
Your inability to see any discontinuity in your arguments is astounding.
cj
No, just the opposite, cj, since I explicitly posted:
(Bolding added for your benefit.)
Perhaps the discontinuity you claim would be reduced if you made a little closer reading of the thread.
FYI - I was the one who Pitted Clint from Wichita over his use of the “nits make lice” remark.
Regards,
Shodan
The destruction of a fetus isn’t “murder,” Shodan. It’s just that simple.
Cite?
OK, that was a cheap shot.
Put it this way - in what way was the destruction of Mary Turner’s fetus, or Laci Peterson’s fetus, not murder?
Or can I simply post:
and win the argument?
Regards,
Shodan
A fetus is not a person, therefore it can’t be murdered. The destruction of Mary turner’s fetus was a crime against Mary Turner, not the fetus.
Obviously we’re just talking about philosophical opinions here, but I think we can say objectively that the terroristic murder of an entity which is undisputedly a person and which is motivated by hatred is not in the same moral ballpark as aborting a zygote. Do you really think that all women who get abortions are equally as evil as those who lynch black people? Do you really not see any difference?
**
No, not really. Dehumnization was part of it, but lynching was not about getting rid of an inconvenient person but about * hate. * Deep, seething, evil * hate. * If whites had truly felt that blacks were sub-human, they wouldn’t have felt so threatened. It was the recognition that blacks were every bit as human as whites that drove part of that hatred. It was the deep suspicion that maybe a black man was not naturally inferior that some whites found so enraging.
**
I still don’t understand how you feel that every fetus is at risk, yet recognize that it’s the individual mother’s decision. It’s not like abortionists are chasing pregnant women down the street. Are you saying that my pregnant sister-in-law is in danger of being aborted, that my future nephew need quake in the womb for fear of it?
Yes, most blacks weren’t lynched, but they all suffered. Do all fetuses suffer abuse and discrimination?
**
Neither is anetheisia administered before circumsision in a lot of cases.(In the past, babies weren’t even given anesthesia during major surgery.)
I am not a doctor, but I would assume that pain would end instantly once the brain was punctured. If the doctor goes in through the “soft spot” as would seem logical, the incision might be no more painful than being circumcised or having one’s chest cut open. (Not that I like the idea of a creature experiencing any pain.)
**
And this proves what, exactly? There’s a large amount of social stigma attached to doctors who preform abortions, and even more so when it comes to late-term abortions. Considering there’s some pretty dangerous people out there, I wouldn’t want to admit to doing it publicly, either, were I a doctor.
No. The killer did it in front of Mary Turner’s dying eyes to cause her pain. She did not ask for her pregnancy to be terminated.
And yet:
May God in heaven have mercy on us all.
I cannot imagine a clearer example of the dehumanizing effects of partial birth abortions, or the horrors to which it seduces us. Stomping on a crying baby’s head, or cutting its chest open, are considered trivial.
I think I had better drop out of this thread. I don’t think we value the same things in our children.
I cannot in good conscience thank you for your thoughts. They make my skin crawl.
Regards,
Shodan
**
In no way did I mean to imply that surgery or any pain inflicted on a creature which can feel it is trivial. (Hell, I don’t believe in causing even an animal more pain than absolutely necessary.) What I was trying to say was that other procedures are done without benefit of pain-killers. (I’ve even heard of surgeries performed while the child is still in the womb.) A quick punture through the skull causing instant death is not as horribly painful in comparison to, say, open heart surgery, which was done without anesthesia on infants in the past.
What happened to Mary Turner’s infant still cannot be compared to PBA. The baby was killed because it was * black * and thus an object of disgust and hate. Such a thing would never have happened to a white baby. Also, mothers today who have a late-term abortion do not necessarily * hate * the child they’re carrying.
I think this may be due to a misinterpretation, or perhaps I didn’t make myself clear enough.