In response to Bigwig’s post below…
[Don't read if Bigwig made you angry, 'cuz this just might make you stroke out.]
[[I'm just trying to help, Bigwig. Can't stand to see you get flamed all alone.]]
I found Ali’s place the other day after perusing the links at Mithras, where he did a truly half assed take down of center and center right bloggers, in a “righty wingnut philology” or something along those lines.
Anyhow, Ali’s place was one of Mithras’ featured links, along with Abortion Clinic Days. I’m not shocked that you found it disturbing. It’s worse than the NY Times & NuLeft’s description of unborn children as “unborn fetuses,” which I see as the rhetorical next step in the public discourse towards a legitimization of infanticide. Er, post-natal abortion, right Ms. Aron? But back to Ali…
Who the f@@@ would write about working at an abortion clinic? I guess to some, mashing up the unborn is a heroic act, akin to slaying Medusa. I was just appalled, however. If abortion is, as most politicians assert, not a good thing, then why would anybody be so glib and cheery about working at an abortion clinic? The only way that is remotely logical, is if the abortion facilitators see their work as an unalloyed good.
That is terrifying to me.
Once my wife and I had our kid, and I saw the monthly (or every six weeks, I forget) sonograms, I realized that abortion wasn’t just wrong, there was something inhuman about it. Our boy was recognizable as something human, as a person, from maybe 8 to 10 weeks onward. When I thought about it, what gives me the authority to be the line drawer here, to take an innocent life that has done me no harm, an innocent life that relies on me and my wife for it’s sustenance? I have stopped thinking that we can or should come to a societal truce on this issue. If abortion is a wrong, and a grievous one, as I am coming to believe that it is under most circumstances (convenience especially), then how could I support something that is only half-wrong?
I have also come to recoil at the embryonic stem cell controversy for the same reason: “it’s only a little abortion.” The mere fact that we can talk about putting those tiny seeds of human beings into a blender to sort out the “useful” bits, is so far beyond the pale to me, that I cannot talk about it intelligibly. Soylent Green, anybody? Sure, maybe it will make us live forever. But has it ever occurred to anybody, maybe we aren’t meant to live forever? If you are of the mindset that human life has no divine spark, no intrinsic meaning, you could so conclude. If you believe human life has some intrinsic value and purpose, you must eventually come to the opposite conclusion.
When I read the logically incoherent dribble at Abortion Clinic Days, I just about snapped my timing belt. If this is the best they can offer, goofy aphorisms and unctuous phony “spirituality,” well then it’s understandable that John Roberts or any conservative leaning judge scares the crap out of them. You kick the abortion issue back to the public, and the public is going to be inclined to ban it in most places, under many or most circumstances. If not now, then soon. Yes, I agree with Bigwig’s 3D sonogram argument.
I think this change is coming about because sonograms and the rapid pace of inhumane cloning science, once people really stop to think about it, will cause an enormous backlash against tampering with human life. We may lose the death penalty in the process, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
Well, that’s if any minds are open to discussion on the issue. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be, my mind has been partially changed about the death penalty as a result of my experiences on capital appellate cases.
Flame away, kids.
