I was just thinking - Pro Lifers don’t go far enough. They claim to believe that a foetus is a human being. But they are trying (the vast majority of them) to stop abortion by peaceful means, while at the same time hundreds of thousands of foetuses are destroyed every year. Surely, if hundreds of thousands of human beings are being killed every year it is worth killing thousands to prevent it?
Or, if not, why not?
They don’t have the power to succeed; if they did, I expect they’d cheerfully torture every last one of their political opponents to death.
And, no, I don’t think I exaggerating. Most of them appear to be motivated by a combination of religious fanaticsm and anti-woman bigotry. Given history, I feel safe in predicting that they would act out in as extreme a fashion as possible, if they could get away with it.
Pro-life people form a whole spectrum of people just like in any political cause. Most obviously don’t get as upset at a fetus being aborted as they would say, a 13 year old child being murdered. You can find the same thing on the pro-choice side. The vast majority of people wouldn’t feel right about electively terminating an 8 1/2 month pregnancy even though many will publicly state that any unborn baby is just a collection of cells that is a parasite on the mother-host.
You do have a point though. If one is pro-life for religious reasons and believes that the soul joins wit the body at conception then it is irresponsible not to want abortion ended completely and immediately. Some people that have truly believed that have acted on those beliefs by bombing clinics and things. We call them terrorists and kooks. Terrorists may fit but I am not so sure on the kook part.
Most people, pro-life and pro-choice believe there is a continunm however. I am very weakly pro-life but also somewhat pro-choice as a matter of necessity. My baby daughter died this summer because of an extremely rare and untreatable genetic disease. Had there been a test, we would have had to abort her. If we have any future children, Harvard researchers have designed a test for us and there is that 25% possibility again.
My family, who is very pro-life said, “Well, of course you would have to abort then. That is not really abortion if the child couldn’t live that long”.
Well, it is abortion just like aborting a child that is the result of rape or incest is also taking a life.
My point is that the issue isn’t as nearly clear-cut as it is broken down into for political purposes. Most people on both sides have complex boundaries and feelings that differ by person. Very few people truly believe that an early stage fetus equals a full person yet most people can’t honestly just write off an aborted baby as just a clump of discharged cells.
Can we have a cite that anyone has ever tortured another individual to death over their abortion views? Since most of them would do so, surely someone would have had the opportunity to do so sometime in the last 30 years.
Why do you state that? Not all of us believe that. I am pro-life but I don’t believe that fetus = human being.
Therefore the rest of your argument (at least as far as I am concerned) does not apply. One does not kill a human being to save a fetus.
Next!
Zev Steinhardt
I didn’t say they had, although I wouldn’t be surprised. Is it really such a big jump from death threats, assassinations and bombings ?
I do believe that a fetus is a human being.
However, I don’t support the slaughter of abortion doctors in order to stop abortion, even though it would arguably on balance save lives.
The reason is that the abortion doctors and clinic staff are acting lawfully. I may not agree that the law is wise or just, but the hallmark of living in society is my agreement to accept the judgement of my fellow citizens on the law. I may work to change the law, of course, but to punish by death someone who is objectibely acting within the law is repugnant.
That ultimeately is the question you have to answer to tell if killing abortionists is OK.
Sure there is a certain logic in killing abortion doctors to save the lives of unborn children. However just about everyone sees killing people as a bad thing. So it becomes a question of “is it OK to do evil so that good will result?”. If the answers is yes, then morally you should kill abortion doctors. If not, then regardelss of how many unborn child deaths they are responsible for it is not OK to kill abortion doctors because that in of itself is wrong.
Most pro-life people are of the opinion that the ends do not justify the means, and therefore are not hypocritical.
And BTW Der Trihs:
What I love is that you rail against religion being intolerant and ignorant, yet you express your distaste for religion in the most intolerant and ignorant way. The irony is oustanding!
Comedy GOLD 
Fry
So you find death threats and assassination a form of comedy ?
So if concentration camps were legal would you just quietly write letters to your Congressmen and hope for the best?
No, what I find amusing is your using hateful, hurtful and unfounded (if they had any basis maybe you could come up with some, you know, evidence) statements to try to argue that your position is one of love and tolerance and it is the “fundamentalists” who are the hatemongers. That is what is so funny.
Fry.
Funny Ha, Ha or Funny: My God he’s pathetic.
You is exaggerating.
Amazing. I’ll bet you think that the Jews run the world, all blacks are rapists and theives, and the Japanese are cunning.
In a forum that has it’s share of rank bigotry disguised as progressive enlightment this mindless drivel stands out.
Simply amazing.
A little from column A and a little from column B
The basic answer available to this question have been given in the thread. But in my opinion, it doesn’t stand up. Let’s look at it this way. Suppose it were really true that a fetus was a human being. If that were the case, then this country and everyone collectively in it would be contributing to the slaughter of over a million totally innocent people each year.
If that were really the case, then could one slip out of the moral responsibility by saying that it’s wrong to engage in violence to stop the procedure because the procedure is officially lawful? Any society where the laws accept the mass slaughter of innocents must surely be uncivilized and corrupt, to a degree beyond redemption. And thus the argument that the only moral requirement is to obey that country’s laws falls apart. In such a society, it would surely be okay to use violence to bring the entire culture to the ground, and then build a better society in its place.
I had a thread a couple months ago making this exact point: most abortion foes claim to believe that a fetus is human, but nobody anywhere actually acts in a way consistent with that belief.
They are killing people right now; if they had control, why not go farther ?
I think fanatic killers are bad, so now I’m racist ? Riiiight.
Does this also apply to natural abortions, i.e. miscarriages? A miscarriage or early abortion, say before any neural activity in a central brain, is, in my view, just a clump of discharged cells.
I think Der Trihs is putting it a little strongly but I do agree with him that it is just a small jump from bombing a clinic to torture.
The history seems to side with the view that when a single religion gains political dominance all hell breaks loose. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. I would just point to the Los Angeles Diocese and Cardinal Mahoney’s evasions as an example.
No, most pro-life people wouldn’t themselves engage in torture. However several times after a clinic bombing I’ve seen letters to the editor that start out something like:
I’m pro-life but I certainly don’t condone bombing clinics. However, I can understand the frustration that arises yadda, yadda, yadda.
In short, they don’t condone bombing but instead of coming out and saying it is evil as Bricker did, many just wring their hands. And in the past when organized religions controlled nations the leaders were either corrupted by power in time, or turned out to be the radicals. And the great mass just sat by.
That is true, of course of any top-down, hierarchical government but there seems to be something special about those who are sure that they have God’s unlisted telephone number.
You said they would if they thought they could get away with it. There are tens of millions of pro-lifers in this country. None of them thinks he can get away with it? Not one? Kinda undermines your hypothsis a bit, doesn’t it?
Yes, it is. You claim that the majority of pro-lifers would torture people to death if they could get away with it. The majority. Not a few whackos, but most of the people who are pro-life.
The big jump is extrapolating the actions of tens of millions of people based on the action of a few nutjobs.
Nope. I’d do more in the way of direct resistance.
But I wouldn’t assassinate the camp guards.