Doctors Against Abortion and Prenatal Child Abuse

Of Dogs, Humans, and Abortion

2012-01-06T10:07:00.002-05:00

This morning, I was reading on the web and found this, an abortionist asking a key question:

"But can I ask you a question? You have asked many questions, so let me ask you: Why is it okay to put a dog to sleep because it hurts too much, but it's not okay to put a human to sleep? He needs to suffer? That's reasonable? I don't think so."

Interestingly, this abortionist, a professed atheist who thinks that abortion is either equivalent to birth control, when performed early, or, if performed later in pregnancy, euthanasia, does not seem to see why killing a dog might be different than killing a human being. 

As philosopher Bryan Cross points out, the combination of nominalism and empiricism results in scientism, whereby a difference between dogs and humans is no longer seen. Coming to see again is part of the solution, and, in part, that requires philosophy---not reduced or truncated philosophy, but something that is more sincere, more fully developed, and more morally serious. And, it requires returning to what we knew before we even started doing philosophy or medicine, to things that are true regardless of philosophy and medicine. Indeed, one of the marks of good philosophy is its connectedness to what we know before we do it. In other words, philosophy builds on common sense or common experience or what we know before we do philosophy. A philosophy that cuts against or undermines that pre-philosophical knowledge, if you will, is something to be very cautious of. 

A doctor who no longer sees the difference between a human being and a dog is also something to be very cautious of, especially for those in the womb, if not also for those out of the womb. Is he a medical doctor acting as a vet or a vet acting as a medical doctor? With respect to abortion, and aside from the fact that unjustified abortion is not an attempt to make an individual healthier, he is treating humans like dogs, if not worse than dogs, not even recognizing their dignity as human beings, reducing them to mere animals in his mind and then physically destroying them to the point of death, which he refers to as 'sleep'. 

The Religion of Birth Control

2012-01-05T09:29:00.000-05:00

Margaret Sanger actually referred to abortion as 'barbaric', but was in favor of birth control. She said that it would 'ease the financial load of caring for with public funds....children destined to become a burden to themselves, to their family, and ultimately to the nation.'

Here we have more of the same, more eugenics dressed up, this time in the form of birth control. Of course, Planned Parenthood is more eugenic than even Sanger imagined it would be. So, some liberals are intent on either preventing conception with respect to certain types of people or having them aborted if they are conceived, though, again, apparently Sanger thought abortion resulted in 'outrageous slaughter' and 'the killing of babies,' which, she thought, even the offspring of the 'unfit' did not deserve.

Peter Singer on Killing Babies

2012-01-05T09:21:00.000-05:00

Not hiding behind any euphemisms, Peter Singer has an essay titled 'Killing Babies Isn't Always Wrong.'

Discrmination Against the 'Unfortunate' and 'Disadvantaged' in the Form of Abortion and RU-486

2012-01-05T09:19:00.001-05:00

In 1992, Roe v. Wade co-counsel Ron Weddington urged the new president-elect to rush RU-486 to market. He wrote:

"You can start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country. No, I'm not advocating some sort of mass extinction of these unfortunate people. Crime, drugs and disease are already doing that. The problem is that their numbers are not only replaced but increased by the birth of millions of babies to people who can't afford to have babies. There, I've said it. It's what we all know is true, but we only whisper it, because as liberals who believe in individual rights, we view any program which might treat the disadvantaged  as discriminatory, mean-spirited and ....well....so Republican."

He continues:

"Government is also going to have to provide vasectomies, tubal ligations and abortions....There have been about 30 million abortions in this country since Roe v. Wade. Think of all the poverty, crime and misery...and then add 30 million unwanted babies to the scenario. We lost a lot of ground during the Reagan-Bush religious orgy. We don't have a lot of time left."

Here we have the morning after pill and abortion as liberal social policies against the 'disadvantaged' and 'unfortunate'. This is discrimination in the form of unjustified homicide, at least with respect to the abortion aspect. But here we do not have Jim Crow laws, but Roe v. Wade and RU-486. It is a type of discrimination that kills, at least with respect to abortion. The logic is plain and we have it from the Roe v. Wade co-counsel himself.

Cheap Abortion As a Social Defense

2012-01-05T09:03:00.000-05:00

While we are often told by liberal progressives that abortions do not kill 'babies' and while liberal progressives often act as though we have committed an intellectual crime by using the term 'murder' or 'baby' in relation to 'abortion', some liberals are actually quite honest about why they want more abortions. For example, in 1992, Nicholas Von Hoffman said the following in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"Free cheap abortion is a policy of social defense. To save ourselves from being murdered in our beds and raped on the streets, we should do everything possible to encourage pregnant women who don't want the baby and will not take care of it to get rid of the thing before it turns into a monster...At their demonstration, the anti-abortionists parade around with pictures of dead and dismembered fetuses. the pro-abortionists should meet these displays with some of their own: pictures of the victims of the unaborted---murder victims, rape victims, mutilation victims---pictures to remind us that the fight for abortion is but part of the larger struggle for safe homes and safe streets."

 I recall being in residency and one doctor frequently commenting on how 'stupid' patients were and how they should be sterilized. Of course, sterilization, as bad as it is, is not the same as unjustified homicide, but one wonders if he, too, would not have agreed with the comments above. 

It is also interesting to note that a high percentage of Planned Parenthood clinics are near or in minority communities. Eugenics was largely discredited with Hitler, but it lives on in Planned Parenthood and with abortion. It is now just cloaked in 'family planning' terms.

Jesse Jackson on Abortion

2011-12-11T00:44:00.000-05:00

When he decided to run for President, he changed his position, but, in 1977, Jesse Jackson said that abortion was basically 'genocide against the black race.' He added, 'AS A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE, I MUST OPPOSE THE USE OF FEDERAL FUNDS FOR A POLICY OF KILLING INFANTS.' 

It is true that abortion takes the lives of a huge number of black people, with some saying that it takes more black lives than heart disease, cancer, accidents, AIDS, and violent crime combined. Nationwide, 512 out of every 1,000 black pregnancies end in an abortion. Jackson's comment is interesting in light of the numbers. 37% of abortions are abortions of black human beings despite the fact that the black population makes up far less than 37% of the population.  

Margaret Sanger on Abortion

2011-12-11T00:33:00.000-05:00

Despite being loved by liberal thinkers, Margaret Sanger herself called abortion 'barbaric', called doctors who perform abortions 'blood-sucking men with M.D. after their names', and also said that abortion results in 'an outrageous slaughter' and 'the killing of babies'. This is from a lady who was heavily into the eugenics movement and eugenics thinking, a lady who actually founded what is today called Planned Parenthood, with the purpose of liberating women from pregnancy with birth control.

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Pre-Term Babies and Abortion

2011-11-25T21:30:00.002-05:00

There are entire segments of medicine devoted to saving and protecting preterm babies. Huge resources are dedicated to saving 24 week old infants, for example, just after birth. A baby born at 24 weeks beyond conception may receive the very best medical care to keep it alive and well, sometimes spending months in the hospital under the supervision of men and women who have spent years training in the relevant specialty. Is the physician supposed to be be in a neonatal intensive ward helping a baby who is 24 weeks old one minute and then recommend or perform or otherwise pretend to be neutral about abortion, which is prenatal homicide, the next? Is a physician supposed to be in favor of the entire effort to save one 24 week old, (measured from conception), just after birth, but not be concerned about unjustified homicide with respect to the same infant just prior to birth? If there are entire segments of medicine devoted to saving babies who are in this age group, measured from conception, what exactly is the problem with physicians being generally opposed to homicide with respect to this age group while the babies are in the womb? Does leaving the womb mean that the individual is now a baby? Was it not a baby before? If harming it the moment after it is born is a problem, why is harming it the moment before it is born not a problem? If homicide just after birth is a problem, why is homicide just before birth not a problem? It is very reasonable to insist on consistency here and that is precisely what many physicians are doing when they oppose prenatal homicide.

More Love or More Homicide

2011-11-22T10:05:00.000-05:00

Abortion is prenatal homicide. What is the best choice: more love or more homicide? More virtue or more homicide? Do we, as a nation, want another year of over one million prenatal homicides? Where's the virtue in that? Where's the love? Where's the peace? Why not love more instead? Are we growing in love or growing in homicide?

Pregnant Nurses and Abortion

2011-11-22T09:57:00.000-05:00

Physicians frequently work with nurses who are pregnant. Typically, physicians and nurses celebrate the life of the child in the womb throughout the pregnancy. Sometimes nurses bring in 4-D photos of the child in the womb. Are physicians to celebrate all of this in one conversation and then walk into an exam room and perform, recommend, or otherwise treat abortion as just another medical procedure? Not at all. The contradiction would be palpable and it is a contradiction that physicians and nurses should not involve themselves in.

Protection From Unjustified Homicide

2011-08-03T09:39:00.002-04:00

Doctors who oppose abortion are doctors who oppose unjustified homicide. Opposing abortion is just a matter of opposing unjustified homicide. An unjustified abortion is unjustified homicide. When we ask that abortion not be legal, we are asking that government protection against homicide be extended to all groups of people and that certain groups not be excluded, i.e,. those in the womb. If unjustified homicide is wrong, unjustified abortion is wrong. If we are going to protect one group from unjustified homicide, we should protect all groups. 

If we really think that all people are equal by nature and that they should be protected from unjustified homicide because they are equal by nature, i.e., because they are human beings and one is just as human as another, by nature, then all individuals who are human should be protected equally. In excluding one group or individual from such protection, abortionists are implicitly claiming that at least one group is not equal by nature to other groups, or that those in that group are not human, or that though they are, they still do not deserve protection, which implies that the protection is not rooted in being human, i.e,. in having a human nature and being a human being, but in something else, something secondary such that one human being can be protected and one need not be, despite both being human, by nature. 

So, we need to really see that our opposition to abortion is really just an opposition to unjustified homicide, and we also need to really see that the business of trying to protect these people is rooted in the fact that they are human, by nature, too, just like any doctor who might perform an abortion and any patient a physician might care for otherwise.

Video Footage of Interest

2011-07-13T23:03:00.002-04:00

Go here for interesting footage, recalling to mind that our words are to be grounded in the reality we are discussing.

Give To Him Who is Needy

2011-07-13T20:34:00.002-04:00

Lincoln, regarding slavery, said: 'Give to him that is needy'  is the Christian rule of charity; but, take from him who is needy is the rule of slavery.'

Christianity aside, taking the life of the needy is one rule of abortion. Encouraging it because the mother herself is needy is another. Making money off of the entire scandal yet another.

Abe Lincoln, Slavery, and Abortion

2011-07-13T20:22:00.000-04:00

Physicians should understand that the position against abortion has great argumentative force behind it. It is really just the standard position against unjustified homicide in general applied to those in the womb. With that in mind, physicians should speak the truth in love. We do it with unjustified homicide. There is no reason not to do it in this case as well. In fact, just as Abe Lincoln once said: 'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,' we can rightly say: 'If prenatal homicide-- abortion-- is not wrong, nothing is wrong.' No amount of privacy changes this. Nothing in the physician-patient relationship changes this. Unjustified homicide is unjustified homicide, regardless of age.

Exceptions to Equality, Abe Lincoln, and Abortion

2011-07-12T09:21:00.003-04:00

Regarding slavery, Abe Lincoln said:

"I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other men?" -----Speech, Chicago, July 10, 1858

 Similarly, if we make exceptions to the principle of equality given to us by the Declaration of Independence when it comes to unjustified homicide, where will it stop? If we are willing to make an exception with respect to those in the womb, why not make other exceptions when it comes to unjustified homicide? 

When physicians are willing to make exceptions with one, why should they not make an exception with another, especially when they are taking money for the act in question?

Alcohol and Abortion

2011-07-08T15:25:00.002-04:00

The physician discourages alcohol intake during pregnancy because it may harm the second individual in the room-- the individual in the womb. That individual may end up with fetal alcohol syndrome or be harmed in some other way. Why, then, should the physician not discourage direct homicide with respect to those in the womb?

The American Pregnancy Association says this:

'Alcohol is a teratogen. Teratogen is a substance known to be harmful to human development. Alcohol crosses the placenta to your baby. When you drink alcohol, so does your baby. Because your baby is so small, alcohol breaks down much more slowly, which causes the alcohol to stay in the baby's blood much longer than in the mothers blood. This can result in irreversible harmful affects to your baby's development. All drinks that contain alcohol can be harmful to your baby. There is no known safe amount of alcohol to consume while you are pregnant. It is best to discuss any drinking patterns with your health care provider.'

Something very similar can be said about any form of prenatal abuse. Something similar can be said about prenatal homicide----when prenatal homicide is performed, it is performed against your baby. Because your baby is so small, the tools used destroy your baby, taking its life. The result is irreversible to your baby's development. There is no safe abortion for your baby during pregnancy. If your health-care provider encourages you to have an abortion, tell him what it would do to your baby.

If your patient tells you she wants an abortion, let her know also. Alcohol and abortion both harm those in the womb.

Photos, Words, and Physicians

2011-06-10T13:19:00.004-04:00

Some who are interested in thwarting the anti-prenatal homicide movement, or, simply not interested in helping it will say that the words we use are not value-neutral, either at all or enough, that we are injecting bias into the discussion by the words we use. No doubt some words may go too far, but it does not follow that most words do. In fact, those who typically argue this way are generally begging the very question at hand. If abortion is homicide, what is the problem with using the term homicide to talk about it? I can think of none. But, for those who are still not convinced-- those who still think the words are too strong, I would ask: what about the photos of people who have been aborted? Are those too strong? If the language is a problem, we can always turn to the photos, and if the photos are a problem, we can always turn to the actual event-- the actual reality.

When we do just that, we realize that many times our language is not strong enough. For photos, see this site.

Most who argue that the language is too strong are not interested in looking at the photos either. Nor are they interested in watching the actual reality. In fact, they are not interested in the topic much at all, many times. But a lack of interest is not a refutation. Nor is it proof that the language used to describe these things is not appropriate.

As one friend said about this site: the photos are graphic, but, so is homicide. I think the language, the photos, and the reality should, to a large degree, correspond or be proportionate to one another. That is what gives the photos and words validity-- that they do correspond to the reality and represent it fairly. That is not a problem with photos, though they do fall short to some degree of the actual reality, i.e., video footage may be closer, though still one step removed. It can be more of a problem with words, and, if anything, I would say that given what is actually happening, we need to make sure that we do not error on the side of watering down our words under the pressure of those who want to discredit or dismiss what we say without dealing directly with the evidence. Whenever someone points to your words on this topic, be careful that they are appropriate to the reality being discussed, but also point the person back to the reality itself, and, if not the reality, to photos of the reality.

Physicians must be careful here---careful, on the one hand, to not go too far with the words they use, and, on the other, to not go far enough. When in doubt, go back to the actual reality, to video footage of that reality, or to photos of that reality. That will help to keep us properly grounded.

The Gettysburg Address, Slaves, and Those In The Womb

2011-06-10T13:03:00.004-04:00

Abortion in the US would not be as ironic as it is if it were not for the fact that this country holds itself also to the principle of equality with respect to human beings, as in 'all men are created equal'. Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address makes the point again:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

I think that we should be here dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal and that this includes those in the womb for all of us were also in the womb and were not sub-human by virtue of being there, but in the first phase of our human lives, following conception, lives which include our early development. The world may little note nor long remember all of those whose lives have been taken by the abortionist. Hopefully, though, we can be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--- that these shall not have died in vain, that this nation can have a new birth of freedom, under God-- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall extend to the youngest amongst us so that we can finally be free, as a country, from our own internal inconsistency, first with the slaves, and now with the very young. How important is this principle to us? Is it to be tossed aside when this or that group is inconvenient or when their death might serve some other purpose for this or that person or group?

SBA Site

2011-04-09T22:41:00.002-04:00

Take a moment to look at the Susan B. Anthony site here to find ways to help.

More Abortuary Shadiness

2011-04-09T22:33:00.003-04:00

See this video footage to learn more about Planned Parenthood's organization.

Planned Parenthood

2009-12-29T10:35:00.004-05:00

Planned Parenthood performed over 300,000 abortions last year, but referred less than 5,000 for adoption. Let us face it. Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with planning to be a parent. In fact, by the time one makes it to Planned Parenthood, one is already a parent. Planned Parenthood's goal is to end parenthood in the sense of actively caring for and being responsible for your child on earth. It typically accomplishes this through acts of violence against the one to whom one is a parent already, but acts as though one is not yet a parent, as though nothing important is being destroyed, as though people are still in the planning stage with respect to parenthood, etc.

Reporting Child Abuse and Abortion

2009-12-22T19:05:00.004-05:00

All states mandate physicians to report suspected child abuse and neglect. Abortion is a form of child abuse leading to death, when successful. Why should we be content with a double standard, being required to report suspected child abuse to the state for those out of the womb and turn a blind eye to those in the womb? Why is it that the State would make one legal and the other illegal?

The nature of the being in question is not different; only the location is different, i.e., in or out of the womb. Physicians are required to violate the parental privacy in cases of suspected child abuse out of the womb, but expected to participate in, encourage or otherwise turn a blind eye to child abuse in the womb. But why should they?

Moreover, some physicians are protected--actually able to do the abusing themselves, apparently, if the mother asks the physician to do so and the individual is in the womb. Those who are against child abuse should be against it whether the individual being abused is in or out of the womb. Child abuse does not become less concerning because of a change in location.

Key questions:

(1) If the state requires physician action against child abuse how does it make sense that the State would also protect physicians in the act of child abuse when the point of the abuse is to cause death?

(2) How does location make a difference when it comes to child abuse?

(3) How does privacy make a difference when it comes to those in the womb, but not those out of the womb? People talk about privacy in order to justify homicide in the womb, but it is obvious that privacy makes little difference out of the womb.

(4) If parents are not allowed to abuse their children out of the womb, would they be allowed to do so in the womb?

(5) If the state protects individuals out of the womb, why should the state not protect individuals in the womb?

(6) If the state is pushed aside because of the privacy of the physician-patient relationship when it comes to abuse of those in the womb, why should it not be pushed aside in the case of those out of the womb?

(7) If physicians are required to report suspected cases, why are they not required to report actual cases and why would the state be so concerned about individuals in the one instance and so little concerned about individuals in the other instance?

Physicians who are against child abuse out of the womb should also consider child abuse in the womb.

Bob Casey Video

2009-12-15T23:04:00.001-05:00

See here.

Tax-Payer Funding of D.C. Abortions?

2009-12-09T23:07:00.000-05:00

See here.

Funding Abortion with Tax-Payer Dollars: A Planned Parenthood Bailout?

2009-12-09T09:01:00.001-05:00

See here.

The Joy of Having Assisted With The Delivery Of Human Beings vs. 'Abortion'

2009-12-02T21:32:00.006-05:00

Physicians will oftentimes speak about how they delivered the entire family or take a moment to reflect proudly about how they delivered this or that individual. They will brag about how they delivered most of the city or county. But, we do not here the same regarding abortion, which is physician homicide. The doctor does not say: 'I am really proud for having aborted so many children or for having aborted the entire family.' The family does not look to the doctor in admiration for having done so. There is not a communion between family and doctor in the latter case. The deed is not considered worthy of communion. It is not, like assistance with delivery, considered worthy of respect. In fact, it is something to be kept silent about. It is something not to talk about. It is something not to mention. I have yet to hear a doctor say: 'I aborted her baby ten years ago and it was the proudest moment of my career, especially since it was done for reasons of convenience only.' The asymmetry between abortion, on the one hand, and delivery with the intention of promoting health and well being could not be greater. Assisting in the delivery of a human being with good intentions is something to be proud of. Intentionally setting out to harm a human being to the point of death without adequate justification is something to be ashamed of, especially when that human being is innocent and defenseless, with no choice or say in the matter.

Terrorism, Child Abuse, and Abortion

2009-11-25T11:39:00.011-05:00

Relying on Fr. Frank Pavone for this note and having made similar remarks regarding starvation, slavery, and the Holocaust, if a political candidate told us he was in favor of terrorism and that he would do whatever it took to pass more laws favoring terrorism or, at least, block all laws against terrorism, we would not vote for him. If he or she went to a Planned Terrorism conference and spoke out in favor of terrorism, we would not vote for him or her. If he wanted to support a large business organization that made terrorism common and promoted it, providing terrorist services in the community, we would not vote for him, regardless of whatever else he or she might say. Why? Because we see something inherently wrong with terrorism.

Why, then, do we do so when it comes to abortion? Because some are blind to the violence of abortion and because a bit of a cover up is taking place, masking the violence in terms of something that sounds positive, i.e., women's healthcare, reproductive choice, reproductive rights, privacy, the right to choose, and the rest. It is essential that we keep in mind what abortion really is, for it is when we see it squarely that we realize how absurd it is to accept the sorts of politicians who are willing to compromise when it comes to other people's lives, though not typically their own.

A similar argument is present regarding pro-child abuse positions. Would we accept a candidate who was in favor of passing laws that promoted child abuse, made child abuse more common, made child abuse *legal*, etc.? Of course not. That is because there is something wrong with child abuse, just as there is something wrong with terrorism, starving other people on purpose, genocide, etc. The same is true of abortion. Abortion is a form of child abuse, ending in death, if successful. Abortion is a form of terrorism. It is a form of murder. It is a form of violence against an innocent human individual. It is all of these things, regardless of what we call it and how we try to mask it.

Celebrating Life

2009-11-10T10:10:00.004-05:00

As physicians and nurses we commonly celebrate upon hearing news of a pregnancy within the department. One young nurse who recently discovered she was pregnant saw her baby with the ultrasound machine. She celebrates that fact. We have too. But, the abortion mentality would ask us to suddenly act and think much differently. Why? And, why should we? If the habit is to celebrate, to be concerned about the health, to avoid doing harm, to make recommendations regarding the health of, to avoid certain things that might cause harm, etc., why should we then act and think differently when confronted by someone who does not want to be a mother, but already is?

Learning Language in the Womb

2009-11-09T09:17:00.000-05:00

See here.

The Physician as an Encourager of Health

2009-11-03T08:42:00.008-05:00

Man is faced with challenges and problems. Some involve his character. Others involve his health. But man is a pilgrim. He is in a state of becoming. He is in a state of formation. In that way, when faced with his challenges and problems, his challenges and problems become an opportunity for moving toward his goal or an occasion for falling with respect to it. What is his goal? It is happiness. What will make man happy, ultimately? His greatest good. His final end.

But, man has to do his part in making himself happy by moving closer to that which can make him happy. Part of moving toward such an end, however, is becoming more perfect, more righteous, more pure, more virtuous---through his challenges and problems. The challenges and problems, along with his condition as unfinished pilgrim, partly in control of his own destiny, are opportunities for growth and movement towards happiness, even if they themselves temporarily make man unhappy.

In the challenge, there is opportunity. There is a certain kind of medicine, a certain kind of lesson, a certain kind of nourishment, a certain kind of fuel that man needs to become more perfect and more complete. The challenge shapes him by providing him an opportunity to respond in a certain way. He can more towards greater health or away. He can move towards a better moral character or away. He can move towards his first and final cause or away. The challenges are an opportunity for change, either better or worse.

Now, when man, in this condition, faces challenges of a certain kind, he seeks guidance from others.

When he seeks it from philosophy, he is told to grow in wisdom, truth, and a knowledge of first causes. The challenge is an opportunity for growth in wisdom.

When he seeks it from the moralist, he is told to grow in natural virtue. The challenge is an opportunity for such growth.

When he seeks it from natural religion, he is told to grow closer to his first and final cause, i.e., God, by fulfilling the virtue of justice with respect to the first and final cause. The challenge is an opportunity for growth in the virtue of religion, which is closely linked to the virtue of justice.

When he seeks it from the Church, he is told, along with wisdom, natural religion, and natural virtue to grow in the life of Christ, to develop (or make more complete) a personal relationship with Christ, through the sacraments of the Church and through the theological virtues--faith, hope, and love. He is told to offer it up to God in the name of Christ, to join his sufferings with the sufferings of Christ, to take up his cross, to sacrifice for Christ's sake while he can, to love God and neighbor, to help his neighbors, especially the orphans and the widows, to follow the Ten Commandments, which are, when understood positively, expressions of various virtues, all flowing from love itsef. The challenge is an opportunity for growth in the life of Christ and in many other aspects that have to do with our development.

When he seeks it from a physician, the physician can include aspects from above in his practice, depending on his understanding of such things, but he wants to focus on what his profession focuses on and that is health, mental and physical. In this way, the physician is an encourager. He wants to encourage good health. He gives the medicine and performs the procedures, when acting at his best, because he thinks his actions and recommendations will promote health.

But unjustified prenatal homicide of a human being in a certain stage of development can never promote the health of the one being targeted for death. Nor is it obvious that encouraging people to commit unjustified homicide or doing it for them can promote the health of the mother, especially mentally, if we consider the weight of homicide in general, even when justified, and the even heavier weight of unjustified homicide. And so, as an encourager of health, and as one who makes a profession out of making judgments about other people's health, unjustified prenatal homicide should not be prescribed for reasons of health. If the physician wants to encourage health with respect to all patients in the room, unjustified homicide will not be the prescription. This is true at the level of health, but it is also true at the level of philosophy, natural religion, natural virtue (natural ethics, a branch of philosophy), theological virtues and truths, etc. In as much as a physician is attentive to more than just the physical and mental health of the patient, understood very narrowly, he may only be concerned with health in a more limited sense. Even so, his profession makes it his business to be concerned about that, if not about more.

(And certainly his profession obligates him to be concerned about his own ethical actions at all times, as well, even if he only wants to focus on the health of his patients, understood broadly or narrowly.)

Natural Miscarriage and Grief

2009-11-02T10:24:00.007-05:00

Physicians frequently deal with natural miscarriages. In a great many of these cases, there is sadness upon hearing that a miscarriage has happened or will likely happen.

A recent case, just last week, serves as an example. A young woman had not yet miscarried, but was having abdominal pain. She was 8 wks pregnant, by history. She wanted to make sure her baby was ok. An ultrasound was done. The ultrasound showed a human being in the fetal stage of development with no heart motion. In other words, it showed a human being in the fetal stage of development which had died. The mother was told. Within a few minutes, she was in tears. Grief was upon her. Was this irrational? Was this not a proper response? She thought that her baby had died. Was she wrong? If not, we need to think twice about intrauterine homicide and intrauterine abuse.

Similarly, a few months ago, a family had a miscarriage. The living human being in the fetal stage of development was delivered in the emergency department, but too young to survive for long, being far less than 20 wks. The family called a priest. The priest baptized the human being just before it died. The family cried. The family grieved. Was this grieving inappropriate? If not, we need to think twice about intrauterine homicide and intrauterine abuse.

Daily, in emergency departments across the nation, physicians deal with women and men who cry over the natural miscarriage. Why? Because they understand and are being true to the reality at hand, even while others ignore the same realities.

Missed Opportunities: A Destruction of Talent and Potential

2009-10-29T13:36:00.008-04:00

A very dear friend with whom I work noted the loss of talent caused by abortion. If we think of 50 million in the US who have been destroyed by abortion since Roe v. Wade, we can only imagine how much talent we have lost as a result. That is one of the great tragedies of prenatal homicide.

In thinking on this, we can recall the phenomenon of 'brain drain', where the most talented people leave a given area or region or country for areas that are more free or more optimal in other respects, leaving a less talented work-pool than would have been there had they not left.

Similarly, 50 million human beings have been lost with abortion and we can only imagine the talent that we have lost, realizing that most human beings are productive and that most fill important societal roles. This is true at the level of the family, the local community, and the nation as a whole.

Many individuals would have been aborted if the death peddlers had their way. The death peddlers want us to think that death is the solution to whatever problem we face, that homicide is the answer to the most important problems in life. But they often times do not tell us the price of that sort of solution, one being missed opportunity, a poverty with respect to talent, and a poverty with respect to love and growth in virtue.

Human beings are human capital. They are resources. They are problem solvers, inventors, workers, innovators, builders, creators, lovers, etc. In a world with scarcity as a rule, we might want to re-consider why it is that we are killing the people we very well might need down the road, as each of us is ignorant and deficient in some respect, and so such that we require others, most of whom are more talented than any single individual in some way, shape, or form.

Intrauterine Abuse Or Not?

2009-10-27T21:51:00.004-04:00

Note the missing arm on her right. This happened during an attempted abortion. She survived it, but lost her arm. Prenatal child abuse is a reality. It was in her case, evidenced by the fact that her arm was cut off while she was in the womb and she was born without an arm. But, if prenatal child abuse is a reality, prenatal homicide is also a reality. The physician really did cut her arm off when trying to take her life. That really is abuse. Had she been killed, that really would have been homicide.

On Being Against Prenatal Child Abuse

2009-10-27T20:45:00.006-04:00

As a physician, I am opposed to child abuse, in or out of the womb. There is something terribly wrong with it. But, abortion is the same kind of thing, only worse, for it results in death, if successful. Moreover, the intention is to cause death. So, I am opposed to abortion, which is a form of abuse that is intended to end in death. I see no good reason to turn parents in to child protective services on Monday and to send parents to the abortion clinic on Tuesday. I see no good reason to be against child abuse one second after delivery and not one second before delivery. Abuse is abuse whether it is in the womb or out of the womb. Abuse is abuse regardless of who does it. It is made more severe when it results in death. Physicians should not be uncomfortable saying 'no' to abortion when it is demanded. Nor should they be uncomfortable in giving reasons for their opposition. A general opposition to child abuse in general, either on moral grounds and/or grounds of health, is a very good starting point when discussing the issue.

Caught Up in Homicidal Fads and Sound-Bytes

2009-10-26T11:47:00.007-04:00

Caught up in fads and sound-bytes, many uncritically fall into abortions, not fully considering the realities at hand, including the reality of unjustified homicide and the reality of human beings in the womb from conception to birth. 'Freedom to choose' sounds nice until one finds out what is being chosen or by what means what is being chosen is obtained. Almost every generation in almost every country falls into the trap of allowing a group to be unprotected and defenseless against those who would have them put to death. Part of the reason this happens is because people fall prey to a sound-byte, euphemistic understanding of some aspect of reality.

Since 1973 in the US, the unprotected group has been those in the womb. The means of harm has been abortion. The intended result has been physical destruction resulting in death. Legal and societal fads may come and go as people are more or less dutiful with respect to the realities at hand, but the underlying realities and the obligations we have to those realities do not change. A generation may turn away, but the reality is still there. A generation may deny, but the reality is still there. A generation may rationalize, but the reality is still there. A generation may try to get off easy, but the reality is still there. A generation may try to force reality to be different by redefining it, but the reality is still there.

Reality is the kind of thing a man bumps into and gets knocked down by, not the kind of thing that changes whenever his views about it change. It is much more *real* than some like to think, even when it is ignored, denied, discussed in terms of misleading and euphemistic sound-bytes, or simply covered by this or that new homicidal fad led by whoever the generational homicidal peddlers may be. Being much more real, it is one thing to get caught up in a clothing or hair fad and quite another to get caught up into a homicidal fad. The latter, many times, results in actual death, whereas the former typically just results in a bad hair, color, or clothing day. And yet some are much more concerned about their clothing and their appearances than they are about human beings themselves.

Physicians, being principally concerned about the health of human beings, should not fall into these homicidal fads.

When Patients are Mistaken: Physician as Teacher

2009-10-22T12:29:00.008-04:00

Many physicians see 300-400 patients a month and so 3-4 thousand a year. Many of those patients are not well informed about medicine. Some are outright wrong about this or that. Some have misconceptions. Some have unrealistic expectations. Some even hold very strong views about what they think, despite being wrong. How do we normally handle such situations? The typical way is to provide education.

Why, then, should physicians against prenatal homicide not also provide education? In medical school I was told by some that what I thought about abortion did not matter. What mattered was that I encourage, or, at least, not discourage abortions. What mattered was what the mother, who was a patient, wanted. But this is not how we handle most medical situations. We do not simply let the patients become the doctors. We do not simply do whatever the patient wants. If that is what a doctor ought to do, we may as well get rid of doctors. A patient could just come in and order his or her own tests, medicines, etc., if this is the proper role of a doctor- a purely passive subject who is to satisfy every demand of every patient by simply being directed by the patients wants and desires, even when the patient is mis-informed.

The fact of the matter is that patients seek our advise, our judgments and our expertise about their situations. They even pay for these things, in addition to whatever medicine or tests we perform on their behalf. But even by paying, they do not become their own physicians. We, in fact, provide medical judgments to them. We provide medical information and medical education. We do not simply agree with them on every point, or even on most points. Why? Because patients are sometimes wrong and because they are paying to hear what we have to say- we as trained physicians.

This is standard practice. Patients can always go to another doctor for a second opinion. What is important is that we are honest in our own judgments and accurate in our own educative efforts, not that we cave to the legal and media fads and fashions of the day, even when patients and other physicians have.

This is the case when it comes to demands and requests regarding prenatal homicide as well. If human life begins at conception, as the embryologists teach medical students, and human beings develop inside other human beings, for a time, this is important for patients to know and hear when they come asking about abortions. If the field is not in the business of unjustified homicide, this is important for patients to hear. If the field is to be directed by the dictum- First Do No Harm- that is important for patients to hear. If we normally act as if there are two patients in the room when dealing with a patient who is pregnant, that is important for the patient to hear, even when the second patient cannot. Sure, we can conform to whatever the patient wants us to be, but we cannot always do that and be true to morality and to the basic facts of the case.

Further, allowing patients to continue in error is generally a mistake, especially when the stakes are high. This is no less true when it comes to what people think about prenatal homicide. 'Physician as teacher' holds even when we are talking about abortion.

Foreign Bodies, Complications, and Physician Response

2009-10-21T09:13:00.005-04:00

Certain patients are intent on placing foreign things inside their own bodies. Some patients do it only once. Others do it repeatedly, for this or that reason. Some patients have complications from placing foreign bodies in their own bodies. They develop holes and infections. Things get stuck. Etc.

The typical response of physicians is to think that the patient should not have been placing the foreign body in the body to begin with- that there was something foolish in the act of doing so, that the patient should not do it in the future, and that patients in general should not do it. Physicians generally take a hard stance against this sort of thing. The response is not to typically offer to place the foreign body in the body for the patient so that the chances of harm are decreased; nor to make a living providing such a service to patients; nor to normalize the activity in the name of avoiding complications from the activity, an activity which was unnatural and foreign to begin with. Why should it be otherwise?

Further, why should we not think the same regarding the use of foreign bodies to destroy a human being in the womb? Sure, it is tragic that people would have complications because they used foreign bodies in their own body, but it does not follow from that that a profession should be made out of it, or that it is suddenly a good idea when physicians start doing it for patients. To decide if it is will involve not just an assessment of the relative risks, but a proper view of the end desired and what has to happen to make that end a reality. In the case of 'abortion', some might say the end is to end pregnancy, but that only happens, when we are talking about abortions, by ending the life of the human being in the womb, typically with a foreign body of some type.

Focusing On Sad Stories, While Leaving Out Others

2009-10-21T08:48:00.004-04:00

It is indeed sad that women who try to take the life of that which is in the womb apart from the assistance of a physician sometimes suffer infections and other complications. That is a sad story. But we have to be careful to remember to look at the more complete picture.

It is also sad that a woman would take the life of an innocent human being without adequate justification, that a physician would take the life of an innocent human being without adequate justification, that we are not defending innocent and helpless people from those who would have them destroyed because they are not wanted, that a human being would be destroyed at the hands of another, etc.

We are sad that a woman might end up with an infection or a perforation of an anatomical part of her body, as we should be, but we ought not to leave out why that happened and the fact that another human being died by force as well.

In focusing on this or that sad story to persuade others to have abortions or perform abortions or to remain ambivalent about abortions, the standard pattern is to focus on a part while ignoring or marginalizing other parts and/or the whole itself.

Sure, it is sad for someone to have a bad outcome because they placed a foreign body in their own body, but it is also sad that they did the same with the intent of trying to take the life of the human being inside. And, it is sad that the human being inside was destroyed without adequate justification. (Even with adequate justification, the destruction of life is sad, but in yet another respect when justification is not present.)

We can note that unjustified homicide is more fundamental than a complication from one's own attempt, successful or not, at unjustified homicide, for example, always moving toward a more complete picture, always trying to be true to the various aspects, and always trying to zoom in on the most fundamental aspects.

Think of a situation where a woman attempts to take the life of the human being in her womb, fails, develops an infection of the uterus, and the human being in the womb ends up an amputee as a result of her attempt- not as a result of the infection, but as a result of her using a foreign body inside her to try to destroy the human being to the point of death. It is sad that the woman ended up with an infection, no doubt. But, consider some of the other aspects of the story that are also sad. And, if a physician had performed the 'abortion', consider his or her performing an act of unjustified homicide as well.

In the end, we cannot just focus on one complication or one patient or one aspect of this. We need a more complete picture and one that helps us to keep in mind which aspects are more fundamental, i.e., life of a human being, attempted or successful unjustified homicide, the character harm to the individuals performing or paying for the unjustified homicide, etc. Attempts to justify abortion or gain traction for it based on the sad story of complications leave out the others- I mean the other sad stories and the others who are being destroyed.

"Doctor, Because I May Not Be Able To Do It Safely, Without Harming Myself, Can You Do It For Me?"

2009-10-18T17:33:00.006-04:00

Imagine a person not being able to take the life of another human being without possibly harming himself or herself, and then asking someone else to do the 'job' for him or her. It sounds much like hired killing. How is abortion any different? A woman is not sure if she can do it herself and so she asks and pays a physician to do it for her. She wants the 'procedure' to be safe for her even if it is deadly for the human being in her. She does not want to be harmed by the doctor, but she wants the doctor to cause not just harm, but death to another human being. Generally, physicians are not in the business of taking people's lives. Moreover, we generally do not consider ourselves to be hired guns or assasins. But, how is abortion really different than any of this? Are not people hiring physicians to do their own killing because they are concerned about being harmed if they have to do it themselves? In any other case, we would think such patients were acting absurdly with such requests. Why should we not think the same when it comes to unjustified prenatal homicide?

"Doctor, Would You Help Me Take Another Human Being's Life?"

2009-10-18T17:25:00.006-04:00

In most any circumstance, we would think it absurd if a patient asked us to take the life of another human being. Why should we not think the same when it comes to prenatal homicide?

If it is absurd for a mother to ask me to take the life of her son out of the womb, why should it be any less absurd for her to ask me, as a physician, to take her son's life in the womb?

Why, if a physician's job is to heal and promote health, would we not think it absurd for people to ask physicians to assist them in taking the lives of other human beings?

"Doctor, I am Thinking About Taking Someone's Life"

2009-10-18T15:07:00.007-04:00

Physicians discuss many things with patients, including some of the most personal things that can be discussed. How do we normally respond when a patient tells us that he or she wants to take someone else's life?

Well, we think they are having homicidal ideations, and we think that is problematic and unhealthy, for the person thinking the thoughts and potentially for the individual they are thinking the thoughts about.

How serious do we normally take these thoughts? It depends, but sometimes we take the comments and thoughts serious enough as to recommend therapy. We sometimes even demand therapy with court orders, restraints, forced temporary retainment, etc., for the sake of the patient and the possible victim. These are heavy measures, taken because we generally take homicidal ideations very seriously, hoping the situation does not come to homicide, hoping to prevent it. At the very least, we do not typically think such thoughts are healthy.

Contrast this with how pro-abortion rights advocates would have us respond to women thinking about and even requesting assistance with the homicide of someone in the womb. But if we are concerned in general, why should we not be concerned with respect to prenatal homicide? Why should similar valuations and concerns not also be part of the physician's evaluation when it comes to mothers seeking to harm human beings in utero? If we are going to extend protection to possible homicide victims based on what patients say in general, why not also do so when it comes to prenatal homicide, i.e., potential victims in the womb? Why would we be willing to lock people against their will for homicidal ideations in one case and yet be willing to assist them in homicide, or even do it for them, in other cases?

Promoting Health by Promoting Care

2009-10-16T11:26:00.004-04:00

Some become indifferent to others. They place a wall between themselves and others. They stop looking at the other and look at some shadow of the other. They wall themselves off from the other. They choose not to care.

In the case of physicians, we sometimes have physicians choosing not to care at the request of mothers who have convinced themselves that they do not care, or, under the influence of a society that, in some respects, seems not to care- and wants the physician not to care either.

But the duty to care is not so easily gotten rid of. It stands and is more stubborn than a mere request or a mere demand against doing so by another who does not want to live up to the responsibility of doing so. Indeed, part of the duty of the physician is to care for the health of another. Part of the entire job, aside from making judgments about health, is to promote health by caring and by promoting care in others. If they do not care enough about their own health or the health of another, the physician can encourage them to do so. He cannot make them. He cannot force them. He can, however, encourage them, both by example and by education/formation. For physicians are interested, to some degree, in the education and formation of those they care for in as much as that education and formation promotes health, mental and physical.

Realizing this, physicians do not need to cave and be molded by others who are not acting in a way that promotes the health of patients. They do not need to stop caring just because others do not care. Physician caring does not stop there. It is not contingent on whether others care. It is (or ought to be) part of the profession and part of the moral fabric of the physician to care. He cares for his patients even when they do not, as when they are suicidal and depressed and irrational or unresponsive or altered. His job is to care, even when others do not and his caring, then is not, again, contingent on their caring. The good physician will not, then, allow suffering, either in self or other, to prevent him from caring. He will not allow indifference to prevent him from caring. He will not allow disease in self or other to prevent him from caring. He will not allow inconvenience, the first obstacle to love, to stop him.

The good physician, then, is an example for others, including others who have allowed inconvenience and other hardships to block the flow of love by blocking the virtue of care itself.

Real Health Care Protects Life- And Patients

2009-10-16T10:37:00.006-04:00

Americans United for Life says that 'Real Health-Care Protects Life'. This is right. Note the term 'care' here. Where is the caring aspect when it comes to physician performed homicide? How is this an example of care being provided by the physician?

Some will argue that we are caring for the mother. This is sometimes, but only rarely, the case, as with an ectopic pregnancy, where there is no chance for the human being in the earlier stage of human development to survive and the risks to the mother are great.

Some will argue that we are caring for the human being in the earlier stage of development by actually taking his life so that that human being will not have to suffer or live with this or that condition or live in this world outside the womb at all- or, for very long. This latter point misses the fact that homicide is not generally justified by virtue of the fact that someone will experience hardships or suffer. It also misses the fact that most cases of prenatal homicide performed by physicians have nothing to do with so called 'low quality of life conditions'.

If we are really talking about health-care, we must consider that we are to care for the health of another person. We are interested, that is, in fostering health in that person. We are not interested in destroying health or acting against the health of another person.

In this case, that includes the health of *all* patients in the room, not just those who want to be the only ones recognized as patients in the room. It also includes the health of mothers seeking to encourage others to perform acts against the health of those dependent on them, either in or out of the womb. We would not normally consider petitions for the physician to take the life of one's child healthy. Nor should we when considering 'abortions'. The term changes nothing. The reality stands.

Physicians ought to be concerned about the health of all patients in the room. Physicians ought to be concerned about the health of a mother seeking to have the life of her child taken by other people. Physicians ought to be concerned about the seriousness of unjustified homicide, not just in the most obvious sense of the end of a human life by force, but also in the sense that such acts have repercussions precisely because they act against the health of others without adequate justification.

Real (good) health-care involves care. Care is not the same as unjustified homicide. Nor is it limited to those who want it for themselves at the exclusion of others. When a patient walks in with another human being in her, there are two patients in the room, one with a voice and one without. This is a fact of biology. As a physician, one is to care for the mother and the child, not just for one or the other. This is good health-care. It does not change based on patient preferences or demands or requests. Nor does it change because an issue has been politicized or mediacized. Nor does it change because the mother thinks something different- for she may, in fact, be wrong, morally, and in terms of the biological and embryological facts.

A mother may not want to continue to be pregnant. She may not want to raise a child. She may not want to give birth to a child. None of that changes the fact that two patients are in the room and that a physician has a professional and moral responsibility to provide care to both, or, if there are more than two-all, even if the mother wants to be exclusionary.

Neither does it change the fact that health-care is about caring for all the patients. Nor does it change the fact that health-care is aboout making judgments about the health of all the patients in light of different possible actions, including actions performed by physicians under the banner 'abortion', where hard, strong objects are used to harm and ultimately destroy a living human being.

New Online Ad About Abortion in Health Care

2009-10-16T10:32:00.002-04:00

New Online Ad About Abortion in Health Care

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Focusing On Hardships and Imperfections At the More Superficial Levels

2009-10-09T10:39:00.008-04:00

One way to apparently obtain traction for unjustified homicide is to focus on problems or hardships or handicaps or imperfections. The pregnant mother is too young. She is too poor. She is not educated enough. There is no father in the picture. She and her child will be on welfare. Other people will have to support them. She will not be able to work as much. She will not earn as much money in her lifetime. The child might have this or that disease, privation, or imperfection. The child might have to face hardships as well. And the rest.

By focusing so much attention on hardships, it is as if the hardship is to be taken as a justification for homicide, as if the hardship somehow makes the homicide morally acceptable. But that is not how we generally reason when it comes to homicide. Lots of people are imperfect. In fact, the last time I noted, we all are. Lots of people face hardships. In fact, we all do. Lots of people are a hardship in some way to other people at some time. In fact, we all are or have been, in this way or that. But we do not generally think these types of things justify homicide. If we did, everyone would have a right to take the life of everyone else, as all people are a hardship to someone at sometime, or face hardships themselves. Hardships and imperfections do not justify homicide.

Moreover, when we focus too much attention on hardships, problems, negatives, and imperfections, we focus too little attention on opportunities, positives, perfections, the importance of the right response to any given situation, and the entire edifice of substantial things that are always primary to hardships in the first place. For example, an individual human being may be poor and his material quality of life may be challenged in many respects, but it can only be so if he is in fact a living human being to start with. His quality of life may not be as good as others might like (or even as good as he might like), but he has to have a life, i.e., be living, before we can even talk about his quality of life. Life is the object and it is primary to any description we make of it or any quality that adheres in it.

Nor does it follow from challenges and problems that there will not necessarily be victory and success, materially or otherwise. Many very successful people started with very difficult situations, but learned to take those situations as their starting points for growth and future success, achieving one small victory at a time.

Life has always been challenging. It has always been unfair in certain ways. There have always been hardships, problems and challenges to face. Whether we make it worse or better, at the more fundamental levels, is the choice we must make in our daily lives, one day at a time, one moment at a time. We do that by acting, responding and reacting this way or that. That is our contribution, which means we have to decide what we want our contribution to be, less we contribute uncritically.

There may be times when it might seem as if we can make it better by doing a wrong like unjustified prenatal homicide, but, in fact, that only makes life worse at deeper levels, levels which cannot be ignored forever, however convenient that may be. That goes for everyone, which includes health-care providers. In the end, not even physicians can side-step the more fundamental levels of life and responsibility, no matter how much they want to focus on the hardships and challenges that are or might be faced by others.

Walking Backwards, Second by Second

2009-10-07T18:47:00.003-04:00

If it is wrong or highly questionable to take the life of a human being without adequate justification at t= 31 million seconds after delivery (and so about 1 yr of age, if we take 365 days x 86, 400 seconds per day after delivery), as most everyone thinks is the case, why would it not be so 1 sec prior to that? Or 1 sec prior to that? Or 1 sec prior to that? Or 1 sec prior to that? At what second does it become permissible or right? When I walk backwards, second by second, I see no essential difference from one second to another, even when I compare 1 second after delivery and 1 second prior to delivery.

When we consider that human beings come from other human beings and that human beings standardly spend some time in the womb of another human being while developing, before being delivered out of that human being, we see something similar. At t = 25 million seconds (which is about 9-10 months after conception), it is wrong or highly questionable to take the life of a human being without adequate justification, realizing the seriousness of causing harm and death intentionally. But, again, if I move backwards second by second, I see no essential difference from one second to another. If it is wrong or highly questionable at 25 million seconds, what makes it right or permissible at 20 million seconds, or 10 million seconds, or 5 million seconds, or, 100,000 seconds, or, for that matter, 10 seconds? What is the justification one second earlier? Does time itself provide the justification? No. What, then, does? Or, is it the case that no justification is required at 100,000 seconds after conception, but, suddenly, for some reason, justification is required at 1 million seconds or 10 million seconds or whatever number some might choose?

The Seriousness of Harm and Homicide For Providers

2009-10-07T18:33:00.007-04:00

Homicide is very serious and very controversial, even in cases where it can be justified. Even in self defense, one would rather avoid it, if it all possible. One would rather not live with the fact that he killed another human being, even if he could justify doing so. Many are against war because they take homicide so seriously, even when it might be justified. When not justified, homicide, which, then, is unjustified, by definition, is even more horrific. Imagine taking another human being's life without justification on purpose, intentionally meaning to do so, acting deliberately to do so. Think of your actions leading to the death of another individual. As physicians, we generally take all of this very seriously, even before we get to the 'First Do No Harm' aspect of our profession, which itself underlies the fact that we take any harm done very seriously, long before we even get to death and serious injury. And so, as physicians, we are rightly concerned about prenatal harm and prenatal homicide as well. It is by virtue of taking these things seriously to begin with and then simply applying that seriousness to another stage of development that we find ourselves taking abortion so seriously. And, if homicide and harm are to be serious to begin with, I, as a physician, see no reason why they are not also to be so with respect to those in the prenatal stage of development.

Controversy and 'Abortion'

2009-09-28T09:16:00.005-04:00

Some seem to think that just because x is controversial, there own position with respect to x is justified, whatever it may be. That is not true. It assumes that x is controversial for reasons that are not open to resolution, which is not always the case. In fact, sometimes x is controversial because a great many people (or a few) have not given it enough thought or have made critical errors in reasoning when thinking about it. Other times, people may think x is controversial simply because enough people have claimed that it was so, or because the issue was politicized, or because the media, wanting to gain advantage from controversy, framed the issue as controversial. But we should not simply assume (or even conclude without much thought) that abortion is controversial because it really ought to be- because of something about the nature of the debate. In fact, in most cases, abortion should not be controversial at all for unjustified homicide is not generally controversial and the facts of life starting with conception are not generally controversially within the fields of biology or embryology.

At this point, one might object and say that government involvement is controversial. But, is it really? Government laws against unjustified homicide are not generally controversial. Further, regardless of laws, physicians and nurses are in a position to perform or not perform abortions, meaning that the issue for the practicing physician has to be settled based on ethics and biology, regardless of law and political philosophy. Similarly, the mother has to decide the issue at that level. Even if politicians refuse to make prenatal homicide illegal, it does not follow that they have mandated it to be done by the force of law, which means that mothers and physicians must decide based on the facts of biology and the facts of ethics, particularly the ethics of homicide. At this level, there really is not a true controversy in the relevant sense, though many have wanted to muddy the waters sufficiently so as to make it appear as though there is, hoping that others will then get caught up in the controversy saga and forever see the issue as controversial when, in fact, it is not, following the old adage that if you say a lie often enough some will start to believe it, realizing that there will always be people, even a great many people, who have not or will not give much critical attention to the basic facts of the issue, especially when motivated for secondary reasons.

In the end, unjustified prenatal homicide is not controversial in the sense of being, by nature, a dispute that is insoluble and such that it ought to be open to terminal debate for unjustified homicide with respect to human beings, regardless of the stage of development, is wrong. What is controversial is the fact that it is done, not whether it ought to be done. So, unjustified prenatal homicide is controversial in some senses, but not in the sense implied by those hoping to cast it as a debate that is insoluble for physicians and mothers who are truly interested in thinking clearly and ethically about the most relevant, basic, fundamental facts.

Two Often Overlooked Aspects of Abortion

2009-09-25T09:02:00.005-04:00

It is common to discuss abortion with people and to get the distinct sense that they are overlooking or missing or under-emphasizing two very important facts: the wrongness of unjustified homicide and the fact that there is a human being in the womb after conception, only in a different stage of development. A big part of the discussion, then, turns on bringing people back to these points, for without keeping them clearly in mind people become quickly confused.

When we make important decisions in life, especially between competing options, many times we have to prioritize. We have to find that which is most important and rank it as most important. We have to find that which is most fundamental and rank it as such. It is not just about collecting relevant data. It is also about arranging that data in order of importance, forming a hierarchy of utilization in our minds that fits or matches reality. After forming that arrangement, the challenge is then to keep it in mind, as we might easily lose track of it and then find ourselves mixing the order of things, inverting that which is primary and secondary, and even leaving things off the list during this or that analysis, whether on purpose or accident, whether consciously or subconsciously. Not prioritizing and not keeping the prioritized list in mind is one of the main reasons people remain confused when making decisions. If all the data is not equal, if some data is subordinate to other data, that has to be kept in mind, against attempts to relativize and level everything on the one hand, and to invert primary and secondary things on the other.

This is exactly what many do when it comes to prenatal homicide. They, many times, either allow the wrongness and seriousness of unjustified homicide and/or the humanness of that which is in the womb to be overlooked or down-graded or otherwise marginalized when thinking about abortion. More specifically, one or both of these facts is ignored, as if it is not to be considered at all, or, it is considered, but down-graded relative to other facts- appearances, age, viability, hardships, etc. One is an error of omission or leaving out. The other is an error of ranking or prioritizing, of mixing up, of treating less as more and more as less, i.e., convenience is placed above duty, suffering above the fact that it is a *human being* who is suffering, appearances above nature, etc.

Of course, the two errors mentioned here are not the only two errors. It is possible to face both of these facts quite squarely, even to the point of recognizing that they are more important than other data points, and still choose to have an abortion or to actually perform an abortion or to support, in this way or that, the entire system which favors abortion. Some will clearly see that abortion is prenatal homicide. They will clearly think that it stands in need of justification. They will seriously see that a human life is at stake and that a human life is taken in the act of abortion. Some of these same people will even say that that is what needs to happen for this or that reason, i.e., think here of those who think they can make the world better by keeping certain people from leaving the womb, either because that individual might suffer or might cause suffering to others, while not realizing that their own contributions to abortion are part of the way the world is here and now, making the world, in part, the way it is.

Government Mandated Tax Payer Funding of Prenatal Homicide

2009-09-10T09:03:00.010-04:00

The new health-care bill will attempt to mandate tax payer funding of prenatal homicide, even by those of us who are opposed to unjustified homicide, including unjustified prenatal homicide. Let those who are supposed to be representing you know what you think here. It is the classic example of how some politicians not only encourage destruction of life, but want us to fund their destructive 'projects', hoping to make such vices more deeply engrained in our society. In keeping with love and virtue, we must recall that virtue flows from love, that love is the heart of virtue, that love is not expressed without virtue, and that abortion, as an act of unjustified prenatal homicide, is an act of destruction that flows not from sacrificial love for another, but from selfishness and other vices at the individual level. At the level of the individual, the individual must overcome vice and substitute virtue and love. At the level of politics, representatives need to listen more carefully to what we want and consider what it means to mandate that free citizens fund unjustified homicide. They also need to consider whether funding prenatal, unjustified homicide is edifying for a nation as a whole.

That Which is Primary and That Which is Secondary

2009-09-05T14:54:00.008-04:00

Aside from the seen/unseen error (where that which is seen easily is emphasized and that which is not seen as easily is ignored or marginalized), most of the errors in reasoning regarding prenatal homicide have to do with inverting that which is primary and that which is secondary, or, ignoring that which is primary altogether. Convenience is placed over and above life. Preferences are placed above duties. Euphemisms are placed above more straight-forward terms. Ambiguity is placed above clarity. Emotions are placed above facts. Homicide is placed above life and the protection of life. Getting what one wants or likes or prefers or what one thinks he or she is entitled to is placed above responsibility, love and virtue. Imperfections are placed above life. Secondary physical characteristics are placed above being human. Self-interests are placed above morality. Doctors are placed above the law, even when it comes to homicide. The innocent are placed beneath the non-innocent people acting against them. Political interests are placed above justice. Fallacious reasoning is placed over logical reasoning. Exceptions are placed over the rule. Appearances are placed above the nature of the thing. And the rest.

Instead of making these errors, we have to see what the realities are, get the hierarchy straight in our minds, and insist on keeping that which is primary on top, while not allowing secondary things, in theory, to trump primary things. That takes disciplined thought, but it is precisely with such disciplined thought that one can help others to see the very nature of homicide and the very nature of prenatal homicide.

'Birth Control' as an Euphemism

2009-08-26T12:38:00.006-04:00

The term 'birth control' is misleading. It is a misnomer. It is an euphemism. What is being controlled is not birth, at least not directly, but conception, or survival shortly after conception, typically before, around or shortly after implantation. What is being prevented is fertilization before conception and after sexual relations, and, after conception, implantation or the conditions necessary to maintain the state of being implanted after sexual relations. The 'Pill' is a form of conception prevention after sexual relations. It is also a form of implantation prevention after sexual relations. It is also a form of implantation frustration, where, even if implantation occurs, conditions necessary to maintain it may be frustrated, after sexual relations. Only in those ways does it also control birth, i.e., by preventing conception and by preventing implantation such that a human being does not develop to the point of birth. Note how the commonly used language is one or more steps removed from the actual reality- the actual mechanism, the actual nature of the matter. To be more accurate, we might speak of CC, where CC = conception control, or, better, CP, where CP = conception prevention, or IPFaC, where IPFaC = implantation prevention and frustration shortly after conception. By using language that is more accurate, one can more easily see the reality at hand and keep focused on it. By using language that is secondary, derivative and one or more steps removed, people more easily lose sight of what is and begin to fall into traps. Before we agree or disagree, let us get the matter right and speak in terms that reflect an accurate understanding. More generally, watch out for terms that are one or more steps removed from reality- terms like birth control, abortion, eugenics, fetus, etc.

Status Post Birth, Status Post Conception and Homicide

2009-08-23T14:00:00.005-04:00

(1) It would be highly questionable- in fact, wrong- for a physician to kill me in my present stage of development without adequate justification. I am 36 years and 7 months or so of age s/p birth and 37 yrs and 4 months or so s/p conception.

(2) (1) would be true from 36 on down to 1 minute out of the womb.

(3) So, it would have been highly questionable for a physician to have killed me 1 minute after birth without adequate justification. For that matter, the same would apply to 1 second after birth.

(4) For that matter, the same applies to the time when the birth was happening.

(5) And it applies to prior to the birth, when I was in the womb, at, say, s/p 9 months post-conception.

(6) (5) applies from s/p 9 months post-conception down to s/p 1 msec post conception. That is, it would have been highly questionable- in fact, wrong- for a physician to have killed me 1 sec after conception or anytime after conception, for that matter, without adequate justification.

(7) But the same ethical laws apply to the physician and me. In part, because we are both human beings and, in part, because I am a physician too.

(8) Therefore, it would be highly questionable- in fact, wrong- for me to kill another human being in any of these stages of development, i.e., s/p conception, or, anytime after conception, without adequate justification.

The Thing, The Appearances, and The Stages of Development

2009-08-23T13:46:00.006-04:00

A puppy is a dog in a less mature stage of development than the adult dog. The term 'fetus' can refer to dogs, elephants, human beings, cats, etc.- in a certain stage of development- which we call the fetal stage of development. The term 'fetus' does not change the nature of the thing in question, however. A cat the fetal stage of development is a cat in that stage of development. It is not something other than a cat, just as a puppy is not something other than a dog. The same applies to human beings in the fetal stage of development. First and foremost, they are human beings in that stage of development, not something other than human beings.

Some say: But that does not look like a human being? Answer: Yes it does. That is what a human being looks like in that stage of development. It does not look like an adult or a more mature human being, but it does look like a human being in that stage of development for that is what all human beings look like when in that stage of development.

The term 'fetus' refers to a stage of development or a level of maturity, not to a different thing. The appearance of the human being in the fetal stage of development, no doubt, is not the same as the appearance of that same human being in a later stage of development. But, it is still the same human being and a human being, just in a different stage of development- one which all human beings went through to get to another stage of development, if, in fact, they did make it to a more mature stage of development without first being killed by another human being who was in a more mature stage of development, but only by virtue of first having gone through the earlier stage of development, i.e., the one that corresponds to the stage of development of the victim.

Mother Teresa on Abortion

2009-08-16T14:38:00.004-04:00

Mother Teresa had the following to say regarding abortion:

(1) "America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters" And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign."

(2) "But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love - that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion."

(3) "Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted, and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child, and be loved by the child. From our children's home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3,000 children from abortions. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents, and have grown up so full of love and joy!"

(4) "What is taking place in America," she said, "is a war against the child. And if we accept that the mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another."

(5) "Any country that accepts abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants."

(6) "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

Unjustified Homicide and Stages of Development

2009-08-15T09:11:00.005-04:00

If it is wrong to take my life now, why would it not be wrong to have taken my life when I was younger, even when I was in the prenatal stage of development?

My mother could meet with a doctor today. She could hire a physician, for a fee, to take my life, claiming that I am altogether too inconvenient at this time in her life and that she does not want to deal with the burden of my existence on earth. Would there be a problem with this? Of course.

If homicide against me at this time in my life is not justified, why would it be justified at another time in my life- perhaps when I was in the womb? If there is a problem with my mother and her physician, within the context of the private, physician-patient relationship acting this way today, why would there not have been a problem with them acting that same way when I was much younger?

Special Interest Politics and Prenatal Homicide

2009-08-03T21:24:00.008-04:00

The problem with special interest politics is that though it starts with liberty and property, it eventually gets to life itself, with some arguing for a right to kill others and some politicians, hoping to develop a constituency, wanting to grant that right. And, once we get used to taking property away from people for the sake of others or in the name of others, political pressure will develop to take more than just property. In fact, with the Roe movement, we have just that. We are no longer talking merely about taking property, but about taking life itself. With special interest politics, eventually it will be in someone's interest that another human being not exist and that someone will want to use political pressure and legal plunder to have the right to actually plunder someone else, even if only for the sake of convenience. Cloak it in a few euphemisms, add a medical veneer, and then add an argument from privacy and something as simple as homicide becomes common.

That Which is Seen and That Which is Unseen, But Able to be Seen

2009-08-03T10:36:00.008-04:00

Frederic Bastiat noted how interventionist politicians typically focus on what is seen, but fail to consider what is not seen with respect to a great many economic policies. They focus, for example, on the mascot and ignore other groups, other individuals or the nation as a whole. They consider short-term consequences, but fail to consider (or take as seriously) long-term consequences. The pattern is common in economics. It is also common with respect to abortion, where certain politicians seek to benefit the mother while ignoring the human being in the womb. It is the classic case of focusing on that which is seen (or more obvious) and ignoring that which is not seen (or less obvious).

But less obvious things or things not seen or things not seen as easily cannot be excluded just because they are less obvious, or not seen or not so easily seen for we can know such things with the intellect, even if they are not sensed directly.

Moreover, in this case, with ultrasound technology, we can see more than ever such that what was previously unseen up to a point in time is really, now, seen, more and more, while in utero, making the nature of abortion even more obvious to the senses.

Let us not make the fallacious error of only considering what is seen (or most obvious), as when people consider the mother and the physician, but ignore the human being in the womb. When a patient is pregnant, there is a third party to consider. There is a third human being in the room. It is no longer just the physician and the patient. Rather, it is the physician and two patients.

Almost all arguments for prenatal homicide attempt to get traction by trying to ignore that which is less obvious in a certain sense, even if it is very obvious to anyone who looks at ultrasound images of the human being in the womb, knows basic embryological facts, operates on human beings in the womb, or simply understands basic biological development. By trying to ignore or hide or de-emphasize or in some other way cover the human being in the womb, it can be more easily ignored, though these attempts do nothing to change the reality. Rhetoric does not change human beings into non-human beings. It does not kill human beings. Prenatal homicide, however, does, regardless of the magical tricks used to make it appear otherwise and regardless of the credibility of those performing the acts in question.

Mothers, Physicians, and Homicide

2009-07-31T22:03:00.004-04:00

Since when did mothers have legal permission, if not a right, to contract with a physician to cause homicide? Is there something about the physician-patient relationship that makes it above the law with respect to homicide? Is there something about a pregnant woman that makes it legally and morally acceptable for her to commit homicide or hire a physician to commit homicide for her? No doubt she is the mother, but being the mother of the one being destroyed to the point of death does not normally justify homicide. It certainly does not justify it morally or ethically. Why should it justify it legally? After all, law is a branch of ethics.

Physicians and Homicide

2009-07-28T13:13:00.005-04:00

Since when do physicians have a legal right to commit homicide? Since when was homicide part of the job? I thought the field of medicine was based on and rooted in the idea of first avoiding harm. And, are physicians any different than anyone else when it comes to homicide? Carpenters do not have a right to commit homicide? Neither do CEOs or plumbers or teachers or social workers or painters or artisans. Soldiers might be the only exception, but even there there are rules and unjustified homicide can be very questionable for the individual soldier with a weapon. We would not typically approve of an individual soldier killing innocent elderly people or innocent children, for example. In fact, that would be a scandal, even for the trained soldier. But, then, why is it to be different for the physician, who has a strong burden and responsibility to avoid harm built into the fabric of his profession.

Providing Basic Protection From Homicide vs. Granting the Right to [Unjustified] Homicide

2009-07-26T15:49:00.010-04:00

When the government was founded it was founded with the idea that it would have a basic role in providing protection to its members, from other members and from itself, especially when it comes to life, liberty and property- the basics. The government would not be expected to tell us how we lived our lives in so many other respects, i.e., religion, education, etc., but would be there to provide basic protection so that we could, in fact, have a good chance to live our lives freely in so many other respects. But, with prenatal homicide and Roe v. Wade, we have certain politicians and judges saying they will not protect the lives of some, i.e., those in the womb, but will, in fact, grant some- mothers and physicians- the legal right to take the lives of other human beings. Some politicians are willing to go this far.

The vision of the good physician was founded on the idea of providing or recommending measures with respect to the basic protection of health in the context of 'First, Do No Harm'. Physicians would try to protect the health of patients. They would go out of their way to avoid harm. They would fight disease, but not life. They would fight disease and try not to harm individual life. But, with some physicians performing abortions, we have an aspect of medical practice that is directly involved in homicide, in taking the life of human beings in a certain stage of development. Some physicians are willing to go this far.

Good mothering has to do with nurturing and caring for and protecting the young life in and out of the womb. But, with Roe, we have more and more mothers acting to take the lives of those motherhood would call them to nurture and love. Some mothers are willing to go this far.

With Roe, we have politicians, physicians and mothers [along with a great many social activists], working together to have the right and power to take the lives of those they should be protecting. And, it is not just the right to do so that they are securing, but the freedom to actually do so. One group (or, rather, three or more groups working together) are given priority over another group. One group develops the freedom or right to do x at the expense of another group. In this case, however, it is not just the right to do x at the expense of another person's pocket-book or property (and it is that too when politicians seek to force others to pay for abortions through tax payer funds). Rather, it is the right to take the life of another person at the cost of that person's life. We have moved away, then, from protecting basic rights to not only not protecting those rights, but to giving others the privilege to take those rights (and the actualities that correspond).

Distractions, Ad Hominems, Logical Fallacies, and Denials

2009-07-26T14:45:00.007-04:00

Most comments employed in response to concerns raised about the homicidality of abortion are either denials of the homicidality of abortion, distractions employed to take one's attention away from the homicidality of abortion, ad hominem attacks, logical fallacies, or a denial of ethics (or philosophy in general). 

Only a few (and there are some) admit the homicidality of abortion and then speak out in favor of it openly. Most are so caught up in the euphemisms that they have lost sight of the primary, fundamental aspects of the reality of abortion. An exception to this might be those who, despite knowing the reality as it is, will still *not* allow the law to be employed to prevent it or discourage it. Many times they divorce law from ethics or attempt to place law above ethics, which is a denial of ethics. Sometimes they deny ethics altogether. Other times they still have respect for ethics and its proper relation to the law, but do not want to allow the government to step in to discourage abortion by the use of law, despite the fact that they do not typically have a problem with the government doing so in most other cases of homicide. In fact, even most libertarians do not mind the government arresting those who commit homicide or having laws against homicide. 

Just as we have magician politicians, we have magicians who are in favor of abortion or in favor of not allowing any laws against it. They are illusionists, relying mostly on euphemisms and distraction techniques to keep one from focusing on the homicidality of the reality at hand. 

I was once criticized for using terms like 'baby' and 'homicide' in relation to this topic. Less passionate terms were recommended. It was implied that such terms took away from the objectivity of the issue. So called neutral terms were to be preferred. Part of my response to that critique was to refer the individual back to the video images of an actual abortion. I wondered if those images would be permissible, or whether they, too, like the terms, would be too passionate or not objective enough. I wondered what terms should be employed in light of the reality the videos show. There is no doubt that some would prefer medical and non-medical euphemisms. That is because they have very little to say in light of the reality, faced squarely. 

But if they are not willing to (1) deny the reality of abortion as an act of homicide, (2) divorce law from ethics or place law above ethics, (3) argue that the government should not interfere in cases of homicide, despite the ethical realities, or (4) deny ethics, they are typically left with very little else to do but distract, which at least some of them do with a series of euphemisms, logical fallacies and ad hominem attacks on a regular basis. 

In the end, we must always turn back to reality. When the rhetoric meets the reality, the reality is always true, no matter how magical the rhetoric gets. Underlying reality- the reality that is under the rhetoric no matter what the rhetoric is- ought to not be ignored or made less visible and less obvious. It is the act of destroying [to the point of death] that which is a living member of the human species that we are addressing here. That act is not changed by the fact that a physician is involved. Nor is it changed by rhetoric. Nor is it changed by laws or alleged legal rights. Nor is it changed by euphemisms, logical fallacies or other distraction techniques. Nor is it changed by denials of the very realities at hand. Nor is it changed by wants or even hardships. Human beings come into existence at conception, typically within other human beings. They develop and they are delivered out of a parent's body, unless they die of natural causes or at the hands of another human being, physician or not. Abortion is a direct attempt to take the life of another human being. It is homicide in the prenatal stage of development. If one does not appreciate this, one should turn to the videos and images that can be found on this website before going further. 

Homicidal Concerns Are Primary

2009-07-20T12:23:00.007-04:00

Though some would paint anyone who argues against abortion as a fanatic or a radical or a zealot or as someone who has lost his reason or as someone who only reasons from one side of the evidence or as someone with a very skewed interpretation of the evidence or as someone who is primarily relying on lessons from Special Revelation, i.e., Church, Bible, etc., it must be kept clear that though there are arguments from Special Revelation and though there is agreement with Special Revelation (here I am referring to the Judeo-Christian tradition), the primary concern is the concern that we have regarding homicide in general, particularly unjustified homicide, as that concern is argued for from common sense or philosophy. If we are concerned about homicide (and especially unjustified homicide) and we think with good reason that a human life begins at conception (as the embryologists think), we ought to also be concerned, as physicians, about prenatal homicide, even if it is less obvious to the senses. Concerns about homicide and unjustified homicide are primary. They serve as the starting point for a sound and reasonable opposition [outside the context of Special Revelation] to abortion, which is prenatal homicide and typically not justified- or, for that matter, not even something that some even try to justify since Roe. There is absolutely nothing wrong with one person being concerned about not taking the life of another. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a physician wanting to avoid homicide or unjustified homicide, in most, if not all, circumstances.

Physicians are typically quite concerned about whether or not there is a second human in the room in the mother's womb. If a woman has a uterus and is in the expected child-bearing age group, physicians usually go out of their way to make sure there is not a second human being in the womb. They typically go out of their way to make sure they are not going to cause harm to that human being through tests or prescription medications. This common going out of the way to avoid harm type behavior carries over quite naturally to situations when abortion is being considered by someone. In fact, I would argue that that going out of the way to avoid harm to the second patient in the room behavior is not only the best medicine for everyone involved, it is the most common medicine. And, it is not made irrelevant simply because someone wants to have an abortion or is considering an abortion. That is, the desire or want on the part of the mother to have an abortion, however confused or clear, does not justify the decision on the part of the physician to suddenly behave much differently than is his or her common behavior regarding the second human being in the room and in the womb. If we are concerned about causing harm or causing death to a patient by giving a drug or doing a procedure, we do not suddenly, as physicians, change with respect to that concern or simply toss the concern out the window if the patient informs us that they want harm or death to occur and want us to give the medicine so that it will. We sometimes do less if family members or a patient want us to do less so that natural death might occur, but we do not typically move from the patient's desire for death or harm to self to homicide just because a family member or patient requests that. Most of us are rightly very concerned about not doing harm, not causing death and not participating in an act of homicide, regardless of what family members or patients want. The same line of thinking applies to concerns about abortion, and even to concerns about emergency contraception and contraception in general, when such concerns are well thought out and developed along philosophical lines.

Some avoid war because they do not want to harm or cause death to others. They are concerned about homicide and they want to avoid acts of homicide, for good reasons. It is no less true in the case of physicians who are confronted with living patients. In fact, it is even clearer for the patients have not typically done harm to the physician and are not typically in a position to take the life of the physician- at least most of them are not trying to do so, which is not always the case in war where a person can find himself in a position of being attacked or threatened or assaulted in some way that might require self-defense. Physicians are not typically being threatened in this way by patients. They are, however, sometimes confronted with patients who want to take the life of another human being who just so happens to be inside them. That request or demand is not typically made for hard medical reasons, as it turns out. It is typically made for reasons of convenience, or, inconvenience, we should say. Like the individual who objects to war when it is presented as an option by politicians (who typically are not planning to fight in the war themselves), the physician then has to decide whether he will follow his usual patterns and object to involving himself in acts which are designed to harm and even cause death to another human being when presented as a request or demand by a patient. A basic concern regarding homicide and a basic understanding of the fact that abortion is nothing other than homicide should be a clear guide here for anyone who sees the importance of avoiding either homicide in general or unjustified homicide. Acting as if homicide and harm are not things to be concerned about when relating to others is a huge departure from standard ways of acting in the physician-patient relationship and standard ethical duties that are known by reason and apply to the physician-patient relationship.

Conveniently No Longer In That Stage of Development

2009-07-16T23:35:00.007-04:00

Those who favor prenatal homicide are, of course, already out of the prenatal stage of development and so at no risk of being a victim in that stage of development. Would they be so quick to deny equal protection to their own stage of development with respect to homicide? What would happen if the adult stage of development was targeted in the same way? With legalized prenatal homicide, we have people in certain stages of development and in certain positions, i.e., doctors, being given a right to take the life of a human being in a different stage of development. We are not only giving two groups a right to take the life of another group, we are, in doing so, not granting one group equal protection under the law with respect to homicide. If the adult stage of development were being targeted, I doubt there would be so much enthusiasm. If women were targeted in the adult stage of development, I doubt there would be so much enthusiasm. But it is easier to allow other groups to be targeted than your own. Human beings have a long history of that. They also, at times, strangely enough, have a history of allowing one group to target other groups, through political pressure, even for death. But, again, if they were the potential victims, I doubt they would be using political pressure in quite the same way.

The Fourteenth Amendment and Prenatal Homicide

2009-07-07T11:08:00.001-04:00

"....nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

And so why should those in the womb be denied the same by the federal government?

The Fifth Amendment and Prenatal Homicide

2009-07-06T09:42:00.001-04:00

'No person shall be....nor be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.'

Why is this not extended to those in the womb? Not only is prenatal homicide not justified in most cases, it is almost as if no justification is even required. Where is the equal protection under the law? Where is the due process of law when a physician or a mother moves to take the life of someone in the womb? Appeals to privacy and the physician-patient relationship do not justify homicide. Nor do they justify an exclusion of the due process of law. Nor do they exclude one's Fifth Amendment protection. Nor do arguments from non-interference for we do not typically argue that the law should not step in when it comes to homicide.

Senator Evan Bayh's Comment

2009-06-19T08:03:00.002-04:00

An Indiana Senator, Senator Bayh, in response to an objection against prenatal homicide, noted that abortion was a tragedy and then went on to say the following, to which I respond below:

"Any unwanted pregnancy and possible abortion is a tragic circumstance. The question is who decides what to do? I believe that decision should be made by families, in consultation with clergy and their doctor, not politicians."

[Response]: Do you think the same way about other forms of homicide? Politicians should not be interfering with a great many things. I agree. In fact, they should not be interfering with most things. But, when it comes to homicide, we are talking about equal protection from harm under the law and not just this or that politician meddling. Moreover, we are talking about someone's life being taken at the hands of another person without adequate justification. Most of us, even most libertarians, do not mind the government having laws against homicide. And, abortion is homicide, just in a different stage of development.

In fact, we can speak of prenatal homicide and prenatal child abuse. Abortion, when successful with respect to its goal, intentionally ends the life of the human being inside the other human being. That is homicide. But homicide is presumptively wrong. Being so, it stands in need of adequate justification. We do not generally stand by and let families, in consultation with clergy and their doctors, decide to take the lives of other innocent human beings without adequate justification. Why are you making an exception here? And why with respect to physicians? Do you not appreciate that abortion is, in fact, homicide?

You support laws against infanticide. Do you not? You support laws against partial birth abortion, by your own admission. Now, back up and ask yourself why you should not also support a ban on abortions at 40 wks, 39 wks, 38 wks, etc., on down the line to conception. If you want to keep the government out of it when it comes to infanticide and partial birth abortion then you might be able to argue that you should keep the government out of it when it comes to intrauterine abortions. But, that is not your position. You should, instead, draw the line at homicide and leave it at that. Homicide and conception are the two critical points. All other points are arbitrary. Many of us do not want the government meddling in our personal decisions, but homicide is not just a personal decision. It is a public act and it involves the life of another individual. When you are willing to say that you think infanticide is wrong but do not support any legislation against it on the grounds that you think families should decide, let me know. At least then your position will be more consistent.

Plan B, Rape, and Abortion

2009-06-10T09:15:00.001-04:00

Once we understand that abortion is prenatal homicide and realize that homicide stands in need of adequate justification because it is presumptively wrong, we understand that abortion is wrong and stands in the same position as any other form of homicide. So, the movement is from homicide to prenatal homicide, realizing the implications involved. With that foundation in mind, we bump into the Pill.

I recall in medical school fellow medical students thinking it preposterous that birth control, emergency or not, might actually have an abortive mechanism. I recall some actually laughing at the idea, as though any one who believed it was some type of radical.

But, in fact, a great deal of medical literature does mention the fact that birth control can and probably, at times, does prevent implantation by changing the endometrium, in addition to its other two mechanisms, preventing ovulation and preventing sperm access. In fact, some estimate that there is a 4-15% break-out ovulation rate for those on birth control. If ovulation happens, it may not be the case that fertilization will happen. But, if ovulation and fertilization both happen, we are now looking at travel through the tube and implantation, where changes in the endometrium caused by birth control may decrease the likelihood of implantation or make implantation impossible for all practical purposes.

Couple this reasoning with the reasoning about homicide and prenatal homicide, and one can start to see why some physicians are against prescribing birth control, in the emergency form or not.

Going further, one can see the reasonableness of a physician not prescribing Plan B or Emergency Contraception, even in cases of rape. The reasoning goes like this:

1. Homicide is presumptively wrong.
2. Hence, homicide, prenatal or post-natal, stands in need of adequate justification.
3. Abortion is a form of homicide after conception, even if before implantation.
4. Hence, abortion is presumptively wrong and stands in need of adequate justification.
5. There is good medical reason to think that Plan B or 'Emergency Contraception' or 'the Pill' may [and probably does a certain percentage of the time] have an abortive mechanism.
6. Hence, there is good reason to be concerned and not to prescribe Plan B.
7. This applies in cases of rape as well, despite the obvious challenges, for homicide against a third party, i.e., the new human being who is conceived, if in fact that human being is conceived, is not justified in the context of rape any more than it is justified in any other context. (Put differently, another wrong, i.e., homicide, is not justified merely because of the first wrong, or, if you will, one wrong does not make another wrong right, in this case.)

Hopefully, one can start to see that this is not a radical position at all, but a very well thought out position with legitimate concerns.

Dr. Alveda King on Prenatal Homicide

2009-05-25T09:42:00.001-04:00

A news-clip:

Martin Luther King’s Niece Dislikes Barack Obama Over His Abortion Support
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Not all black Americans like Barack Obama and one of his biggest critics is Dr. Alveda King, daughter of Martin Luther King’s younger brother. “Senator Obama’s answer to the ills of society, such as continued tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, are diametrically opposed to everything African Americans truly believe and an anathema to the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr,” she told Town Hall. King says Obama does a disservice to the black community and the nation as a while by advocating abortion yet promoting other human rights. “We can talk about poverty; we can talk about the war; we can talk about teen pregnancy; we can talk about incarceration. However, if we’re not allowed to live, we’ll never encounter those issues,” she says. King recalls her Uncle Martin saying, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” For Alveda King, abortion is a civil rights issue. “Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother,” she explains. “The mother decides his or her fate.” “In the shadow of the famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech by my uncle in 1963, as Barack Obama makes his speech in 2008, how can the Dream survive if we murder the children?” asks Dr. King concerning the unborn. "Life was very precious to my uncle and life today is precious.”

Comment: Some estimate that the toll abortion has had on black Americans in this country may be has high as 16 million.

The Physician-Patient Relationship and Government Interference

2009-04-24T09:37:00.001-04:00

Some oppose making prenatal homicide illegal because they do not want to interfere with the physician-patient relationship. That relationship is said to be very private and some do not want government interference, even if we might be talking about the homicide of a third individual, amazingly. Just as amazingly is that some of the same people are for universal health-care, which will essentially allow the government a tremendous amount of control and force within the physician-patient relationship, decrease privacy, decrease the ability of those in the encounter to keep the government out of the encounter, decrease the ability of those in the relationship to make free choices, etc.

Now we normally think that one duty of the government is to offer some opposition to unjustified homicide and yet we also normally do not want the government to dictate too many aspects of our lives, including too many aspects of our health-care. That the government should protect people from being murdered by their physicians and neighbors at least in some limited way, i.e., by having a law against unjustified homicide seems quite reasonable. To tell a physician that he cannot kill his patients legally is not much interference for the physician is not supposed to be killing his patients anyway. We are just telling him that he is not above the law- the law that applies to everyone else already. But to interfere with all sorts of regular, every-day physician-patient decisions is another matter altogether.

Gender Questions About Those In The Womb

2009-03-15T12:12:00.002-04:00

Most anyone who spends time around women who are pregnant realizes that certain questions are common, one being: Is it a boy or a girl? This is extremely common, in fact. Similarly, people who live in areas where ultra-sonography is common will frequently ask: Have you found out what it is yet? or Have you found out what you are having? or Have you found out if it is a boy or a girl yet? Of course they are not asking what it is by nature, i.e., human or not. They do not think it might be an elephant or a tiger. Rather, they are asking what the gender is, if it is known. They want to know if a person is pregnant with a boy or a girl because they are anticipating what it will be like for the mother or father to have a boy or a girl. Similarly, parents are also anticipating such things and trying to figure out how they ought to anticipate in further detail. And so we see a great many seeking an ultrasound to determine the gender, typically between 16-20 weeks status post conception. And what parents do with the information is also revealing. Upon finding out the gender, the news spreads rapidly amongst family members and people begin to act on the news, buying this and that item for the human being in the womb or for the parents taking care of the human being, celebrating 'baby showers', decorating the home or some aspect of the home- perhaps a room or nook for the baby- in this or that color, 'nesting' in this or that way after having been influenced by the gender specification. In the ultrasound age, this is terribly common where the ultrasound machine is readily available.

But this cultural and human activity seemingly collides with the prenatal homicide under the guise of abortion culture, where the human being in the womb is not to be recognized as a human being, not to be recognized as a boy or a girl, not to be anticipated or celebrated, not to be treated according to his or her nature, and the rest. The physician is being called on to act one way, as if to celebrate the entire matter and protect the health of the human being in the womb, but then another, as if to act like prenatal homicide or prenatal child abuse are simply things to ignore at the mother's request. Imagine working as a physician and being asked to celebrate the gender specification in Room 1 and then being asked to condone or encourage or facilitate prenatal abuse or prenatal homicide in Room 2. Imagine being a physician with child (either directly in the sense of being with child in the womb or indirectly by being the father of a child in the womb) and celebrating the gender of that child, anticipating the days to come, while also taking the lives of other human beings in the womb. Imagine taking the life of a 16 wk old human being measured from conception and going home to celebrate your wife's news that she is carrying a boy or a girl and hopes to buy blue or pink paint for the human being's room. Imagine being a mother and taking the life of one child at 16 wks and celebrating the life of another. The tension is obvious. What is not obvious is that it can be swept under the rug so easily without adequate justification.

Physicians who see the contradiction and appreciate the palpable tension can simply say that they are not willing to celebrate life and gender on the one hand and be a part of destroying it or denying it on the other. Going further, they can note that they disagree with child abuse, including prenatal child abuse, as well as infanticide and prenatal homicide. Similarly, they can note that they have an obligation to 'First Do No Harm' and that because they normally, as a matter of priority, act to protect the health of the human being in the womb, they are not willing to act in a way that destroys that health upon someone's request, as though the request can undo the reality in the womb, a reality which is normally, by default, treated with respect. The physician can simply say: "I cannot give Vitamins to the pregnant women in Room A and then prescribe or perform an abortion on the pregnant woman in Room B without adequate justification." The same applies to nurses and other health-care providers. A nurse could simply say: "I am not willing to go to a baby-shower on Monday and recommend an unjustified 'abortion' on Tuesday."

Three Human Beings in the Room

2009-03-10T15:42:00.001-04:00

A nine year old was found to have two human beings in her womb, i.e., twins, recently. A double abortion was performed at 15 weeks. Much was said about the tragedy of a nine year old being pregnant, particularly in this case for she was apparently raped. Much was also said about the threat to her health. Could a nine year old carry one child to term, let alone two? There is no doubt that this is a very difficult situation. Many, noting the difficulties and extremes, are quick to jump to abortion as a solution. I would note a few things, however, which I think also need to be considered carefully, things which are oftentimes forgotten.

Abortion is prenatal homicide, a fact that many tend to ignore, trying to gloss over it with more benign sounding terms. That means that there was a double homicide in this case. Whether those homicides could be justified on the same grounds that an ectopic pregnancy type abortion is justified is a matter for debate. We would have to evaluate the likelihood of the nine year dying from carrying two human beings to term and the likelihood of her death as a result of doing so. In doing so, we might want to consider others who have had children in the womb at a young age and carried them to term, the youngest being 5 years of age herself. See here. Granted, in this case, we were dealing with two human beings in the womb, not one. But we might also consider the possibility of having a c-section, which has been common in such pregnancies and is common otherwise these days as OB's try to hedge against lawsuits. Further, as difficult as it might be on a nine year old to carry twins, we have to remember that nine year old children have done a great many difficult things, i.e., suffered diseases, had surgeries, had traumatic accidents, and the rest. We should also ask whether carrying a human being, or, in this case, two human beings, is worse than taking the lives of those innocent human beings? It is no small task for a nine year old to carry twins. There is no doubt about that. On the other hand, it is no small task for the nine year old to participate in the homicide of two human beings either.

More generally yet, focusing mainly or only on the hardships of the pregnant individual is common in such discussions, usually with an emphasis on the hardships of carrying a human being in the womb to term. But the nature of what is being done under the gloss of a 'medical procedure' should not be ignored either, both as a hardship for the mother and as a death sentence for those in the womb.

The Death Penalty and the Second Human Being In the Room

2009-02-26T10:01:00.001-05:00

Congress excluded pregnant women from execution in the Federal Death Penalty Law of 1994. Note also that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits the US from executing a pregnant woman. Why? Because a second human being- the one in the womb- would be killed as well, just as the second patient in the room in a trauma bay may die if the mother dies from a trauma, and just as the second victim of a murder attempt may die if the mother dies- or may even die if the mother does not die, when assaulted by an attacker. And recall that doctors now do surgery on that second patient in the room while that patient is in the womb. And they can be sued for harming that second patient. And they commonly take precautions for the health of that second patient, as when they avoid giving the mother certain medications, avoid certain radiographic films, avoid certain procedures, and the rest.

Abortion: Prenatal Child Abuse To the Point of Prenatal Homicide

2009-02-15T20:50:00.001-05:00

Child abuse is wrong. This includes intrauterine child abuse. But if intrauterine child abuse is wrong, then child abuse to the point of death is wrong also. Abortion is child abuse to the point of death when successful. When not successful, it is child abuse, as when an arm is cut off in an attempt to kill a child, but the child lives or as when a child is burned with saline but lives. So, abortion is wrong. This is true whether the mother does the abusing or whether the doctor does the abusing with the mother's permission. It is true whether we call it 'abortion' or something else. It is true whether the child is wanted or not. It is true regardless of what the Supreme Court says about the legality of the human being in the womb. So, part of the reason we should be (and are) against abortion or abortion attempts is that we are against child abuse that results in death, as well as child abuse that does not. (We are also against unjustified homicide, as I have noted here.)

If X, Then Why Y?: Being Consistent

2009-02-13T12:14:00.001-05:00

If we are concerned about unjustified homicide in one stage of life or development, why should be not also be concerned in another stage of life or development? If we, as physicians, are normally concerned about life in the prenatal stage of development, why should we not continue to be concerned when others ask us not to be? If we normally act in ways that promote the health of a human being in the prenatal stage of development, why should we not continue to act in those same ways when someone else does not want to? If we would normally not abuse a human being, why would we accept human abuse to the point of death in the prenatal stage of development? If we normally go out of our way to make sure we do not cause harm to those in the prenatal stage of development, why would we not go out of our way to avoid doing harm to human beings in the prenatal stage of development whose mother's have requested that they be harmed to the point of death? If we think the Supreme Court was wrong to treat the 'Negro' as less than human, why should we not think the Supreme Court is wrong in saying the same regarding human beings in the prenatal stage of development? If we think it is wrong for a person on the street to kill another human being in the womb without adequate justification, why should we think it is not wrong for a doctor to do so without adequate justification? If it is normally against the moral fabric of our profession as physicians to prescribe death, why should we prescribe death when it comes to those in the prenatal stage of development? If we normally follow the 'First Do No Harm' code, why should we not follow it when it comes to those in the prenatal stage of development? If we agree that it is wrong (and should be illegal) to take the life of a human being who is out of the womb or partially out of the womb, why should we think it is ok when that same human being is in the womb? If we support the notion that America, as a nation, is at its best, when it defends basic human goods like life itself, why should we think America is at its best when it allows and encourages its doctors to take the lives of innocent human beings in the prenatal stage of development? If we think it is damaging to the character of a man to commit unjustified homicide, why should we not think it is wrong to commit unjustified prenatal homicide? If we think it is right to act as though there are two patients in the room normally, why should we act like there is only one at other times? If we think it is wrong to commit infanticide on the baby in the mother's arms, why should we act like it is right to commit prenatal-cide on the baby in the womb?

'Botched Abortions' and Degrees of Obviousness

2009-02-08T21:00:00.001-05:00

A 23 wk old living human being was delivered, placed in a plastic bag and thrown into the trash. See here.

But I would ask the reader to consider the fact that there is no essential difference between killing a human being after it has been delivered vs. before it has been delivered. The intention is the same. The result is the same.

A 'botched abortion' just means that the abortion was not successful. Not successful? What does that mean? It means that the human being was not killed by the planned means. In the case above, it was then killed by another means. Some are now outraged. But why not be outraged at the original plan also?

Intrauterine prenatal homicide is less obvious. There is no doubt about that. But too many have confused not so obvious or not as obvious with not the same as or different. In other words, some would have us think that because one type of homicide is not as obvious as another [in a visual sense], it is not homicide, when in fact it is. Obviousness (or the lack thereof, especially as it relates to appearances and visual clues) does not determine if something is homicide or not. Homicide remains homicide even when it is less obvious in a certain sense. 'Botched abortions' that result in a living human being being out of the womb who is then killed show the difference. People more easily recognize the latter as homicide, but it is no less true that intrauterine homicide is homicide as well.

Interestingly, the mother in this case, after seeing the child *out of the womb*, before it was placed in the plastic bag, decided to sue those who she originally paid to kill it. Why? She just paid $1200 to have someone kill her child. Why should she be suing now? The individual placed the child in a plastic bag to cause it to die. It was successful. The child did die. Why is the mother not happy? She is getting what she paid for? Is she not? The only thing that changed was the means by which the child died and perhaps the location of death, i.e., in or out of the womb. Is that right? Not quite. There was at least one more thing that changed: The obviousness of it all changed also, while the nature of the two acts are essentially the same with respect to intentions and results.

When she sues will she sue for homicide? Will she sue for homicide in the wrong *place*? Will she sue for homicide by the wrong means? Will she sue for homicide that was too obvious and not staged obscurely enough? Poor staging?

Guns and Abortion Instruments

2009-02-05T10:14:00.001-05:00

Some want to ban guns, despite the fact that they can be used for self-defense and are used for self defense millions of times a year by people trying to protect themselves from the harm that others may inflict upon them. Why do some want to ban guns? In part, because guns are dangerous to life and a threat to health. People kill other people with them, at times. People have accidents with them, at times. Those wanting to ban guns do not want people to get hurt or killed. They would rather there be no guns available for self defense than one incident of gun misuse or accidental use. But what about the instrument pictured above? And what about its very specific function? It is not used for self defense by physicians. It is used to *deliberately* take the life of human beings in the prenatal stage of development. Many of these instruments, including this one, were designed with the human being's anatomy in mind. So, for instance, the instrument pictured above is designed to pinch and then penetrate the skull with a deliberate drill like turning motion. Some want to act like human beings are not being killed, but the instruments are clearly designed to kill human beings with human anatomy in mind.

Further, guns have nothing on these types of instruments. Roughly 30,000 people in the US each year die from guns, with another 200,000 being injured, by common estimates. But 1.3 million human beings are killed by abortionists each year in the US using a variety of intentionally designed to kill human being type instruments, some of which have only that purpose alone. Those who are so intent on banning guns might want to turn their gaze on abortion instruments for many more are dying from those instruments each year than are dying from guns. In fact, there is no comparison. But abortion rights activists who are also *against* guns (working to create all sorts of gun control laws- even bans) are for some reason *for* abortion instruments.

Lincoln on Slavery, Selfishness, and Justice

2009-02-02T15:30:00.001-05:00

Regarding slavery, Lincoln said:

"Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature- opposition to it is his love of justice."

Similarly, we are concerned about abortion because it is homicide. We are opposed to it because it is unjustified homicide, in almost all cases. Being concerned about unjustified homicide is a love of justice. Unjustified homicide with respect to those in the prenatal stage of development is founded in selfishness, more often than not. This is exampled quite clearly in abortion on demand for reasons of convenience.

Obama said that he would not want his daughters to be burdened with a teenage pregnancy. But what is a pregnancy? It is not a disease, like an STD. It is a state of being where another human being is inside a woman in the prenatal stage of development. That is Obama's first mistake. Second, not many of us would want our teenage daughters have a child in the womb when they were teenagers. But, the desire not to have this does not justify homicide. Third, pregnancy is, in a sense, a burden, but it is not only a burden. There is more to it than that, despite the fact that some try to speak of it only in those terms.

What Obama is really saying is that he wants his daughter to have a right to have an abortion if she thinks being with a child is a burden. But why would we want our daughters to participate in unjustified homicide? He is not considering the nature of pregnancy or the nature of abortion. Once we see abortion for what it is, we see that it too is one of the most selfish acts one can perform.

Do we really want that burden- the burden of having committed or hired someone to commit unjustified homicide against another human being- for our daughters? The burden of unjustified homicide is one of the greatest burdens one can have because it is a direct blow to one's moral character. Is Obama saying he would rather have his daughter's character suffer this remarkable privation than have her rise to the occasion with nobility, dignity and respect for mankind and carry the child to delivery? What if she got herself in a situation where she had to, because of certain actions she performed, carry a child in her arms for 10 months or so while she was a teenager? Would that be too much of a burden also for Obama? Would he rather she have the right and choice to kill the child instead of carrying it in her arms for 10 months? Why would the morality be different in the two cases? It would not. Burdening someone with the burden of having performed unjustified homicide is one of the greatest and most unfortunate burdens one can encourage someone to bear in life. Never again can one undo such an act. Never again can one take it back. Never again can one give back the life that one took from another human being once one takes that life from that human being.

Homicide, Justified Homicide, Unjustified Homicide, and Unjustified Prenatal Homicide

2009-01-29T09:13:00.001-05:00

One of the more common tactics of women's rights-pro-abortion-pro-choice-abortion rights advocates is to try to make the other side look irrational and overly emotional, as if there are no reasons to be against 'abortion', even while that side survives by virtue of the euphemism and any and all confusion it can create with distractions from the very nature of 'abortion'. Along the same lines, they like to categorize the objection to 'abortion' as a religious objection, after which they move to imply or show that religion itself is irrational or non-rational or not such that it can support a moral and rational objection. Let it be clear, though, that 'abortion' is the deliberate ending of a pregnancy through the act of homicide against a human being in the prenatal stage of development. Unjustified homicide is normally considered a huge moral concern in society. Some are even quite concerned and hesitant when it comes to justified homicide, as is the case when some resist the death penalty, playing the hand even more cautiously than others so as not to error in taking human life. Regardless of the debate over justified homicide, unjustified homicide is clearly wrong. Most of us recognize that. We then recognize that 'abortion' is typically an example of homicide and, moreover, that most cases are not justified. We are then dealing with unjustified homicide against a human being in the prenatal stage of development. So, we can see that the concern over 'abortion' flows quite naturally from the concern over homicide and, especially, unjustified homicide itself, with 'abortion' being another example.

Some try to side-step here by arguing that that which is in the human womb is not a human being. But this is silly for human beings conceive human beings and carry human beings in their wombs before birthing human beings. Each of us as human beings move through different stages of development, some of which are in the womb. This is common knowledge. It is also accepted medical and embryological knowledge. And so, in the end, it is not emotion and mere rhetoric, but a concern regarding unjustified homicide (why is that so bad?) coupled with a recognition of human life in the womb that is the foundation on which 'abortion', which is prenatal homicide, is opposed, though we do not mean to imply that other reasons in addition may not be given.

If I have good reason to think an innocent human being is in the house that you are about to dynamite for reasons of convenience or for personal gain or just because you do not want the human being in the house around, and I know that you are deliberately trying to kill the human being that is in the house, I would have good reason to oppose you in doing so. Even most abortion rights-women's rights-pro-choice-pro-abortion advocates agree with that, while turning a blind eye to it when we turn to 'abortion'. That is, they would not say that we are being overly emotional or only emotional or irrational with respect to this kind of situation or this kind of reasoning in other cases. In fact, many of these people who are part of the women's rights-pro-choice-pro-abortion-abortion rights camp are quite concerned about child abuse, rape, war, the homeless, the poor, the death penalty, and the rest. Some will not even have anything to do with justified homicide. Some even feel quite emotional about this or that particular group, i.e., criminals, blacks, native American Indians, minorities, women, rare or unique animals, as if some great social injustice is at hand that they need to stop. And that is, in part, why they are concerned about making sure women have a legal 'right' to 'abortion'. They see themselves as providing some form of social justice, as leveling the playing field, as providing more opportunities for women, as fighting for the underdog, the oppressed, and the rest. But some of the inherent flaws with respect to 'abortion' should be obvious. Whatever 'justice' they are securing may not be 'justice' at all, but simply a move toward some sort of equality with men that itself is misguided because men and women are different by gender. More importantly, they are trying to secure this 'right' or this 'equality' or this 'social justice' or this level opportunistic playing field by means of a greater injustice- unjustified prenatal homicide- when, in fact, many of them are normally opposed not just to unjustified prenatal homicide, but homicide in general, even when it is justified, ironically.

$400+ Million a Year To Foreign Countries For 'Family Planning'

2009-01-27T10:23:00.000-05:00

Obama has now made it so that tax payers who see the immorality of homicide, even prenatal homicide (which is no different except with respect to stage of development), have to pay so that others can actually commit these homicides. The doctors and 'family planning/abortion' clinics can now be economically successful on our tax payer money by performing one homicide after another. Women can become more poor than ever as abortion clinics hiding under the banner of 'contraceptive clinics' and 'family planning' clinics pit them against their own children. Why some are so interested in spending so much money on family planning in other countries is an interesting question. Why they would also be willing to fund unjustified prenatal homicide is another.

Prenatal Homicide Instrument Site

2009-01-25T14:04:00.000-05:00

There is no doubt that an abortion is the deliberate taking of human life. See some of the instruments used to accomplish the goal here, as well as some of the intended results.

White House Website Agenda Comment on 'Reproductive Choice'

2009-01-25T13:33:00.001-05:00

On the new White House website, the Obama administration says the following:

"Supports a Woman's Right to Choose: President Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women's rights under Roe v. Wade a priority in his Adminstration. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in that case."

Right to choose what? Note the incomplete thought and the lack of specificity.

Obama respects those who disagrees with him, but what about those in the womb? He does not seem to have much respect for them?

Obama has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice, it says. What does that mean? Most of us agree that women have the choice of having sexual relations or not. Most of us agree that women have a choice whether they have sexual relations and whether they have children. The disagreement is not over 'reproductive choice' in that sense. The disagreement is over unjustified homicide, not 'reproductive choice'. 'Reproductive choice' is another euphemism to cover up what we are really talking about.

What 'women's rights' are secured in Roe? There's another euphemism. What are these 'rights' given in Roe? A right to commit unjustified homicide? I have never heard of men having such a right. Where did women get the 'right' and why should they have it at the expense of individuals in the womb? The right to life, the right to protest against the government, the right to purchase and continue to possess owned property, the right to vote, the right to work, the right to worship God freely-these are all reasonable, considered generally, but the right to commit homicide against an innocent human being without adequate justification is an entirely different matter. It sounds like politicians and supremicists have given themselves a right to grant another human being the right to kill a third human being without adequate justification, on demand, for reasons of convenience. I did not know the government was to have that kind of power- a power to grant unjustified homicide as a privilege to some over and against others. Given that power, instruments like the one above can be used to perforate the skull to cause death throught pregnancy, even when the woman's life is not at stake and even if the reason for performing the act is something as superficial as convenience.

Obama's Extremism: Obama and Tax Payer Funding of Prenatal Homicide Overseas

2009-01-24T08:24:00.001-05:00

By removing the ban on tax-payer funding of abortion clinics overseas yesterday, Obama is being true to his pro-choice *with respect to unjustified homicide in the prenatal stage of development* position.

I have had some try to point out that there is a difference between pro-choice and pro-abortion. The problem is that in this context people who are pro-choice are pro-choice regarding or with respect to abortion, which is what many mean when they say 'pro-abortion'. So, they are pro-choice with respect to abortion, not just pro-choice in the abstract, whatever that would mean exactly. An interesting thing happens with the pro-choice slogan time and again, like clock-work: a certain level of specificity is left out of the equation by not noting what they are pro-choice with respect to.

But it is precisely the specificity that is the problem. If someone ran around town announcing he was pro-choice, one might think the comment was a bit strange but not be alarmed for the slogan is not really a complete thought, lacking an subject and verb in the form of a judgment or proposition. But as soon as one asked: What are you pro-choice with respect to? we might get a complete thought and find out that the person talking is pro-choice with respect to killing a certain ethnic group or to starvation or to child abuse or to rape or to homicide, in which case we would now have a complete thought, at least. 'Abortion rights' advocates, like Obama, like to stop short of the complete thought and one sees this pattern over and over again in discussions because it is precisely when we are confronted with the fact that someone is pro-choice with respect to abortion that we have to ask more questions like What is abortion? and What do you mean by 'pro-choice'?

These questions have to be asked. Why? For one, 'abortion' itself is a medical euphemism, which is the other interesting and common characteristic of many who speak on this issue. Aside from not offering a complete thought if they can avoid it- trying to get traction from 'pro-choice'-, when they are pushed into a complete thought it will typically include at least one euphemism, with 'abortion' being one of the greatest euphemisms of all because of its medical veneer.

But what does it mean to be pro-choice with respect to abortion, then? It means that one is pro-choice with respect to homicide in the prenatal stage of development, for that is what abortion is. By nature, an abortion is the deliberate killing of the human being in the prenatal stage of development. It is not an accident. It is intentional. People choose to do it, which brings us to the next point: we are not just talking about the choice, but about the actual doing. We are talking about what follows the choice, for a choice that no one acted on would not be nearly as concerning. If a group of men chose to commit homicide or child abuse, but did not do so, we might think something was wrong with their thinking, but an obvious and morally significant difference exists between mere choice and actual action with respect to the choice made.

In any case, we are now to the point where we can see that 'pro-choice' and 'pro-choice with respect to abortion' equate to pro-choice with respect to homicide in the prenatal stage of development for that is what is being chosen and that is what the act being done is. But what does the 'pro-choice' part mean?

It may mean different things to different people. It may, for example, simply mean that a person does not want to make the decision one way or the other. It may, for example, mean that a person just thinks the government should not act against those choosing to have abortions. But, for Obama and many in the 'abortion rights-pro-abortion-pro-choice' camp, it means that abortion should not just be legal, but a Constitutional right that is, when necessary, funded by tax payer money, even when most tax payers disagree with unjustified prenatal homicide.

Not only is Obama interested in making something that is morally wrong legally acceptable, he wants to go further than that by making it a legal 'right' and by making sure that you can get it done at someone else's expense, even when that someone else sees why it is morally wrong and disagrees. We are not just talking about the so-called 'tough cases' either (which are only tough emotionally, not morally). We are talking about what has been referred to as abortion on demand throughout the entire pregnancy in the context of consensual sexual relations for reasons of convenience. In less euphemistic terms, we are talking about unjustified homicide in the prenatal stage of development throughout the entire pregnancy for reasons of convenience in the context of consensual sexual relations. This is precisely what Obama is funding overseas now with your money- in the name of family planning.

Human Race, 'Race' At Secondary Levels, and Racism

2009-01-21T23:14:00.001-05:00

That we are all in the human race is more important and more fundamental than any particular 'race' that we are in otherwise- where 'race' can be used to refer to any secondary or tertiary or other non-essential characteristic that we might use to group individual human beings together, i.e., physical characteristicis like skin color, facial form, eye shape, blood type, specific genetic traits, hereditary history, ethnic history, geographic history, descent history, cultural traits, and the rest- all of which are secondary to being a human being. Moreover, the only reason any of these secondary characteristics are interesting to us to begin with in the way that they are is because we first recognize this or that individual human being as a member of the human race- as a human being.

Before we are Italians or Germans or Americans or Australians, we are human beings. Being we are human beings with this or that amount of pigment in the skin, we are human beings. Before we are human beings with this or that disease or syndrome or hereditary condition or genetic characteristic, we are human beings. Before we are rich or poor, we are human beings. Before we are big or small, we are human beings. Before we are dependent or independent (and no human being is completely or absolutely independent), we are human beings. Before we are wanted or unwanted (by other human beings), we are human beings. Before we are in this or that stage of functionality, we are human beings. Before we are in any particular stage of develpment, we are human beings. (I am speaking about the order of nature here and not the order of time.). Human beings are members of the human race regardless of their secondary and tertiary characteristics. They have that in common and what they have in common is more fundamental than anything else about them, including their stage of development.

Differences between groups within the brotherhood of human beings have always existed and always will, despite the fact that some judges and politicians seem to be interested in removing all differences, as if differences themselves are a problem. What they are changing is not the reality, but the perception of reality. But the problem is not the intergroup differences themselves (for we are not all the same in every way imaginable), but when one group uses the differences to try to justify (1) its own idea that it is superior to another group in some fundamental way, or (2) its own mistreatment of another group, as when one group is not protected equally under the law because another group benefits from not doing so or simply will not do so because it thinks itself superior to that group. Here we have moved into the territory of racism, which does not just take place with respect to skin color. Any secondary or tertiary physical characteristic can be used in racism, but the important thing to note is that the difference is not the problem. The problem is how people use that difference to elevate themselves and diminish others in significant ways, particularly when they do so to the point of thinking of individual human beings in one group so inferior that those in that group are not even human beings or perhaps not full human beings, or at times, human beings, but not persons. All of these imply inferiority of one and superiority of another in a deep, fundamental sense.

More subtle forms of racism may not go so far as to say that the allegedly inferior group is not human or fully human or human, but not persons. They may agree that they are human beings, but still want to use the alleged inferiority, which, again, is being based not on facts about achievement or even behavioral patterns having to do with virtue or vice, as a lever to gain some special privilege over and against the other group, i.e., the privilege to use certain areas, exclusively or with some form of priority, the privilege of certain jobs, the privilege of certain goods, and the rest. Moreover, some will use the alleged inferiority based on this or that secondary characteristic as a lever to try to justify their own mistreatment otherwise of individuals in that group, whether the mistreatment be by omission or comission. And some will even use it as a lever to try justify their own superiority complex- their own egos- regardless of whether they ever use it otherwise, as when one man tries to build himself up by tearing others down, even if only in his own mind.

But the intergroup differences are not the problem. Nor can we get rid of all differences between groups, or between any two individuals for that matter. The real problems come in later, one being one of perception and another being one of how the perception is being used to advance one group or render defenseless (or otherwise marginalized) another group. It gets really ugly when people in one group start killing people in the other, as we saw with lynchings in the past and as we see with abortion on demand in the present. It gets uglier in a different sense when governmentalists and government supremicists do not apply the equal treatment under the law policy to the individual human beings involved, refusing to protect one group or, worse, refusing to protect one group while granting a 'right' to do a wrong to that group to another group, as we see with abortion when women and doctors are given the right to do a wrong against those in another group by the government itself- not to mention the fact that the wrong in question is unjustified homicide, a wrong that we are normally strongly opposed to in this country.

Human beings in the womb will never be as independent as some of those out of the womb. They will never be as big, physically. They will never be as expressive or functional in certain senses. They will never be as strong. They will never be the same with respect to a great many secondary physical and mental characteristics *at that level of development*. That is because secondary physical and mental characteristics differ between many human stages of development. But they are human beings and part of the human race, which is more fundamental than any secondary characteristic. Human beings in the womb were conceived through sexual relations between human beings. They develop as human beings in human beings before being born to human beings. And just as American Indians are human beings before (in the order of nature) they are American Indians, those in the womb are human beings before (in the order of nature) they are human beings in this or that stage of development. In that, they are equal to all other human beings, who also happen to be at particular stages of development. Those who disagree and continue to promote 'abortion rights' either misunderstand their own history as human beings or have stepped into the realm of racism- and not just one of the more benign forms, but one which aims at homicide without adequate justification, as if homicide can be justified by a consideration of secondary characteristics alone. That is the old and often repeated mistake of placing that which is secondary over that which primary. Intergroup differences will always exist, but we need to continually guard against becoming racists with respect to those differences. We do that by remembering that we are all, first and foremost, human beings, regardless of anything we might say or think thereafter. The job of the government is to do the same.

Obama's Inauguration 2009

2009-01-20T21:18:00.000-05:00

Obama's speech today was not written by him, but by a speech writer named Jon Favreau. And yet Obama stood before us and said the following:

"We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness."

Comment: Does this apply to human beings in the womb as well? Or, will Obama decide that it does not apply to *all* men, but only to some, just as some did in the Dred Scott case and just as others did in Roe? If all deserve a chance, why are those in the womb not given a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness and to be treated equally under the law?

Obama also said:

"We will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

Comment: Are human beings in the womb not innocents? Are some not advancing their aims by slaughtering innocents in the womb? Is that not how abortion is justified by many secular progressives and others in the women's rights-abortion rights movement: that many need to be able to compete in the job market against men and cannot have pregnancy in the way, even though most of these women chose to have sexual relations to begin with knowing that they might in fact be with a child as a result of such actions? If Obama is against unjustified homicide or homicide against innocents, why will he not defend innocents in the womb? Has he not, as a politician, seen enough ultrasounds? Has he not fully realized that human beings conceive human beings and carry them in the womb before delivering them out of the womb? Does he not understand embryology? Does he need to see the photos of human beings torn apart from abortions? Has he really looked at those photos? Does he need to see a video of an actual abortion and the results? Does he not realize that he was once in the womb himself?

Martin Luther King Jr. and the WRAR Movement

2009-01-19T07:35:00.000-05:00

"Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: - 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

Speech at Civil Rights March on Washington, August 28, 1963US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968)

Comments:

The 'women's rights' movement, in the minds of many, became one with the 'abortion rights' movement. Not all who are for 'women's right's' are for 'abortion rights'. The two are not one and the same, though it is popular for some to treat the two as though identical. The problem is that the 'right to abortion' is a right to homicide against innocent human beings. The original women's rights movement split in two directions, with some 'feminists' fighting for women's rights but being against abortion and others nearly equating women's rights with abortion, morphing the women's rights movement- or an aspect of it-into a right to homicide movement.

But, think of what it would have been like if MLK Jr. had started out by arguing for the rights of the black man and ended by arguing that the black man had a right to kill other men, perhaps white men or perhaps even those in the womb, as if there was no other way for black men to have or obtain the 'rights' they needed or wanted except by having the right to commit homicide against those who would cause them to be 'unequal' [in status]. If MLK would have argued this way, he would have fallen into the same trap those in the 'women's rights-abortion rights' (WRAR) movement fell into: calling for equality in a certain respect while not treating others as equal.

Those in the WRAR camp want women to be equal to men- some even want women to be men, I think- so badly that they are willing to encourage women to kill to obtain that alleged 'equality'. They are even willing to kill themselves to obtain this so called equality. They want the right to have sexual relations without having to have the natural consequences of sexual relations. Through contraception they can have sexual relations freely and have a reasonably good chance of avoiding having a child in the womb. Through abortion they can have sexual relations and have a way of getting rid of the child in the womb without having to carry it to term or raise it thereafter. But the cost of this alleged freedom from this alleged bondage- pregnancy (and so having a human being in one's womb) is the death of an individual human being and a culture which encourages or condones the unjustified homicide of at least some innocent human beings.

And so it is not merely treating others unequally in some unspecified respect or in some more benign respect in order to obtain some form of 'equality', but killing others. To call for a right to kill another human being to obtain some form of equality is even more extreme. WRAR, then, comes down to just that. It is no longer about 'equal rights' in some generic sense, but about the right to be equal in a certain sense at the cost of individual human life- the right to kill another to gain equal status or equal opportunity [in some limited sense]. That some women (and men) would ever have asked for such a right is amazing. That the government granted it in Roe v. Wade is even more amazing.

MLK was right. All men are created equal. That includes women, in and out of the womb. Women out of the womb at a certain stage of development are equal, by nature, to those in the womb at a certain stage of development. The same goes for doctors and those in the womb.

Further, neither the woman or the doctor becomes any more equal, by nature, when choosing or performing an abortion. The fight for equal opportunity became the fight to end pregnancy by terminating the life of a living human being, as if that would make women equal to men. It may allow a woman to compete in the job market or in this or that narrow way- perhaps in a sporting endeavor or in some other endeavor, all of which are more narrow, by the way, than motherhood, but it does not make women any more equal to men, by nature, than they already are. That is because, by nature, they are *already* equal to men, including 'men' in the womb.

MLK led the civil rights movement. It was a movement that was responding to a deep mistreatment of darker skinned individuals. So-called 'black men' were, in many instances, being mistreated at a fundamental level. There was a hatred of the black man in many quarters. MLK wanted all men to come to the banquet of brotherhood in love. His movement was not just about equal opportunity to ride a bus or to use a bathroom or to walk on a side-walk. It was about extending brotherly love. It was about white men and black men being able to be brothers. But there was more: it was also about black men being protected equally under the law. MLK said that the law may not make the white man love him, but it may keep the white man from lynching him. After all of that, MLK was killed by a white man in an act of unjustified homicide directed at an innocent man.

I submit to you that the killing of every unborn human being in the USA through what we call abortion on demand for reasons of convenience in the context of consensual sexual relations is no different, essentially, than the killing of MLK. MLK was inconvenient. He was not wanted. He was judged to be either fully human and just not wanted or less than human, despite being human. He was then killed without adequate justification by a man who was, by nature, equal to him, though not morally equal to him.

I also submit to you that MLK could have been killed in the womb in an unjustified manner as well. Had he been, our history would have been quite different. Because he was not killed in that stage of development in his life, he was able to have a dream later and to impact us in a way that now allows us to celebrate his life and his [moral] achievements as a man of great principles and dignity, even in the face of difficulty.

I also submit to you that MLK did not turn to violence or to homicide or to death, but to life and love and virtue. The WRAR camp offers a completely different movement with different solutions, different goals, different methods and a different philosophy, despite also calling itself a civil rights movement. Nothing could be more of an insult to MLK's movement and his greatness.

Fighting for equal protection under the law and equal respect in society at large is one thing. Fighting for special privileges is another. Fighting for the special privilege [under the term 'right'] to kill another human being so that one can have some increased ability to compete against men (or avoid some hardship or challenge) is quite another, especially in light of the fact that human beings do not have to participate in the activity which might give rise to the existence of another human being under most circumstances. If MLK had fought for the latter, we would have seen his failing for what it was. It is now time to see the failing of the WRAR movement for what it is, despite whatever good intentions might be at hand.

In conclusion, let us call to mind how great MLK Jr. was and realize that not all civil rights movements are the same, as many so called 'civil rights' movements scurry for so-called 'rights' that really boil down to special privileges, special status and special results, sometimes at the expense of the deeper and more fundamental rights that MLK had in mind- and, worse, at the expense of actual innocent human life.

The Freedom of Choice [To Commit Unjustified Prenatal Homicide] Act

2009-01-18T11:58:00.000-05:00

Obama has said that the Freedom of Choice Act would the first thing he would do when he got into office. Why should we be concerned?

Because:

(1) FOCA aims to make unjustified prenatal homicide a 'fundamental right' that can never be denied- something more on the order of the right to free speech

(2) FOCA aims to make it such that tax-payer money could be and would be used to finance prenatal homicide

(3) FOCA aims to require states to allow partial-birth homicide

(4) FOCA may allow unjustified prenatal homicide to be performed by non-physicians too

(5) FOCA will bar laws protecting a right of conscientious objection to unjustified prenatal homicide

(6) FOCA aims to deny parents an opportunity to be involved in their minor daughter's unjustified prenatal homicide decision

Moreover, some estimate that FOCA will increase the number of prenatal homicides by 125,000 a year. Recall that prenatal homicide, almost none of which are justified, already takes place at a rate of 3700 per day, which is about 111,000 per month, which is about 1.3 million per year.

Contact your representatives and make sure they understand that you are not interested in promoting or supporting, direclty or indirectly, unjustified homicide, either in principle, legally, or financially. *Justified* homicide would be difficult enough for most of us. That is part of the reason some protest against justified war and, moreso, against war that is not justified clearly enough. Also, some protest against *potentially* unjustified capital punishment, while others protest even against justified capital punishment. We are afraid that we may take innocent life. We recognize the problem with doing so. We recognize what a grave error that would be and we would rather avoid that kind of error in our lives. Moving to the domain of unjustified homicide is absolutely absurd. There is no freedom in choosing *unjustified* homicide. There is only death. This is so in many senses and for the many who are involved in the choice, including the politicians and government promoting it under the banner of 'choice' and 'rights'.

Justice Blackmun's Denial of Protection to Unborn Human Beings Under the 14th Amendment

2009-01-15T08:48:00.000-05:00

Let us now turn to the 14th Amendment, which will add another layer to our review. Let us first see the relevant language and then turn to Justice Blackmun's reasoning regarding 14th Amendment protection of the unborn, which I want to focus attention on:

'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'

Human beings in the womb have not yet been born. That is true. But they are human beings as much as anyone else. And yet Justice Blackmun, despite once having been in the same stage of development, would deny other people in that same stage of development equal protection under the law with respect to life by not protecting them from unjustified homicide. In fact, the Court would go so far as to give one human being (along with that person's doctor) a right to take the life of another and be protected by the state in doing so. Overextending the power of the state in several respects, Blackmun offered three reasons in defense of his denial of 14th Amendment protection to yet to be born human beings.

First, Blackmun claims that the Constitution does not define the word 'person'. Instead of equating it with the term 'human being' and simply recognizing that human beings conceive other human beings and develop in the womb of other human beings before being born to human beings, Blackmun listed points in the Constitution that used the term 'person'. He then concluded that the Constitution only refers to post-natal persons, not to prenatal persons. Hence, he goes on to conclude that the unborn are not persons (or that the Court could not know them to be) under the 14th Amendment. The reasoning here is fallacious. Just because a human being of a certain group has not explicitly been held to be a human being within the Constitution, it does not follow that we have reason to think they are not human beings or that they are not therefore protected by the Constitution. Lots of groups are not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Having been mentioned in the Constitution as a person is not a prerequisite to protection by the Constitution. Just because unborn human beings are not mentioned as persons, it does not follow that they are not. We do not decide one's humanity by checking to see if he or she has been listed in the Constitution prior to the case at hand. Blackmun's first reason fails to justify the Court's refusal to recognize the unborn as human beings.

Second, Blackmun, surprisingly, claims that Texas could not cite a single case in which a court held that an unborn human being is a person under the 14th Amendment. Hence, according to Blackmun, the Supreme Court had no obligation to recognize the unborn either. The reasoning here is absurd. Even if a prior court had not done so, it does not follow that Blackmun's court should not have done so. Even if a prior case had not addressed the issue, it does not follow that the unborn are not human beings entitled to protection under the 14th Amendment. Further, Blackmun's juridical and historical research was flawed for Steinberg v. Brown, a case which was handled at the federal level just three years prior, recognized that constiutional protection should be extended once life has commenced.

Third, Blackmun argued that throughout most of the 19th century abortion was practiced with fewer legal restrictions than in 1972. Hence, on Blackmun's reasoning, the Court should not recognize the unborn under the 14th Amendment. The reasoning here is fallacious. It does not follow that just because legal restrictions were fewer that the unborn are not entitled to the same protection under the 14th Amendment that other human beings are entitled to. The historical analysis is flawed as well. Almost every state had laws against abortion throughout pregnancy by the end of the 19th century.

The overwhelming consensus from scholars is that Blackmun's history is extremely unreliable. It is obvious that his non sequitars did not help matters either. Surprisingly, Blackmun did not follow the common sense notion that human beings are conceived by human beings and develop in the womb as human beings before being born to human beings. Nor did he follow the commonly accepted embryologic conclusions for textbooks of embryology are clear when human life begins. Nor did he follow the groove already clearly carved out by almost every state in the 19th century, wherein the unborn were already protected throughout pregnancy from unjustified preterm homicide. In fact, 26 of 36 states had already banned abortion by the end of the Civil War. Nor did he recognize the slide into homicide or the fact that abortion rights were not only an over-extension of government powers, but that the line into immorality had been crossed. Nor did he respect the universality of the 14th Amendment. Nor did he recognize (or even mention, despite citing the case) the simple language and reasoning offered just three years prior in Steinberg v. Brown, when the federal court said:

'Contraception, which is dealt with in Griswold, is concerned with preventing the creation of a new and independent life. The right and power of a man or woman to determine whether or not to participate in this process of creation is clearly a private and personal one with which the law cannot and should not interfere.

It seems clear, however, that the legal conclusion in Griswold as to the rights of individuals to determine without governmental interference whether or not to enter into the process of procreation cannot be extended to cover those situations wherein, voluntarily or involuntarily, the preliminaries have ended, and a new life has begun. Once human life has commenced, the constitutional protections found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments impose upon the state the duty of safeguarding it.'

Of course, if he had mentioned this, his legs would have been cut out from under him. Strangely, not only was the decision one of the worst ever offered by the Court, Blackmun's reasoning and research was some of the sloppiest ever recorded as well- and from a Supreme Court Justice! That some defend Roe is a slap in the face of good critical thinking. Roe, in fact, would fit well into a logic textbook hoping to show examples of faulty logical reasoning, not to mention faulty historical, legal, and moral analysis (or the lack thereof) along with a general neglect of the very principles which define our nation as the great nation it is to strive to be.

The 'Thin Constitution' and the Right of the Government to Grant Some the Right to Kill Others Without Adequate Justification

2009-01-14T17:18:00.000-05:00

The existing, but not yet born, human being should be protected by a consideration of the moral law and by a consideration of the principles in the Declaration of Independence. These are what Lincoln appealed to in order to protect the slaves when the Supreme Court (and others) refused to do so during his time in history. He thought that the Constitution should be interpreted in light of the Declaration of Independence. He recognized that the main principles in the Declaration were rooted in the moral law. The American project was to advance the Constitution (and America) in light of the Declaration of Independence project. As Mark Tushnet says, the project of the Constitution was to vindicate the principles in the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution was made for the Declaration and the Declaration was to be continually vindicated or ratified by the Constitution and by our interpretation of the Constitution as we moved through history.

At this point we might see the moral law as layer one and the Declaration as layer two, noting that the civil law should be rooted in the moral law. The Declaration was made because of the moral law and the Constitution was made for both the moral law, layer one, and the Declaration, layer two, recognizing that the Declaration has excellence because it is truly reflecting significant moral principles. From these two layers alone, we can see the mockery unjustified prenatal homicide, whether it be called abortion or something else, is, both to morality, to our Declaration of Independence, and to the USA project. In a very strong sense, unborn human beings, like other human beings, should be protected by both of these layers without question.

But, if we want to add layers, unborn human beings should also be protected by another layer: the thin Constitution. What do we mean? A distinction between the thick Constitution and the thin Constitution might help. To some extent, I will rely on Mark Tushnet here. The thick Constitution includes all of the detailed provisions in the Constitution, most of which Americans are not familiar, including a great many American lawyers, unless they concentrate on Constitutional law. Further, most of the provisions that make up what we are referring to as the thick Constitution are not things that we would necessarily die for or fight for. Most of these provisions have to do with details about how the government operates. If it operated a bit differently, most would probably not be too concerned, and for the most part, for good reason. There are, we might say, primary and secondary features to the Constitution. Or, we might say, there is the spirit of the Constitution and certain key principles, understood by Lincoln and Jefferson, and then also the explicit provisions, many of which are secondary to others, all of which are secondary to the key principles we have in mind here.

But the thin Constitution- the spirit of the founding fathers and the key principles they had in mind- is something that is far more important to us. It is the guarantee that our government is *our* government, i.e., 'We, the people', that the government cannot without due process take our liberty from us, that the government cannot take away our right to protest against it, that the government is committed to treating all men equally, that men have the right to life, liberty and [the opportunity to own] property as they relate to the government and to each other, that we are free to worship God without the government interfering or dictating how, that all men were created equal, etc. We are not talking about specific provisions in the Constitution here. Rather, we are talking about fundamental principles, principles which were the reason the Constitution was written to begin with. The Constitution was *for* these principles. The purpose of the Constitution was to serve and advance these principles, the principles that we celebrate on the 4th of July.

With that background, I now want to show that the thin Constitution is another layer that is significant in the so called 'abortion rights' debate. For the very principles that we are talking about are principles that serve as a foundation to protect innocent people against unjustified homicide, amongst other things, whether it be directed at an individual directly by the government or by another group with the permission of the government. The problem with abortion is that it is typically unjustified homicide. The problem with Roe v. Wade is that the government not only refused to protect a class of human beings against unjustified homicide, it also granted two other classes of human beings- women and apparently doctors- the right to take the life of that class which it refused to protect.

The law would not only turn a blind eye at the federal level and refuse to defend unborn human beings, it would make it such that individual states could not provide the legal protection *they* might want to provide. It would grant women, during pregnancy, the right to take a life while suspending the right of local and state governments to protect the life being taken. Unjustified homicide by a mother carrying a human being in her body [and directed at that human being] became a right and a right that the government would lodge into the law so deeply that it would be extremely difficult to take it away. But the government does not itself, based on the thin Constitution (and a project that aims to be committed to the Declaration of Independence as the golden apple), have a right to give another group or person a right to commit unjustified homicide or hire yet a third group of people, i.e., physicians, to do it for them. A government that can grant that kind of right- the right to commit unjustified homicide between members- is a government that is both too strong and also unequal in its treatment of its members, which is exactly what it is not supposed to be, particularly at the level of life and death, liberty and bondage, the opportunity to acquire property or not, etc. The government has no right to grant a privilege to commit unjustified homicide to one human being against another. Doing so runs directly against the deepest principles of our country.

People worry about the establishment of a religion; they should worry about the establishment of a right to commit homicide. That is essentially what Roe v. Wade did and it did it despite the fact that by the beginning of the 19th century anti-abortion laws had been on the books in almost every state for the precise purpose of protecting the unborn from injustice. That means that one Court over-ruled all legislative groups with respect to this issue, despite the fact that laws protecting innocent unborn human beings had been on the books in nearly every state for around 170 years. To tie a state's hand with respect to unjustfied homicide is bad enough. To give specific individuals the right to kill other individuals without adequate justification is worse yet, not to mention the atrocity of refusing to defend a group of human beings or human beings in a certain group against unjustified homicide. Based on the thin Constitution, the federal government had no right to do any of this. It not only acted against the moral law, it acted against the Declaration as well. But, beyond that, it acted against the thin Constitution, not just in one respect, but in several. The Supreme Court made a mockery of the very principles we celebrate.

It continues to do so thirty plus years later, hiding behind stare decisis, despite the fact that the country had a longer tradition of law at the state level (in nearly every state) that directly opposed unjustified prenatal homicide. Also, it continues to do so despite the fact that the thin Constitution, the Declaration, the Constitution interpreted in light of the Declaration, the moral law, the Constitution interpreted in light of the moral law, and all explicit provisions within the Constitution in light of the thin Constitution, the Declaration and moral law, all run counter to the Supreme Court's current position, which is a position that places the Court outside or above the moral law, i.e., no longer subservient to it, and outside the law of 'We, the people', both with respect to the fact that the matter cannot made right by the people in the legislative branches and with respect to the fact that some are not being protected by the very principles 'We, the people' demanded of our government to begin with, i.e., that the government would not turn against any one of us by granting another or itself a special privilege against us with respect to life, liberty and the opportunity for property.

Some Refuse to Take the Morally Safer Course While Realizing that Human Life is at Stake

2009-01-13T11:52:00.000-05:00

One of the more interesting things about Obama when he is speaking about abortion is that there are times when he seems to be trying to appear "neutral" and other times, as when he spoke to Planned Parenthood, when he does not. Some of the more interesting features of his attempts to appear 'neutral' or, at least reasonable on the issue, as opposed to the ideological appearance he gave to Planned Parenthood, include: (1) an explicit admission that this is a moral issue, (2) talk of wanting to decrease the number of abortions, (3) an apparent strain, as though he also implicitly recognizes the morality of the issue and the fact that human life is at stake.

But what makes it a moral issue? He admits that it is, but what makes it one? Further, why should anyone be concerned to reduce the number of abortions? We can recall Clinton wanting to make abortion 'safe, legal, and rare'. But why rare? Is there something wrong with all of these abortions, after all? Moreover, why the apparent strain in discussing the matter? Is human life at stake, in Obama's mind? If not, why try to reduce the number of abortions? Is Obama not sure? After all, he said it was above his pay-grade to decide if life begins at conception. If he is not sure, why does he not error on the side of caution against unjustified homicide? If he is sure that human life is not at stake, why is it a moral issue, implicitly and explicitly, for him and why should we try to reduce the number of abortions? Of course there is no reason for Obama to be confused. Human beings conceive other human beings and those human beings develop and grow in the womb before they are born. Abortion is a deliberate attempt to destroy human beings in the womb. It is successful when it does do so. But, even if he is confused, why does he not error on the side of caution? If a hunter thinks an innocent man might be in the bush, does he shoot into it anyway? If an exterminator has evidence that a human being might be in the building and that his actions might exterminate the human being as well as the 'bugs', does he go ahead with the extermination despite the evidence? Of course not. He takes the morally safer course, especially when the stakes are higher. And it is the case with abortion that most abortions are not necessary by any means. They are done for reasons of convenience, mostly. This means they do not usually have to be done at all. And so, most of the time there is not an overriding reason to justify *not* taking the morally safer course of action in these cases.

In most other aspects of our lives, we would take the morally safer course. We would error on the side of not causing harm. We would error on the side of not doing a wrong, especially a wrong like unjustified homicide. I do this in medical practice quite frequently when presented with competing options. I find the safer, more moral choice when I can. Why should this be different? Some will mention 'women's rights' at this point or speak of 'reproductive rights'. However, this only works if we ignore the rights of those being killed or act as though all men are not created equal and not equally deserving of a right not to be killed without adequate justification by their fellow men.

Interestingly, the Supreme Court did the exact same thing. It said it did not know when life began, decided to let each mother decide for herself, and then gave her the right to not only decide, but to destroy human life. But if the Court did not know, it could just as well have done two things: (a) found out, or (b) taken the morally safer course.

Intra-Uterine, Prenatal Surgery vs. Intra-Uterine, Prenatal Homicide

2009-01-13T08:52:00.000-05:00

Samuel Alexander Adams, pictured above, was operated on while in the womb. The physician performed the surgery to promote health and life, not just in the abstract, but in Samuel's life. Contrast this with actions taken to deliberately kill other children in the womb. Also, contrast the results, not just the intentions. See the picture above and then see photos which show the results of a successful abortion.

I want to emphasize several things here.

First, note the the different intentions or purposes.

Second, note the different results.

Third, note that some choose intra-uterine homicide as a solution when a child has spina bifida, whereas the parents of Samuel Alexander Adams chose to promote life and health even while Samuel was in the womb.

Fourth, note that Samuel would not be at the stage of development he is at today if his mother had hired a physician to kill him (assuming the success of the abortion).

Fifth, note that the physician doing the surgery would not be at the stage of development he is currently in if he had been successfully aborted. That means that he would not have been doing the surgery on Samuel in order that Samuel might be benefited. For that matter, I would not be able to witness the matter or report on it as I currently am if I had not survived that stage of development. Neither would those in the abortion rights camp be trying to promote abortion rights if they had been aborted successfully.

Sixth, if we are at the point of doing things to radically help human beings in the womb, how is it that we can also turn a blind eye on them when some want us to do so, even to the point of allowing them to die at the hands of confused mothers and physicians? Imagine the same physician performing Samuel's surgery in Room A and then moving into Room B to deliberately kill the next Samuel without adequate justification. Similarly, but more commonly, imagine a physician prescribing prenatal vitamins for the health of the mother and child (folic acid, for example, to prevent spina bifida) in Room A while prescribing intra-uterine homicide in Room B. The tension should be obvious.

Seventh, why should the child in the womb in the second picture not have Fourteenth Amendment protection? If the surgeon had gone into a fit of rage and terror at the moment of seeing the child's arm come out and decided to hack it off while photos were being taken, how would the media have handled it? Would the child be a human being or not? Would an injustice have been done or not? Would real harm have been done to a human being or not, on their minds? How would they have reacted?

Eighth, despite the fascination that some in the media had with intrauterine surgery, there seems to be a paucity of interest with intrauterine homicide in some circles.

Ninth, think of what we would want Samuel Alexander (pictured above) to grow up doing- performing intra-uterine surgery as his surgeon did or performing intra-uterine homicide. Which would we celebrate? Imagine a case similar to Samuel's, but different in that the intra-uterine surgery was needed to actually save his life. Say that it had to be done before birth in order that he might live out of the womb. Say that it was done and that it was successful. Now fast forward and imagine the individual who was saved by the surgery going about performing intra-uterine homicide without adequate justification. The irony should be palpable, i.e., despite having himself been saved while in utero, our imaginary figure in our example now destroys others while in utero.

Tenth, the surgeon who performed Samuel's case was treated as a hero. Are abortionists to be exalted on high as well? Why not? Because there is something fundamentally different between what Samuel's surgeon did in order to heal and what takes place in abortion clinics in order to harm, destroy, and kill. But it is not just that they are different, but that one is good and one is wrong, either across the board or in cases when a high level of justification is not met, which, unfortunately, is the typical case these days.

Infanticide and Prenatal Homicide

2009-01-12T16:12:00.000-05:00

The picture at the top shows a human being in the womb. The picture at the bottom shows a human being out of the womb. What makes it morally right to deliberately kill one and not the other? Why should the legal system protect the life of the one, but not the other? Why should a father have the right to protect the one against harm (and even be thought of as acting quite appropriately, even in terms of excellence for defending his vulnerable children against unjustified harm), but not the other? Why would a doctor have a moral or legal right to protect the one (and be thought of in terms of excellence for doing so) and kill the other?

A Lincolnian America: The Golden Apple and the Silver Frame

2009-01-11T15:47:00.000-05:00

For Lincoln, the Constitution was like a silver frame around the Declaration of Independence, which was Lincoln's golden apple. The Constitution, open to many competing interpretations, was to be understood in terms of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence was the golden apple in the silver frame. Lincoln said the father of all moral principles was 'all men are created equal'. The Declaration was important to Lincoln because it made explicit this principle. The Constitution, then, is like a silver frame around this central principle, a principle which was to inform one's interpretation of the Constitution. Further, Lincoln would have agreed that the central principle is connected to or a part of or grounded in morality. He also would have agreed that the natural moral law was rooted in a necessary being that we call 'God'. And so we have the Constitution being interpreted in light of the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Independence being interpreted in light of morality rooted in a Creator/Necessaryb being that we call 'God'. This was Lincoln's America. It was Jefferson's America. It was Martin Luther King's America.

Some are now opposed to that set of conclusions. Some want 'God' out, morality out, and the Declaration of Independence out- one or all, completely, or to this or that degree or in this or that respect, if not all respects. Some want the 'God'/-morality-Declaration of Independence chain removed from government decision making- completely, or to this or that degree or in this or that respect, if not all respects. Even if one agrees to remove 'God' as much as possible, they then call for morality to go too. Even if one thinks he can let morality go, in theory, they then ask for the Declaration of Independence to go. They are then left with a Constitution that can be interpreted, in theory, alone. It is a sort of Constitution-alone-ism, sola Constitution-ism. But, in reality, the Constitution never ends up being interpreted alone. Rather, it is always interpreted in light of this or that philosophy or theology or larger view of man, his nature and his destiny. Trying to interpret the Constitution alone leads to a never-ending supply of contradictory interpretations and shifting frames as the underlying philosophical positions change, usually without being noted explicitly, with no one being able to declare which is best without appealing to a larger, more complete view.

So, when the Court interprets the Constitution, you have to keep in mind what is in the frame and whether what is in the frame is rooted in anything more fundamental. If it is Lincoln's golden apple, which is golden because it is rooted in morality, which is rooted in a necessary being we call 'God', we are on the best ground one can find philosophically. If not, we are left foundationless, ultimately, while standing, proximally, on something that is typically a distortion of a greater good or, if not a distortion of a greater good, a lesser good being put in the place of a greater good, which itself is a distortion of sorts.

Addendum: At this point some will say that I am introducing 'God' into the argument.

First, note that I am here not arguing for why abortion is wrong or why it should be illegal by appealing to special revelation. If we think unjustified homicide is wrong and we agree that most abortions are examples of unjustified homicide, we can conclude that most abortions are wrong. If we think that civil law should, on matters of unjustified homicide, reflect and correspond with the morality of unjustified homicide such that we legally treat all men as though they really are equal under the law, with special attention on basic, fundamental human goods, we have adequate reason to protect those human beings in the prenatal stage of development, just as we protect those in the post-natal stage of development.

Second, for those who would appeal to the separation of Church and State mentality here, let me say that a Lincolnian view can be defended on *philosophical* grounds, apart from any particular religion or special revelation. Before we get within a hundred miles of special revelation or any particular religion, we can argue *philosophically* for the existence of a necessary, independent, perfect, purely actual, self-sufficient, uncaused, free, rational, personal creator that we call 'God'. There is nothing irrational or unreasonable in doing so. The same can be said about traditional natural law thinking. There would be nothing unreasonable or irrational in the people doing so as a nation for a nation, just like a person, needs to decide whether it will agree with the Declaration of Independence or not when it the Declaration of Independence declares that 'all men are created equal' and 'endowed with by their Creator' with certain basic, fundamental basic goods or rights. It also needs to decide whether it will defend *all* human beings, legally, or whether it will pick and choose, leaving some defenseless when others use might against them in a way that violates moral rightness. These are basic things that a nation needs to decide at a *philosophical* level, long before it gets to issues of special revelation or issues of how a necessary, independent being may have acted in history through this or that people or this or that person in this or that way to reveal this or that to anyone. Separation of religion from state is not the same as separation of philosophy from state.

Third, even if a nation did not want to explicitly and philosophically commit to the existence of a necessary, independent, uncaused cause as first cause and creator, it could still commit itself to the protection of basic human goods, like life and health, and to a position that opposes unjustified homicide, and to the notion that all men are equal under the law with respect to the protection on their lives that the government will afford them.

But we live in an age of -isms, i.e., multi-culturalism, relativism, scientism, positivism, new age-ism, Marxism, modern atheism, neo-Darwinism, materialism, naturalism, and the rest, with some preferring these to Lincoln's set of conclusions, typically without defending them or offering evidence for them and many times sliding them in implicitly to the interpretation they offer of this or that. We should also make clear that some are quite clear that they do not like Lincoln's conclusions (or the West) at all and that they are interested in doing whatever they can to undermine those conclusions. Take, for example, humanists, secular progressives, and many modern atheists. But the nation will need to decide which way it wants to go and which *philosophy* it wants to be formally committed to, Lincoln's or perhaps some sort of relativistic, multi-culturalism that promotes a pseudo-tolerance that seems open to everything except the very claims Lincoln would have brought to the table, which it opposes more than anything else and which is, many times, really its most defining feature, i.e., anti-West, anti-morality, anti-'God', anti-tradition, anti-religion, anti-perennial philosophy, anti-family, anti-culture of life, anti-religion, and the rest, typically, but not always, combined with positive features like a strong interest in central planning, higher taxes, bigger government, third party 'elite' decision making, socialistic economics, government solutions for just about everything, lots of government regulation, and the rest. Again, the nation will need to decide and stop trying to hold a posture of neutrality on the most important things. In the meantime, we should all be opposed to unjustified prenatal homicide for the same reasons we would be opposed to infanticide. If we do not know why infanticide is wrong, perhaps we need to go back and learn more about Lincoln's Golden Apple.

Conception Control, Birth Control and Abortion

2009-01-11T13:32:00.001-05:00

In Roe v. Wade, the Court argued that abortion was a form of birth control and that because the Court had previously permitted contraception, it would also permit birth control, consider abortion a form of birth control, and then say that it is protected by privacy.

But several things must be noted, in addition to the picture above, which is what the Court is permitting and what some abortion rights groups are encouraging, in part.

(1) Conception control and birth control are not the same. Conception has to take place in order for birth to later take place, in the relevant sense, i.e., child-birth. Conception is prior to child birth-control. The two are not the same in time or nature. Admittedly, in a remote sense, conception control can be a form of birth control for if nothing is conceived because conception was prevented, nothing can be birthed. But once a human being is conceived and we want to talk about child-birth control, we are talking about an entirely different matter. We are not talking about preventing the coming into existence of a child, but preventing the birth of a child? Or, are we?

(2) Is abortion really a form of birth control if birth control has to do with child-birth? With abortion as a form of child-birth control, which, again, is not the same as conception control, we are talking about abortion *after* conception has taken place. But that is not quite right either. For there is a sense in which we can speak of a birth after the abortion takes place, in which case the homicide did not prevent the birth at all. It only prevents, if successful, the *live* birth after conception has taken place. So, abortion is a form of live birth control, when the homicide is intra-uterine, but even then it does not prevent a birth, unless we want to say that birth requires an unified entity moving through the birth canal, which is not always the case after the instruments are used to rip the human being apart, into a variety of pieces.

(3) But the homicide is not always intra-uterine. Sometimes birth is induced before the human being can possibly survive outside the womb and the child is left to die. Was this birth-control? Not at all. It did not prevent a birth, after all.

(4) Others times we have a partial-birth, followed by homicide, followed by the completion of the birth. Is this birth-control? No. The human being was half-born while alive with the birth to completion taken place, presumably, after the child was no longer alive. Birth still took place.

(5) In none of what we have seen so far have we seen abortion really acting as a form of birth control in the child-birth sense. Children are still born. It is just that some are dead, some are alive, some unified and some dis-unified.

(6) What people really mean, I guess, with the term birth control, then, is number of children outside the womb control. But this is not always right either. For with partial birth abortions, the child was part-way outside of the womb and alive before being killed. So, the number of live children outside the womb of any given mother went up with that child, despite the fact that that child was killed while part-way outside and part-way inside the womb. Also, again, some have been delivered alive under the banner 'abortion' to be smothered or left to die outside the womb, despite being alive outside the womb and adding to the number of children outside the womb. In this case, the act did not prevent birth or life outside the womb. It only influenced how long that life might exist outside the womb.

(7) It turns out, then, that abortion can be a great many acts. In fact, it has and some of those had little to do with birth or existence of a living human being outside the womb. The Born Alive Infant Protection Act and the ban against Partial Birth Abortion may once again limit abortion such that we can refer to it again as a form of live birth control, but what is most important is that abortion is a form of homicide, regardless of attempts to classify it as a form of child-birth control. It is, in fact, a form of homicide against human beings in the prenatal stage of development. We should not confuse birth control with conception control. Nor should we confuse homicide against human beings in the prenatal stage of development with birth control, accept in the limited sense that prenatal homicide may influence the timing of the birth, whether the child being given birth to is alive, and the rest. Certainly, in most instances, abortion does not prevent birth, which is the important point here. Knowing that abortion does not typically prevent birth and that it is not a form of conception control (for conception has already taken place by this point), we must now look further into the Court's decision in Roe.

(8) We need not look far. The Court seemed to be saying that conception control was protected by privacy by the Court in a prior case. The Court thought it could then classify abortion as a form of birth control and protect it in like manner under a privacy clause. The problems are: (a) birth control is not conception control, as some would have us think, (b) abortion is not really birth control in the prevention of child-birth sense, for children are still born, whether in pieces, alive or dead, and (c) abortion is, by nature, homicide, with matters of conception and birth being secondary. and (d) protecting non-homicidal acts under the clause of privacy is one thing, but protecting 'homicidal' acts under the banner of privacy is quite another. In other words, the Court was wrong to classify abortion into the conception control territory, wrong to think of it as birth control in the child-birth sense, wrong to miss the very nature of abortion, and wrong to try to blind people to the very nature of abortion with its confusion about conception control and birth control.

(9) But when we reflect on the very nature of birth and the very nature of birth prevention, we see that abortion is not to be equated with birth prevention, as typically performed. (I guess a c-section style of abortion with delivery out of the womb through the abdomen might prevent vaginal child-birth, but there would, even then, be a form of delivery and a movement from the womb.) In fact, the entire goal of an abortion is twofold: remove the human being from the woman's body and make sure that the human being is not alive shortly thereafter. A more narrowly framed goal: deliberately kill the human being within the mother's body, and then remove it from the mother's body (which, of course, was not exactly what we had with partial birth abortions or with induced delivery abortions). By seeing that birth control is not conception control and that abortion is not really birth control, unless perhaps live birth control, we can start to see what it is really is. The Court should have understood that this is not really about conception control nor really about birth control, but about deliberate homicide to control the number of children one has outside the womb for an extended period of time, or, less accurately, about live birth control or meant to be alive for long control, regardless of birth. One can get to that by thinking about the goal of abortion and what makes it a success. One can also get to that by thinking about conception control, birth control, and why abortion does not always, or even usually, prevent birth as such, which is what we have largely looked at here, in passing, briefly.

(10) Now we are in a position to see the problem with the last move made by the Supreme Court- the appeal to privacy. Having tried to avoid the very nature of abortion, it appealed to privacy. This is a problem for homicide is not generally protected or justified under the privacy clause. If it were, we would not have to fear the law when we killed people, only when we killed them publicly. Conception control might be protected by privacy. Very well. If there were a form of birth control or birth prevention that was not also homicide against those in the prenatal stage of development, it might also be protected by privacy. But unjustified homicide cannot be protected by privacy legitimately. The only remaining problem is that that is exactly what the Court has attempted to do, despite the absurdity of doing so when the euphemisms and confusions are removed and we see the thing for what it really is. The Court was trying to protect privacy with respect to reproductive decisions and that sounds fine when the decisions are framed in terms of conception control and non-homicidal birth control, but once we see that homicide is at work, everything changes. There is a big difference between a woman privately trying to decide how many children she will have and her actually killing one of the children she does have. There is a big difference between a woman deciding, without government interference, when and if she will have sexual relations in order that she might regulate how many children she has and when and the same woman deciding to and then actually killing a child she already has. On the one side, there is no moral wrong. On the other, there is and it is quite significant, making a mockery of our typical characteristic stance against unjustified homicide.

The Civil Rights Problem of Our Day: Unjustified Prenatal Homicide

2009-01-09T21:33:00.000-05:00

In _Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality_, Thomas Sowell tells us some very interesting things about the new civil rights movement. I recommend his work in general and this work in particular, though it does not deal with abortion as such. But, I want to tie his work in with some of what we have been covering recently.

Sowell notes that 'civil rights' talk has become a way of arguing for just about anything. People can argue for preferential treatment that they did not earn, that they are not qualified to have, and that is at the expense of other people without much difficulty these days. Sowell speaks of the 'scramble for special privilege, for turf, and for image'. He notes that there is a new type of civil rights, a new vision. I think this is very true, and for a variety of reasons.

As we have noted, it is one that is oftentimes not rooted at all in morality, in right and wrong. Sometimes, it is directly at odds with what is right. When the 'women's rights' movement included 'abortion rights' in its platform it basically took to arguing for a right for a woman to commit homicide. In other words, it argued for (and continues to) a special privilege to be granted by the government and then protected by the government. That privilege, if we can call it that, was a free pass on homicide against the unborn. That so- called 'right' is a wrong. The homicidal nature of abortion is what 'abortion rights' advocates want to push to the side, but it is precisely here that we have a so-called 'right' that is actually a wrong. This is just one more example of 'civil rights' rhetoric being used to justify just about any special privilege that a 'civil rights' group can think of, regardless of morality, regardless of cost, regardless of what has been earned, regardless of qualifications, regardless of fairness, and the rest.

This new type of civil rights movement, as we have noted, is vastly different than what Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln had in mind. What they had in mind were civil rights that were basic and that were also rooted in natural law ethics. But, as Sowell notes, today we have moved from equal opportunity to affirmative action. We have moved from equal opportunity to equal results, regardless of the contribution of the individual. We have moved from 'rights' to quotas. We have moved from basic equality with respect to opportunity to attempts at statistical parity, regardless of input. We have moved from *protecting* basic human goods to *providing* special privileges to this or that group, all under the banner of 'civil rights'.

Note the differences. Note the move from basic to non-basic. Note the move from protecting to providing. Note also that the original Bill of Rights was mostly about protecting the people from the government, whereas now we have a 'civil rights' movement that is more interested in providing special privileges to minority groups and minority views through governmental, political and legal action. Whereas Martin Luther King fought for the equal treatment under the law of all human beings, many 'civil rights' groups today fight for special treatment under the law for this or that group. Unfortunately, morality is oftentimes ignored in these political and legal discussions, despite the fact that that is precisely what Martin Luther King was arguing from. Moreover, the potential harm or cost or consequence is also many times ignored, as when Jane Fonda and Tedd Turner advocated our leaving the Vietnam War quite aggressively, but failed to consider the possible consequences, i.e., that 1.5 to 3 million civilians might be slaughtered when we did in fact leave, which is what happened, of course, when no one was there to protect them from harm's way.

Similarly, some argue for women's rights to the point of abortion rights, but fail to take into account the negative impact abortion has on women, the family unit, the moral fabric of the nation, and, of course, the human beings being killed. It is easy to talk of setting women free. It is easy to speak of a goal, however lofty. It is altogether a different matter to talk of just what might make women free and just what the ramifications might be of this or that attempt. To think that "abortion rights" will set women free is to think that homicide will set women free. But if unjustified homicide is not wrong, there is nothing wrong, and if it is wrong, in what sense should we expect it to really set anyone free, most of all women?

Many who are most interested in 'civil rights' are majoring in minors while ignoring the major, or, in fact, turning against it. They are, in fact, arguing for tertiary things while either failing to argue for primary things- basic things- or, in fact, arguing against the protection of basic human goods, at least with respect to a certain group, which makes it more ironic. And so we have political figures like Bill Clinton who fight for the notion of health-care as a right, while also fighting for abortion rights, which means fighting against the right of one group of human beings to be protected by law and fighting for another group to have a special privilege to commit homicide against that other group.

Similarly, we have many abortion rights advocates who are, on the one hand, quite concerned about the life of the man on 'death row' being taken while the human being on 'womb row' is ignored or rallied against. Others are quite concerned about whether an Eagle egg is destroyed while fighting aggressively for the special privilege of women and doctors to commit homicide against innocents in the womb, as if an Eagle's right to life in the egg is more important than a child's right to life in the womb. Or, alternatively, as though a woman's right- special privilege-to choose to have and then carry out an abortion is something to be protected and encouraged while hunting an Eagle or harming a nest with Eagle eggs in it is something that must be banned at all costs with fines and other consequences. And, of course, some who argue against homicide in general argue for abortion rights, which is in need of careful explanation. As an example, note how some would argue for the Unborn Victims Protection Act and against Partial Birth Abortion while also arguing for the right of a woman to commit homicide against the human being in the womb, despite the fact that human beings in the womb can be recognized as persons otherwise and protected otherwise, so long as we are not talking about abortion, that is.

To summarize, some of the most interesting things about the new civil rights movement include:

(1) the drift from natural law ethics- sometimes even the strong movement against natural law ethics or an attempt to disconnect civil rights from moral rights

(2) the move from basic goods and rights to things that are not even rights at all- majoring in minors while ignoring or working against basic majors

(3) the move from protection to providing

(4) the move from rights to privileges, even at the expense of others

(5) the move from rights to quotas, statistical parity, and equal results, regardless of input, qualifications, skill level, and the rest

(6) the move from choice within the context of morality to choice regardless of morality, as if choice is a right that can trump all other things, even when it is a choice that is at the expense of another human being basic human goods.

(7) the move or tendency toward a selective regard for some cases and some groups and some individuals while having a disregard for others

(8) the move of placing the special privileges of some above the basic human goods of others.

But we should not be confused by this new movement. Nor should we lose sight of what is most important. To put it simply, the civil rights of those on womb row are more in need of protecting now than ever. Abortion is THE (or one of THE major) civil rights problem(s) of our day. If you feel bad because a darker skinned man had to step off the side-walk when a lighter skinned man walked by, you should feel worse when you realize that the weakest and most innocent amongst us, many of whom are darker skinned, are being killed by others at a rate of 3700 a day in the US alone. If you feel bad because the KKK took the lives of some innocent darker skinned individuals (as you should) with the rope, you should feel just as bad (at least) when you realize that some are taking the lives of innocent human beings in the womb. If you feel bad that someone on death row might be killed tomorrow even if he is guilty, you should feel worse about the 3700 who will be killed tomorrow on 'womb row' who are not guilty. If you think all should be treated equally under the law, you should be concerned that those in the womb are not even being provided with basic protection from homicide under the law. Let us stop acting like less important things are more important than the most important, most basic things. Let us see when so called 'civil rights' movements have become trivial, gone too far, or, worse, turned their attention to fighting for the right- special privilege- to do a wrong, which, as Lincoln declared, no one has.

Positive Rights and Natural Rights

2009-01-05T08:43:00.000-05:00

Martin Luther King, Jr. was arguing for positive, civil rights *from* natural rights. He moved from natural rights rooted in natural law ethics to civil, positive rights. Lincoln did the same when dealing with the slavery dispute. But the drift from natural rights means that "rights" talk can take on just about any form one can think of, with just about anything being argued for under the banner of rights, even if it is quite superficial, or, worse, wrong and deadly. Not only do people declare just about anything a "right", they declare things that are wrong "rights". The 'rights' either lack moral substance or go directly against morality. When this happens, 'rights' become whatever can be legislated, regardless of morality. Political might then makes "rights" while right and wrong are pushed to the side. The so called right to abortion, ironically, not being rooted in natural rights, has no substantial foundation at all. It is typically grounded in the euphemism of 'women's rights', but this just drives the problem back for we generally do not grant women the right to commit homicide or hire doctors to do it for them. Euphemisms should not be the ground of a "right" to homicide, which is exactly what any talk of abortion rights boils down to. Further, when we act like abortion rights are just as much of a right as the right to life or the right of innocent human beings not to be killed without justification by other human beings, we take a wrong and place it above a moral right. The mistake is twofold for there is an error with respect to rightness, i.e., a wrong is chosen, done or advocated, and an error in trying to justify the wrongness in a way that places it above something that is a basic, fundamental human good. Also, there is a complete disconnect from natural rights and an undermining of natural rights, either by marginalization or by denial or by inversion, which means that 'abortion rights' cannot be grounded in natural rights, regardless of the rightness or wrongness of abortion. The problem goes further, however. For if natural rights are not to be the proper foundation for positive law and positive rights, i.e., basic civil rights, anything can become a 'right' and there is no longer anyway to protect our own basic human rights to things like life and health and knowledge. Abortion rights, without natural rights, could not be vindicated and so no rights could be vindicated, even the right to life of abortion advocates themselves. Any positive protection from the law, if natural rights are ignored or pushed aside, will only be grounded in might or political action. Any majority could give the right, but then take it away with the next election. For that matter, any minority might be able to as well (for it is more and more common for minority viewpoints to be given more and more political power these days, at least in our own country, where the country is, in a sense, being turned over to minority, special interest groups through judicial activism, media attempts to get 'interesting' and controversial stories to increase ratings, university/educational efforts at being novel in publications, and the rest).

Do Doctors Have the Right To Commit Unjustified Homicide?

2009-01-04T16:43:00.000-05:00

Rights talk is common these days but it has drifted from natural rights and is increasingly becoming a way of demanding whatever one wants, regardless of morality. Some examples might help. Take the so called right to health-care. It can simply mean: each person should have an opportunity to access the health-care system. That goal seems quite reasonable. Many times, however, what it really means is this: the government should have the right to take person A's earnings and pay for person B's healthcare expenses, regardless of what person A thinks about this, regardless of whether person B contributes anything to the arrangement, and regardless of the consequences of such an arrangement, including the incentives and disincentives. Others argue for special privileges under the term 'rights', hoping politicians will not consider whether they have earned the privilege or whether it is really optimal to have other people earning it for them. We see this with affirmative action. Some even argue for the right to things that they could not possibly have a right to, as when some argue for the right to marriage, but cannot bring the necessary features implied by marriage to the relationship they are hoping will be recognized as marriage. Others argue for animal rights, when in fact animals do not have rights- at least not human rights because they are not human beings, but mere animals. Others argue for the right to abortion, which is prenatal homicide, and so the right to perform or hire a doctor to perform prenatal homicide. Some women are arguing for the right to have this done or the right for other women to have this done. Presumably, some doctors would argue for the right to perform the act of abortion and so the right to prenatal homicide. If they think it should be legal, then in fact they are arguing for the legal right to do it or to allow other physicians to do it. So-called "abortion rights" apply, apparently, to doctors, not just to women- a point often missed in current discussions. Roe v. Wade did not just give women the right to an abortion. It gave doctors the right to do abortions to consenting women and to unconsenting human beings in the womb. But since when does a doctor have a right to take an innocent human being's life without adequate justification? A case like an ectopic pregnancy can be understood, but most abortions are done in the context of an intrauterine pregnancy that resulted from consensual sex and are performed for reasons of convenience when there is not a life threat to the mother or the unborn. And so we must ask: Do doctors mean to be saying to the world that they have a right to commit unjustified homicide if given consent by the mother of a human being when that human being is in the womb? Based on the actions of some, that seems to be exactly what some doctors seem to be saying. But from whence does this so-called "right" come and how can it be rooted in morality when its very nature is deliberate homicide? In the end, a good deal that is done in the name of women's rights does not squarely address whether the doctor has a right to commit unjustified homicide upon the request of women. Further, another thing that needs to be kept in mind is whether or not any particular example of rights talk is in fact rooted in morality for when it drifts from morality, it can be a cloak for just about anything, including things that are quite wrong, like unjustified homicide, which no one, not even a doctor, has a moral right to do. Rights talk can sound great in a world where some want to be like Martin Luther King, Jr., but we must always keep in mind how it squares with what is [morally] right, remembering to deal with the realities at hand sincerely and authentically, as Martin Luther King, Jr. did, knowing that knowledge is not enough but that we must also be concerned with the right use of good knowledge if we are to be the type of people we want to be.

Merry Christmas!- A Celebration- A Festival

2008-12-25T11:42:00.000-05:00

On Christmas people around the world celebrate the birth of Christ. On birthdays, in general, we celebrate the birth of this or that person we know. We are celebrating the existence of the person who was born that day. We are celebrating the fact that the person was born. We are having a festival around or about that fact, at a minimum, though usually we are throwing in a lot more, implicitly, as we reflect on the joy the person has brought into our lives, how our lives are more meaningful because of the relationship we have with the person, the dignity of the person, and the rest. These celebrations frame our lives. They put the mundane in a new light. They are times we put aside for consideration of the most important things in life, i.e., important others, life in general, the highest principles, certain historical events, and the rest. We know x. We know x is important. We know that we are to live in a way that is consistent with x. With a celebration of an individual's life, we recognize that we know the person, that the person is significant, and we live in a way that is consistent with the dignity of the person. We lift the person up. We reflect on and celebrate, in action and thought, what is really important, putting aside, for the moment, the millions of secondary things that are not as important. In other words, we put aside our attempts to major in minors and, at least for a time, major in a major. When we do this, we benefit, as do those around us. We experience joy and a richness that has an inner logic that should not be forgotten. We convey that to others. Such celebratory acts are some of our greatest moral successes. I recall, while in medical school, just after our second son was born, fellow students having a celebration for us. The class came together, united in love and in celebration of something great. And yet some of the same had implicitly or explicitly, at other times, endorsed abortion, not realizing the tension between the inner logic of a celebration of life and the inner logic of homicide. When we celebrate someone's birth or life, we do something that is entirely different than what is done when we intentionally take an innocent someone's life. Note that we do not typically celebrate unjustified homicide. Rather, we celebrate life, conception, birth, growth, health, success, goodness, and the rest, while trying to avoid attention being drawn to acts of unjustified homicide. I ask physicians and health-care providers to deeply consider what these celebrations imply and to contrast them with things like unjustified homicide and child molestation. When are we really at our highest? When are we really at our lowest? How do we want to be remembered- as a killer of innocent human beings or as a celebrator of life, health, goodness, unity, and being? Each of us must ask ourselves such questions as individuals. We must also ask such questions as a community- as a profession of healthcare providers and as a nation of citizens. As a physician, if I am going to celebrate life and health and births and conceptions and growth and development, and so be in favor of a culture of life and celebrations of the same, why should I negate or act against all of that by supporting unjustified prenatal homicide?

Rx: Homicide

2008-12-23T20:15:00.000-05:00

While it is common for Planned Parenthood to present itself as a family planning organization, we have to ask what the plan is, how the plan is carried out, what the incentives and consequences will be, and whether the actions taken are within the context of the good, the right, and the moral. Some physicians argue that a woman should be able to make the decision whether she brings another human being into the world or not. Hence, they do not want Roe v. Wade overturned. Hence, they are for so-called 'abortion rights'. Others talk about how women have a right to control how many children they have. Much is done under the pretense of 'family planning'. And, there is nothing wrong with family planning. People should make responsible choices about when they are going to have children, whether they are going to have children, how many children they are going to have, and the rest. Having children is serious business. That is part of what makes sexual relations so serious [but not the only part]. Given that, the problem is that Planned Parenthood, along with abortion physicians, come in all too often *after* the new family member *already exists*. Then, they prescribe abortion, which is homicide. And so, it is not, in such cases, that a woman is being taught to plan for the future; rather, she is dealing with a human being in the present, with the help of the physician performing the abortion on the child, and, sometimes, family planning organizations like Planned Parenthood. Most people are not forced to bring children into the world. Most are not forced to have sexual relations. But, once a new member of the family is in the world, there is no longer a choice to be made about bringing that individual into the world. That human being is already in the world, while in the womb. The only choice left is whether or not to end the life of that human being *before* that human being gets out of the prenatal stage of development or out of the womb and out of the mother's body. This is not family planning. It is not even conception planning. Rather, it is homicide. Homicide in the womb, then, is being used, as a way of controlling family size out of the womb, i.e., the number of family members existing on earth out of the womb. That is, the number of people in the family of a certain age and level of development is being controlled by and through homicide. Imagine now if we started going to doctors and asking for prescriptions to end the lives of other family members, all in the name of family planning. 'Is someone in the family too dependent, too ugly, too inconvenient, too unwanted, too expensive? The doctor has just the prescription, Rx: Homicide.' And, he or she will sometimes do the killing for you. Planning a family with the help of a physician is one thing. Killing a family member with the help of a physician is another. Family planning and family killing are two different things.

Intrauterine vs. Extrauterine Homicide

2008-12-20T23:00:00.000-05:00

I recently received this, which helps to make a point:

A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said: 'Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help! My baby is not even 1 yr. old and I'm pregnant again. I don't want kids so close together.'

So the doctor said: 'Ok, and what do you want me to do?'

She said: 'I want you to end my pregnancy, and I'm counting on your help with this.'

The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said to the lady: 'I think I have a better solution for your problem. It's less dangerous for you too.'

She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her request. Then he continued: 'You see, in order for you not to have to take care of 2 babies at the same time, let's kill the one in your arms. This way, you could rest some before the other one is born. If we're going to kill one of them, it doesn't matter which one it is. There would be no risk for your body if you chose the one in your arms.'

The lady was horrified and said: 'No doctor! How terrible! It's a crime to kill a child!'

'I agree', the doctor replied. 'But you seemed to be ok with it, so I thought maybe that was the best solution.'

The doctor smiled, realizing that he had made his point.

He convinced the mom that there is no difference in killing a child that's already been born and one that's still in the womb. The nature of the act is the same!