The recent alloran thread about abortion brought my thoughts back to something that has been in the back of my mind for a while.
When anti-abortion (pro-life/whatever) people go overboard and start shooting doctors and bombing clinics, we always hear from more mainstream pro-lifers about how they shouldn’t have gone that far and how they’re wingnuts and all that.
Why?
I mean, if pro-life people truly believe there is state-sanctioned mass murder being perpetrated daily, shouldn’t they be taking up arms and revolting?
Believe me, I’m not trying to suggest that anybody should do this – I am pro-choice, personally. But if I saw people being murdered every day, and the government said this was okay because not everybody believes these are real humans, I sure wouldn’t just be sitting at home typing messages on the SDMB about it.
Yet, if we listen to the pro-life side, that’s essentially what many believe is happening.
I guess I’d like some insight into what a pro-lifer is thinking on this issue.
Nice rhetoric there, David B. I can’t speak for everyone, but I respect the sanctity of human life (for non-religious reasons, lest someone make an issue out of the whole God thing). As such, I couldn’t possibly kill an abortion doctor, because then I would be a hypocrite.
Let me ask you this–do you require that all vegetarians kill butchers? After all, if they want to save the lives of innocent cows, then why not attack the problem at the root?
You are an advocate of separation of church and state–do you kill science teachers who preach instead of teach?
They are revolting. I think it’s a perfectly revolting notion that anyone should have control over MY reproductive rights.
Ahem…sorry, couldn’t help myself.
My opinion on the matter is that these are the “moral police.” They continue to protest without ever taking action because that’s what they do: They are outraged at what they consider to be “moral decay” as a hobby and a way of life. Actually making any real changes would put them out of a job, so to speak.
There’s no where for these people to congregate to protest OTHER things that they consider to be moral outrages. For example, they can’t stand in my bedroom, waving signs that say “Buy the Cow, Get the Milk,” and tell me not to have pre-marital sex. So they latch on to the abortion issue, without any real understanding of what the issue IS or why they’ve formed the opinions that they themselves claim to hold, as an outlet for that phantom outrage that can’t be expressed elsewhere. We’ve made them a nice comfortable spot to do that, outside of clinics where they can use women as targets for all that’s wrong with the planet “these days.”
Also, since they don’t really understand the enormity of what they’re claiming (i.e., that ALL life is valuable no matter what the make-up of that life) they don’t see their claims for what they really are and thus, never take any REAL action.
Well, many of us believed Operation Rescue in the late 80s was a way to peacefully do something drastic to save the lives of the unborn. While some good came from it, overall I think it didn’t have any long term good effects.
As a Pro Life person, I believe that now it’s a matter of educating the public slowly over a period of years, trying to shape public opinion against abortion. “Revoling” would not actually save lives in the long run, and may result in more lives being lost besides the unborn children. My 2 cents worth: I can’t save the life of every unborn child that’s scheduled to be aborted. But I can participate in helping to shape the culture so that lives might be saved in the future.
Thats ALL you see pro life folks doing…“just sitting at home typing messages on the SDMB”?
Among other things, many pro life folks
-work for political change (like other interest groups)
-work for crisis pregnancy groups
-work for adoption efforts or adopt children themselves often through organizations like “One Church, One Child”
-like other interest groups…work at educating the electorate.
If the goal of pro life folks is to over time drastically reduce the number of abortions performed in this country…do you really think that “taking up arms and revolting” would accomplish that (at least in the U.S.)?
I notice that you haven’t asked the same thing of the PETA folks…
FoG, thanks for your answer. So far, it’s been the best one. (Who thought you’d ever read me saying that?! )
beagledave, I was being somewhat sarcastic about writing on the SDMB. I didn’t think anybody would interpret it as being all that I think they are doing. I obviously overestimated people.
quixotic, your comparisons are invalid. Wars have been fought over governments taking the lives of human beings. They have never, to my knowledge, been fought over people eating farm animals. As far as science teachers who preach, no, I don’t kill them. But they are not killing others, either. I would try to get them to stop – or be fired. What you seem to have missed is the concept of people believing there is mass murder going on. And you rolled your eyes at my “rhetoric”?
A quick search of the PETA website finds several uses of the term “murder” to describe what they think is happening to animals. So again…why not ask the same question of animal rights activists?
Your postulate assumes that revolt would lead to success, assumes that less violent means would not lead to success, and assumes that even successful revolt would not outweigh other deeply held values.
A good resource for learing about alternatives to armed revolt is The Nonviolence Web.
Mohandas K. Gandhi: “Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “We may ignore Gandhi at our own risk.”
I don’t have a lot to say here, but it’s so rare that I get a chance to agree with both David B. and FriendofGod in the same post on the same thread that I’m gonna jump in with a “Me too”!
And for everyone, whichever side of the argument you’re on, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest beagledave’s post. Best advice on the subject I’ve heard in a looooooong time.
I agree with SexyWriter. There seems to be a morality police mindset; people who are upset about other peoples’ sex lives. They’re against anything that they believe makes it easier for people to make the choice to be sexually active without waiting for marriage. They see abortion as one of these things, along with contraception and sex education. They think that if people were ignorant about reproduction and contraception, and if neither contraception nor abortion were available, the fear of unwanted pregnancies would keep people on the stright and narrow.
Why they think this is the case is a major mystery. Seems to me this is a case of “tried that; didn’t work” – unwanted pregnancies were pretty common back in the days when abortion and contraception were both illegal, and young people were kept in ignorance.
The morality police types know that among the things they’re against, the easiest target is abortion, so that’s where they tend to put most of their efforts. If they ever win – if abortion is ever completely outlawed with no execptions under any circumstances – they will immediately turn their attention to trying to outlaw all forms of contraception, and to trying to discontinue any form of sex education other then telling kids to abstain.
There are a lot of morality police types in the anti-abortion ranks. There are anti-abortion people who are not morality police, but they seem to be outnumbered, or at least out-shouted. An anti-abortion person who is not a moral cop is one who is in favor of practical means of reducing the demand for abortion: better sex ed, better contraception, better access to contraception.
Ironically, the moral cop type of anti-abortion person is dead set against the very things that would reduce the demand for abortion. To them, this does not seem contradictory, as their real concern isn’t abortion itself; their real concern is other peoples’ sex lives.
David, from my observations, I’d say a great deal of the reason is simply because most anti-abortion people are a bit more clever than that. They’ve seen the outrage that occurs when abortion doctors are gunned down. Taking up arms would be counterproductive because it would sway public opinion drastically against them.
The kind of people who are vehemently anti-abortion are (generally) also the ones who favor school prayer, “equal time” for creationism in science classes, and the like. Their grass-roots efforts to accomplish their agenda has thus far been quite successful. By concealing their rhetoric in the guise of “good ol’ American, Christian values”, they make their insidious onslaught so much more palatable.
No, I’m not paranoid. Hey! You! Why are you staring at me?!?
I’m pro-choice, and I really don’t see any logic behind the OP. I believe that the death penalty is murder, so should I be out there trying to shoot judges and juries that sentence people to death? Like others have said, change comes about through peaceful resistance.
A murderer has chosen to murder. He/she must pay the price for their actions. Frankly, I think a life term is far too easy for these people, and vengeful as I am, I’d rather spend 2 million to fry the bastard than $20,000 to let him live in jail.
A child, however, has no defense, has committed no crime. To the Pro-choice people: don’t you ever feel guilty about your beliefs when you see a child running down the street, or when they smile at you?
I believe that a child exists at conception. Once the process has begun, it will result in a child (most times). I have a very difficult time understanding why people argue against that. It seems pretty clear to me.
By the way, I’m a devout atheist, so this is not religiously motivated. I’m just trying to gain a little perspective on what you Pro-choicers are thinking.
I hold no malice towards any of you. I just don’t understand your thought processes. Help me to understand.
I can’t (and won’t, consequently) speak for all pro-lifers, but I wouldn’t do that because to me part of being pro-life is respecting every human’s right to live, not just those who can’t defend themselves. It would be no more right, in my book, to kill the person performing the abortion than it would be to kill a perfectly healthy baby in utero
"I mean, if pro-life people truly believe there is state-sanctioned mass murder being perpetrated daily, shouldn’t they be taking up arms and revolting?"
I don’t have a cite to support this, but my personal belief has been that people respect reason more than crazies who go out shooting people who disagree with them. Plus if you want to get people “on your side”, so to speak, the way to do this is not to kill those who disagree with you. That makes them out to be martyrs, in a sense.
"I guess I’d like some insight into what a pro-lifer is thinking on this issue."
Well, again I’ll only speak for myself on this one, but I am somewhat active in speaking out against abortion, as is witnessed by reading some of my posts on the SDMB. I also speak out against it on my other MB, I participate in the Right to Life march every January. I also have no respect for someone who goes out killing those who perform abortions. That’s not helping our collective public image in the least, which is really one of the more important aspects of being pro-life (think about it: would you listen to someone with whom you associated a basal level of idiocy/craziness?).
I think the biggest problem with the abortion debate is that it continues to be cast in such boolean terms. The two sides of the debate are exactly nine months apart regarding when life begins, and neither side will budge because they sense a slippery slope. And the behavior of certain fringe members of both sides of the argument has been abominable.
I think the most reasoned definition I have encountered, of the beginning of human life, is at the point where the “fetus” becomes a “human baby”, which is at the point when consciousness begins. This is at around the end of the second trimester. This cut-off should accommodate the rape and incest situations, and gives at least those in Western society mroe than enough time to reasonably predict whether the fetus will develop into a viable child. Once consciousness has been attained, and the child is viable, abortion is much harder to defend - it’s not JUST the mother’s body in question anymore.
beagledave: Well, I guess if somebody really considers the life of a cow to be equal to the life of a human, my question would indeed apply to them. I’m not sure what you gain by pointing this out, though. <shrug>
thedoorsrule said:
Too bad you don’t equally value understanding.
Bingo! And that is where the difference lies. Most pro-choice advocates do not share this belief (which is being discussed at length in another current thread). Thus, there is no consistency problem for somebody who is pro-choice and also anti-death-penalty. The former is not a human; the latter is.
Ah, well, as long as it’s clear to you, everybody should simply accept that.
It doesn’t sound like you’re trying to get perspective. It sounds like you’ve made up your mind and can’t believe that anybody would disagree.
iampunha said:
I guess the question still rings in my head about what you would do in a situation where people were being killed out of the uterus. For example, what would you have done had you found yourself in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust? I know the Holocaust is one comparison frequently used by pro-life people. If you had been there, would you have pushed for political change, or would you have tried to kill some Nazis?
Like I said, I guess I just really don’t understand it. If I truly believed that government-sanctioned mass-murder was occurring, I would be looking beyond just the political to stop it – especially when it seems the political is going nowhere. I’m not trying to inflame anybody or suggest that those who have attacked abortion doctors are in the right – it’s just something I don’t understand. Perhaps I never will…
[QUOTE} beagledave: Well, I guess if somebody really considers the life of a cow to be equal to the life of a human, my question would indeed apply to them. I’m not sure what you gain by pointing this out, though. <shrug>
[/QUOTE]
Not looking for a “gain” …just curious about why you don’t ask the same question of them. This (your OP) isn’t about whether killing a cow or a fetus is or is not murder…it’s about the reaction of people who believe that it IS murder.
The “political is going nowhere”? I’m not sure I’d agree with that statement. Aren’t the number of abortions decreasing in the U.S.? (and yes I know that there are a multitude of reasons for that…but I would venture some of that is due to a political climate change). I don’t have stats at hand, but I believe that there has been some shift in attitude in the country at least as concerns abortion “restrictions” (things like parental notification, public funding etc…)
It IS possible for the populace to have a change of heart (without the use of violence) over time about major social policy. Look at the recent shift in attitudes about the death penalty in this country as a good example. .
Others have said it better than me…but “my” pro life attitude is born out of what is often referred to as a “consistent ethic of life” (often associated with Bernadin’s teachings in the RCC)…so the use of violence to address this problem seems abhorent to me.
There is sometimes a mistaken assumption that pro-choice supporters actually like the idea of abortion.
This is false.
Pro-choicers support the idea of keeping abortion a safe, legal option to an unwanted/unplanned/physically-dangerous-to-the-mother pregnancy. We do not recruit women to get abortions. We do not stand outside clinics shouting at women to “Come in! Come in!” the way some picketers shout at women to keep away. Trust me when I say that pro-choicers dislike abortion as much as anti-choicers do.
The difference is, most anti-choicers want to make abortion illegal. Most pro-choicers just want to make it unnecessary.
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