Do Democratic Presidencies Reduce Abortion Rates?

Of course not.

A Man's Opinion on Abortion

Just heard a guy say, "As a male, I believe that my opinion on abortion should not be weighed as heavily as a female's."

What he should have said: "As a former fetus, I believe that my opinion should be weighed as heavily as any other former fetus's--by the evidence supporting my opinion."

Keep the Spotlight on Planned Parenthood

Stephen Heaney:

Do not be distracted by misdirection. Do not let the horror of abortion be the main issue. Stick to the pertinent facts: Planned Parenthood is profiting from the sale of fetal parts. Planned Parenthood is routinely violating federal law. Planned Parenthood does not care about women.

[...]

In the second video, Mary Gatter, president of the Planned Parenthood Medical Directors’ Council, and medical director at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles until 2014, is clearly willing to accept, not what it would cost her clinic to process the fetal organs, but whatever the buyer is willing to pay. In the third video, Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services for PPFA, recognizes that the affiliates are looking for ways, not simply to break even, but to make a profit. In the fifth video, we see Abby Johnson, former director of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, testifying before the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, that fetal specimens were bringing in up to $120,000 per month. “That is certainly not ‘recouping costs,’” she concludes.

In the fifth video, Melissa Farrell, current director of research at PP Gulf Coast, expresses her pride in how she contributes to the diversification of the revenue stream both locally and nationally. She talks about ways of “framing” compensation so that it does not look bad, especially if they are being paid more for tissue that is more difficult to obtain. If this were all just about recouping costs, there would be absolutely no reason to be looking for legal cover for their monetary gain.

The real kicker comes in the eighth video, where the CEO of StemExpress, Cate Dyer, explains why it is better for clinics to work with her company than rival Advanced BioScience Resources (ABR). ABR previously had a lock on the market because they had employees of their company on the advisory boards of Planned Parenthood affiliates. However, ABR, as a not-for-profit organization, was unwilling to pay as much as StemExpress, which was willing to give a kickback from their profits to the clinics.

In the ninth video, Perrin Larton, Procurement Manager for ABR, says that the company has people waiting right outside the operating room door to take the desired fetal tissue. If this is true, what possible cost could there be to be reimbursed? Any money received by a clinic under such circumstances is pure profit.

The whole thing is worth reading.

See also, On Abortion, Medical Science is Still Waiting to be Heard

The Parable of the 100 Actions Man

A Contemporary Parable:

There was once a man who had no ultimate purpose (or so he thought).  His life was not ordered towards some single concrete end, and he found himself living moment to moment, fancy to fancy.  But there was little fulfillment in this, and the man regretted that there were many ill spent days.  To make matters worse, he found himself feeling as if he were held accountable by the beliefs of others who thought his daily activities hardly justifiable.

So one day, he created for himself a rule. 

No longer would he spend a single day in leisure, lazily lounging beside the pool.  No. Every day would be a day of action.  To be precise, every day would include exactly 100 actions--no more, no less.  He would become--he would be--the 100 Actions Man.  At the end of every day he would then be able to take stock of his life and see that he had performed 100 actions.

He would begin each day by having sex.  He was consumed by it.  Lucky for him, so was his partner.  At the beginning of his transformation he decided that he would take stock of every action in the sexual process.  First there was the foreplay (1 action).  Then there was the putting on of the condom (a 2nd action).  Then there was the third, the fourth....the thirtieth.  He soon realized, though, that this sort of counting did not allow for many more meaningful actions in the day.  So he thereby counted all the individual acts as one act--sex.

He ate three square meals a day (3 actions).  He took a nap (1 action, but some days he counted the daydreaming, hypnogogic state before he snoozed; on very slow days he counted euphoric hypnopompia to boot).

The man had found himself "with money"--an inheritance of sorts.  He was not, in the eyes of salt and earth, a "working man."  Nonetheless he was thereby free to engage in various occupations unhindered by the vulgar laws of supply and demand--at least to an extent.  He picked the philanthropic life honored by his well-to-do peers.

For reasons only privy to him, he chose to work at a homeless shelter for most of the day--pro bono. (But it was not merely a homeless shelter).   His day consisted in talking with the homeless (who were mostly very old, tended to be black and Hispanic, and poor.)  Often he would provide counsel.  His counseling did not begin with a single concrete end (he had none), but was means oriented--that is, given the various ends of his patients, he helped direct them to an efficient means.  When the means was towards one of their ends and one of his, he tended to direct them to that means.  (For instance, if their end was to some day buy a house, and his end was to be rid of them because they happened to be annoying, he'd pursue the best means to make that happen as swiftly as practically possible with the fewest headaches).

Much of his day was spent doing "the undesirable task"--which the shelter referred to as "The Cleaning."  The Cleaning involved changing bed pans, mopping up "spilled trays," changing the sheets, the wiping of bed sores, and so forth (4 actions instead of 1).  Some of the day consisted of drawing blood, taking the blood to the in-house clinic to be screened for diseases, providing sleeping pills, and generally making sure that the patients were, what the clinic referred to as "clean."

But that is not all.

Some of the patients were given the clinical, medical classification of "unwanted."  Who counted as one of the unwanted was difficult to tell.  Often they had no family who could potentially support them.  At any rate, at bottom, they were thought by none involved to have any intrinsic value.

Three actions at the end of every day were reserved for the unwanted.  The 100 action man, at the conclusion of each day, sought out the least desirable of the unwanted, stabbed all three of them repeatedly, dismembered them, and then sold their parts to what the medical community referred to as "research facilities for the betterment of the New World Order."

Question #1:
Would you recommend sending "the man" to jail?  Alternatively, would you force people to subsidize "the man's" income?

Question #2:
Now what do you think about these three actions out of one hundred...

On Citizens not Assassinating Abortionists

Terrible Irony

Abortions kill innocent humans.  Now suppose an abortionist knows that he is killing innocent humans.  Such a person deserves to be killed.  Justice (prima facie) permits the killing of the abortionist--at least by one who has legitimate authority to do so.
Ordinary citizens sometimes kill murderers and do so permissibly.  If a school shooting is taking place and an ordinary citizen with a gun finds that the only reasonable way to stop the senseless killings is to shoot the mass murderer, the citizen is within his legal and moral rights to do so.  In fact, as I have argued more than once in this blog, justice (and love) in some cases seem to demand it.

Why then shouldn't ordinary citizens take matters into their own hands and kill abortionists?  One reason, of course, is that to do such is illegal.  One will go to jail.  But are there moral reasons beyond the pragmatic reason of not going to jail?

What if a citizen finds himself in an abortion clinic where the abortionist is about to "crush" and "crunch" a baby, in part to pay for some shiny new rims for her Lamborghini?  Is the vigilante not justified, whereas the person who stops the school shooter is?  Why is the vigilante not justified?

I think he is not.  Here is a sketch of an argument in support of that thought.  One reason for thinking not has to do with the fact that abortions are a systemic practice and abortions are legal (at least some) given legislation passed by a legitimate governing authority.  One has a moral duty to abide by criminal laws promulgated by a morally legitimate political authority, where abiding by such laws does not commit one to doing something that is unjust (on the very reasonable assumption that legitimate governments sometimes pass unjust laws).  In killing an abortionist, one only prolongs the time it will take for abortions to occur--killing an abortionist in a society like ours will result in a dead abortionist as well as dead babies.  There are plenty of other abortionists who will step in to take her place.  In addition, killing an abortionist is not like killing a school shooter in the act of shooting.  Abortions are planned out in advance and do not take place randomly in the eyes of the community.   There are other means one could take to stop the abortionist.  In fact, there are much better means which do not involve killing another human. 

Killing another human being should always be the last resort when it comes to stopping other killings.  Assassinating an abortionist sends a signal to the community that the government is not the final authority (this side of Luna) in matters of life and death.  To do such promotes anarchy against one's government; and the best arguments against anarchy focus on showing that anarchies cannot protect the rights of people more generally better than the government.  The vigilante lacks the moral authority to take lethal action, but acts as if he is a morally legitimate authority and that the government is not.  The same cannot be said for the person who stops a random mass shooting--for one, he has the legal authority to do so from a morally legitimate government.

But what if the U.S. government is not a (morally) legitimate authority, as some anarchists, libertarians, and Marxists have argued?  What if the U.S. government has de facto but not de jure authority?  Then the above argument would need modification. 

Abortion, the Democratic Party, and Single-Issue Voting

Blue States, Red States

Last week I posted the following on Facebook:

If you're thinking about voting Democratic, or when you try to get talked out of the dreaded "single-issue voting," just remember that you're voting for someone in a party that has backed killing babies ("fetus" being the standard euphemism) in the name of "unwanted pregnancies." The innocents killed in all our recent wars pales in comparison. If that's someone you can trust, then go for it.

In this post I want to follow-up and first address what the Democratic Platform is with respect to abortion.  Then I offer a few remarks on single-issue voting.

Don't Kill Me: I Was Once a Fetus

Here is a fairly close rendering of Alexander Pruss's brilliantly simple argument against abortion put in the first person.  (I accept full responsibility for any errors, and part of what I say might go slightly beyond what Pruss says in the particular article to which I linked).

Let L name the living organism that came into being as a result of the sperm from my father fertilizing the ovum of my mother nine-months before I was born.

Let A name the only animal sitting in my chair typing: Me.

(1) L never died.

(2) If L never died, then L still exists.

(3) If L still exists, then L is the same animal as A.

(4) Therefore, L is the same animal as A (from 1,2,3).

(5) Therefore, I am the same animal as L (Leibniz's Law).

(6) If I am the same animal as L, then I was once a fetus (embryo, etc).

(7) Therefore, I was once a fetus (from 5,6).

(8) If I was once a fetus, then only reasons which would justify killing me would justify killing the fetus.

(9) Therefore, only reasons which would justify killing me would justify killing the fetus (from 7, 8).

(10) There would have been no sufficient reasons which justified killing me when I was in the womb.
(11) Thus, there would have been no sufficient reasons which justified killing the fetus in the womb (from 9,10).**

*This allows for at least materialism about animals as well as hylomorphism. It's hard to see how it fits with substance dualism wherein I am identical with an immaterial soul.  But then for those who think that they are identical to an immaterial soul, the best move might be to go with Idealism; and Idealism fits much better with religious monotheism than it does with naturalism.

**Pruss's argument does not explicitly go so far as to say that there are no justifiable reasons for abortion.  His argument is focused on the fact that if one killed the fetus one would be killing my mother's fetus, that is, one would be killing me.

Abortion Rights are not Only for Women

An excerpt from Katherine Timpf:

Feminists are now arguing about whether or not it’s offensive to talk about abortion as a “women’s issue” because gender is not that simple and men have abortions too.

“We must acknowledge and come to terms with the implicit cissexism in assuming that only women have abortions,” feminist activist Lauren Rankin stated in July 2013. Or, as Jos Truitt of Feministing explained: “Trans men have abortions. Gender queer people have abortions. Two spirit people have abortions. [!?!?!?!?]  People who do not fit into the box of ‘woman’ have abortions.”

In response, abortion funds around the country have already been changing their names and language to be more “gender inclusive.” Last year, “Fund Texas Women” became “Fund Texas Choice,” because, in the words of co-founder Lenzi Scheible, the group “refuse[d] to deny the existence and humanity of trans* people any longer.” But not every feminist agrees with Rankin and Truitt and Scheible and friends.

At the risk of being branded a “cissexist,” feminist essayist and poet Katha Pollitt wrote a piece for the The Nation today daring to suggest that maybe it’s not totally offensive to link being pregnant with being female. “I’m going to argue here that removing ‘women’ from the language of abortion is a mistake,” she writes. “In an era where politics is all about identity, as a tool for organizing and claiming public space, are women about to lose theirs? Because after all we’re all just people now.”

TB: And now Monty Python weighs in...

The 14th Amendment

Here is the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, wherein one will find a right to an abortion, a right to gay marriage, and in general, a right to whatever is deemed good and fitting by progressive jurists under the invention of substantive due process:

Amendment XIV

Section 1.

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 to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

My Year as an Abortion Doula

This article is deeply appalling.   I read a few excerpts of it to my wife, Amy, this morning.  Here is one:

When we take her into the OR, she’s crying, fighting strong contractions. “You’ll get to go to sleep in just a minute, then it’ll all be over,” I say. “I know you’ve waited so long.” She grunts in response. She’s grown sick of me [her abortion 'doula'], rightfully, and resists my touch. They put her out.

The fetus comes out easily; they put it in the bucket and shove it near me. It is fully intact, curled on its left side, fists closed, knees bent up. He sleeps just like you, I think. Then, a second thought, an act of distancing: He looks more like an alien than a person.  

I have, by this point, seen lots of women and lots of fetuses, and the sight of the second doesn’t change my feelings about the first. The mourning for what could have been is countered by an appreciation for what is — a woman’s life, allowed to proceed as she wants it to. When it is over, I say, “You did great. You were so brave,” and I tell them they’re done now, because sometimes they don’t know. “It’s all finished,” I say.

Amy gasped when I read this sentence: "The mourning for what could have been is countered by an appreciation for what is — a woman’s life, allowed to proceed as she wants it to." 

Amy: "This has to be satire."
Me: "No, I'm pretty sure it's not satire."
Amy: "It can't be true."
Me: "Amy, this is what such people think."
Amy: "Are you sure?  Why would any pro-abortion proponent write such a thing?  It's counter-productive.  They don't like to have abortions described."
Me: "Maybe the author was feeling but not really thinking when she wrote this."

The Shame of PBS: Are Abortionists Serial Killers?

According to these authors, the answer is (at least), "sometimes."

Excerpt:

Speaking of the horrific slaughter of infants, and the depravity of mind necessary to tolerate it, it appears that PBS will go ahead with broadcasting fiendish propaganda designed to “humanize” late-term abortionists. [Could this broadcast be more offensive than this Slate article favorably comparing late term abortionists with brave veterans of foreign wars]. 

Now “late-term abortionist” is just a feeble, unmanly euphemism for “legally-sanctioned serial killer.” [GREAT sentence]  His wicked business consists in nothing less than this: by direct impalement, precision throttling, dismemberment, or poisoning, to snuff out the life of wholly viable, and often fully mature, infant human beings. It is an undisguised assault upon all innocence superadded to an exploitation of the vulnerable, easily-led, and desperate. Torments and agonies that we would hardly countenance for the most pitiless sociopaths, convicted of ghastly murders and rotting on death row, we suffer to be inflicted on helpless babes maturing in the womb.  

Abortion: Map of Access by State

Apparently, the closer to water you are the better chance you'll have to be able to destroy an innocent human being in a womb without restriction.

Abortion Access Map

Was Martin Luther King, Jr. Like a Nonviable Fetus?

It just occurred to me that a certain kind of objection seems applicable both to moral relativism and a popular pro-abortion position. 

In short, I'll understand moral relativism as the view that moral truths are relative to particular cultures or societies.  If your society practices capital punishment, then it's morally permissible.  If it disapproves of it, then capital punishment is morally wrong.  [A bit more precisely I'll understand moral relativism as the view (a) denying the following: there are some moral truths independent of whatever people in a given society believe or practice, and (b) affirming the following: moral truths about some action A in a society are true only because people in that culture believe that A is right or wrong or practice A.]
 
Now there are all sorts of problems with moral relativism.  If true there would be numerous absurdities which I won't go into.  Instead, I'll focus on just one which also applies to arguments involving the viability of a fetus: